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February 28, 2006
so y'all don't think I'm dead or something...
I've tried to update several times in the last couple of days, but it hasn't gone so well. I don't know what's with me. Either that or I do know but have no interest in dealing with it. Let's just say I'm anxious for some changes and am trying not to wallow too much in my frustration as I bide my time.
I will, however, talk about one of my frustrations. I've complained pretty regularly about the noise here over the last several months, and I know that many people think I'm exaggerating. After all, having AS does make me more sensitive to the noises around me, and I've always had what my dad calls "longhearededness". However, I would like to share some external validation that proves that I'm not crazy, at least not when it comes to this.
Last Friday, around 5 pm, the building was already as noisy as it usually was around midnight on the weekends last semester. I was actually dealing fairly well, but Lauren -- my calm, unshakable, tolerant wife -- was stressed out. The noise was making her nuts. So I hopped in the shower, we packed a little suitcase, and we took off for an impromptu trip to her parents' house. We spent the weekend with her mom and dad and aunt, we went to bed at 10 pm on Saturday night, and we ate a lot of food that didn't come from chain restaurants. It was really nice to get away for a little while. And it was really nice to see Lauren go from wired and about to jump out of her skin to calm enough to function again.
Also, Lauren has been getting complaints from residents that the building is too loud and that the student staff isn't doing enough to enforce quiet hours. When a normal college student complains that a building is too noisy, we have proof that I'm not making it up.
Now if only all this validation would lead to some changes... Because there's no way I can go without sleep for another 3 months.
Other than that, life continues to be uninteresting around here. My major excitement comes from surfing the web to find resources for my parents' kitchen and bathroom renovation on the house they closed on today. That and helping Lauren prepare for ACPA, which is in exactly 17 days. I guess that's not such horrible stuff to occupy my time.
Posted to Oberlin at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2006
I shouldn't be allowed near the television
Oh no. I stopped watching the Real World way back after New Orleans. After all, it exists solely to provide new people to do the Challenge, right? But I just watched the casting special for the new season starting next week and there are two Jews and gay boy from Minneapolis on this season. How do they expect me to pass that up?
Crap. Like my brain isn't rotted enough already.
Posted to Mindless Entertainment at 12:25 PM | Comments (2)
Things I Do to Amuse Myself After Emily Hughes is Done Skating
I'm adding a new category to this site. I am a trivia hound, and I always have been. When Lauren and I started living together and she had to start listening to me talk nonstop all day, every day, she discovered that I'm full of trivia about ballet, construction materials, not-entirely-obscure sports, and a billion other things. When you add to this that I spend a lot of time clicking goofy links on the web from the many, many sites I read daily, you have an insane collection of links.
Now, I don't intend to share with you all of my 2268 unique bookmarks (organized into 16 folders with 104 subfolders) -- no joke -- but I thought it might be fun to start sharing some of the new things I stumble upon. In fact, I plan on sharing mainly things that I don't bookmark.
Is this entry starting to sound a lot like a previous entry about my collecting weird things that other people don't collect?
Anyway, this isn't going to become a true blog, in the original sense of the word, because I just don't feel like posting links on a daily basis. But when I do find worthwhile stuff, I think I'd like to share it here. You know, for no reason at all. So here are some recent items that I've found noteworthy (minus the places I originally found them, because I haven't kept track):
That's it for now. I'd hate to overwhelm y'all on my first entry in this new venture.
Posted to Links at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
I miss my mommy.
In the last few days I have:
My life is thrilling.
Posted to Miscellaneous at 03:31 PM | Comments (2)
February 21, 2006
In so many ways...
Does anyone else think that S*a*s*h*a C*o*h*e*n has a serious R*o*r*y G*i*l*m*o*r*e vibe going on?
(this entry edited to add little asterisks because it gets a TON of spam comments... here's hoping this fixes it!)
(and... no change. so I'm closing comments.)
Posted to Mindless Entertainment at 10:57 PM | Comments (4)
February 20, 2006
Wow, I saw a quality movie!
Believe it or not, Lauren and I went out on Saturday night. Not only that, but we saw a movie in the theater. Not only that, but the movie did not star Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff, or Amanda Bynes. In fact, the movie was so outside of what I usually see in the theater that I'm not entirely sure I can file this under "mindless entertainment." We saw Mrs. Henderson Presents, which we happened to stumble upon while looking for some excuse, any excuse, to leave Oberlin for the night.
Honestly, Friday night was really bad here. It was almost a repeat of the previous weekend, when we were kept up until 5 am by the insanity here. It was so bad that at 2 am on Saturday, I was trying to book myself a plane ticket back to Minneapolis for that THAT DAY just so that I could get a break from this place. Then I remembered that my parents were leaving for Maui the next day, so I had to nix that one...
Instead, Lauren and I decided to spend Saturday night away from campus and to stay out as late as humanly possible if you're in rural Ohio and don't like bars or clubs. Or the after-club crowd at Denny's. So we went to dinner, which was pretty bad, but at least my meal was free because our waitress was really sweet and noticed that I barely touched it. We killed an hour and a half at Borders, which was surprisingly packed. In fact, the entire area was surprisingly packed, considering that the wind chill was about 5 degrees and we were at an outdoor mall... Anyway, after listening to a lot of teenagers mock gay people and discuss how un-American it is to adopt children from other countries, we headed over to the movie theater.
We knew virtually nothing about the movie going into it. We saw Judi Dench's name, decided it looked better than anything else playing, and chose it. It turned out to be based on the true story of a widow who bought a theater in London in the 1930s and ended up having nude women on stage in an effort to do something different. The first half of the movie was hilarious. And then suddenly, it was 1940 and it was World War 2. The rest was good, but having no idea what we were in for, it was kind of surprising. I'm really glad we saw it. I already added it to our Netflix queue, since I can't stand only seeing movies I like once.
