Two days in my life
growi...@hotmail.com
a couple of days in my life are like. I choose two days - one
workday and one off-day. It goes without saying that my life is
different then other people's, even another autistic person's. I won't go
into details like what I ate for dinner, but I'll try to focus on the
things I think people would be interested in (yes, I know, that would
require theory of mind!).
Day one...
I didn't sleep too well - I got to bed late and didn't sleep well,
despite earplugs and heavy blankets. So, I'm starting the day off
tired - not good.
I begin to get ready for work, but realize that I don't have any clean
shirts to wear - I forgot to wash them earlier. This is a common problem
I have, related to the executive dysfunction. But, I am lucky today - I
have time to wash a shirt. So I start off a load of clothes so that I
have something to wear. I read the newsgroup, take a bath, and put my
shirt in the dryer. After a bit, it finally is dry enough to wear and I
take off for work.
I decide not to get an allergy shot before work. I'm supposed to, but I
don't think I have the energy to do so right now. I have too many other
things that I need to reserve my energy for. So, I arrive at work and get
settled in.
One of my first tasks is to meet with a system administrator to discuss
one of of his systems. I've been working with him for about a week.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have an office most of the day - he roams a
large open-plan office fixing machines. This means that my normal way of
recognizing people at work - by what desk they are seated behind - won't
work. Since he is a young male, I figure I'll be able to spot him anyhow
- most of the office is older or female. As I walk in, I see someone that
I think is him standing behind the copier. I come up to this person, call
his name, and get a very startled reaction. When she spoke, I realized my
mistake - instead of the young man I was trying to find, I found an older
lady. Oops. Fortunately, I was able to cover my mistake by adding, "Have
you seen him?" I doubt the thought much about the conversation other
then "he is kind of rude."
I dealt with this system administrator, went back to my office, and did a
few hours of fairly routine office-work.
At 1:00, I had a meeting with some higher level IT managers about how
their project would interact with mine. There were some significant
political issues involved, and I was to deliver news they weren't going to
like to hear. My boss was to be involved in this meeting, but he wasn't
able to make it. So I was very stressed out - I had to represent our
office when I wasn't expecting to. During the meeting, I was very
stressed out - I kept tripping over my words and losing my chain of
thought. It was very stressful.
After that meeting ended, I did more routine work until the end of the
workday. Finally, I left work. I decided to visit two friends I'm very
comfortable with. The people I would be comfortable with, after a
stressful day, are very few, but these two are part of that group. They
understand how I act when I'm stressed (although I still think it would
scare them if I was closer to meltdown then I was).
We decided to get a quick meal at a local fast food restaurant. As I was
sitting with my friends at a table, we saw one of the cleaners doing his
work. He came over to us and asked, with a strange sounding voice, if we
were done. My friends thought he was being rude and trying to get us out
of there, but I don't think he was being rude. He then washed tables
nearby tables, causing one of my friends to say, "I feel like I'm being
watched." Well, we were being watched, but I understood why - the worker
was probably told to clean tables as soon as people left them, which
obviously requires watching. He probably took it a little more literally
then others would have. If you haven't guessed, I think that he is an
autistic. He also had an unusual gait, and was very awkward socially when
he took our trays from us before we left. But I think my friends just
thought he was rude. :( It seems that even very understanding people
have a hard time with autistics that don't act like they expect (although
I saw much of myself in this fast-food worker - a few years ago, we would
have been hard to tell apart - in fact I also had a job clearing tables,
and acted much like he did - I was even told I was rude).
After spending some quiet time petting my friend's cats, I went home.
Once home, I spent some time watching Star Trek to relax. Overall, with
the multiple meetings at work, and the few hours with my friends, I was
very stressed. Fortunately, I knew I was off the next day, so I was
willing to exchange some of my ability to cope for getting things done at
work and spending time with friends.
Before bed, I spent some time doing my loud stims. In these stims, I
loudly repeat one phrase or word over and over until something breaks me
out of the cycle. It isn't enjoyable, but my stress was high enough that
this was going to happen. Eventually, I was able to move myself to my
bed, despite my body not wanting to move. As I was doing my stims, I was
standing - but not moving. It took a lot of effort to even move, just as
it took a lot of effort and something acting on my to stop repeating a
phrase. Once I got under my blankets, though, I was doing better. I
cried a bit, but eventually was able to relax under the weight of
blankets. I also put in my ear plugs so I wouldn't hear all the noises of
the night. Eventually, I even got to sleep.
Day 2
About 12 hours later, I woke up. I had a very bad headache, part of the
same one I've been fighting for a couple of weeks.
After doing my morning rituals, I decided to call another friend, as I
wanted some company. I called him, but was still stressed enough that I
couldn't really keep the conversation going. I kept trying to think of
what I was supposed to say to a friend, such as asking about his job. I
couldn't even talk about myself, despite my friend asking how I was (I
think he sensed things weren't quite right with me). After a bit of
"talking", with long periods of silence when neither of us knew what to
say, we finally said good bye.
I was exhausted, so I took a nap for a few hours. It has been a long week,
although much better then the week before. When I woke up, I had little
energy - all I did was watch Star Trek, order pizza, eat, and go back to
bed.
--
Joel
NatureloverChris
I found your description of your days very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I
hope you have better days than that sometimes.
Chris
Dolphinius
> I thought some of the people here might have been interested in what
> a couple of days in my life are like. I choose two days - one
> workday and one off-day. It goes without saying that my life is
> different then other people's, even another autistic person's. I won't go
> into details like what I ate for dinner, but I'll try to focus on the
> things I think people would be interested in (yes, I know, that would
> require theory of mind!).
I was very interested in what you wrote, perhaps largely because it
gave me something to compare my own days against.
Dolphinius
(Male, aged 30 +/- a few months, UK, self-diagnosed AS)
growi...@hotmail.com
> I found your description of your days very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I
> hope you have better days than that sometimes.
What I didn't mention, but probably should have, is that I enjoy the
majority of my work. I hate meetings, but I like all the other stuff
I do a lot. :)
Unfrotunately, I don't think the first day after a week of work is
ever really mine - I'm sleeping and trying to recover.
--
Joel
natureloverchris
> > I found your description of your days very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I
> > hope you have better days than that sometimes.
>
> What I didn't mention, but probably should have, is that I enjoy the
> majority of my work. I hate meetings, but I like all the other stuff
> I do a lot. :)
That's good.
>
> Unfrotunately, I don't think the first day after a week of work is
> ever really mine - I'm sleeping and trying to recover.
Me too. Sometimes I feel this day is 'wasted' but I often need it.
Part of my problem of late, is that I haven't had a whole day to
rest/recover. Of course part of that is because I am doing all the
stuff to buy my house so I shouldn't complain.
chris
Hylander
> NatureloverChris <naturelo...@aol.com> wrote:
>> I found your description of your days very interesting. Thanks for
>> sharing. I hope you have better days than that sometimes.
>
> What I didn't mention, but probably should have, is that I enjoy the
> majority of my work. I hate meetings, but I like all the other stuff I
> do a lot. :)
I also hate meetings.
> Unfrotunately, I don't think the first day after a week of work is ever
> really mine - I'm sleeping and trying to recover.
>
>
Yep. Maybe at least not until 9pm on Saturday. My typical days have
changed over time. I think it was rather interesting. I would like to put
up something similar on the newsgroup. I often wonder what a normal
person's days are like.
Here is a quick version of my day....
10am wake up, look in fridge, check news for replies to things I posted,
type up replies.
11am Go into work. Hear a complaint or comment. "oh, you are here", check
mail, I usually get called over for debugging help. Meeting at 2pm to
discuss status on our projects. I'm behind. Can't start any significant
work of my own, the meeting has me too stressed.
12noon Lunch hour. People take off, I'm not invited cause there is one or
two people who dislike me. Some people brought lunch, I might chat with
one of them cause I feel comfortable with them.
2pm, I go in early to meeting...hoping to get it over with. In smaller
group meetings, we get into debates on things. I sometimes end up
preaching my view of things during that meeting and getting challenged.
3pm Get interrupted for help again. No way to do any of my own work until
5pm. I'm hungry, I go to a convenience store and get jerky and other junk.
5pm Try to unwind and end up reading www.theonion.com or a few other
websites or google groups version of newsgroup. I frequent. Go and have
dinner at taco bell
7pm. Janitors will be in by 8, can't start work now. Still, sometimes I
manage to get a little bit done.
8pm Janitors are coming, sometimes I'm doing my own work by now.
10pm Wife calls. I tell her I'll be home shortly.
12midnight I miss home...I go home and not much got done.
12:30 midnight. Wife is home, I'm greeted, she goes back to reading
online. Once in a while we play a game online. To tired to do much else.
Go to bed around 2pm after reading online some more. Sometimes I play
with the cats and my little black dog.
I get stuff done if I stay up all night till 5am. I mostly work alone on
my project but once in a while, I get help.
sggaB
> On Sun, 06 Oct 2002 12:40:08 -0500, growingjoel wrote:
> Yep. Maybe at least not until 9pm on Saturday. My typical days have
> changed over time. I think it was rather interesting. I would like to put
> up something similar on the newsgroup. I often wonder what a normal
> person's days are like.
I think it's interesting to read other people's days too, so I'm also
writing out a version of a couple of my days (modeled after Joel's "day 1"
and "day 2".) Like Joel, I also have no clue what would other people
would find interesting, so apologies if I got bogged down in boring
details. It did end up much longer than I expected.
> Here is a quick version of my day....
[snip of Hylander's day]
Note: This is a composite of events that have happened, because I can't
remember the last several days yet. It sometimes takes a few days for
events to stick in my memory, and then when they do they're sometimes out
of order. I could not tell you what I did yesterday, except *maybe* in
response to specific questions that set off memories. But this is
basically a typical couple of days for me, except for the fact that it may
be slightly more eventful than normal. I timed this for a grocery day,
since that's an "eventful" day that's followed by a "non-eventful" day,
since I don't have a work week/weekend. The specific events here happened
a week or two ago. It's modeled after Joel's, with a "day 1" and a "day
2", although it ended up quite a bit longer than I expected.
Day 1:
This starts out at around 4 or 5 pm one day.
