http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/02/nightmare-playgrounds.html
Have a look. I personally don't agree with the author of the above post that these playgrounds are all "in poor taste" or ugly, etc. Some of them are really cool. But some of them are also downright scarring.

Darn it, the Godzilla movie took longer then I thought it would and now my whole evening's gone. Well, I meant to write a long post, but I haven't time before bed now (it's nearly 10!), so I will settle for a short one.

1. Mom got a cheese-making kit. She's always loved making food from scratch- she makes her own bread, right down to grinding her own flower, and she's made cheese before. She was so excited when the kit came, because it included cultures and instructions for all sorts of things she'd never done before, including creme fresh and Mascarpone, which got her squealing with glee. It's nice to see her so happy.
She made chevre today. It's delicious.

2. I ate three whole servings of fruit for lunch! I made a fruit salad for me and Ari, and it was chock full of goodness. I'm very pleased about it because one of my health goals is to increase fruit and veggie consumption and I have been failing miserably.
Actually, over the past week or so I've been really struggling with my diet again. I'm doing OK, but it's taking a lot of effort to eat enough.

3. I made a new pair of earrings today. Except for a necklace I struggled with on-and-off for months before completing it, I haven't made any jewelry at all this year. I'm very pleased about that, too. Hopefully I'll be able to fit more of my relaxing hobbies into my afternoons as I get better at managing my time.

4. I'm angry with myself. I helped organize our local Improv Everywhere seed group into doing a "Freeze" event, which is planned for next week (not telling you when or where!), and now I can't go. My mom bought me tickets for a show I want to see on the same day, and although I had time to ask the group to reschedule the freeze, I forgot. Now I don't have that chance. I will simply have to miss it, and it's something I've been really, really looking forward to, something way cooler than anything that's happened here before. :(

As you may or may not be able to tell from the title of this entry, I had an "episode" last weekend, a sort of "relapse" if you will, to every mental and emotional problem I have ever had. This all happened over the course of approximately three days, after a week of struggling with increased executive dysfunction but no other problems.
I will not go into details- suffice it to say that I have some idea of things that may have exacerbated the problem, but not what caused it, if anything did, and that I'm OK now.
I will describe the aftermath, though.
On Sunday night, in the midst of the absolute worst moment of all of this, I made a plan for myself. I said I would not use the computer at all, unless I had completed everything that needed to be done, until I was over this.
On Monday, I was as close to perfect as I ever get. It was great- I accomplished all but one thing on my to-do list, averting a near disaster, I felt much better, I was nice to people, everything.
On Tuesday, I started to lose that. I returned to a state (which I remain in) of fatigued, distractible optimism- not ideal, but capable of functioning effectively. I have continued to be good about executive functioning tasks, although I'm having more trouble with it, and I continue to be mostly in a cheerful mood, despite setbacks.
Yesterday I had one of my irrational crying-over-something-incredibly-minor-that-Ian-said episodes, which lasted much too long, but I was cured by the power of adorable fuzzy baby bunnys (no, really- my little brother's teacher has this rabbit that gave birth, and my mom took me to his school to see them, and I cuddled them for an hour and I felt completely better, better than I have felt in a while). I continue to feel good, if slightly unstable.
I firmly believe I'm over the worst of this episode, and even if I continue to waver emotionally over the next few weeks, I feel confident in my ability to deal with it and prevent it from affecting my schoolwork. I'm proud of myself for having reacted quickly and effectively, for dealing with the problem before it got out of hand, for doing things even when I lacked willpower. I feel that this is proof that I have learned how to cope with these issues, not just to ride them out. I feel confident that even if my future is not all bright sunshine and rainbows, I can deal with it without letting things spiral downwards.
:D Go me!

