Calling me home

     I'm currently in my home town (well, home county, really, but potato potahto) working a large conference interpreting for Deafblind people. This is the third year running that I've volunteered at this conference; this year, I was actually specifically asked by the coordinator if I would be willing to give my time again. I love tactile interpreting and, while this isn't always the easiest or most enjoyable of conferences to work at, it's certainly a great experience to put on a resumé and helps foster a network with an organization I certainly wouldn't mind working for in the future. Not to mention, it gives me a great excuse to skive off of school for a few days under the excuse that I'm really working for the school (my university is the hosting organization for the conference; why they choose to host it nearly four hours away from the school continues to baffle me).

     Today, after a very long day of working there, though, I really felt God laying San Diego on my heart. As graduation looms, I've become oddly sentimental about my new county. I'm vaguely loathe to leave it, to the point I'm seriously considering applying for jobs around there so I can remain there. For a while, it actually seemed like God was opening doors up there for me to stay longer term. Yet, as I worked down here and interacted with an old professor and professional contacts, I feel like God is really pushing me back down here. That's an odd feeling to have. I know He'll open the doors to where ever I'm supposed to end up, no matter what county that happens to be in. I just wasn't expecting for Him to push so hard for me to come back down here. I suppose we'll see where He puts me in just a few short months' time!

On the plus side...

     Well, on the plus side, I'm at 2-4 weeks ahead in all of my classes. I'm looking to be done with everything, other than my Capstone thesis, by the end of March. I'm slowly but surely losing weight despite my repetitive injuries (I may have fallen during a run with my dog and severely reinjured an old ankle injury, ahem...). I'm interacting with friends, classmates, and professors. I'm training my dog and getting a handle on going out in public again. I'm showing my foster cats every weekend. I'm continuing to build networking in my hometown. I'm even planning on presenting my Capstone project in front of the class.

     On the flip side of all of this, my OCD/BPD/Asperger's/who-the-fuck-know's-what has taken over. My life is scheduled down to the half-hour (excluding Capstone interviews) through the end of March. I've cut out nearly all unhealthy food as my pantry empties. I've cut out nearly all gluten in non-crucial meals (I still eat it in microwaved meals, because when I have five minutes to cook and eat, my options become limited). I've put off all non-educational needs (therapy, an official mental illness diagnosis, any medical attention that doesn't involve my ability to walk/sign, etc) until May 24th, the day after graduation. I refuse to make any emotional/romantic entanglements. I've stopped reading for pleasure because I read nearly 100 pages a day for classes. I've stopped sleeping more than maybe 5-6 hours a night.

     Part of me loves this and wishes I'd managed to do this the past three semesters. The other part of me is more than vaguely worried about the crash that's inevitable come the evening of May 23rd, my graduation day. As I told my mother, I can sleep on May 24th.

Google

     I have a habit of Google-stalking people. I do it to nearly everyone in my life and my past, including myself. I get to find interesting things that way. I found that one professor of mine actually invented the ASL skills test that has become the gold standard in our industry. Another played water polo in several Deaflympics (and has the Speedo pictures to match!). There's a transwoman with my exact (birth)name and surname. Most of my friends have really awkward Myspace photos.

     I discovered the best tonight, though, even better than The Professor's Speedo pix. I used to be in love with a best friend; he used me and broke my heart several times over. He, once, told me a story of him trying to hook up with a mutual friend; though he desperately wanted her, other parts of his anatomy had different plans. Now, if you Google his full name, a post on my friend's Tumblr pops up, pointing out that he has... "performance problems," shall we say. Maybe it's childish on my part, but I definitely don't mind that Googling that bastard's name will tell people that he couldn't get it up. His poor fiancée... ;)

Two Years

     It's been two years today since my grandma passed away. They say time heals all wounds, but I haven't found that to be true. All these two years have done is added more events that she should have been that made me miss her more.

