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Hodor's Blog
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WOWZERS - Hodor updates his blog (and it's not all bad news)
posted at 06:37 pm on 08-14-2008
Intro
Ever since I started blogging a few months ago, I've always wondered what is the actual point of blogging? People rarely read other people's blog entries, much less reply to them. But now I've come to the conclusion that blogging is a way of converting your thoughts into written (well, typed) words. It's good practice for me, since I am crap at 'translating' my inner, semi-visual thoughts into coherent written language. Sometimes it's hard, but my creative muscles are finally working today.
Also, I'm gonna try to make at least one blog entry here a week, once I get Internet access again. I'm moving on the 18th August and probably won't get regular Internet access for some time, hence no blawgs.
Exam results
Here's some good news. My exam results came out today. I got two A's - for English Language & Literature and for Psychology. I won't get my Latin results for another week, since it's a different qualification (it's a GCSE rather than an A-level - if you're not British, you won't know what I'm talking about.)
Obviously I can't complain at getting two A's, but the build up to getting the results was nerve racking. I've waited for results countless times before, but the tension doesn't go away with age. I had to go into the College, find this tiny room tucked away down a long, dark corridor and tell the lady behind the desk my name. I had to stand there waiting while she sorted through a box of envelopes until she found the one with my name on it. Meanwhile, my heart was beating faster than a bongo drummer on steroids.
When she finally handed me the envelope, I opened it up and looked at the pieces of paper inside. Eventually, I found my final results printed in very small print, hidden amongst a list of module results and god knows what else. I'm sure the results sheets are printed in that way to torture us.
But hey, I got the results I wanted so it's cool.
House move
On Monday, I'm moving roughly 200 miles east to another village which is just as out in the sticks as the village where I live now. We (me, my parents, my sister) bought this house which was in a terrible state of repair, at a knockdown price. Before we could move into it, we had to have a lot of work done to it, and I mean a lot. My parents went down last week to see it again, and agreed that it's now vaguely habitable, so we're moving on Monday.
I've lived in this area most of my life, and it's where I was brought up and educated so it's gonna be strange moving to a totally new area. Additionally, I'm starting University in October, doing a 3-year course in Linguistics. This means I'm going to have to cook for myself, and learn some things which most people probably learnt when they were half my age, i.e. how to use a washing machine.
I hope that I'll find some good friends at Uni, so hopefully some people will see past my social awkwardness and shyness. I've been aloof for a while, so I'm gonna have to start being more outgoing again. I have a feeling that I'll enjoy Uni, but it could end up being hell. I'm trying to think of something philosophical and profound to say, but can't think of anything so I'll sign off now.
Jon.
(Comments)
A song parody - Plan My Route Home
posted at 06:00 pm on 05-22-2008
Plan My Route Home
(To the tune of the Doors song Light My Fire)
You know that it would be untrue
I know that you would be a liar
If you were to say to me, man
Drive straight into that mire
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
I just can't find the way alone
You know that it would be untrue
I know that you would be a liar
If you were to say to me, man
Drive straight into that mire
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
I just can't find the way alone
Oh, the time to hesitate is through
There's no time to shut yourself down
Some time soon I'll say to you
I'll throw you out of the window
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
I can't find the way alo-one
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Plan my route
Plan my route, yeah yeah
Mmmm, yeah
The time to hesitate is through
There's no time to shut yourself down
Some time now I'll say to you
I'll throw you out of the window
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
Come on SATNAV, plan my route home
I just can't find the way alone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All you've got to do is plan my route
You gotta plan it now
You gotta plan it yeah
Plan my route, plan my route
Whoa, yeah
Route, route, route, route, SATNAV
-----
This is a bit of a stupid blog entry, but I still feel much the same way about life as I did when I wrote zees, except most of my exams are over now. There's just two to go, and they're both in June, so I can relax a bit now. I can also afford to procrastinate once again, so all is well.
Weirdly, though, I just haven't felt with it today. I've been getting into my old habit of taking obviously non-literal comments literally, I haven't talked half as much as I normally do and I've felt generally sluggish and slow on the uptake. It's probably something to do with getting up at 7:40, since I've been used to having a little lie-in. Well, a big lie-in, as in, an 11 o'clock start. The early bird might catch the worm, but the late bird catches up on lost sleep.
Ah well, tomorrow is my last day at college. Which is sad, I liked it there. Like any 6th form college, it had its assholes, but I didn't have to have anything to do with them. Whether or not I'll keep in long term contact with any of my college friends remains to be seen. I don't keep in contact with any of my school friends, except from the occasional message on Facebook, but I had nothing in common with any of them. I hated the last two years of school, and just thinking about it still sends shivers down my spine. There are some things that are still too painful to write.