I'm working on a self-generated (or, as I'm starting to think,
self-inflicted) project around one of my perseverations. The project is
to write book reviews on works by autistic authors, and to redo all the
previous ones I've written because I don't agree with them anymore. I'm
starting out on _Pretending to be Normal_ because reading the book was
almost as foreign as reading a book by an NT. I want to prove to myself
that I can write a review of something by an autistic author who's this
alien to me, so I'll know I can write the other reviews. I lie down on
the couch with a copy of _Pretending to be Normal_ and a book on grammar
and writing.
I reread the book (which I've already read a long time ago, in preparation
since I need to read things several times for them to sink in), stopping
every now and then to stim and pace around the house. It's difficult to
get through, and I make a mental note to try to incorporate a comment on a
*lot* of these books about the standard Jessica Kingsley (absence of?)
editing job.
I'm trying to absorb the meaning and not just do a hyperlexic speed-read,
so by the middle of it I'm wiped out. I skim the second half, but it's
hard to read for content when my body feels like it's burning up and my
vision's fragmenting and acting like a strobelight. I decode the words,
but not much more. I resolve to read the second half more thoroughly
later when I'm less overloaded.
In trying to de-overload, I end up sort of halfway curled up on the couch.
I half-intentionally drop connections to movement, so my body stiffens up
and I can zone out. I don't really see the room unless I try, but I don't
really see anything else either, except maybe red even though my eyes are
open.
The only thing I notice much at all is either blankness or words and
phrases from the book flying through my head disconnected from each other.
When I'm thinking at all, I'm thinking (without language) about how much I
hate language, because it always does this to me. I wonder why I write
when I hate language so much. Then I go back to zoning out. I also have
a lot of fleeting thoughts, but they don't really last long enough for me
to remember them later.
My cat, somewhere in there, notes the opportunity for a warm body and
curls up behind my legs. My body still feels like it's burning, which is
a constant background sensation but it gets strong enough to cause
problems when I'm overloaded, and it carries over visually into red-orange
with yellow and white zippy patterns and sound-wise into unpleasant
buzzing.
Sometimes I end up stuck in "language loops" on the stuff from the book,
where I switch into a different mindstate, repetitively mutter or yell
phrases from the words floating around in my head, and switch back kind of
confused (I think this is similar to something Joel describes, now that I
think of it).
Eventually everything subsides, so there are neither so many thoughts nor
so many words from the book, and things settle into less pain and a more
pleasant smoothness, silence and dark grey. I am relieved, and stay that
way for at least an hour. [See footnote way at the bottom for something
important about this whole thing.]
A watch alarm goes off, telling me it's time to eat. My arm automatically
shuts off the alarm, but then I have to figure out how to move on purpose
again. This is trial and error, usually latching onto an automatic
movement or to cues from my cat to figure out how to send signals for
voluntary movement, and working my way around my whole body to figure out
where all the signals go (usually also about halfway through this process
my body will start doing a feet-to-head ripple move that's quite helpful).
As soon as I start letting voluntary movement online, then my senses get
more painful and distorted again almost immediately, since I'm processing
more things. After that trial-and-error thing, I find that I can move
fine *on* the couch, but can't get *off* the couch. I sit up and rock for
awhile, and the cat comes over and rubs my legs, then moves a short
distance away. Then I can follow her to get off the couch, which I do.
I follow her further into the bathroom, where she jumps up onto the sink,
and I turn the water on for her. She drinks it, then jumps down onto the
toilet and stares at me when she's done. I turn the water off.
I automatically go to the recliner, where I get online. I check email, a
few websites, and skim this newsgroup. I try to write part of the review.
This is very difficult, because I have not had a chance for the language
to form in my head to say new things. I resolve to write at least one
sentence a day, but not to expect more than that. I figure it will be
slow but better than nothing, and by the end I'll have accomplished
something I can *see* for once. I remember that I was supposed to get up
for dinner.
I have the same problem getting off the recliner as I do getting off the
couch. I trill at the cat, but she just stares at me, so I try to figure
out some other way around it. I finger a friend who sometimes does
step-by-step prompting, but she's not online and I realize it's 8 pm, a
time when she's often driving home from work. I keep doing things online
until another alarm goes off, which makes me get up and go across the room
to turn it off. Then I remember dinner again, and move toward the
kitchen.
At the kitchen, there's yet another problem: There's a metal ridge that
divides the kitchen floor from the other room's rug. I get to the ridge,
stop, and start spinning in circles. I know I want to get over the ridge
and into the kitchen, so I walk away from it and back toward it again, but
this time I stop and start rocking. I grumble at myself, and start the
circular house-pacing routine.
On one pass around the house, I see a large piece of paper. I grab it and
fold it into a straight line, which I lie on the floor perpendicular to
the line between the floor and the rug, so that part of it's on the floor
and part of it's on the rug.
I step onto it and use it to cross into the kitchen, where I open each
cupboard, stare into it, close it, and turn the stove on and off. The cat
comes in and rubs my legs, so I dump some cat food into her bowl (she's
got a half-full food bowl, but she won't eat it until I put more in.) I
do the cupboard thing one more time, and realize it's the fridge I'm
after. I open the fridge.
Fortunately, staff has cooked recently, so there are a bunch of bowls of
familiar food in the fridge. I grab one of them and stick it in the
microwave, then eat my meal on the couch. Then I sit there and zone out
for awhile.
When all this is over, it's midnight, which means there's no people or
noise outside. I grab some clothes off the floor and get dressed, and my
cat moves toward the door since she knows what this means. I follow her,
pick her up, and go outside. (My cat can't be outdoors at this apartment
complex, so I compromise and carry her around outside.)
I go for a good, peaceful walk with my cat. I let the direction she's
interested in lead me, so we meander around the apartment complex, which
is laid out like a small village and has a lot of paths and grass. The
stars are out, so I sit in one spot and watch them until the cat gets
restless and I start moving again. There are a few stray cats around, and
I skirt around them to avoid confrontations (which usually involve my cat
digging her claws into *me* and growling at the strays, who growl back.)
My cat looks more alert and happy outside than she ever does inside, and I
miss our old place where it was more rural and she could go out, at least
in the daytime. I don't miss the old neighbors, the rent, the (literally
and figuratively) crappy plumbing, the mold (and consequent migraines and
seizures), or the steep hills and lack of services though, so I try to
remind myself not to remember the old place unrealistically. I eventually
(annoyingly quickly, by my old standards) wear out and head back to the
apartment.
Once I'm back, I go to the computer, but I can't read enough to follow
much online. I try some video games, but those require too fast reaction
time and are too bright and colorful. I close x-windows and play nethack,
which is good because it's low-key, spatial, doesn't require any
particular reaction time, and only has one short line of text at a time.
My character keeps dying in the Gnomish Mines out of my own stupidity, so
I figure I'd better go to bed.
It's now 2 am. I curl up on the couch, which doesn't work, so I go over
to the futon (I don't like beds, but getting off the floor is enough of a
hassle in the morning that I've stopped sleeping on it.) I eventually
drift off to sleep.
I wake up at 3 am, look at the clock, grumble, and sleep for another hour.
I repeat this at 4:30, and wake up finally around 5. I feel somewhat
rested, up until I try to move, and then feel like I haven't had any sleep
at all. My senses and body don't appear to like me this morning. I go
through the process I already described above with figuring out movement.
I contemplate breakfast, but the book is closer and doesn't require
getting off the couch (see above; this isn't laziness). I try to read it,
but that just gives me a headache.
I somehow get over to the computer again, where I spend a few hours on
email, newsgroups, and so forth. Around 9, I go back to the couch and try
to sleep again. I manage what's probably stage 1 sleep -- I don't feel
like I've slept or like anything has happened at all, but suddenly staff's
knocking at the door and I feel groggy. I grunt loudly at the door and
she comes in. Something about the fact that she's in the room enables me
to sit up on the couch with no problem, but I can't get *off* the couch.
She runs through the usual checklist -- "Have you gone to the bathroom
yet?" "Have you eaten?" "Is there anything you need to get done?" and so
forth. (No, no, and yes.) I stick my hand out and she touches it so I
can get off the couch. I go to the bathroom, go *near* the kitchen, start
the pacing routine (which she interrupts), and get food a lot faster than
usual since she notices when I get lost. I eat breakfast, and she asks me
what I need to do today. Everything I *ever* need to do flies into my
head, I know I have to say *something*, and pressure builds up until I
scream. Then I feel stupid.
I try again, and I see all the steps for going to the grocery store, but I
can't figure out how to say it (and can't remember that the part I'm
supposed to say is the name of the destination). I try and fail at
telepathy, and at moving my eyes the same way they'd move if I were doing
all the steps. I yell again and do a last-second redirect of headbanging
to shoulderbanging. She tells me to take my time, and reminds me my
keyboard exists. I type out "food shopping," and most of the associated
pressure dissolves.
After about ten minutes of her reminding me to get ready and me not
moving, she remembers I might be stuck and not forgetful. She touches my
hand again, and I run around getting clothes on, and my wallet and keys.
She drives me to the store.
In the store, I get overloaded fast. I use a lot of my concentration up
on not exploding, because I don't want to deal with the other people in
the inevitable scene that causes. This means there isn't a lot of
concentration left over for picking out groceries or for moving, so I use
one of the supermarket's electric carts and try not to run anyone over.
She helps out on the picking part, by reminding me what I usually eat and
offering binary choices and suggestions where applicable. She also helps
out on the moving part halfway through when I finally go into sensory
disintegration mode and freeze up almost completely. She drives me home,
puts the groceries away, and cooks a few meals.
She leaves at 1 pm, and I crash. I wake up at 3:30 pm, still overloaded.
I curl up and zone out for awhile, this time with stuff from the store and
stuff from the net going through my head without any chance to get
analyzed.
I don't de-overload much at all, and I eventually get fed up with all the
previously-unprocessed noise in my head from earlier that day. I, not too
wisely, go through the usual maneuvering process and get online again.
Do the usual stuff there. The alarm goes off for seizure medications at 5
pm, and I turn it off but forget to take them, then go to the couch and
zone out again.
Day 2:
This time I do de-overload a bit, and I start thinking up things to write
down about the book. I grab the book, but again I can't read it. So I
start thinking about what's in it so far, and what words to use to write
about those things. I toss words around, am happy to come up with a
couple of complete sentences, and try to file them under "stuff to
remember to write down later."
I also end up with a nasty case of word-head, where words whirl around in
my head with no meaning attached, curse language and writing again, and go
back to zoning out and latch onto my own existence until the words
disappear and stuff quiets down. Then I stay there and am happy to exist,
for a bit, and don't really do or think anything else (and hence avoid
overload for a bit, too).
