![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Random
It's _really_ odd attempting to summarize my life for the past 15 years. Also, my life, when compared to 'typical' people, is really quite unusual. :)
There was sun for _days_. And it's starting to no longer be the worst part of sinter for me. Feels a rather lot like I've been asleep for months. But then, I was both overwhelmed on multiple levels _and_ dealing with winter. Which is not over, and which I'm sure I mill be reminded of soon enough. :)
Sometimes I find really absurd things to fret about. Usually, the best tack to take in those situations (if I can make myself) is to tackle them head-on.
It's interesting to try to find the line between 'useful things I know about myself' and 'because I believe this limitation exists, I won't be able to beat it'. For example, I have trouble remembering proper nouns (yes, this includes people's names). This extends to vocabulary, whether it be foreign language words, terminology, or pretty much anything where there is a word to learn that has no real reason _why_ it associates. This made such classes as Anatomy & Physiology (I&II) and Organic Chemistry _hard_. They had some bits that were about 'why' and not just straight memorization, but it was still an amazing amount of memorization of words that did not generally have any logic to them. I tend to use flash cards for this (both writing it out and reviewing them are useful).
But... it means that I am _so_ used to this as a known broken bit in my brain that I will get pretty much instantly frustrated if someone is trying to suggest ways to work around it. I suspect this is due to how much energy I've put into trying to figure it out and workaround it, but... how do I _know_ that someone else might not have a useful insight that will be helpful? For the most part, my reaction to this is that I spent most of my life fighting with this; what can someone else possibly know? Any random person, probably my reaction is reasonable, as long as my reaction remains not excessive in intensity. But what about people who study how people think or learn or remember?
What about my tendinitis? I'm pretty sure I know more than most doctors I've talked to, about my specific problem, and I get _way_ too many suggestions, even still, 2 years in. I _am_ improving, though. And sometimes I still get helpful suggestions from complete strangers.
Or my spatial awareness lack. Sometimes people are amazed that I can do [foo] without using multiple dimensions or visualization in my head, but I cannot figure out why it would be needed. So clearly, I can overcome it in some cases. And some people can explain things to me which I would expect to need functional spatial awareness or visualization. But most of the time, this is not so. Such things as torque _completely_ did not work in my head in Physics II in undergrad, because I could not find a way to understand it without spatial awareness. Same problem with trigonometry and matricies.
But at the same time, things I _do_ understand, I can explain. I can write instruction and why and such _really well_ if I know how it works. It won't be formatted in a pretty way (it'll probably be plain text), but the information will be there. And I write great docs, because I don't remember details - I remember concepts - so I write the details & the steps down for later use by me and by anyone else who needs them. And because I'm so easily confused (I do _not_ do a very job at assumptions, I begin to think), I will tend to find all the weak spots in others' explanations.
So the question here, for my memory for things with no reason why (such as proper nouns), and for my spatial awareness is this:
Where is the line between being realistic about the ways my brain does and does not work, and "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." (Richard Bach. Illusions, I think)
I guess as long as I remember to verify my expectations of how I do and do not work, and what I can and cannot do, I'll be alright. There are certainly things that I thought I was awful at that was proven wrong (writing coherently, for example. When I was still only writing by hand, the act of writing by hand always distracted me from what I was trying to say, so I would tend to lose track).
And one good thing about the winter crap (silver lining, much?) is that it makes me question _everything_ at least twice a year.
There was sun for _days_. And it's starting to no longer be the worst part of sinter for me. Feels a rather lot like I've been asleep for months. But then, I was both overwhelmed on multiple levels _and_ dealing with winter. Which is not over, and which I'm sure I mill be reminded of soon enough. :)
Sometimes I find really absurd things to fret about. Usually, the best tack to take in those situations (if I can make myself) is to tackle them head-on.
It's interesting to try to find the line between 'useful things I know about myself' and 'because I believe this limitation exists, I won't be able to beat it'. For example, I have trouble remembering proper nouns (yes, this includes people's names). This extends to vocabulary, whether it be foreign language words, terminology, or pretty much anything where there is a word to learn that has no real reason _why_ it associates. This made such classes as Anatomy & Physiology (I&II) and Organic Chemistry _hard_. They had some bits that were about 'why' and not just straight memorization, but it was still an amazing amount of memorization of words that did not generally have any logic to them. I tend to use flash cards for this (both writing it out and reviewing them are useful).
But... it means that I am _so_ used to this as a known broken bit in my brain that I will get pretty much instantly frustrated if someone is trying to suggest ways to work around it. I suspect this is due to how much energy I've put into trying to figure it out and workaround it, but... how do I _know_ that someone else might not have a useful insight that will be helpful? For the most part, my reaction to this is that I spent most of my life fighting with this; what can someone else possibly know? Any random person, probably my reaction is reasonable, as long as my reaction remains not excessive in intensity. But what about people who study how people think or learn or remember?
What about my tendinitis? I'm pretty sure I know more than most doctors I've talked to, about my specific problem, and I get _way_ too many suggestions, even still, 2 years in. I _am_ improving, though. And sometimes I still get helpful suggestions from complete strangers.
Or my spatial awareness lack. Sometimes people are amazed that I can do [foo] without using multiple dimensions or visualization in my head, but I cannot figure out why it would be needed. So clearly, I can overcome it in some cases. And some people can explain things to me which I would expect to need functional spatial awareness or visualization. But most of the time, this is not so. Such things as torque _completely_ did not work in my head in Physics II in undergrad, because I could not find a way to understand it without spatial awareness. Same problem with trigonometry and matricies.
But at the same time, things I _do_ understand, I can explain. I can write instruction and why and such _really well_ if I know how it works. It won't be formatted in a pretty way (it'll probably be plain text), but the information will be there. And I write great docs, because I don't remember details - I remember concepts - so I write the details & the steps down for later use by me and by anyone else who needs them. And because I'm so easily confused (I do _not_ do a very job at assumptions, I begin to think), I will tend to find all the weak spots in others' explanations.
So the question here, for my memory for things with no reason why (such as proper nouns), and for my spatial awareness is this:
Where is the line between being realistic about the ways my brain does and does not work, and "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." (Richard Bach. Illusions, I think)
I guess as long as I remember to verify my expectations of how I do and do not work, and what I can and cannot do, I'll be alright. There are certainly things that I thought I was awful at that was proven wrong (writing coherently, for example. When I was still only writing by hand, the act of writing by hand always distracted me from what I was trying to say, so I would tend to lose track).
And one good thing about the winter crap (silver lining, much?) is that it makes me question _everything_ at least twice a year.