But this year's been a lot better in every way. You've gotta be positive, without being unrealistically optimistic about everything. I'm not the type to have masochistic tendencies, wearing a permagrin and being oblivious to the fact that life sometimes sucks, but seeing the positive side of negative situations isn't a bad place to start.
Talking of which, I'll be starting completely afresh in October: A 3-year University course in Linguistics beckons. Exciting times lie ahead for The Hod.
Peace,
Hodor
(Comments)
Facebook - what I think
posted at 06:36 pm on 05-11-2008
Hi! Before I go on any further, I should say that this isn't one of those angry rants saying how Facebook is a product of Satan and that it should be shut down immediately. Nope. I wouldn't be on Facebook if I didn't see some merits in it. However, I do have some problems with some aspects of the site, and that's exactly what I'm going to talk about.
Woo hoo! 800 friends! But do I know any of them?
It's great to be able to meet up with old school friends who you fell out of contact with, right? There are some people who are notoriously hard to get in touch with, and Facebook is a great way of catching up with them again. A new addition allows you to find people who you might know, if, for example, they have a large number of friends in common with you. Granted, it's never been so easy to keep in touch with all your old friends, as well as people who you're still in regular contact with.
Facebook also offers a wide range of groups to join. Some of them are quite obscure, such as the International Taxidermists' Society and the Udders That Look Like Countries. And we have numerous applications, which I'll talk about later. It's also never been as easy to organise events with your friends and tell them of your news. No other website offers quite the same methods of easy contact in a straightforward and (usually) glitch-free way as Facebook.
The problem is, Facebook can soon become a sort of popularity contest - spawning comments such as:
'Look, I've got 624 friends and you've only got 328!'
That's not the right attitude at all. It shouldn't be about 'gathering' friends, most of whom you hardly know anyway, just to get a high friend count. My friends list is restricted to around 80 people, and even then, I don't know some of them very well.
Maybe some people have been popular throughout school and really do regularly talk to all their friends, but I doubt it somehow. Most people have a wide circle of friends, and a much smaller group which is made up of people they know really well. Apart from sending application invites and occasionally saying hi, how often do we really talk to some of our Facebook friends? And did we ever really know these people? I can safely say that I do not regularly talk to about half of my Facebook friends. I never had much in common with them at school, and I do not plan to stay in long-term contact with them. Yet they are, supposedly, my 'friends.'
Despite what I said above, I find it hard to think of a good reason why it's wrong to add people who you went to school with, for example, even if you didn't know them very well. But it seems a bit superficial and pointless, if you were never good friends, and are never going to talk to them.
Annoying applications
Applications are one of the distinctive features of Facebook. We have basic necessities such as the Wall and other, funner ways of communication, such as the FunWall and SuperPoke. Then there's games such as Scrabble, Chess and Scramble. Beyond that, there are numerous personality quizzes, intelligence tests and trivia quizzes. Before you know it, you can easily end up with hundreds of applications, so that it takes other people's computers 5 minutes to load your profile. Older computers might even crash and have a nervous breakdown.
There is one thing that really gets on my wick. It's those quizzes where you have to invite a certain amount of friends to see the results. Why didn't they tell us before we took the quiz that there was a catch? Maybe some people don't have a burning desire to fill their friend's notification box with twenty pages of spam, just to see what serial killer they most resemble.
To be fair to Facebook, this situation has improved recently. Probably due to the success of various groups that were set up to stop this practice, I've seen less of those quizzes where you have to send out invites to see the results. Gone are the days where our notification boxes would be filled up with numerous personality tests, spreading through Facebook like the Bubonic Plague. Besides, most of them are completely pointless and inaccurate. If I took literally all the results of the quizzes I've taken, then I would be a cool, red, manic depressive, left-brained, right-brained super duper mom who resembles Montgomery Burns. Wow. That sheds a whole new light onto my personality. Again, to be fair to Facebook, most of these applications are developed by other people, and they're not meant to be taken seriously in the first place. But still, I'd rather not invite 10 friends just to find out what dictator I am.
~~::INTERMISSION::~~
It's not over yet, folks. Why not have a drink, sit back and relax for a few minutes. There's also ice creams being sold during the break.
END OF INTERMISSION - back to your seats
What privacy?
This is probably the biggest criticism that anyone can level against Facebook. It has already come under fire for revealing a great deal of personal information that can be viewed by all of their friends. This includes prospective employers - indeed, some employers check their candidate's Facebook profiles before giving them a job interview, and scarily, they might find out some things about their possible employee's life that they wouldn't have known otherwise. Incriminating photographs, for example, or certain things they're interested in, or something they've written on a friend's wall can reveal more about their lives than they'd want their boss to know.