(4-weeks into the semester, my grades: B in math, C+ in painting (I couldn't find anything to sketch. n_n ), A in everything else)
(further lifey-updates are forthcoming... lots to say)

About going to sleep, that is. Dang it, I keep thinking. Thinking is a nasty habit which ends up keeping me awake in front of a computer screen for waaay too long.
Anyway, I was thinking about the Neurodiversity Movement course I am making on Wikiversity. I was trying to think up ways to improve the course (because frankly, what I'd already written was crap), and I did come up with some ideas, and I changed what I already had to reflect those ideas. I'm much more pleased with it now- except that, because it's now discussion-driven and student-led, it relies on participants, and I don't really have any. A few people have expressed interest but not really seemed to be into actual participation. Well, maybe this will draw them out.... we'll see.
What I did was to offer a brief description of the different concepts of what, at its most basic level, a neurotype truly is, and then ask the participants to discuss those ideas and decide what they believe. After they discuss that, I'm hoping to introduce an "assignment" (in quotes because it isn't *really* an assignment, per se, it's just similar), wherein they would go out and research a condition that they believe should be considered a neurotype and write a brief piece on why they think that and what the condition is. Then these would be posted as part of the opening section of the class so that other students can read them and discuss them.
The goal is to encourage the participant to initiate their own learning, to find their own sources, reach their own decisions, etc. and not have anything force-fed to them. It is to simulate, in some way, the journey of discovery through books and across the internet that has been the basis for my own knowledge. I especially want them to come to realize that what people are saying in forums and on blogs is absolutely the best place to see the goals and values and thoughts of the Neurodiversity movement because that is where most of the movement exists. I want to get them participating and learning from that participation.
I also want to add more multimedia features to the course. I think that will come more slowly. I want to make sure, above all, that the course doesn't "die", i.e, that it continues to grow and hopefully to attract new participants, rather than being static.

As you can see (unless your computer doesn't support foreign script!), I have finally figured out how to get my computer to type in かな (Kana, the writing systems of the Japanese language), which makes me very happy even if I don't yet know enough to really make use of this feature. I can only say a few things, such as:
私はぜんぜん肉を食べません。(wow, it automatically converts what I type into kanji- I didn't know it would do that). Which means "I do not ever eat meat". And: 土曜日にコーヒーを飲みませんか？　(hmm, that looks like it might be the wrong kanji, but I don't know how to make it change...) Which means "Wouldn't you like to go get a coffee on saturday (with me)?" And I know some names of celebrities, because ブラウン先生 (Brown Sensei) talks a lot about ブラドピト (Bradd Pitt), ルイヴィトン (Louis Vuitton), and マイチェルジャクソン (Michael Jackson).
So now I can have clumsy and very brief conversations in japanese with Hilary, who is my Senpai's Senpai (I think that's how you spell it). You know, conversations that basically consist of "Hello. What did you do this weekend? I drank green tea. I also played video games. Would you like to see a movie on Sunday? Goodbye." Which looks like this in japanese:

”おはよう。しゅまつは何をしましたか？私はお茶を飲みました。私もビデオゲムをしました。日曜日に映画をみませんか？さよなら。”
Assuming I didn't get the word for sunday wrong. I may have. We just started learning the names of the days of the week.
Anyway, enough fun. I have stuff to do. Like sleeping. Actually, yes, I think that is what I will do now. Sleep is good.
(oh, and Julia, I got your postcards. Thank you, they are really nice! I will try to write back to you. Just a warning though, I have been meaning to write back to Hilary for months and her postcard is still sitting on my desk waiting for an answer.... so it may be a while).

1. I want to learn html, and wiki markup, and lojban, and many many other languages. I love learning languages. It's fun, I'm good at it, it's useful, etc. There are countless reasons. I think that I will be learning new languages all my life- I just cannot imagine ever not wanting to. Even if I couldn't pay for classes or other resources, I'd probably still borrow books from the library and visit websites and download podcasts and try to teach myself. I have a prioritized list of almost fifteen languages I want to try to learn, and even if I never learn all of them, I don't mind. Just trying is fun enough.

2. I think what I like best about Moog (my laptop) is how very convenient he makes everything. I can take him anywhere and keep doing what I was doing, I can do anything without bothering anyone, at any time I want, in privacy, and he has some cool features that make life just a bit easier for me. Like stickies. I have my stickies open in one space and the internet open in another. This is a feature of Leopard that I really like- I can have multiple applications open at different times and never clutter my desktop because they're open in different spaces. Then all I have to do is click on one and I switch spaces to look at it- then select the other and I move back. Anyway, stickies is useful to me because I frequently need to be reminded of stuff or I forget that there's anything I'm supposed to be doing. I have a list of all the books I have out that I want to read and I have reminders about important stuff (Buy an alarm clock! Your ATM is on thursday! You need to bring drinks to the next Advisory Council meeting! etc.) and notes about things I want to do if I have free time, and I'm teaching myself to look at the stickies anytime I have free time or feel bored or don't know what I should be doing next.
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I am naming my laptop Moog. I didn;t have anything in mind when I decided to name him this, but Wikipedia tells me that:

Moog may refer to:
Robert Moog (1934 - 2005), a pioneer of electronic music and inventor of the Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer, a number of analog synthesizers designed by Robert Moog
Moog Music, the American company founded by Robert Moog that manufactures Moog synthesizers
Moog (film), a 2004 film about Robert Moog
Moog Center for Deaf Education, a deaf oral school located in St. Louis, Missouri
The Moog, Indie rock band from Budapest, Hungary formed in 2004
Bill Moog, the inventor of the electrohydraulic servo valve and founder of Moog, Inc.
Moog Inc., a worldwide manufacturer of precision control systems
Andy Moog (born 1960), former NHL goaltender and current assistant coach of the Dallas Stars
MOOG, an astronomical software package for computing simulated stellar spectra
Philipp Moog (born 1961), German television actor
The Moog, a brainless character from the British animated series Willo the Wisp

I am pleased with the number of things Moog may mean, and to the music, TV, and the disability connections. But really, I wouldn't have cared what came up, I just like the sound of it. :)

I am writing to you from my very own brand-new macbook laptop. There are some things I do not like about laptops in general, and some things I do not like about this laptop in particular (although most of that has more to do with getting used to Leopard than it does with the laptop itself), but on the whole I am very, VERY happy to have it. Assuming I can solve the bug that is causing GIMP to repeatedly close after running for five minutes, I will be able to color my pictures in the comfort of my own room; I can do homework in bed, I can write stories in the back of Webster's. And even though I'm finding it difficult to adjust to the differences of Leopard (the laptop came with all the newest software), not to mention the weirdly spaced keyboard and the annoying mousepad, I think that the features will eventually seem more natural to me and I'll enjoy using them. It's good to get used to the keyboard and stuff, too, since that's something all laptops have in common and now that the school has laptops, I need to be comfortable using them.
I still need to upload all the stuff on the other computer to this computer, so i have my files and my folders and my bookmarks and my music and whatnot. But I'm having fun. :)

So, total birthday gift tally so far (my relatives are always late):
- Two wonderful books of japanese street fashion (mostly from the Harajuku district of Tokyo) from Julia
- A mushroom-shaped belt buckle from Julia
- A sweater with a skull on it from Ian
- $200 from Ian
- $100 from Mom and Dad
- $150 from Grandma and Grandpa
- $20 from Leif
- An UglyDoll (of the Ice Bat variety) from Ari
- A blank journal from TJ
- A shirt from Tiana

So, it's been a very pleasing birthday (of course, there was cake and good food and time spent with Ian, as well) with an unusually large and satisfying haul of presents. I am very happy. :)
Also, someone left a wonderful comment on my DeviantArt front page, which is awesome and very encouraging. And people reacted very well to my post there about men & skirts.
Unfortunately, it's almost ten and I still need to read a couple chapters of Of Mice And Men for school. Drat.

The most writing I did over the break was 1,645 more words in a story I promised myself I wouldn't work on until after I finish Sapphire Eyes. I worked on it anyway. If you don't like cliffhangers, don't read it.
(this is the old chapter and the new chapter I wrote, together):

Ali woke up propped against a wall. Someone was shaking her. “Ali. Ali, wake up.” The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
Opening her eyes, she found herself looking into violet-blue eyes. “Oh.” She yawned. “I was looking for you. I fell asleep...”
“What are you doing out here?” The boy demanded. “This part of the city is dangerous. You should go home.”
Ali blinked. “What home?” She wanted to know. “Surely you don’t mean the place where a man lives who did this to me.” She held up her left arm, which was bruised and bleeding.
The boy- Excalibur- caught his breath. “He didn’t.”
“He did.” Ali said, her voice shaking. “He’s been doing it for years.”
“Let me see.” Came another voice, and a black-haired girl stepped out from behind Excalibur, kneeling in front of Ali and taking her arm in her hands.
“Is it broken?” Excalibur asked her.
“Yes,” She replied, “But it should be fairly easy to heal. I still have some cloth left over from the last attack the Cobras made, I should be able to bandage it now.”
“Then do it.” Excalibur said.
“Wait, who are you?” Ali asked. “And how do you know it’s broken? What attack? Who are the Cobras?”
“Later.” Excalibur said, gently brushing the hair out of Ali’s face. “We’ll tell you everything once we’ve got you properly bandaged and take you home. Not,” he added, seeing her expression, “Back to your place. We’ll take you back to our home.”