I try to do things, but every time I switch activities I can't remember
the last activity. I start getting scared that if I stop doing one thing
to start another, that I am (or the world -- which consists of whatever
I'm doing at the time -- is) going to disappear because I can't remember
things right. I do get some thinking done sometimes, although it's hard
to keep a thought in my head long enough to finish it.
After I've been up awhile, this gets really bad, and I end up getting lost
down all sorts of thought-tangents, and totally absorbed in them to the
point where I can't remember anything else. Since my thinking is spatial,
I get lost in them the same way people can get lost walking around, and I
forget that I can get out of thoughts and that they're not just another
set of rooms that happens to be inside my head instead of outside my head.
At one point, I remember that this happens when I'm overloaded, that it
won't make me or anything else permanently disappear, and that I just need
to ride it out until it stops. I do, and after awhile there's sort of a
zappy click in my head and it abruptly stops happening. I'm still
overloaded and exhausted though.
When I move again, I'm even more overloaded. I go back to the computer
and type out those couple of sentences I came up with earlier. I check
email and read news again. Then I'm too overloaded to do much of
anything. The problem is, I'm also bored out of my mind because there are
a lot of things I'd *want* to be doing if they wouldn't result in so much
overload that I couldn't do them in the first place. I turn on the TV,
but it looks like a lot of light and noise so I turn it off.
I alternate between lying down and zoning out, sitting up and rocking and
zoning out, pacing around the house stimming, and bodyslamming the walls,
with a few times when I either get online briefly or turn on the water for
the cat (the latter usually while using the toilet, which I don't do often
enough). I make a few tries at the fridge, but they always end in pacing
around the house (same pattern) and not making it into the kitchen, so I
don't eat and only drink water with medications.
After a long time of this, I get so exhausted that I fall asleep. By that
point, it's 6 pm the next day, but at least I sleep for 6 or 7 hours this
time. When I wake up, I'm less overloaded, and the next day is a
toned-down version of this one with memory working a bit better so I don't
freak out about things quite as much.
[Footnote from way at the top: This form of zoning out is something
essential that I *have to* do several times a day in order to function at
all. The people who tried to modify this behavior out of me saw it as not
autistic shutdown but "psychotic withdrawal", especially because they
mistook the muttering part for hallucinating (which I went along with
because I was scared of them and didn't know what it was). I can remember
being forcibly grabbed, sometimes tied down, sometimes beaten, and
sometimes lectured about the importance of "socializing rather than
isolating," when I did this in front of the wrong people. Scaring me out
of doing it only made me less competent, more overloaded, and more likely
to push myself until it happened whether I wanted it to or not. Before
people brought it to my attention in negative ways, it was just a normal
everyday part of life that I didn't think much about, and I've even got a
picture somewhere that my parents snapped of me while I was doing it on
their couch as a kid -- apparently *they* didn't think it was all that
problematic.]
Although I can't yet describe yesterday, it was a lot like "day 2" only
with someone prodding me to eat, and I'm hoping that today will be more
like "day 3."
--
sggaB
Autistic Spectrum Code, v1.0
AA! dpu s-:+ a-- c+(++) p(+) t--- f--- S--(++)@ p?@ e-(+)@ h- r--@ n--
i++ P m--(++)@ M
growi...@hotmail.com
< a lot of stuff >
I'll quote the stuff I can relate to. I couldn't relate to a lot
of what you said, but other parts of it were easy to relate to.
> My cat, somewhere in there, notes the opportunity for a warm body and
> curls up behind my legs.
I think I should get a cat. I really like cats, although looking
around the room I'm in right now (I am testing some routers and
firewalls for a client - and to satisify a perseveration, so I
have six or seven ethernet switches, with two or three cables in
each on, all eventually tangling together as they go between
computers, routers, firewalls, and other switches), I don't think
it would be very wise. Lots of toys that I don't think I really
want a cat playing with!
> A watch alarm goes off, telling me it's time to eat.
That's a good idea. I found a program for my Palm that lets me
set alarms on todo items, not just appointments, and lets me make
them recurring. I've been using it for a lot of things, but not
yet reminding me to eat. Today, I only ate one sandwich, and now
I am hungry but not able to go get food to solve that problem
(and, to make matters worse, I don't have any food in my house -
I'd have to go - ick - shopping). But I do need to do something
to remind me to eat, especially when I've been busy with my
perseverations.
> Once I'm back, I go to the computer, but I can't read enough to follow
> much online. I try some video games, but those require too fast reaction
> time and are too bright and colorful. I close x-windows and play nethack,
> which is good because it's low-key, spatial, doesn't require any
> particular reaction time, and only has one short line of text at a time.
> My character keeps dying in the Gnomish Mines out of my own stupidity, so
> I figure I'd better go to bed.
I do like nethack - it is one of the best games ever written. :) I
think it's best points are (1) doesn't require a lot of quick reaction,
(2) doesn't require a lot of strategy, but mostly just good tactics. I
do very badly in any game that needs me to think several moves ahead (I
am probably the worst chess player on earth).
> It's now 2 am. I curl up on the couch, which doesn't work, so I go over
> to the futon (I don't like beds, but getting off the floor is enough of a
> hassle in the morning that I've stopped sleeping on it.) I eventually
> drift off to sleep.
I like sleeping on the floor, too. I'm sleeping on the bed again
since it was hot recently and I couldn't sleep under all my blankets.
But now that it is winter, I'll probably sleep on the floor again
since the blankets don't fall off then.
> She leaves at 1 pm, and I crash. I wake up at 3:30 pm, still overloaded.
> I curl up and zone out for awhile, this time with stuff from the store and
> stuff from the net going through my head without any chance to get
> analyzed.
I know what you mean about needing to analyze things that happen in
your day. I can react much better if the things that happen during
my day have a chance to "stick" a bit, which only happens if they
are processed "offline." I am fortunate in that I have two hours
a day of just driving - something I can do without much conscious
thought. So I spend my first hour, driving to work, writing scripts
for the day. I spend my last hour, driving home, with the first
steps of processing the day.
> Since my thinking is spatial,
> I get lost in them the same way people can get lost walking around, and I
> forget that I can get out of thoughts and that they're not just another
> set of rooms that happens to be inside my head instead of outside my head.
Can you describe what you mean by spatial? I think I think spatially,
too, but I don't know what you mean by it. To me, it is very different
then the visual thinking that Temple Grandin talks about - I don't see
any pictures, just lots of things all linked to other things all linked
to other things all linked to yet other things, with some of those
things linked back to the thought that started it all!
> Although I can't yet describe yesterday, it was a lot like "day 2" only
> with someone prodding me to eat, and I'm hoping that today will be more
> like "day 3."
I hope so, too.
--
Joel
Gareeth
> around the room I'm in right now (I am testing some routers and
> firewalls for a client - and to satisify a perseveration, so I
> have six or seven ethernet switches, with two or three cables in
> each on, all eventually tangling together as they go between
> computers, routers, firewalls, and other switches), I don't think
> it would be very wise. Lots of toys that I don't think I really
> want a cat playing with!
I think you can make it pretty clear to a cat right from the get go that
cables etc are off limit. I have a cat and this has not been a problem. She
did however discover the relationshop between the wall plug and the big
machine that takes attention away from me. I swear she turns it off on
purpose. She will go under my side desk. Get under the plug then make sure I
am looking and arch her back enough to knock the plug for the power bar out
(lose wall plate that I can't tighten)
She has not done it in a while now but there were several months when she
seemed to do this often but I am certain it was a deliberate thing on her
part.
A warm body is always nice. I have a dog and a cat, numerous fish, a frog
and snails. They are all a great comfort in life.
Gareeth
sggaB
growi...@hotmail.com wrote:
> sggaB <ama...@autistics.org> wrote:
>< a lot of stuff >
> I'll quote the stuff I can relate to. I couldn't relate to a lot
> of what you said, but other parts of it were easy to relate to.
I've found that standard with other autistic people, although the ratios
of familiar to non-familiar vary from person to person.
>> My cat, somewhere in there, notes the opportunity for a warm body and
>> curls up behind my legs.
> I think I should get a cat. I really like cats, although looking
> around the room I'm in right now (I am testing some routers and
> firewalls for a client - and to satisify a perseveration, so I
> have six or seven ethernet switches, with two or three cables in
> each on, all eventually tangling together as they go between
> computers, routers, firewalls, and other switches), I don't think
> it would be very wise. Lots of toys that I don't think I really
> want a cat playing with!
It depends on the cat.
My cat does not mess with electronics, nor does she mess with my harp. I
don't know why -- the harp looks like a scratching post, and the wires
look like cat toys. She also doesn't walk on my laptop, although she
will sometimes walk on an external keyboard.
I don't know a lot about who she lived with before I found her at the
SPCA. All I know is that their official reason for giving her up was that
they changed jobs, and that from her behavior they probably abused her.
They might have also taught her about not chewing wires, but I doubt they
taught her not to scratch harps. She scratches everything else in the
house.
Not that she never does anything that drives me crazy -- she has a habit
of stalking and biting my feet, and another habit of knocking stuff over
to get me to do things for her. But she seems to know which things to
stay away from.
Adult cats are probably easier than kittens in this regard, and they are
more often slated for euthanasia because fewer people will adopt them.
I'm glad I adopted an adult cat -- I rescued a kitten recently, and in the
few days until I could get her to a better home, she got into
*everything*. I doubt I have the patience or energy to raise a kitten at
the moment (although it's nothing like as hard as raising a puppy).
>> A watch alarm goes off, telling me it's time to eat.
> That's a good idea. I found a program for my Palm that lets me
> set alarms on todo items, not just appointments, and lets me make
> them recurring. I've been using it for a lot of things, but not
> yet reminding me to eat.
The watch alarm is a backup measure. I've got a palmtop with PEAT on it,
but the screen spontaneously spiderwebbed and I'm trying to get enough
money together to repair it. I also leave my computer on with Gnome
Calendar, which has some of the features you describe. This doesn't work
as well as PEAT, but it's better than nothing.
> Today, I only ate one sandwich, and now
> I am hungry but not able to go get food to solve that problem
> (and, to make matters worse, I don't have any food in my house -
> I'd have to go - ick - shopping).