To be fair, you can choose not to reveal certain details such as your age, location and relationship status. You can also limit your profile to certain friends, but it's still laughably easy to access parts of their profile they'd rather keep secret. Now I'm going to come to the defence of Facebook this time. If somebody chooses to post photographs of their last drunken night out, it's up to them. The very nature of Facebook means that you can't easily hide anything that you post up on there. If you write on someone's wall, it's there to be read.
On the other hand, some people might not be aware of this. They might not know that their every move is being tracked by a wise, though admittedly slightly obsessive, employer. Secondly, it's scary to think that your potential boss knows a lot about you before you even have an interview. It's possible that your Facebook profile does not paint a very flattering image of your personality. Should an employer really judge somebody by their Facebook profile? This is the internet, after all.
So...
Facebook is a very useful website, no doubt. I've criticised it, but there are also lots of things to praise about it. It's quick and easy to keep in contact with family members and friends who live far away; it's brilliant for joining obscure societies and finding people with similar interests; the various games and applications have brought a whole new level to the word 'procrastination.' Sure, it has its negatives, but I expect that Facebook will be around for a long time yet. Do I think it's been a good thing overall? Yes, I do.
Here is the end of this ridiculously long article. Thanks for reading.
FIN
(Comments)
Mishap of the highest order - a funny story.
posted at 05:53 pm on 05-03-2008
Sometimes life throws out some nasty surprises. Other times, it just pulls a stupid prank on you, like an eccentric postman who wears a bobble hat and knitted trousers, and everyone secretly feels sorry for. Today, this exact thing happened. To start at the beginning, a couple of days ago, I ordered a Leonard Cohen CD from Amazon for my dad's birthday, and expected it to arrive any time soon, wrapped up and covered in cardboard and duct tape. Lo and behold, today, it did arrive. Or at least, a CD came. I hastily took it to my room in order to unwrap it, and then re-wrap it in some blue wrapping paper that I've stored in my cupboard since the dawn of time. After finally extracting layer upon layer of cheap cardboard, like a slightly twisted variation on Pass the Parcel, I finally came to the CD, staring at me from its plastic case.
Except, it wasn't Leonard Cohen looking at me. It was the retro-cringe outfit Air Supply. Unless Cohen's had that much cosmetic surgery and split into five different people, I was pretty sure it wasn't him. If that wasn't evidence enough, the writing on the CD did indeed say Air Supply - Lost in Love. Bummer. This wasn't what I expected, and it definitely wasn't what my dad would want.
After recovering from the horror of receiving the wrong CD (and Air Supply at that,) I decided to do a bit of detective work. I logged onto Amazon and looked at the CD's I had most recently ordered. The most recent one was Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs. No mention of Lost in Love ever having been ordered. Hell. Seems like Amazon's had a rather extreme brainfart. I wrote a very quick email to Amazon customer support, explaining the problem, regrettably in a polite and non-sarcastic tone, not expecting a reply within the next fifty years. To my utmost shock, they replied within two hours. It went something like this:
'Dear [Customer]
Very occasionally, our database makes an error which causes the wrong item to be sent to the wrong person. We are currently in the process of checking your order, and we will ensure that the correct item is sent to you without further inconvenience.'
You better had do, mate. My dad will be about as happy with receiving an Air Supply CD as he would with receiving a flat-pack electric chair. I was about to log onto Amazon, and a terrible thought came over me. I had forgotten my password. My account is fairly new, and it takes me about a year to memorise a new password. I opened up the Recycle Bin, hoping that I had saved it in a text document before feeding it to the computer's landfill site (aka the recycle bin.) I came across a text document with a promising name, expecting to open it up and find my Amazon password. In my typical fashion, I had clicked on the wrong button, and a message came up, saying 'Are you sure you want to delete all 7,421,353 items?' Not thinking, I clicked yes. Bye bye, text document. This wasn't going at all well. Luckily, it was at that moment that I remembered that I could go onto Amazon, type in my email address and request a new password. I was just about to do that when...
The computer crashed. Okay, it is five years old, and it's been used more times than an iron maiden during the Spanish Inquisition, but it could have chosen a better moment to crash. I mean, it could have had the common courtesy to tell me that it was getting a bit overworked and needed a short break, but no. It closed down all the windows, froze and sat there, whirring. After pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, kicking (not literally) the damn machine back into life, and re-opening Amazon, I hoped that nothing else would go wrong. I managed to get a new password, and was about to check my order, when I saw that I was suddenly staring at the desktop. The computer had crashed again, closing all the windows in the process.
I don't know what the point of this article is. I think it might be something to do with the fact that computers are always more likely to crash when you're in the middle of doing something important. Or perhaps I'm secretly expressing my desire to become a hermit; leaving the stresses of modern life behind, and have a diet consisting of earthworms, oak leaves and wild strawberries. Yum.
