Studying in the real world: AKA Perpetually Numb ( old or just clueless).

Being an autistic, being closeted, or out in the open has its stigmas.  You either explain your oddness or you lie low and hope that you aren’t singled out for being too weird. But secretly, you wish to be anonymous, no one taking notice of you; such as no one disturbing your work, or staring at how you walk or try to engage you in social banalities that you feel totally helpless in. I myself often don’t know how to appropriately react in social situations. I hate changes.  New things just make me dig my heels in not to like them.  If there ever was an ugly duckling, that would be me.   Despite my getting along well (My own way of keeping peace) I am the red headed step child in a world of dark haired children.  Or the ginger child as South Park would have you to believe.   So perhaps between being autie and being red headed has me singled out to just being odd period. Who knows, maybe I am just weird. To thyn own self be true.  So do I really need to change? God, the C word, change!  It causes angst even in the typing.

 

I guess I have a hard time convincing myself that I am really all that different.  After all, I am human.  Human beings have lots in common.  So why is it that we pick out the different ones?  We attack differences much like the weak and sick chick in the hen house.  To make ourselves seem to be strong and equal we mask our true selves daily, pushing aside our social bumbling and our angst that challenge our daily existence.  Is it really so difficult to accept that someone is awkward, or clumsy or shy? Is there any normal person that you know out there that doesn’t have at least one of these characteristics? Imagine being a student who won the lottery of all the characteristics…

 

All my life I have been studious.  I love reading books, using computers, learning my obsessive subjects.  I have great difficulty learning something I find boring such as math, or programming or other tedious subjects. As an artie autie rather than a technical one, I have always had much more of a grasp for the arts both language and manual. I love to analyze things, discover the reason why things are as they are and why something works.  I do tend to overanalyze though and sometimes don’t know where to stop.  I realize that I could probably learn programming, but I seem to have a mental block atm. The block is like a dull ache between the eyes, that nothing can penetrate. How can I release that block?  How can I make myself be open to liking new things? Perhaps it’s just stubbornness…Red heads are good for that. Auties are notorious for that.

 

 I want to go back to school once my kids are older.  But each year that passes, leaves me more and more technology impaired and current world events and history changes in the maps etc that I just don’t have a clue.  How does one go back to a school to relearn things you haven’t thought about in over 20 years?  Is it really that important?  Why is it so necessary to take core classes when they have nothing really to do with what you are majoring in?  Isn’t that what high school is for?  And why can’t you just take the classes necessary for the field you need?  Presuming that you passed high school, you should have a good basic grasp of math and English and Science.  I thought high school was to prepare you for college. I thought College was to give you a career.

 

These days, more and more studying is done online.  I think I could do that since now my children are a bit older and have learned not to be interrupting me every 5 minutes.  But then again, my son (my last baby) does love to mommy me to death so maybe later rather than sooner.  I guess what I am trying to say is that perhaps the online experience would avoid having to be in a classroom dealing with social awkwardness, the age gap dumbness and the physical disparity, especially being the older student at school..