Yuck. I know that situation. :-(
> But I do need to do something
> to remind me to eat, especially when I've been busy with my
> perseverations.
Yes. That can be really important, because when you don't eat it throws
everything else off (I've noticed that I don't always notice I'm hungry,
but I *do* notice that I'm more overloaded and my performance on various
tasks slips. When that happens, I'm trying to learn to run through a
checklist about hunger, thirst, bladder, etc.)
>> Once I'm back, I go to the computer, but I can't read enough to follow
>> much online. I try some video games, but those require too fast reaction
>> time and are too bright and colorful. I close x-windows and play nethack,
>> which is good because it's low-key, spatial, doesn't require any
>> particular reaction time, and only has one short line of text at a time.
>> My character keeps dying in the Gnomish Mines out of my own stupidity, so
>> I figure I'd better go to bed.
> I do like nethack - it is one of the best games ever written. :) I
> think it's best points are (1) doesn't require a lot of quick reaction,
> (2) doesn't require a lot of strategy, but mostly just good tactics. I
> do very badly in any game that needs me to think several moves ahead (I
> am probably the worst chess player on earth).
I'm terrible at chess too, and that makes sense about strategy vs.
tactics. That could be another reason I like nethack.
>> It's now 2 am. I curl up on the couch, which doesn't work, so I go over
>> to the futon (I don't like beds, but getting off the floor is enough of a
>> hassle in the morning that I've stopped sleeping on it.) I eventually
>> drift off to sleep.
> I like sleeping on the floor, too. I'm sleeping on the bed again
> since it was hot recently and I couldn't sleep under all my blankets.
> But now that it is winter, I'll probably sleep on the floor again
> since the blankets don't fall off then.
That sounds good.
>> She leaves at 1 pm, and I crash. I wake up at 3:30 pm, still overloaded.
>> I curl up and zone out for awhile, this time with stuff from the store and
>> stuff from the net going through my head without any chance to get
>> analyzed.
> I know what you mean about needing to analyze things that happen in
> your day. I can react much better if the things that happen during
> my day have a chance to "stick" a bit, which only happens if they
> are processed "offline." I am fortunate in that I have two hours
> a day of just driving - something I can do without much conscious
> thought. So I spend my first hour, driving to work, writing scripts
> for the day. I spend my last hour, driving home, with the first
> steps of processing the day.
That makes a lot of sense. There's this period where everything that's
happened flies through my head and tries to get processed, and if I don't
do that things get messy. I don't have a particular activity where I can
do it, so it sort of happens throughout the day. (It would help if I
wasn't afraid of punishment for doing it.) It seems to take a fair amount
of time to process anything, and especially when there's overload involved
everything goes into a "backlog".
(Sometimes this can come out in ways that seem like hallucination, if I
experience the sensations so far after the fact that they're out of
context.)
Then after the stuff has finally been experienced, there's a period where
it seems to be getting catalogued "behind the scenes" to the point where I
can recall it more easily. And then I can analyze it. And another period
before it goes to wordability (depends on whether it's been worded/heard
worded before, how long that takes).
>> Since my thinking is spatial,
>> I get lost in them the same way people can get lost walking around, and I
>> forget that I can get out of thoughts and that they're not just another
>> set of rooms that happens to be inside my head instead of outside my head.
> Can you describe what you mean by spatial? I think I think spatially,
> too, but I don't know what you mean by it. To me, it is very different
> then the visual thinking that Temple Grandin talks about - I don't see
> any pictures, just lots of things all linked to other things all linked
> to other things all linked to yet other things, with some of those
> things linked back to the thought that started it all!
That sounds right. It's sort of like a map in my head, and things fit
into that map, like an extension of the spatial constructs of the real
world only with more than 3 or 4 dimensions to it.
Sometimes there are visual things, but not always. (And there's one mode
I get into that's very strongly visual, but it's not there all the time.)
There can be other sensory impressions too, but they're all tied into a
dark shape.
Then there's the blank stuff, with no conscious thoughts, and it's very
dark in there. Not bad, just dark. I need to spend a certain amount of
time that way, or I get overloaded and tired, and eventually it will
happen for me whether I want it to or not. (Yesterday, it happened for
me.)
Then there's a sort of directed non-thought that can happen, that I can't
easily talk about so I'm not going to try.
The thing I was talking about above, is sort of like the blank stuff,
without the *ability* for much conscious thought, with a bunch of sensory
impressions on top of it. I can sort-of latch onto the sensory
impressions, which I often do when that happens, and they lead me into a
mental corner, then disappear and it happens again. During it, I can't
tell what's happening, and I don't generally realize how disoriented I am
until afterwards (when I can't remember much of the content of what was
going on). Afterwards it looks like a lot of dead-end paths into corners
with a very narrow mental focus, followed by a zap/blip and everything
suddenly stops.
I have some suspicion that that particular state is or can be a seizure
aura, because it doesn't happen nearly as much now that I take an
anticonvulsant, and because it stops so abruptly. I still get a
no-thought state with lots of sensory impressions and disorientation, but
it happens in the particular shape I describe above more rarely than
before.
>> Although I can't yet describe yesterday, it was a lot like "day 2" only
>> with someone prodding me to eat, and I'm hoping that today will be more
>> like "day 3."
> I hope so, too.
I didn't feel great today, but I did eat two meals and nap twice. So it's
probably a suitable day-3-type day.
Gareeth
"Gareeth" <Gar...@nothotmail.com> wrote in message
news:A0uo9.35612$OO4.2...@news1.telusplanet.net...
>
>
> I think you can make it pretty clear to a cat right from the get go that
> cables etc are off limit.
Oh I saw on a pet show too that you can teach them not to chew on certain
things by wrapping them in aliminum foil. I they do chew on them it is qutie
the unpleasant thing for them and teaches them fast. when you take the foil
off they should have learned to avoid them in general. Course for a cat
chewing is not always the issue.
Gareeth
Suzanne
> sggaB <ama...@autistics.org> wrote:
>>Since my thinking is spatial,
>>I get lost in them the same way people can get lost walking around, and I
>>forget that I can get out of thoughts and that they're not just another
>>set of rooms that happens to be inside my head instead of outside my head.
>>
>
> Can you describe what you mean by spatial? I think I think spatially,
> too, but I don't know what you mean by it. To me, it is very different
> then the visual thinking that Temple Grandin talks about - I don't see
> any pictures, just lots of things all linked to other things all linked
> to other things all linked to yet other things, with some of those
> things linked back to the thought that started it all!
According to what I have been reading for my cognitive
science class, "mental imagery" can take two different
forms, one that would correspond to mental pictures,
("pictures" of what an object looks like), and one that
could be considered mental maps (images of where an object
is with regards to other objects). These appear to be two
independently-operating systems, with some people
significantly better at one that the other. In fact, people
who have had damage to particular areas of the occipital
lobe may not be able to "see" images in real life or in
their minds, but they can describe in great detail where
these things that they can't identify are located. They can
draw detailed maps of places they have lived, but cannot
recognize a photograph of the house the lived in for years.
My books are in my car, in an attempt to force me into
starting on my midterm paper tomorrow (due next Tuesday)
while I spend the day at a friend's store. If you want some
references, let me know, and I'll look them up.
Suzanne
sggaB
> According to what I have been reading for my cognitive
> science class, "mental imagery" can take two different
> forms, one that would correspond to mental pictures,
> ("pictures" of what an object looks like), and one that
> could be considered mental maps (images of where an object
> is with regards to other objects). These appear to be two
> independently-operating systems, with some people
> significantly better at one that the other. In fact, people
> who have had damage to particular areas of the occipital
> lobe may not be able to "see" images in real life or in
> their minds, but they can describe in great detail where
> these things that they can't identify are located. They can
> draw detailed maps of places they have lived, but cannot
> recognize a photograph of the house the lived in for years.
Uh....WOW. That is a really good description of my thinking and
perception, although I'm probably not that extreme (which seems to be a
common theme with autistic-type neurological stuff; we have similar
problems to people with brain damage, but with us it's a developmental
function so it looks different -- like the difference between a
developmental prosopagnosic and someone who had a stroke and became
prosopagnosic). And my occipital lobes had weird readings on most of my
EEGs. (As did an area that seemed to encompass the bit right where the
temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes meet.)
The thing is, I seem to have *really* extreme spatial-mapping skills. I
could still (if I had the drawing skills) draw the layout of the house I
moved out of before my fourth birthday, the dormitory at college, every
institution-type place I've ever been in for any length of time, and so
forth, but the thing I'd miss would be a lot of the physical details.
I don't recognize objects on sight without effort (and even mis-recognize
objects when I try, a fair amount of the time), or always (intuitively --
I've learned to puzzle it out intellectually) understand that objects are
separate from each other or that they are the same object once they've
changed shape or moved.
(In fact, in childhood I took it for granted that objects appeared and
disappeared seemingly at random, and although they still sometimes act
like that today I've learned they're not actually *doing* that. (Unless
I'm too overloaded to intellectualize about it, at which point I start
freaking out about the potential for things to disappear.))
But I've got this sort of moving-through-things map that contains spatial
data and a few sensory impressions, that works even though other things
disappear/appear/etc.
So the fact that this has been *studied* already is really intriguing to
me. I'd suspect I might have a developmental correlate to whatever this
kind of brain damage is called, in the same way that I have developmental
prosopagnosia and not brain-damaged prosopagnosia. (I don't know enough
to confirm that suspicion, but it fits the pattern until I have further
data.) I've *known* this pattern existed in myself, but I didn't know
that there had been shown any correlation.
> My books are in my car, in an attempt to force me into
> starting on my midterm paper tomorrow (due next Tuesday)
> while I spend the day at a friend's store. If you want some
> references, let me know, and I'll look them up.
I'd love references.
Poster Person
Ditto here. Pictures I'm not too hot on, but mental mapping I do in
the extreme. Mental (albeit a bit fuzzy) pictures linked together by
certain characteristics - usually 3d positioning. I imagine my daily
schedule in the same way - not by time or order per se, but my linking
together certain mental images in a spatial way - or better yet,
geographically. "First I go here, then here, etc".
Very interesting. I'm been lagging behind massively on my reading - I
would really like to see the other side - ie. Temple Grandin's
"Thinking in pictures".