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Should you be MALE or FEMALE?* created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Either You brain is neither specifically male, nor female in the way you perceive your surroundings. As bad as this may sound to some, it can easily mean that you are capable of combining both gender aspects to your advantage. Rather than being genderless you are possibly able think freely. This does not mean that you are bisexual or androgynous or indecisive, but it might. Either 82% Female 54% Neither 36% Male 36%

What a hell of a busy day. I will try to summarize.
Got out of bed at around 9:00 and got ready to leave; Mom dropped off Dad and Ari and took me to Barnes and Noble. She also dropped off the Van at the repair shop, because something's wrong with the water pump. It'll cost about $500 to fix. That's crisis 1.
Crisis 2 is the same one we've had for a while, with Grandpa and Grandma in OK. Appearantly, the woman who was looking after them lied to them, saying her partner was stealling money from them, to cover up the fact that she's been taking their prescription drugs. New twists in this story continue to emerge on a daily basis.
Crisis 3 was revealed to me on the trip to Barnes and Noble. Phyllis Little, my old math teacher and a family friend, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. It's early stages, so there's a very good chance they'll nip it in the bud, but she's going into surgery on Wednesday and she'll be in the hospital for 5 days.
So we bought books for her (and ourselves) at B&N. Then we went shoe shopping for me and I got a fantastic pair of brown boots, which is a huge relief because we thought it might take a long time to get a pair we were satisfied with (i.e, that is comfortable, practical, good-looking, and cheap). Then mom dragged me to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where we bought various kitchen appliances, we ate lunch at Faccia Luna, and came home. Crisis 4 was reported to us over the phone there by Grandma Joyce; Norman is in the middle of a huge ice storm which has left 500,000 people without electricity (that includes heating!), downed powerlines, and felled trees all over the place, including one that landed on my grandparents' driveway.
So, much is happening. Just wanted to keep you guys abreast of the situation. I'll try to post more regularly about everything. I have to go now.

I've been getting pretty good about opening iCalendar every day and writing a breif journal entry in the "notes" section for a day. Here's yesterday's entry and today's:

1.I think I did well on both tests[I had a math test and a japanese test yesterday]. I know that I didn't get complete credit on the bonus question for math, because I asked her[Mrs. Houck]. That was because I ran out of room and couldn't show all my work. However, I feel confident that my other answers will recieve complete credit.
In Japanese, I know I messed up the spelling of "Meari-san mo Amerikajin desu" and I couldn't remember the katakana for "nu", but other than that I did perfectly, so I expect an A- or A.
I did not have my proposal for Human Rights, but Lynda has no hard feelings, and during class I did come up with a new topic that interests me, so i'll write my proposal today and hand it in tomorrow. I'm doing "Human Rights and Education". It's a pretty broad topic.
I'm also enjoying writing my reflection for "The Curious Incident". I'm trying not to make it too long, but there's a lot to say, so it may be three pages instead of two. We'll see. I think Luke (the Student Teacher) would be thrilled anyway, so it's not like it matters if it's long.
This afternoon I also have to make some mashed potatoes for the Thanksgiving Feast tomorrow.
Oh, and Ian is having (another) spiritual crisis. I'm trying to help him, but it's not like I'm some kind of guru, so I'm never quite sure what to say and when I speak, I never quite say what I want to say. I'm trying to encourage him to stick to something for longer, and to, you know, actually have FAITH in his faith. He's very miserable, but he promised to try, and maybe it will help.


