next

So far, everything I've worried about has turned out to be nothing.  After acing the linguistic assessment on Monday, I just cleared the mathematics portion today.  It only went as high as elementary algebra, but I was given the option to start the test there, because if I did well enough on that part, I could skip the rest.

I did well enough.  Now, I just take my scores to the adviser on Friday.

(update: which was a catastrophe.  He called me a loser, and had me thrown out of the building.  Just kidding.  My advisory appointment went fine, too.  He was very helpful.  I'm now officially registered for classes.)

winging it

I have to take these assessment tests next, so that my adviser will be able to adequately advise me.  Tomorrow, reading and 'righting.  Wednesday, 'rithmatic.  There's an online sample of the test, so that I can gauge how I'd do.  Brush up on how to solve for x, if I need to.  I may not be able to wing math the same way, but I can still wing it well enough to throw off a test like this.

Not only didn't I make it through high school, but of everything I did learn, my memory is swiss cheese.  How many degrees must a triangle have again?  Dammit, I should know this at least.  90, 180, 270, but definitely not some random number like 175.  So I look at a question like this, 

The measures of two angles of a triangle are 35° and 45°.  What is the measure of the third angle of the triangle?  

A. 95°  
B. 100°  
C. 105°  
D. 110°

and just learned the answer to my question must be 180° given that 35+45=80, the only sensible answer to their question is B. 100° 

This is what I mean, by winging it.  Reducing questions to simple arithmetic and logical deduction.  Because it's multiple choice, sometimes the wrong answers give away the right one, or at least provide a good guess.  Often single digits, which I can estimate in my head without knowing anything other than what the symbols mean.  Not all these specific mathematical formulas that I don't remember, or never learned in the first place, because school was the same way.

I understand that college will be different, and I'll have to learn these things properly, regardless of the assessment.  I have to start all the way at the beginning in areas like math.  I think intermediate college level algebra or so.  If all goes well, I'll be at this for years, before I even get to doing anything more interesting, but part of my resolve has been an acceptance of that.  Used to be unimaginable to me, thinking that far ahead.

I'm nervous about these tests, in any case.  My technique for doing better than I should is unreliable.  This means I could also do terribly, unlike if I actually knew this stuff. Starting with non-credit courses just to catch up would not only suck for obvious reasons, but because at the very least, I know I can learn basics very quickly, on my own.  Give me five minutes in Google and I'll figure out what any other squiggly little symbols mean, too.  Not to prodigious mastery or anything, but enough to find the material appropriately difficult.

Especially since I'm only going part time for my first semester, giving me enough free time should I need it.  Then if that goes well, full-time, because I don't want to spend the next ten years learning elementary crap.  That was awful enough the first time.  I'm not concerned that my courses will be too hard at first, but too easy.  Too elementary.  

My resolve also involves being prepared to gut that out, but I'm nervous about the possibility it could all turn out much harder than expected, too.  I don't know how prepared for that I am.  It's a community college.  I can't even imagine it.  Just have to ace whatever they throw at me, so that I can use it to get me into a real college.

--
(update, scored 224 out of 240 on linguistics, so yeah, I'm fine in that area.  I'd have gotten a perfect score, but the test was wrong on a few of them.)

progress report

So far, each step has been easier than expected.  As far as school and financial aid, it's all been straight-forward, and much more simple than I was prepared to deal with.  Getting mental health assistance has been a bit more problematic, but so far I haven't really needed it.  I suspect it will be more important, when I'm attempting to start classes and all that.  About four months from now, so I have some time to prepare.

Have to take an academic assessment, and apparently, algebra has been a common stumbling block.  I have until Wednesday to figure out what algebra is¹ but on Monday, I have an appointment for the linguistic assessment.  I'll be surprised if I have any problems there.

I clearly have more of an aptitude for the latter, yet plan on doing as little of it as possible.  Whatever I choose to do, I'll always be able to write about it, but I'm much more interested in science.  While it's less intuitive than blogging, I've never really had problems with math.  Aside from not being able to just wing it the same way.

I'm actually looking forward to finding out how well I can make up that difference.  Given the STEM focus I'm going for, I'll have to start with a lot of math.