Boy...posts in this group have heated up...I just can't keep track
anymore...
sggaB
><snip>
> Ditto here. Pictures I'm not too hot on, but mental mapping I do in
> the extreme. Mental (albeit a bit fuzzy) pictures linked together by
> certain characteristics - usually 3d positioning. I imagine my daily
> schedule in the same way - not by time or order per se, but my linking
> together certain mental images in a spatial way - or better yet,
> geographically. "First I go here, then here, etc".
> Very interesting. I'm been lagging behind massively on my reading - I
> would really like to see the other side - ie. Temple Grandin's
> "Thinking in pictures".
Very interesting, indeed. I wonder how many autistic people have variants
on this mode of thinking.
When I originally thought up (probably reinvented) the term "spatial
thinking", it was because someone was trying to mess with my mind by
hassling me about whether I was better at mathematical or verbal things.
Those categories taken as units made no sense to me, so I tried to look at
my thinking and find the best way to describe it. My description was
clumsy (in comparison to what I intended), but it worked well enough for
someone who's now a good friend to get one of those "shock of recognition"
experiences.
I didn't know whether or not a lot of autistic people thought like that or
if it was just me, though. I knew that I didn't "think in pictures" like
Temple Grandin, but I also knew I didn't "think in words".
(Another person well before this once asked me, "Do you think in words or
pictures?" I knew I didn't think in words, so I said "pictures." She
said, "You're autistic then." A person with us said, "It isn't that
simple." I asked her, "Do you think in words or pictures?" She said,
"*I* think in *thoughts*." Which was, to my mind, very unfair of her, as
she hadn't allowed that in questioning me.)
I recently also read Donna Williams describe her thinking style, in an
interview, as something like "the way a blind person maps the world by
feel and form," which also sounds similar to my thinking (and more poetic
than anything I've managed). Since her descriptions of visual perception
are often similar to mine, I wonder if there's a pattern there or if it's
just random correlation of common autistic traits.
I'm excited at the thought that a lot of autistic people might be spatial
thinkers (or whatever it's called), too. I'd wondered at first if I was
the only one, and if I was just talking nonsense. I'd also at one point
tentatively thought it might have something to do with occipital lobe
stuff functioning in strange ways, but I wasn't sure if that was nonsense
either (since I'm far from a neuroscientist.)
Robin May
> The thing is, I seem to have *really* extreme spatial-mapping skills. I
> could still (if I had the drawing skills) draw the layout of the house I
> moved out of before my fourth birthday, the dormitory at college, every
> institution-type place I've ever been in for any length of time, and so
> forth, but the thing I'd miss would be a lot of the physical details.
I don't know if this is the sort of thing that you're talking about, but
I can very quickly become familiar with the layout of a place and as
soon as I become familiar with the layout I can visualise the entire
place in 3d in my head. I can imagine walking round it and think of
where everything is in relation to everything else. I also have a very
good sense of direction and can find my way around places that seem to
confuse everyone else. Two of my friends often will ask me to guide them
to where they want to get to when we're out in places because they know
I've got a good sense of direction. I think that more people would ask
me to do that if it weren't for the fact that a lot of people seem to
think I'm stupid and have no talents, and certainly shouldn't be
listened to for information about finding your way around.
--
message by Robin May, not a UK hardcore raver
"A view without a room unveils the truth so soon" (or so they say)
Alun Jones
>I'm excited at the thought that a lot of autistic people might be spatial
>thinkers (or whatever it's called), too.
I'm similar in that regard, but I describe it more as "structural" thinking.
Rather than thinking of things as locations, or fixed positions and shapes, as
might be imagined from the term "spatial", to me everything has a connection,
and it's the topology, rather than the metrisation, that matters. You should
see me program some time - I can hold bunches of structures in my head, and
when I have to manipulate them, you'll often see me shaping my hands to figure
out connections as if these stick-figure structures had a physical presence.
'Bad' code or structures tend to 'leap out' at me, whether it's in the
computer, or on a piece of paper. Even spelling and sometimes grammar
mistakes, on a typed sheet of paper, might as well be highlighted, the way
they grab my attention. It's fun :-) Unless you have to leave the code
alone. :-(
Alun.
~~~~
Terry Jones
>science class, "mental imagery" can take two different
>forms, one that would correspond to mental pictures,
>("pictures" of what an object looks like), and one that
>could be considered mental maps (images of where an object
>is with regards to other objects). These appear to be two
>independently-operating systems, with some people
>significantly better at one that the other. In fact, people
>who have had damage to particular areas of the occipital
>lobe may not be able to "see" images in real life or in
>their minds, but they can describe in great detail where
>these things that they can't identify are located. They can
>draw detailed maps of places they have lived, but cannot
>recognize a photograph of the house the lived in for years.
Although I think "verbally" (as when composing this post, or
processing "word" based things in general), and (as another poster
wrote) I also "think in thoughts" - a form of mentation which appears
to have no real external world equivalent - I do also think in
"cognitive space".
But this has representations of information and ideas and the links
between them, which seem to come more closely into the mental "field
of view" as I concentrate on one aspect or another (someone once used
the term "data lens" for this). It doesn't seem at all like the way in
which I process geographical space, and I don't seem to have an
especially good geographical / spacial memory.
Terry
sggaB
wrote:
> In article <slrnaqdqo5...@localhost.localdomain>, sggaB
><ama...@autistics.org> wrote:
>>I'm excited at the thought that a lot of autistic people might be spatial
>>thinkers (or whatever it's called), too.
> I'm similar in that regard, but I describe it more as "structural" thinking.
> Rather than thinking of things as locations, or fixed positions and shapes, as
> might be imagined from the term "spatial", to me everything has a connection,
> and it's the topology, rather than the metrisation, that matters. You should
I don't understand what "topology" and "metrisation" mean. The word
"spatial", when I use it, simply means "taking place in 3 or more
dimensions," so we might not mean different things. (And we might -- I
don't know what you mean, though, so I can't compare.)
> computer, or on a piece of paper. Even spelling and sometimes grammar
> mistakes, on a typed sheet of paper, might as well be highlighted, the way
> they grab my attention. It's fun :-) Unless you have to leave the code
> alone. :-(
That happens to me with spelling mistakes, although the strange thing is
that I'll know that there *is* a spelling mistake just by glancing over a
page, but it can take me awhile to track down where on a page it is.
growi...@hotmail.com
> When I originally thought up (probably reinvented) the term "spatial
> thinking", it was because someone was trying to mess with my mind by
> hassling me about whether I was better at mathematical or verbal things.
I also thought I made up the term to describe my way of thinking.
I guess I wasn't quite as unique and creative as I thought! :)
--
Joel
growi...@hotmail.com
> I don't know if this is the sort of thing that you're talking about, but
> I can very quickly become familiar with the layout of a place and as
> soon as I become familiar with the layout I can visualise the entire
> place in 3d in my head.
Physical layouts aren't really "pictured" but I "understand" them.
This fits so well with me that it affects everything I think about.
People don't have names - but the places they live and work do.
An example of this was a joke (truly done in good fun - the friends
that did this weren't trying to tease me) some friends played on me
before they realized how significant places were to me. They put
some women's clothing in my closet. Since it was in my closet, I
didn't realize they weren't my clothes and put them on (no, there
wasn't any dresses!), not realizing they were someone else's
clothes. I don't know what my clothes look like. But I do know
where they are, which is why I made this mistake and fell a bit more
then my friends expected for the joke.
--
Joel
sggaB
The first person who read what I wrote about it, said she knew what I was
talking about right away. I suspect it may be because of the prevalence of
the word "spatial" right near the word "visual," and then in rejection of
the word "visual" one gropes around for a word and goes, "Hmm... oh...
spatial!"
I've since seen the word in several places, and a quick web search turned up
this one, from a presumably-NT person (although I haven't checked that out
thoroughly):
http://showcase.netins.net/web/dendrys/essays/editory/blocks.html
sggaB
> Robin May <northc...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>> I don't know if this is the sort of thing that you're talking about, but
>> I can very quickly become familiar with the layout of a place and as
>> soon as I become familiar with the layout I can visualise the entire
>> place in 3d in my head.
> Physical layouts aren't really "pictured" but I "understand" them.
> This fits so well with me that it affects everything I think about.
> People don't have names - but the places they live and work do.
That's interesting. I don't know if I name the places people live and work,
but if I've ever been to the places they live and work, I can make my mind
run around in maps of them right now. (To test this, I just tried my
friend's parents' house in San Diego, which I haven't been to since 1998 or
1999.)
> An example of this was a joke (truly done in good fun - the friends
> that did this weren't trying to tease me) some friends played on me
> before they realized how significant places were to me. They put
> some women's clothing in my closet. Since it was in my closet, I
> didn't realize they weren't my clothes and put them on (no, there
> wasn't any dresses!), not realizing they were someone else's
> clothes. I don't know what my clothes look like. But I do know
> where they are, which is why I made this mistake and fell a bit more
> then my friends expected for the joke.
That's a lot like the sort of thing I'd do.
I also often don't account for objects that are new in an area, which landed
me in one very gross situation once.
It was while changing for gym in fourth or fifth grade, and the locker room
was crowded so I'd retreated into the hallway to the bathroom (there was an
open door between the locker room and the bathroom, and people would often
go back and forth there while changing, or change in the hallway area
between them.)
So I was starting to get my school clothes on, and I sat down to either get
my shirt or my shoes on. I was fiddling with those (changing took me
forever, which my gym teachers were never happy about) and I started hearing
a lot of yelling, but it was in the area where I heard it but didn't make
any language out of it. Eventually someone came over and grabbed me, and
said, "She's sitting in the barf!" Apparently someone had vomited in the
hallway, and I'd gone in there and sat down right in the middle of it
without ever seeing, smelling, or feeling it. It was the same place I often
sat down to change, so I didn't pay any attention to what might be *in* that
spot.
At home, if there's something in the middle of the floor that didn't used to
be in the middle of the floor, I usually trip over it. (Unfortunately,
that's usually the cat.) And if someone has moved something, I can't find
it (if they move several things, it's just plain disorienting) since I
search by location rather than visually.