2. Today was pretty good. I forgot to ask Ian if I could go over to his house for dinner, so I'm pissed about that, but I enjoyed myself at the feast, got a lot of work done on my podcast, turned in my HR proposal, and just generally feel good. I also got to spend more time online catching up with stuff, and by the end of the break I expect I'll have completed or near-completed some projects. Oh, and this morning I cleaned up a bit more of my room.
I am out of St. John's Wort tea, I hope mom will get more soon.
I'm hoping to use the break to catch up with my ongoing, postponed projects at least a little bit, especially the ones that really *shouldn't* be postponed and the ones that are quick (after all, it's only five days!). Of course I want to relax, too, and exercise, and see Ian, so time constraints are more, well, constraining than I'd like.

I get really freaked out when people don't respond to me (especially since most of my social life exists completely online), hence the angsty-whiny-ness.

Anyway, it seemed like time for an update:

1. I got my grades back for the nine weeks and they were all As except for a B in math, which is still up from the B- I had last marking period. So that's good.
2. I'm on Food Bank committee, and we just ended the Thanksgiving Food Drive. We got 433 lbs, which I'm told is a little more than we got for the ENTIRE YEAR last year, so that is VERY good.
3. DeviantArt just changed the way its gallery system works. It's much more customizable, easier to navigate, slower to load, and also, I have to switch web browsers to view it. It's very annoying. I dislike it.
4. I have very little homework over the weekend, so hopefully I'll get to relax, but over Thanksgiving break I have to work hard on several large projects, including making my own podcast, which will be fun, but helluva difficult job.
5. I found out (while searching for free content to use in my podcast project) that if you go to Creative Commons's website, they have a built-in search engine that lets you search a wide variety of sites for free liscense material, including videos and music. And I found http://www.owlmm.com/ , which lets you literally use music clips to search for similar music, some of which is free liscense (some isn't). It's really cool, although I was annoyed when I found I had to pay to get one of the CDs I really wanted (which was liscensed under a creative commons non-comercial use share-alike attribution liscense). It's not so annoying that I have to pay, as that it seemed like it was free up until the last moment.

I'll try to update you guys more frequently. Lots of stuff happens that I forget to bring up because it's been so long since it happened. Anyway,
Sayonara. :)

Been feeling more upbeat and energetic, though life is no less stressful and hectic than usual. This is good because it means I accomplish more and feel better, but it's bad because when I'm like this I constantly want to be DOING something, and often that means starting way too many new projects and then crashing big time when I can't finish all of them. It wouldn't be a problem if it was only one or two things, but when it's a lot it's too much.

Some of my current endeavors, besides school:

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My dad had knee surgery yesterday. He's fine, just unable to move much for a while, which makes my already busy life a little more complicated.
Thankfully, I can smell halloween coming and therefore feel happier/more energetic/less stressed than usual. This is my favorite season!

Ian's brithday is tomorrow; I'm going to help set up the Haunted Granary with the other volunteers, Ian included, and then going back to his place with him for dinner and pumpkin pie, yum! I got him a set of lovely Elder Futhark Runes. I know he's going to love them! He's been wanting a set of runes for a long time, especially since he began practicing Asatru.

And I'm now also on Advisory Council as my clump representative. For those of you who don't go to my school: It would take FOREVER to explain the clumps and AC and whatnot, so suffice it to say that it's our form of student government. Most of the major decisions at our school are made by Advisory Council.
It's more fun than I thought it would be. Alex Coren was elected Chairman, and his speech was really funny. He's going to do a good job, I think.

There was something else I wanted to mention, but my brain is foggy so it will have to wait.
Anyway, it's almost eleven, so I'm off to bed.

Fall And Winter wear 3-done by *Luai-lashire on deviantART

I've sketched a whole bunch of things since school started (mostly during math) but I haven't had the time necesary to spend on the computer coloring them. My parents are going camping this weekend, so no one is here to yell at me to get off the computer, so I was able to finish this piece.
And yesterday I used some nice new GIMP brushes I dowloaded to make this lovely background for my designs. The hiragana spells out Luai (except that it's Ruai, because the Japanese have no "L"; however, the pronounciation is very close). Art is probably the single most relaxing thing EVER. I wish I could color this way without the nasty makes-my-eyes-burn computer screen, though. It's not even suposed to be able to do that- it's LED, it doesn't flicker like the old screens do.
Movie theater screens make my eyes burn too. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm staring at something which is emiting light. On the other hand, I can stare into a flashlight beam without pain. Who knows?