Bullet Points

• Why do people think rape jokes are funny? A good friend and I were talking about her wanting a foursome; I jokingly suggested a mutual acquaintance who we both dislike but who screams about her pansexuality and willingness to fuck everything. My friend then made a joke that she would totally include her to be able to sit back and laugh while she got raped. Welp then.
• A new tenant moved into #6 recently; that's the apartment right by my parking space. I've encountered the actual tenant once, but I've seen his friend Chris numerous times. Like, every time he's over there and I get home, he comes out to chat me up. I think he's trying to get in my pants. Not sure there's anything to say about that other than LOLWTFBBQ NO.
• I'm officially at least two weeks ahead in all of my classes. I haven't been this motivated and dedicated since my sophomore year of high school. I just desperately want to know I can commit all my time in the near future to Capstone. Oye.
• All of my readings for one class is based on -isms and discrimination. It's fascinating to me (it's not uncommon for me to spend a good 5-6 hours with the 70 pages of reading because I'm highlighting and note-taking so much), but Christ does it get my blood boiling. 6+ hours of reading plus 3 hours of class of annoyance or outright rage is a lot to handle.

Welp

     Well, on the plus side, I'm succeeding in my goal of not only staying on top of my homework rather than procrastinating, but I'm actually 2-3 weeks ahead of schedule in several classes. My goal, in this insanity, is to have plenty of uninterrupted time to do my capstone project up to my (apparently MA to PhD level, according to The Professor) standards.

     On the downside, this has apparently convinced The Professor that I'm neurotic and made him actually audibly laugh at me when I explained that my goal was to have my term project for our other class turned in by the end of March. I'd never heard him laugh before. Ass.

New class

     Well, sitting in my new history class. Everyone is, of course, infatuated with my dog. Everyone, that is, except for my psuedo-ex. He refuses to look at me and is glaring at his friend for commenting on how cute Shadow is. Sorry, dude, maybe you shouldn't be a dick to everyone around you and then you'd have friends who stick around.

     In other news, The Professor now calls me by my chosen name for roll call without a hesitation. I adore him.

Pragmatics

     There is a study of language called pragmatics. This refers to the idea that, in different settings, language may mean different things. The example my teacher gave is that, early at a get together, if someone asks me if I'm leaving, they may be hinting for a ride, whereas if a boss asked me why I was leaving early, they would be implying I should stay. Apparently, out of the 30 people in the class, I was the only person to not pick up on the implications behind these sentences. I took them at face value.

     This shows two things. One, I should never study pragmatic linguistics. Two, if I keep fitting into autism stereotypes, there may be something to this whole possible diagnosis thing.

More yays and boos

Yay: The chair agreed to let me transfer to Tuesday's class and do my existing Tuesday class on an independent study basis. That means no more problematic classmate! Boo: This means I'll have to introduce my service dog to a whole new class AND I'll be in class with the trans*guy I dated for a like two weeks before cutting off all contact. Yay: My chair still refers to me with my chosen name. Boo: She still uses female pronouns AND now I have to come out to The Professor because I'm sure he's confused when the chair tells him "Jay will be in your class." Yay: One of my foster kitties got adopted and I'll be taking her to her new home tonight! Boo: It's the foster kitty that I am absolutely desperate to keep. Yay: I've been slowly but surely cutting gluten from my diet. Boo: I now feel like crap when I DO eat gluten.

Blessed

     So, it's 0300 and I just got home from a wonderful night, hyped up on 5 cups of IHOP coffee and good conversation. I haven't seen this friend in over a year, when our lives seemed to take us on different paths. We reconnected tonight, though, for a good five hours. It was wonderful to catch up on her life and catch her up on mine. Several interesting things came up. The first of those is how strongly she thought that I have Asperger's/autism. Her sister is autistic and she's worked with autistic kids and adults for years. She was shocked to find out that my diagnosis in that has been iffy and debated (not due to symptoms, but because I have no knowledge of how I behaved when I was little since my mom is convinced I'm perfectly healthy and ASD relies on childhood symptoms for diagnosis); since I really do think I'm autistic, it's always validating when others who have experience in it agree with me.

     The other really interesting point she brought up was related to how I always end up missing people who hurt me. I don't mean like missing exes or friends who I haven't seen, but rather people who have intensely hurt me, like an old best friend who groomed me to have sex with me and my rapist. Without fail, I not only grieve the harm they did to me, but I grieve losing them. I mourn losing them so much that I consider reconnecting with them. That ex best friend and I had a tumultuous relationship; I had intense feelings for him, which he took advantage of. He groomed me in order to have sex with me, while he did it to other people simultaneously. I lost that friendship the summer of 2011; while I know, logically, that it's better to cut ties with him, I still often think of him and wish I could reconnect. I still think of my rapist often and am saddened by the loss of our friendship; a huge part of me wishes I could just pretend it was all okay, take it back, and get my friend back. When I explained this to my friend, she pointed out that it's because that's the kind of cycle I had with my father. I would mourn him leaving, then have to stuff that aside when he'd come back to my life; lather, rinse, repeat and repeat and repeat. I still do that to this day, which has conditioned me into expecting that, even once someone breaks my heart, I'll eventually let them back into my life. While that's a decision that is worth it for my father, it's clearly one that wouldn't benefit me with that ex best friend or my rapist. I'd honestly never even considered the connection between all of that before she pointed it out tonight, but now that's definitely a dynamic, a feeling, a habit, that I really want to learn how to change. It's definitely a fascinating realization.