At my parents' house, where my mother regularly rearranges the furniture, I
used to bash into objects all the time because they'd been moved and I
hadn't adjusted my maps yet. (This sort of thing led to both my father and
me yelling at her whenever she moved anything, because my dad did the same
thing.) Unfortunately, the time it took to adjust old maps was about the
time it took for my mom to get bored with the old furniture placement. ;-)
growi...@hotmail.com
> At my parents' house, where my mother regularly rearranges the furniture, I
> used to bash into objects all the time because they'd been moved and I
> hadn't adjusted my maps yet. (This sort of thing led to both my father and
> me yelling at her whenever she moved anything, because my dad did the same
> thing.) Unfortunately, the time it took to adjust old maps was about the
> time it took for my mom to get bored with the old furniture placement. ;-)
You could be describing my house! My mom liked to collect old
furnature she found at garage sales and such. She was quite good at
finding bargains, but not quite as good about placing it in the
house! When she got something new, everything in the house would
have to move, causing me to do exactly what you describe. My dad,
too, would bang into the stuff when he tried to navigate the house.
--
Joel
growi...@hotmail.com
> http://showcase.netins.net/web/dendrys/essays/editory/blocks.html
Yes, some of this was very similar to how I think. Especially the
part about the internal compass. As long as that internal compass
reflects reality, I'll do okay in any new place. If it gets
"misaligned" for some reason, then I'll easilly get lost. If I do
not know where my hometown is in relation to the direction I'm
standing, I can't build my mental map of even the simplest landscape.
But the part where the author talks about it making liguistics
easier is one part that I really can't realte to. Nothing in
language seems to come easy to me. I definately don't "see"
words.
--
Joel
sggaB
Yep, that sounds familiar. My mom also liked getting furniture, and she
seemed to have a compulsive need to rearrange existing furniture at least
once a month. On the few occasions where I went to camp or something, I'd
come home and my *room* would be rearranged -- at one point, she kept
switching my room back and forth between two different rooms when I wasn't
at home, and in the process of this she painted them both bright yellow.
(Yellow hurts.)
It was also interesting moving, after I'd had my own apartment (with
furniture in one place the whole time, except the time I'd let my mom in
there unsupervised and everything had moved.) When I moved to my current
apartment, I could not adjust my maps at all, the way I can while
travelling. My mind stubbornly believed that my old apartment was home,
and that I was home, and that therefore everything was where it was in
the old apartment. Needless to say, the adjustment period was bad.
I've also found a very annoying attribute of flashbacks (I think this
would only apply with PTSD), which is that there's one specific kind of
flashback I can get where I can clearly see my environment if I look for
it, but my spatial map is firmly in another place entirely. So I can tell
my eyes to look around and they'll see my apartment, but my map of my
surroundings tells me I'm somewhere else entirely. It was interesting,
recently, to talk to a relative who's a war veteran (and has PTSD),
because to describe things while he was telling war stories, he moved his
hands over a precise map of a battlefield that was clearly all around him
-- spatially, but not visually. So I found I'm not the only person who
does that.
sggaB
> sggaB <ama...@autistics.org> wrote:
>> http://showcase.netins.net/web/dendrys/essays/editory/blocks.html
> Yes, some of this was very similar to how I think. Especially the
> part about the internal compass. As long as that internal compass
> reflects reality, I'll do okay in any new place. If it gets
> "misaligned" for some reason, then I'll easilly get lost. If I do
> not know where my hometown is in relation to the direction I'm
> standing, I can't build my mental map of even the simplest landscape.
That happened to me the first time I went to Pennsylvania, and the short
disorientation period was bizarre.
> But the part where the author talks about it making liguistics
> easier is one part that I really can't realte to. Nothing in
> language seems to come easy to me. I definately don't "see"
> words.
One part that was similar-but-different for me was the part about acting.
I always forget my lines, but can recall where they were on the page. So
I have the map of the script in my head, but I don't have the *words* of
the script, which are all blurred together so I can't read them.
Likewise, I can remember *where* in a book a concept was, but not what
words were used to describe it.
The language stuff is also pretty far off for me. The one area of
language that seems to get spatialized for me is a sudden sense of
connection I can tell between two written words. But this serves me in
almost no way, practically. I can't learn a foreign language beyond
first-year (which I promptly forget), I can't translate my thoughts into
language (for the first time) without a long delay and often some external
elements in place, and language is for the most part very difficult.
(Except for specific hyperlexia-related skills.)
Another thing that didn't fit for me was the Lego-building thing. I
always badly wanted to be able to build things like that, but I was in my
late teens before my sensory and motor systems would allow even part of
that sort of thing. There's something about simultaneously doing the
sensory processing of the object, motor processing of where to put the
object, and *also* paying attention to what's going on inside my head,
that's not conducive to me and Lego.
Suzanne
> The thing is, I seem to have *really* extreme spatial-mapping skills. I
> could still (if I had the drawing skills) draw the layout of the house I
> moved out of before my fourth birthday, the dormitory at college, every
> institution-type place I've ever been in for any length of time, and so
> forth, but the thing I'd miss would be a lot of the physical details.
I'm probably somewhat atypical for an NT, with regards to
visualization skills. I tested as having near-photographic
memory in my late teens and also probably have better than
typical spatial memory, particularly for a female. Most of
my memories have a spatial-mapping element to them, even my
memory for conversations. Usually, when I try to recall a
conversation, the first thing that I will remember is where
I was during the conversation, which direction I was facing,
where the other person/people are, and so on. It is only
after these things have come to mind that I am able to
remember what was said. It's actually a bit inconvenient,
because of the time it takes to go through this process.
In spite of my apparently good visual memory, I seem to
"miss" noticing certain things in my surroundings. For
example, I only noticed yesterday that the office across
from where my son has his social skills group has a large
window in the door. (It is the only door like this in the
building. The others are solid wood.) I have been going to
this place almost every week for a year and a half, and
somehow I had never noticed the door before. My husband and
son say that the door has been like that all along.
> But I've got this sort of moving-through-things map that contains spatial
> data and a few sensory impressions, that works even though other things
> disappear/appear/etc.
I have the moving through things map thing, too. The only
problem is, it doesn't seem to work outside after dark. I
don't know why.
>
> So the fact that this has been *studied* already is really intriguing to
> me. I'd suspect I might have a developmental correlate to whatever this
> kind of brain damage is called, in the same way that I have developmental
> prosopagnosia and not brain-damaged prosopagnosia. (I don't know enough
> to confirm that suspicion, but it fits the pattern until I have further
> data.) I've *known* this pattern existed in myself, but I didn't know
> that there had been shown any correlation.
The condition that your inability to recognize objects seems
most like is something called agnosia, which has several
subtypes and can range from very severe to fairly mild.
>
>
>>My books are in my car, in an attempt to force me into
>>starting on my midterm paper tomorrow (due next Tuesday)
>>while I spend the day at a friend's store. If you want some
>>references, let me know, and I'll look them up.
>>
>
> I'd love references.
Here are a couple:
Mishkin, M., Ungerleider, L.G., and Macko, K.A. (1983).
Object vision and spatial vision: Two cortical pathways.
Trends in Neuroscience, Vol. 6, pp. 414-417.
De Renzi, E. (1982). Disorders of space exploration and
cognition. New York: Wiley.
Bauer, R.M., and Rubens, A.B. (1985) Agnosia. In K.M.
Heilman and E. Valenstein (Eds.), Clinical neuropsychology
(pp. 187-241). New York: Oxford University Press.
Kosslyn, S.M. (1987). Seeing and imagining in the cerebral
hemispheres: A computational approach. Psychological Review,
Vol. 92, pp. 137-172.
I'm sorry I don't have any references for electronic sources.
Suzanne
Alun Jones
>I don't understand what "topology" and "metrisation" mean. The word
>"spatial", when I use it, simply means "taking place in 3 or more
>dimensions," so we might not mean different things. (And we might -- I
>don't know what you mean, though, so I can't compare.)
Have you ever seen a London Underground map? The locations of the stations
don't match where they are in real life; nor are the lines drawn to scale or
with all the bends and wiggles. However, if you know roughly where your
station is, you can find it on the map, and the map depicts which lines go
through what stations.
It is a topologically-equivalent representation of the tube system, not
metrically accurate. If you were to draw the map on a sheet of putty, you
could stretch and squish it until the map matched exactly the real, physical,
layout of stations and tunnels, but for the purpose of navigating the tube
system, the map is more than adequate.
So, for instance, when my wife asks me where her purse is, I remember that
it's near the business phone. The business phone is on the gold table, which
is in the office. So I go to the office to track it down. [This is a made-up
example] I don't know whether it's in front of the table, underneath the
table, or how far in any direction from the table it might be, but it's
connected with the phone and the table in my mind.
Similarly, when I'm programming, I think in terms of structures and the
linkages between them, something that seems hard for most programmers.
Alun.
~~~~
sggaB
> sggaB wrote:
>> The thing is, I seem to have *really* extreme spatial-mapping skills. I
>> could still (if I had the drawing skills) draw the layout of the house I
>> moved out of before my fourth birthday, the dormitory at college, every
>> institution-type place I've ever been in for any length of time, and so
>> forth, but the thing I'd miss would be a lot of the physical details.
> I'm probably somewhat atypical for an NT, with regards to
> visualization skills. I tested as having near-photographic
> memory in my late teens and also probably have better than
> typical spatial memory, particularly for a female. Most of
> my memories have a spatial-mapping element to them, even my
> memory for conversations. Usually, when I try to recall a
> conversation, the first thing that I will remember is where
> I was during the conversation, which direction I was facing,
> where the other person/people are, and so on.
I don't have a photographic memory at all (my brother did, as a child).
But I have an excellent spatial memory, although I tend to have a fairly
bad sense of my own body in space.
> It is only
> after these things have come to mind that I am able to
> remember what was said. It's actually a bit inconvenient,
> because of the time it takes to go through this process.
I do something very similar with conversations.
> In spite of my apparently good visual memory, I seem to
> "miss" noticing certain things in my surroundings.
I seem to have to do something deliberate in order to notice more than a
few aspects of my surroundings. There's often a piece of my surroundings
that I'll latch onto visually, but for the most part it's an
undifferentiated thing (I can't come up with a better word than "thing".)
But the way my vision works, it seems to latch onto one object, and stay
there.
Oddly, later on, I can often move my mind around a map of a place and
accurately find objects there that I didn't consciously see at the time as
separate objects, and that I'm pretty sure I barely looked at at all. So
the information is, at least some of the time, getting into my brain; it's
just not getting in very fast.
(This seems true of non-visual things as well.)
If I could *deliberately* recall that stuff, I would have a very good
memory. Stephen Wiltshire seems to be doing something similar with his
drawings, but I could never do that (despite the intense familiarity of
the spatial (they seem to have a stronger spatial component than a visual
component, if that makes any sense) style in his drawings, I'm not that
great at art and I can't sketch from those recollections.)