Oh, more clothes. I like clothes. You may have noticed.

1. I've been having fun lately sampling songs in the iTunes store. I don't buy them because I haven't got it set up to buy stuff. Yet. I asked my mom to do it but she wants my dad to make sure their credit card info will be safe.
I don't figure I'll buy much though. In cases where I want the whole CD I will buy a real CD from City Lights, our local music store. The guy who runs it doesn't get much business and needs all the money he can get.
I want a few songs from the Decemberist's CD "Picaresque", but not the whole CD. I want Joanna Newsom's other CD, "The Milk-Eyed Mender" and I want both of the Miyazaki soundtrack remix compilations I found. Well, "remix" isn't the right word. They're redone with different instruments, one with music box sounds and the other with the koto and shakuhachi.

2. I now subscribe to 7 free podcasts.
- Three are created by Scientific American magazine: 60 second science, 60 second psych, and Scientific American weekly podcast.
- Two are literary podcasts: EscapePod (scifi) and DrabbleCast. In October when PodCastle starts up I'll add that too.
- One is Mugglent's harry Potter podcast, MuggleCast.
- The last is NPR's podcast version of the news quiz show Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!
I justify this number of podcasts by telling myself I will listen to them every day on the way back from school, on the bus. And maybe while walking from the highschool to Delta every morning, after my first period Algebra 2 class.

3. I am an idiot and always think I will have time for projects I won't. Now I have decided to take commisions for jewelry. I don't know how easy this will or won't be to keep up during the school year. We'll see. At least I will make money off of it.

4. Ian is in West Virginia.

5. Seeing the "BRRAAAIIINNNSSSSS" kitty right next to the entry title "I killed my dinner with karate" is making me giggle.

6. I made a necklace for Ian's stepmother Mary. She commisioned it. She gave me a slab of green stone and a ring of rose quartz to use as centerpieces, and I strung them together with some old beads my great-grandma used to wear, real pearls, hematite, and some other stuff. I like it. It reminds me of Yoga. I don't know why. I think I'll charge her $14.00. My mom said $15.00 was too steep.
Now I have to finish Tiana's gothic choker and start Joy's. Joy is paying me. I don't know if Tia is.

7. Wikiversity is fun.

In addition to eating very little for lunch, I've broken my promise to myself and gone and joined another site. Wikiversity (www.wikiversity.org) is a wiki site for people to create, edit, and share courses with each other. It's actually much more complcated than that, but you get the idea. I was looking at it and was continuely frustrated by the occasional spelling error or gaps where someone had deleted important text, so I joined basically in order to make edits and talk on the talk pages. However, I do intend to read some of the articles (which are set up in segments like "courses", complete with assignments) to supplement my school learning. It's going to be a major time drain, and I have very little time to spend online, so I'm worried about it. I'm trying to think what sites I can bear to stop visiting, and I can't think of any. Here's a list:

- Webcomics:
Dominic Deegan, No Rest For The Wicked, Metanoia, Order of the Stick, Erfworld, Inverloch, Earthsong
- Forums:
AFF; occasionally I visit But You Don't Look Sick
- LJ communities:
Asperger, Aut_housework, Deegan_Fan, Ever_percieved
- Blogs:
NTs are wierd, Ballastexistenz, Left Brain/Right Brain, The Gimp Parade, 6yearmed, Short Sharp Science; and of course all my LJ friends' blogs
- Deviantart (it can take up to an hour just to get through my DA messages)
- Twitter
- Polyvore
- Fictionpress
- My e-mail

I think that's it in terms of things I visit regularly. There are other sites I visit intermintently as well. It usually takes as much as three hours to check all those sites, although Netvibes (www.netvibes.com) has saved me a little time by making it easy to see if any of the blogs have updated and whether there's anything interesting in my e-mail inbox.

In other news, Ian returns in five days. I am really terrified. I am trying not to think about it much.

I am going to be visiting my cousin for aproximately one week (we never set a return date for my trip, so I don't know exactly how long I'll be there, but I'll be back before Aug. 9th). I may have internet access while there, but I don't know how often I'll be able to get on, so..... we'll see.