--
¹ I know what algebra is. 
From the Arabic al-jabr.  From the 9th century works of al-Khwarizmi, 
I'm pretty sure it has something to do with math.

growth and decay

I've been tired this weekend.  It's somewhat discouraging.  It reminds me of how little logic and reason mean, should I backslide far enough.  The allure of of comforting answers can be a strong one, as I tell myself that everything will be different now, but then life happens.

I try to keep track of every little thing that seems to help or harm, assessing my strategies of what I can handle, and how well.  Sometimes I've found that nothing I have any control over turned out to be enough.  Sometimes I could have been better at assessing what was helping, what wasn't, and what risks were just stupid.

I should not need the reminder that doing better has been quite difficult.  I'll try not to think about how it can also be quite precarious, but I can't forget that this is not an abyss I've ever quite made my way out of.  This is bound to make me prone to negativity about it.

Still, it's the effort itself that's important in life.  For all life.  We're either growing or we're dying.  Literally, each offsets the other and there is no in-between.    As I get older, making that distinction seems to grow more imminently important, but I also realize that I don't have to just passively watch in horror.

I have to remind myself that it's also the reason I write, so it doesn't even matter if I have nothing to write about.  This is the only thing that motivates me, when I have nothing else, but I've realized that I should be able to stretch it a lot further than I have been.  Least when I have the energy.

Maybe I'm declining because I haven't been running.  There isn't really any substitute for that.  Or because I have an appointment with VSAC tomorrow, and suppressing my anxiety has been exhausting.  This might seem to be a big step, but I think I'm all out of smaller steps, here.

As for being more social, those are even bigger steps, for me.  I can go back to worrying about that, once I'm on track with this education bit.  As far as helps and harms go, I think it might be important, too.

concrete steps therapy

I understand that I try to stretch definitions.  If it seems I don't understand, it's often more because I'm acutely aware of conventional understanding, but reject it.  I don't always make that clear.  In my perpetual struggle to get to the point as quickly as possible, I leave out all sorts of things.

Negative thinking is not always wrong, per se.  It's more likely to be accurate and rational than optimism.  Suffering is one promise that life always keeps.  It does in fact often suck.  It's good to be able to face that.  The delusion of negative thinking can be more a matter of focus.  We don't just take improbable risks because we're bad at math.  We can also do it believing that we can handle the likely outcome of life getting worse, just for the chance of having something positive enough happen instead.  Sometimes doing nothing is the worst thing you can do.  Sometimes failure, the best.

All these arbitrary values we assign to everything define the conclusions we draw. How we prioritize, or obsess, which consequences matter, which don't, and in what order.  What we want or fear, how much and why.  Negativity can be an overestimating of harms, a lack of interest in gains, the truth being a matter of interpretation in between, not so easy to pin down with strict logic and reason.

I need to figure out some rather concrete steps, and just found out about VSAC today, which looks like exactly what I was looking for.  Calling them makes me nervous of course, but what a lame reason not to do something.  I'll make an appointment with them first thing tomorrow.  I have to at least wait until I'm not stoned.

I've been trying to figure out what's really been at the heart of this change of mindset, and what mechanisms precipitated it exactly.  A lot's factored into it, but one thing in particular seemed to shift abruptly, and I think it might have been a letting go of this notion that I should be accepting of myself.  A point I've hashed over many times over the years.  This seems concerning, as it provides a sort of safety net, but there is nothing to accept.  No current state of affairs of intrinsic self-nature.  A pointless endeavor, like trying to accept wisps of smoke, exactly as they are.

The unique attributes of nature are no less unique for the fact that it does not stay that way.  A flowering plant will thrive as it sheds it's petals and keeps growing, or it will wither.  There is no staying the way it is.  Excuses for doing too much nothing aren't such a good idea, as I find myself abruptly appalled at the prospect of sloth.  I've been beating around the issue for years, while essentially embracing it as who I am.  Maybe it's not so unusual, as I have made some pretty sharp turns in my life before.  When I realize that I'm wrong ..and goddammit, I think I've been quite wrong.