>> But I've got this sort of moving-through-things map that contains spatial
>> data and a few sensory impressions, that works even though other things
>> disappear/appear/etc.
> I have the moving through things map thing, too. The only
> problem is, it doesn't seem to work outside after dark. I
> don't know why.
Interesting.
>> So the fact that this has been *studied* already is really intriguing to
>> me. I'd suspect I might have a developmental correlate to whatever this
>> kind of brain damage is called, in the same way that I have developmental
>> prosopagnosia and not brain-damaged prosopagnosia. (I don't know enough
>> to confirm that suspicion, but it fits the pattern until I have further
>> data.) I've *known* this pattern existed in myself, but I didn't know
>> that there had been shown any correlation.
> The condition that your inability to recognize objects seems
> most like is something called agnosia, which has several
> subtypes and can range from very severe to fairly mild.
I'd wondered about that.
>>>My books are in my car, in an attempt to force me into
>>>starting on my midterm paper tomorrow (due next Tuesday)
>>>while I spend the day at a friend's store. If you want some
>>>references, let me know, and I'll look them up.
>> I'd love references.
> Here are a couple:
<snip>
Looks like I'll be going to the university library sometime soon. Thanks.
Suzanne
> In article <3DAA6AB0...@yahoo.com>, Suzanne wrote:
>
> I don't have a photographic memory at all (my brother did, as a child).
> But I have an excellent spatial memory, although I tend to have a fairly
> bad sense of my own body in space.
>
I used to think that I had a pretty good sense of my
position in space, but I think that my views weren't
entirely accurate. I have no actual recollection of it, but
my mother has told me that I was very uncoordinated as a
child, frequently tripping, falling, and walking into
stationary objects. I started taking gymnastics lessons in
fourth grade, and liked it enough to take classes five days
a week for several years. In spite of this, I never made it
beyond "Level 3" on my high school's gymnastics team. (Level
1 was the highest, 4 the lowest.) Even then, I was only
level 3 for balance beam and uneven parallel bars. I was
*terrible* at vault. I was lucky to make it over the vault.
I always attributed it to difficulty with landing properly
(consistently) on the vaulting board and to not being a very
powerful runner.
>
>>It is only
>>after these things have come to mind that I am able to
>>remember what was said. It's actually a bit inconvenient,
>>because of the time it takes to go through this process.
>>
>
> I do something very similar with conversations.
You are the only person (besides me, of course) that I know
of that does this.
Suzanne
sggaB
> sggaB wrote:
> > In article <3DAA6AB0...@yahoo.com>, Suzanne wrote:
>> I don't have a photographic memory at all (my brother did, as a child).
>> But I have an excellent spatial memory, although I tend to have a fairly
>> bad sense of my own body in space.
> I used to think that I had a pretty good sense of my
> position in space, but I think that my views weren't
> entirely accurate. I have no actual recollection of it, but
I tend to lose body parts if I'm not paying attention to them (then they
go off and do their own thing). If I *am* paying deliberate attention to
them, I can be (or used to be able to be, is a more accurate description)
extremely agile at certain tasks.
>>>It is only
>>>after these things have come to mind that I am able to
>>>remember what was said. It's actually a bit inconvenient,
>>>because of the time it takes to go through this process.
>> I do something very similar with conversations.
> You are the only person (besides me, of course) that I know
> of that does this.
When I wanted to write some stuff down about experiences I'd had, I
actually went and divided it up into what room each experience happened
in, because it was the only memory device I had that actually *worked.*
So "this particular part of the hallway" had various experiences in it,
and so forth.
When I was locked up, there were so many bad experiences in so many
places, that I was careful never to walk in such a way that my position
would coincide with the very vivid "bad experience positions" that had
accumulated just about *everywhere*. I would walk by a spot and "see"
(not with my eyes) everything bad that had happened there in my presence,
so I also avoided looking at certain spots. I'm fairly certain they
classified this as hallucination, but in reality it was vivid spatial
memory.
Robin May
> >>It is only
> >>after these things have come to mind that I am able to
> >>remember what was said. It's actually a bit inconvenient,
> >>because of the time it takes to go through this process.
> >>
> >
> > I do something very similar with conversations.
>
> You are the only person (besides me, of course) that I know
> of that does this.
I do it too. Except with me it's a little bit different. I don't always
remember a conversation based on where it was. Often I'll remember the
conversation based on the place I was imagining at the time. So I'll be
having a phone conversation but imagine the view I'd get if I caught the
district line home from school and sat in the seats that go across the
carriage in the middle (actual example) and when remembering the
conversation the memories will be linked to that location. In the
example I gave I knew that the links were of my own making and the
conversation hadn't taken place there (sometimes I can't tell) because
the person I was talking to lives in another country and I'd never been
to my school with them.
Catriona Rochford
>In article <pan.2002.10.07.06....@spameater.com>, Hylander wrote:
>> On Sun, 06 Oct 2002 12:40:08 -0500, growingjoel wrote:
>
>> Yep. Maybe at least not until 9pm on Saturday. My typical days have
>> changed over time. I think it was rather interesting. I would like to put
>> up something similar on the newsgroup. I often wonder what a normal
>> person's days are like.
>
>I think it's interesting to read other people's days too, so I'm also
>writing out a version of a couple of my days (modeled after Joel's "day 1"
>and "day 2".) Like Joel, I also have no clue what would other people
>would find interesting, so apologies if I got bogged down in boring
>details. It did end up much longer than I expected.
I'm absolutely miles behind here, but thought the typical day
descriptions were really interesting, so I'll do the last few days, if
I can remember them well enough :-) Have to say I hadn't realised just
how difficult day to day life is for some autistics before reading
this thread - my life probably seems pretty "normal" (or just boring
;-)) in comparison! ;-)
Day 1
Saturday, which should be lie-in day, but Mike got a new job a few
weeks back (pays much better than the old one, but apparently he has
to work a lot harder too...), and he has to work one in four
Saturdays, with the interesting hours of 8am till 2pm, so the alarm
goes off at 7am - ouch! :-( Drag myself out of bed ten minutes after
he's already up and dressed, and hang round the living room while he
eats breakfast. I'd usually go online and read e-mails, etc, but I was
trying to install a new graphics card the night before, without much
success, so the computer's sitting on the floor unplugged at the
moment, in the hope that The Phantom Lurker can come up with a way of
getting it to work (he's given me tons of help in my various upgrades
recently - thanks!) Have a quick look at a couple of message boards
through Mike's computer, but nothing much is happening, so get bored
rather fast ;-) Mike has to leave at quarter to eight to reach work on
time, so I say goodbye with a hug and a kiss, then give him a wave
from the window as he drives off up the road, before deciding I'm
pretty tired, and going back to bed.
Next thing I know, the front door opens, and Mike's back home again -
six hours later! Well, I'm pretty refreshed from all that sleep,
anyway ;-) Give up on the graphics card for now and reinstall the old
onboard one (at least this one *works*, even if it's not very good!)
so I can get back online... a motorsports message board that me and
Mike use quite a lot has finally come back online after two weeks of
downtime, so we have a look round there, and I do a post that I've
been trying to do for two weeks about a new website we've created
about the Scottish club racing... there's some interesting politics in
here, as I was intending linking the new site to the message board I
was advertising it on, but got a bit sick of it not being there for
two weeks, and made a new board with another provider as an
alternative, and although no-ones said anything specific about it, the
moderators of the first board are being pretty bitchy towards me and
Mike just now, so I think they don't like it :-/
Can't remember much more of what I did that day... kept an eye on the
football results (my team lost 2-0 to a smaller team, while Mike's
team won 5-1!) and just stayed online for most the rest of the day, I
think... we couldn't be bothered cooking anything for dinner, so went
to the chip shop instead, taking our usual half hour or so to decide
what we were eating, though at least it didn't turn into an argument -
we've been known to waste over two hours arguing over what to eat
sometimes! Thankfully that's not too often... think we can both be a
bit stubborn at times, though ;-) I wasn't feeling too well in the
evening, so lay down in bed for a couple of hours in the evening...
Mike came through to try and cheer me up a bit, but I somehow managed
to start an argument that seems pretty pointless now - can't even
remember what it was about, tbh! Made it up pretty fast, though, and
just spent the rest of the evening talking and looking at the net
after I got back up, before finally going to bed properly at about
1am.
Day 2
Sunday morning, which usually means a lie-in, except that I woke up at
about 9am, and ended up waking Mike up too with my moving around -
oops! Just lay in bed talking for a couple of hours, then Mike got up,
but I didn't quite succeed in getting out of bed, so I turned round
and curled up at the foot of the bed so I could see through the door
to the living room and talk to Mike as he was online, and telling me
what was happening (a couple of people, including a racing driver, had
found our new site and message board, and seemed to like it :-))
Eventually got up at about midday, and went online as well, wandering
round various sites and message boards, and talking to Mike about the
sites we both use. Came up with the idea of baking some potatoes
(which had been sitting in the kitchen for ages, and should probably
be used before they start growing, like the last bag did) for lunch,
but then left it too late and had to search round the cupboards to
find some food... the bread was two days past its sell-by date, as was
the ham, which we thought of having with pasta... ended up heating up
a couple of tins of ravoli and eating them, as being the only food we
could think of that was quick and easy!
After lunch, it was about 3pm, and Mike does online racing most
Sundays, so it was time for his practice sessions before the race. I
used to be pretty resentful of his racing, as it took up quite a bit
of his time, but I'm getting to like it more since I can see it, and
I've actually signed up to join a lower division of Mike's league for
next season, which is partly the cause of all my computer upgrades, as
it was only *after* I signed up that I found my computer won't run the
bloody game!! ;-) Anyway, I spent the afternoon watching Mike's racing
(sadly spoilt by a bug in the game which lost him 17 laps :-( ),
before looking round the league forum and doing a couple of posts.
A few days earlier, there'd been a bit of a mix-up, and it'd seemed
like the division I was going to join wouldn't actually happen, so I'd
pulled out of the rookie test I was due to do tonight, out of
disappointment, but it seems the league likely will happen (or will if
Mike bangs enough heads together - the lack of communication between
the guy supposed to be running the division and the guy running the
overall league has to be seen to be believed! We're hoping it can be
organised so Mike takes over the division soon, otheriwse it's not
going to happen, I think...), but I figured if I was posting on the
board I'd better mail back and say I'd be back in for the following
test, but hadn't really done enough practice for this one... the next
thing I know, half an hour before the test is due to start, I find an
e-mail telling me to do it anyway!