     I'm so blessed by the people God brings into my life, and I never fail to be awed by His timing. I'm looking to go to church in the morning for the first time since summer. I'm really excited for this, and for the ways God is really starting to move in my life.

Meeting

     Remember the issue with the classmate who pestered me about my service dog? I explained what happened to The Professor (my goal in that was him knowing the background of the issue and why I'm uncomfortable explaining my rape-caused PTSD to someone who tried to hook up with me at 14 so he would be aware if something happened again), and he wanted to transfer me to his other history class. It conflicts with a one-unit class I take on Tuesdays, but he wanted us to meet with the chair to try to arrange something else for the one unit class (hence the awkward, nameless emails yesterday). Needless to say, the three of us met yesterday; what should have been a 15-minute get-together turned into a 2 hour long, panic-attack filled saga.

     Ironically, the chair completely supports me transferring classes and is talking to the guidance counselor on Monday to see what we can do. She then started making comments about how I needed to be more clear with my professors when asking for accommodations and making sure they're cleared with the University's disability resources (DRES), which had me completely lost. I have all my accommodations automatically submitted and approved at the start of the semester. I talked to the professors who teach the classes I needed those accommodations in. Apparently, her issue is that I have a gentleman's agreement with The Professor and her husband (she and her husband co-teach one of my classes this semester; I had him as a professor last semester) that, for their two classes, I can listen to music because the silence triggers auditory flashbacks. Neither The Professor or her husband had issues with it, even though I never went through DRES to approve that accommodation (I'm unable to register with them for PTSD because I don't have a shrink to fill out their paperwork with my diagnosis; I refuse to go to a shrink because I've had nothing but bad experiences and am too emotionally busy to delve into it until after graduation). I explained all this to the chair, at which point she pretty much chewed me out for not approving all my accommodations with her. I apologized profusely, explaining that I assumed if there were problems, she would either have asked her co-teacher, who knew what was going on, or approached me directly about it, rather than waiting until we were in a meeting with a different professor about a completely different issue. She tried to force me into counseling with someone for the sole purpose of filling out the DRES paperwork to ask for this accommodation; she refused to accept the fact that not only is this not accommodation that DRES can grant, it's solely one that I need for two classes that had already been approved by the professors involved. After I had a massive panic attack in her office and The Professor stuck up for me, she made a huge deal about being willing to grant me an "exception," even though she was breaking policy to do it.

     Two-and-a-half-hour-long story short, I ended up in The Professor's office for a while, trying to calm down while explaining way too much to him. He agreed with me that the chair, though she agreed to the music, wasn't pleased with how things went, and he said he understood why I wasn't happy just leaving it like that. He understood why I wasn't able to explain things like that to the chair (both The Professor and the chair's husband know nearly everything, but that's because I have that kind of relationship with them. I've only met with the chair three times, none positive, and gone to three classes under her. To me, she's still the boss, not a friend.), but he couldn't get why I didn't just go to DRES and see what they said. Needless to say, he ended up dragging me to DRES and setting up an appointment for Monday, that he agreed to go to with me, to see if they're willing to grant the accommodation without me relating it to PTSD. He and I talked ourselves in circles for a while figuring out if he would go with me to DRES on Monday; his autism and my litany of issues don't work well together sometimes. He was trying to make clear that he was totally okay with going to support me and didn't think it was a waste of his time, but that he didn't want me to become dependent on him doing it for me. I was taking it as him doing the hearing thing where people try to say no without actually using "no" to avoid hurt feelings while still not becoming committed, and I didn't want to process it wrong and either end up going without him for no reason or forcing him to do something he didn't want to do. After a rather snarky response on his part when I told him I see things black or white, he finally just asked what time I'd be available to go on Monday and invited himself along.