No self-nature means no static nature to which we're bound: I haven't started reading again because my attention span is better.  Rather, because I realize that if I want to have a better attention span for reading, the obvious solution is to read more.  My mind still wanders, but come on.  It's not that difficult to at least make the effort.  It's not so important that I succeed, only that I keep trying.  It's like I just figured out what learning is.

Now that I've mastered this technique of reading human books, I think I should be able to transition into a higher function adult type person.  Learn Chinese just to visit China, if that's what I feel like doing.  Eventually.  For now, I'm still learning Russian, per my original intent to move to Оймякон.

Jogging when I can, hitting the bag more when I can't, calisthenics and stretching, cooking myself real food but also intermittent fasting, because why not.  Reading books, plural.  Even really boring ones.  Meditating every morning.  and night.  Clambering through the ice and snow into Burlington once or twice a week, and walking that little dog.

At some point, I'd like to be too busy to do all that every day.  Honestly, I'd like to be able to say that I've defeated mental illness, but I might be getting ahead of myself.

intention

"Do or do not. There is no try."  This suddenly makes sense, removing success or failure from the equation.  When doing is a matter of intention, and not the external objective it's supposed to accomplish.  You either intend something, or you don't.

Who to believe.. Yoda or Lao Tze?

Wondering what I'd posted about cognitive behavioral therapy exactly, I did a blogger search for 'cognitive.' A number of passing references, and one post on it specifically.  It made me realize just how much differently I'm thinking about it, and how there are a few different ways of interpreting what sort of behavioral changes we're talking about.  I've read about it some, but not at enough depth to get into specifics.

In one old post, I was thinking of it from the perspective of overcoming depression.  The idea being that doing happier things would lead to feeling happier.  Or the old familiar premise that if I'd just get up and get moving, I'd feel better.  This is a bit simplistic, but can be true, unless there's a physiological problem preventing it from being true.  All my references to physiology did remind me that I used to feel a lot worse all the time.

Understanding how neurophysiology is altered by behavior has a lot to do with my recent change of direction, though.  Understanding that these changes are very gradual.  It's not the impact of behavior in any immediate sense.  Doing things as part of an every day routine pushes our neurophysiology to adapt and get better at it.  This is what I've meant by viewing everything as practice.

I've also thought about behavioral therapy more from the perspective of anxiety.  If you expose yourself to anxiety provoking situations, you'll get used to it, you'll get over it.  This can be more universally true than the first approach, but it can be quite difficult and painful.  I'm not sure it's always the right solution.  I've realized that I don't like the emphasis on getting used to it, as I don't believe that will necessarily happen.  It might, but I can't count on it.  I need to be able to tell myself that this is all worth doing regardless.

Now, I'm thinking of it in terms of behavior, not to counteract negatives (anxiety, depression) but to build up positives.  That is, to do things so that I'll get better at doing things.  That may or may not involve any reduction in anxiety or depression, but I know that I really need to get better at this whole life thing.  I need to get better at navigating society, one way or another.  Of course that should in turn help with mental health, but that itself isn't the point.  Fixating on my problems like that would be kind of depressing, right?

In any case, doing so much nothing has made me terrible at doing things, and changing direction has been like trying to steer the Titanic, but I'm getting there.  In trying to read up on CBT though, I still don't know which of these angles, if any, it's supposed to involve.

cbtlicsw

Met my new social worker today.  She's a cognitive behavioral specialist, of course.  I think I might have blogged a bit on that subject once or twice before..  In short, I've had reservations, but I'm looking at it a little differently now.  It's not so much that I'm interested in 'getting better' by doing things.  It's more that I want to start doing things, 'getting better' be damned.

I'm so done with this.  If I'm being honest with myself, I must be at a point where I feel capable of saying that.  This is essentially the 'behavior' in CBT. I'm thinking about the goal differently, but maybe it is effectively the same.

I have more to say about all that, but I don't feel like saying it right now.  I still don't feel like posting much about anything anywhere.  Not sure where that fits into all this, but I'd rather go read a book.  Anyhow, have to go batten down the hatches.  There's a bomb cyclone a coming.

celebrating the new year like