Panic ensues, and I go to do a bit more practicing, while being
pretty worried that I'll make a mess of things, considering my
previous test race (ruined by horrendous connection quality) wasn't
exactly great, and my confidence was around zero... however, when I
got out there I found I was doing a lot better this time, and while
not exactly quick, I was dealing with other cars a lot better, and
managing to keep the car under control, which was more than most
people were doing :-) Had a great time doing that race, despite it
being such short notice, and my strategy (hardly through choice - I
wans't quick enough to do anything else!) of conserving the tyres so
not needng to make a pitstop meant I finished the race in third place
out of 13! Not surprisingly, that left me feeling pretty happy :-)
By this time, it was almost 9pm, and again we couldn't be bothered
cooking, so decided to go to Pizza Hut for dinner this time (we do
cook occasionally, honest!) When we got there, the first waitress told
us they only had one kind of pizza (not the one I wanted), in
individual size only... she'd gone by the time I took this in, and my
stubbornness with changes of plans came through, as I got in a bit of
a bad mood over it... of course, when something I want falls through,
I then decide I don't want *anything* other than what I originally
wanted, which isn't too helpful when I'm already hungry! Luckily a
different waitress came along and told us there were at least medium
size pizzas (designed for two to share) available, if not of the kind
I wanted, so I calmed down enough to accept the compromise with no
further problems, and enjoyed the rest of the meal out.
After we finished our meal, it was back home again, and we just spent
the rest of the night online, before going to bed at about half past
midnight, as Mike had to be up for work again the next morning.
Day 3
(Today) As usual, woke up far too early when the alarm went off at 8am
(I'm not a morning person...), again, Mike got up a good bit faster
than me, and I just dragged myself out of bed in time to say goodbye
as he left for work. Stayed up looking round the net for an hour or
so, then went back to bed and slept till Mike came in for lunch at
about quarter past 1. Didn't wake up fast enough to have lunch with
him, but at least had 20 minutes with him before he had to go back out
again... since then, carried on looking round online, then thought to
take a look at asa for the first time in ages and found well over 3000
posts waiting for me - started reading through them, and here I am now
;-)
Sorry about the length of this - got the feeling it'll have been
pretty boring for most of you!
--
Catriona (18, AS)
Remove obvious spamblock to reply
Ian Sharrock
I'm glad it's not just me :-)
I can look at a piece of working code that runs like a dog, but I look
at it and my brain seems to act like the database engine it's using.
I don't know how it works, but my mind just brings out a thought that
says "you should do it *this* way". It's like I get an image in my mind
- a roadmap going up, down and sideways through the data. The nearest I
can describe is trying to navigate a fully grown Monkey Puzzle tree.
Grammar mistakes also drive me mad, but that's because one of my English
teachers was a complete hard b***ard :-)
Ian
--
"You're not one of us."
"I don't think I'm one of them, either," said Brutha. "I'm one of
mine."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Ian Sharrock
>don't match where they are in real life; nor are the lines drawn to scale or
>with all the bends and wiggles. However, if you know roughly where your
>station is, you can find it on the map, and the map depicts which lines go
>through what stations.
A hint for people visiting London; Alun is right. The map is a
wonderful interpretation of where the stations are to help people
navigate, but in no way matches the geography.
When I worked there, I found that stations on the map that looked to be
miles apart were actually very near by on foot.
Invest in a street map and you may be able to save a serious amount of
money through a five minute walk, rather than using the tube.
NatureloverChris
>
>Sorry about the length of this - got the feeling it'll have been
>pretty boring for most of you!
>
Welcome back! I liked it, but how does the online racing work? Also I am
curious do you have a job or go to school. I think your done with school, but
my memory is crummy about these kind of things.
Curious Chris
Catriona's Mike
"Catriona Rochford" <catrion...@totalise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:m6mqru47a9pj8564n...@4ax.com...
> On 7 Oct 2002 18:22:27 GMT, sggaB <ama...@autistics.org> wrote:
> Saturday, which should be lie-in day, but Mike got a new job a few
> weeks back (pays much better than the old one, but apparently he has
> to work a lot harder too...),
It's true y'know - I deserve so much more respect and admiration ;)
> Next thing I know, the front door opens, and Mike's back home again -
> six hours later!
*sigh* Think she'd do more with her day than sleep, wouldn't you ;)
> new website we've created
> about the Scottish club racing... there's some interesting politics in
> here, as I was intending linking the new site to the message board I
> was advertising it on, but got a bit sick of it not being there for
> two weeks, and made a new board with another provider as an
> alternative, and although no-ones said anything specific about it, the
> moderators of the first board are being pretty bitchy towards me and
> Mike just now, so I think they don't like it :-/
or in layman's terms, they are being small minded morons about it -
everything we've posted on their board recently has been
picked to pieces and turned into criticism towards them and whilst some of
it was in a way, we certainly weren't "slagging them off" as quoted from an
unasked for email from one of the moderators. And all because we've created
a small forum that a tiny amount of their massive user base might look at
now and again.... I believe the word is "petty".
> Can't remember much more of what I did that day... kept an eye on the
> football results (my team lost 2-0 to a smaller team, while Mike's
> team won 5-1!)
A good day then...... ;)
> we've been known to waste over two hours arguing over what to eat
> sometimes! Thankfully that's not too often... think we can both be a
> bit stubborn at times, though ;-)
"Quite fancy this."
"Don't like that"
"Can't be bothered cooking that"
"Don't want to go there cos I can't decide what to have"
"Don't feel like that"
"Don't feel like anything. But I'm hungry."
ad infinatum.
> the bread was two days past its sell-by date, as was
> the ham, which we thought of having with pasta... ended up heating up
> a couple of tins of ravoli and eating them, as being the only food we
> could think of that was quick and easy!
I dread to think what we'll find wandering around the kitchen one day - the
food will get left for further and further past sell by dates and new life
will be born in our cupboard....
> A few days earlier, there'd been a bit of a mix-up, and it'd seemed
> like the division I was going to join wouldn't actually happen, so I'd
> pulled out of the rookie test I was due to do tonight, out of
> disappointment, but it seems the league likely will happen (or will if
> Mike bangs enough heads together - the lack of communication between
> the guy supposed to be running the division and the guy running the
> overall league has to be seen to be believed! We're hoping it can be
> organised so Mike takes over the division soon, otheriwse it's not
> going to happen, I think...)
looks like I'm going to be the head-honcho there now... time to abuse my
powers! ;)
but I figured if I was posting on the
> board I'd better mail back and say I'd be back in for the following
> test, but hadn't really done enough practice for this one... the next
> thing I know, half an hour before the test is due to start, I find an
> e-mail telling me to do it anyway!
Yup, the guy who runs the rookie training and so forth basically told her
what I'd been trying to tell her all along, i.e " stop doubting yourself and
just get on with it, dammit!!" ;) Think the 3rd place of 13 runners told
the story. :)
> By this time, it was almost 9pm, and again we couldn't be bothered
> cooking, so decided to go to Pizza Hut for dinner this time (we do
> cook occasionally, honest!)
we do?? ;)
>When we got there, the first waitress told
> us they only had one kind of pizza (not the one I wanted), in
> individual size only... she'd gone by the time I took this in, and my
> stubbornness with changes of plans came through, as I got in a bit of
> a bad mood over it... of course, when something I want falls through,
> I then decide I don't want *anything* other than what I originally
> wanted, which isn't too helpful when I'm already hungry!
somewhat frustrating when that happens as I immediately go into "compromise
and try and sort out the situation" mode where as Catriona goes into a kind
of stubborn "but I wanted that and nothing else" type of mode. Obviously
it's one of those things and I just have to live with it really, but it can
be a bit difficult if we then have to make another decision fairly quickly
and Catriona's mind has closed the 10 foot gates and released the guard dogs
to intercept any alternative ideas. ;) She's certainly trying her best to
compromise a bit more but I know it's not easy so I'm getting to understand
it (probably cos it happens so often! ;))
Mike
Catriona Rochford
(NatureloverChris) wrote:
The online racing basically works with about one game (NASCAR Racing
2002 Season, if anyone's interested), which has a multiplayer function
that lets you connect to a server... up to 42 other people can connect
to the same server, and you can all race against each other that way -
rather than racing against computer cars, the game shows what all the
other cars are doing :-) The one problem with this being that you need
a decent connection... ADSL's great, but 56k dial-up is *not*
recommended! ;-) It's good fun, anyway - I never really knew what it
was like till the other day, but I'm *definitely* wanting to carry on
now, to the extent of spending *another* £200-odd on upgrading my
computer so the game will actually work... already spent almost £200
on various things for it, and I'm still having to use Mike's computer
at the moment! :-/ There's a bit more info about my racing, and a
couple of pictures of the cars at
http://www.knockhill.plus.com/team_ecosse/index.html - that's a
website I made for the team me and Mike will be running in next year
:-)
As for work, I just stay at home and live on benefits, luckily...
haven't a clue how I'd cope with work, so I'm hoping I'll never have
to!
NatureloverChris
>nd of things.
>
>The online racing basically works with about one game (NASCAR Racing
>2002 Season, if anyone's interested), which has a multiplayer function
>that lets you connect to a server... up to 42 other people can connect
>to the same server, and you can all race against each other that way -
>rather than racing against computer cars, the game shows what all the
>other cars are doing :-)
It sounds like fun!
>
>As for work, I just stay at home and live on benefits, luckily...
>haven't a clue how I'd cope with work, so I'm hoping I'll never have to!
Sounds nice at the moment.
Chris
Catriona Rochford
(NatureloverChris) wrote:
>Catriona wrote:
>>The online racing basically works with about one game (NASCAR Racing
>>2002 Season, if anyone's interested), which has a multiplayer function
>>that lets you connect to a server... up to 42 other people can connect
>>to the same server, and you can all race against each other that way -
>>rather than racing against computer cars, the game shows what all the
>>other cars are doing :-)
>
>It sounds like fun!
Certainly is, though spending the best part of £400 on upgrading my
computer so it'll play the ****ing game isn't quite so good... though
at least I'll have a far better computer once I'm done! ;-)
--
Catriona (19, AS)