     Now I get to spend all this time dreading Monday, all because I just wanted to keep my professor informed as to what is happening in class. So frustrating.

More split identities

     Like I've mentioned before, I'm out to all of my professors, with the exception of The Professor. That means that all of my professors, save for him, call me by my chosen name while he only knows of my birth name. I needed to set up a meeting between me, him, and our department chair (who is also one of my professors this semester and knows me by my chosen name). He sent out the email to "[Chair] and Kali." She promptly responded to "[The Professor] and Jay." As our schedules conflict, we've sent a total of 10ish emails; throughout all of them, both of them have continued to refer to me by different names (I'm not sure if The Professor has ever heard me called by my chosen name before these emails, poor guy). I, meanwhile, have just stopped signing my emails with any name. I swear, I can see the two parts of me splitting apart slowly but surely. ;P

Rude much?

     There's a man here at campus who went to my community college with me; I've known him for nearly 6 years now. We've never been friends, as I prefer not to socialize with people who tried to get in my pants when I was 14. I've managed to pretty much avoid him here, but we finally have a class together this semester.

     Yesterday, I posted on Facebook complaining about a random person who was so intent on petting my service dog that he nearly grabbed my crotch as we walked past. My classmate commented on the post asking why I had a service dog. I answered with my typical evasiveness about "medical reasons" and left it at that. Just now in class, though, he came up to me and asked again why I have a dog. I answered, again, that he's a service dog for medical reasons. When he persisted in asking, I said that he's a service dog for disability. "But you're not disabled!" When I assured him that I am disabled, hence the service dog, he immediately challenged, "Well, what's your disability?" Really? I never socialize with you, and you're going to ask my disability? He seemed rather offended when I told him that it wasn't his business. Sorry, ass, but I don't exist to tell people I don't like about my disability.

Who am I again?

     In half of my classes, I'm out as trans*. I go by my chosen name (or some horrible derivative of it. People insist on calling me JJ, because clearly three letters is much more difficult to fingerspell than two.), I have a name sign for it, and all of my papers are turned in under it. In the other half, I'm not out (my poor teachers have dealt with so much from me, I'm always loathe to make them deal with more. Seriously, The Professor dealt with my rape, my PTSD, redid his testing schedule for me, worked with me to start my capstone thesis early, got me notetakers, has dealt with my service dog, and now postponed my final projects and capstone thesis by two weeks thanks to my most recent horse accident. Trans* issues are a bit much to add on!), I answer to my birth name, and turn in papers under said birth name. I can never remember who I'm supposed to answer to which name to.

     I swear, I'm lucky split personalities aren't part of my many issues. At this rate, though, they will be!

Only a matter of time

     I started horseback riding when I was 8. Thanks to me being... accident prone, it is not uncommon for me to come away from riding adventures in more than a little pain. At my community college, I gained the nickname and name sign of "gimp," and there was always a running bet of how long it would be before the next injury. When asked to list broken bones, it numbers at over 20. The most recent was in September of 2010, with a fall from my draft gelding left me with a broken nose and three broken vertebrae. Needless to say, I was forced to take a hiatus.

     As I mentioned here, back in November, I started riding a sweet, retired jumper up here. As bombproof and calm as he is, he has two vices: peacocks and the sound of Harley-type bikes. On Thursday, I went with a friend on a trail ride for a good two hours. He was perfectly behaved, and the scenery was beyond stunning. We ran across a dunebuggy a couple of times, but the two drivers were extremely well behaved and powered down until we were well past. We were hacking down the bridlepath back to her house (Harmony is boarded in her back yard), when I heard the ominous pop-pop-pop of the damn dunebuggy. I think you can guess where this is going from here... Thanks to my friend's horse crowding mine, my foot got stuck when I was trying to emergency dismount. Harmony bolted and I managed to end up flat on the ground. After a day spent chasing the horse (still massive kudos to the 60-something year old woman who got out of her car to stop him as he trotted down the road) and trying to "cowboy up" at school, I finally let my friend drive me to the ER. Five hours and some Percocet later, I was declared to have a concussion, whiplash, a bone bruise in my elbow, and a new strain in my lower back; I was discharged with more Percocet, a sling, and a soft neck collar. My concussion is still a bit of a fiasco, and now I've managed to come down with the flu on top of it all.

     I suppose it was only a matter of time, right? Horse people are crazy, yo.