Since then, I've done very little. I'm taking a break from working on my dollhouse, and I can't bring myself to study for tomorrow's Hebrew quiz. Dishes need to be done, but I'm seriously uninterested. I think I'm going to go read...
Posted to Mindless Entertainment at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2006
I'm so motivated... Can't you tell?
This is the third day in a row that I've thought it was Friday. Seriously.
Today was also my second day of Hebrew class. Our teacher from first semester moved to Florida at the end of December, so we have a new teacher. The two of them could not be more radically different teachers, and I'm SOOOOOOOO lost. In fact, I barely made it to class today because after one day, I was convinced I should become a Hebrew class dropout and forget my rabbinical school dreams.
Honestly, I think I learned much better the way that my first semester teacher taught, but I'm willing to admit that if she had stayed my teacher, it would probably take twice as long to cover the same information as it's going to take with the new teacher. HOWEVER... it's only useful to cover material faster if people understand it.
I think the chances of me completing this semester are about 80%. I have no good reason to stop going, and it's the only regular activity in my life right now, and it's FREE, but dammit... I just don't wanna. Of course, I'm going to be out of town for the midterm, and there's a strong likelihood that the Birthright trip I signed up for will be at the same time as our final, so we'll have to take the idea of "completing" the class with a grain of salt. It's lucky that I just roll out of bed and go to class, because if I had time to think about whether or not to go after I woke up, I probably would skip every other day.
And if anyone thinks I'm really going to show up for the weekly language table at 5 pm on Thursdays, they're going to be waiting a LONG time for me to arrive.
Posted to Jew-mania at 11:18 AM | Comments (5)
January being so warm gave me a false sense of security
Every time I see my aunt and uncle, they try to convince us that we'd be happier if we move to San Diego. They do this to the entire family. In the past, it's had no effect on me. This time, all they did was create a goody bag for everyone staying in the hotel they reserved that emphasized the wonderfulness of San Diego. They were so busy that they barely had a chance to mention that we should move there. But I gotta tell you, with this weather here, I'm convinced. If my parents, who are the main reason we want to return home, called up to say they were moving to San Diego, we'd be right behind them.
Seriously. It's freaking COLD here! I'm pretty sure that last weekend I was sitting out in the sun in a tshirt while Lauren swam in an outdoor pool. And don't think I haven't looked to see what the hall directors in San Diego get paid...
Posted to Miscellaneous at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2006
Is this what my brother feels like when he does something new?
This morning, I spent two and a half hours, from 9 am to 11:30 am, trying to register for Birthright Israel before I finally got the pages to load. I'm not sure why I had such bad luck this time around when last time, both Lauren and I were registered by 9:15 -- early enough that I had time to run to the bookstore to get my Hebrew book before my class started at 9:30.
Either way, I'm all signed up now. It's a sort of bizarre feeling. Lauren and I have been Lauren and I for a very long time now, and in that time, I haven't done a lot of major things on my own. I work well as part of a pair, and I feel safest when I'm with the people I love. Lauren makes me feel understood, which is important to me, and she likes to do things the same way I do, for the most part. We're good together. I do recognize that there are some benefits to not doing EVERYTHING together, but so far, together has worked very well for us.
So it's very strange to think that in three months, I could be headed off to a foreign country without her. I signed up for the May trip, figuring that it would be easier to go while we're still in Oberlin than over the summer if we're in the middle of moving. Plus, the less time I have to overthink what it means to be a traveler with Asperger's, the less likely I am to freak out and change my mind.
I still can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm a person with a passport and I can't believe that it's taken me almost 10 years since most of my friends went to Israel to feel ready to go. But I'm also really glad. I do feel ready (most of the time). Even if I'm going on the trip alone.
Posted to Jew-mania at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)
February 06, 2006
I'm dirty and tired, but I'm home.
Notes from my weekend trip to San Diego:
Posted to Miscellaneous at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2006
I guess it's all just fodder for that book Lauren says I should write...
First of all, I just have to share that this is my 100th post since switching over to Movable Type. That's probably completely insignificant, since I've been keeping an online journal for over 10 years now, but I don't care. It's fun to acknowledge.
Moving on.
The end of this week marks the end of J Term at Oberlin, and I'm less than thrilled about it. Although this month hasn't been perfect -- we can't go to bed until about 3 am unless we want to be awoken many many times -- it's been an AMAZING break from the normal anxiety-inducing noisy crap that comes with living in this building. Tomorrow morning we leave for San Diego, and although I'm thrilled that we won't be back until midnight on Sunday, thus managing to completely miss any sort of Superbowl craze, I'm dreading our return. When we get back, the students will all be back. Spring semester will likely be even louder than fall, as the freshmen don't require that same settling-in period and cabin fever sets in and makes everyone crazy.
I've really tried hard to give this living situation a shot and to not immediately write off the people who are affecting my mental health, but somehow, I can't help but fear the upcoming months. January has felt like an entire semester, and the thought that we have to live here for ANOTHER semester, for four more months, is beyond overwhelming.
I'm going to try to not create any self-fulfilling prophecies, and to focus my energy on enjoying my Hebrew classes, which start back up on Tuesday, and hope that Lauren can find a job somewhere where, even if the living situation is as bad, I have other outlets in my life that will give me a break from the insanity.
This didn't quite turn out to be the positive entry I had hoped for. Oops.
Posted to Mental Health & Oberlin at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)