The latest update in this thrilling story is that Amazon confirmed that they sent the wrong CD, and they promised that I would get the proper one within 3 days. I can send the Air Supply CD back without charge, but more than anything else, I have an overwhelming desire to burn it and pour the ashes into the river.
I am not making this up.
(Comments)
What do I want from life?
posted at 05:52 pm on 04-27-2008
First of all, I apologise to all the people who read my blog. This entry has been a long time in coming because I've had a busy week, yet there hasn't been much to talk about. Exams are fast looming, and you can just imagine my joy when I found out that 7 of my 9 exams are all in the space of one week. There's going to be a lot of cramming to do, and I worry that my already overworked brain might just give up, walk away and leave the country. The other two exams, by the way, are a whole month later.
So back on topic, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Actually, I've been doing a lot of thinking for a long time, but my recent ponderings have been about what I really want from life. My ambitions, hopes and dreams, and such.
As you might know, I don't have any close friends outside my family - either in the real world or online. It's not that I don't want to have any friends (I'm always up for a chat on MSN,) it's just that as soon as I get an opportunity to make a new friend, or to take a friendship to a deeper level (not necessarily in romantic terms,) I get a feeling that says 'I just can't be bothered with this - it's better being alone.'
At the same time, I don't want to be alone. I want friends. People who I can talk to, laugh with and annoy. (Joking about the last one.) Yet I can never make that step into the unknown, probably because I've never done it before. I honestly don't know how to build up a meaningful friendship, and that hurts a lot.
It's not that I even have severe communication difficulties. True, I find it very hard to speak out or write down my thoughts; I think in ideas and concepts rather than words, so even writing this blog entry involves a sort of translation exercise from my thoughts into words. Nevertheless, I can talk to people, hold my own in conversations and I'm even getting quite good at initiating conversations, at least with people I know. But it's like there's a wall outside me that I want to knock down, and I want other people to knock down. I wish so much that I could knock that wall down, but it hasn't happened yet.
I'm going to University later this year, and I've decided to live in Halls, even though my parents will only be a few miles away. I'm hoping my University experience will save me from perpetual loneliness. I'll be forced to do constant social interaction, and hopefully I'll meet some like-minded people. I will also have to learn a lot of new skills (including, horror of horrors, cooking!) It's my hope that people will accept me for who I am, but what next?
You see, after University, I hope to get a job, meet a girl and build up a good circle of friends. I just can't see that happening now, though. I'm terrible at managing things, speaking my feelings and interacting with others on a deep and meaningful level. Perhaps that will change over time - I hope it does. Being a loner for the rest of my life isn't a prospect that appeals.
So that's me done for now. Thanks for reading :)
Peace.
(Comments)
Another egocentric kind of blog entry.
posted at 06:59 pm on 04-16-2008
Yeah, hi. I can't believe it's been nearly a week since my last entry - but time always goes by five times as fast just before exams. Speaking of which, I have no less than 10 exams to sit starting from mid-May. Fun, fun, fun.
[b]Existing[/b]
Sometimes life feels like being strapped down to a giant, slippery bathtub. It's been like that this week. The truth is, I just don't know what I want from life. In terms of friendships, I have not had one single close friend for the last three years and I'm dreading going to University for the reason that I'll carry on much as I have done - as a social recluse.
On the one hand, I want to have social interaction, and I want to have meaningful friendships with other people, but on the other hand, there's something inside me that says 'why bother? It's too much effort.' I've been a loner to a greater or lesser extent for 19 years and I don't see how it will change any time soon. But is it because I can't change, or is it because I don't want to? It's probably a bit of both.
[b]My first driving lesson for a year[/b]
Now for something less doomy and gloomy. I gave up driving last year because I found it too hard, and to the huge relief of all the other road users (and my driving instructor,) I took a long break. Now, I have an undiagnosed problem with spatial awareness, coordination and depth perception. Guess what that makes? A crunched up wreck of a car.
But being the dogged, determined guy that I am, I (with the encouragement of some family members) decided to take up driving once again, this time with a different instructor. Here's the good news.
I remembered most of what I had learnt with the first instructor. Sitting at the wheel for the first time in so many months gave me heart thumps bigger than Santa Claus' waistline, but it soon began to feel natural. As if I had never been away. There was no easing me in gently though - the first thing I had to do was go round a three-lane roundabout (damn you, town planners.)
My new instructor (Dave) has lots of patience, a lot more than the last one. He needs it. To say that I'm not a natural driver is a huge understatement. To say that I drive like like a three-legged chimp on Red Bull is not so much of an understatement. Still, I did not stall once, though I had a habit of not managing to get into third gear when there was a huge backlog of traffic behind.
I don't like driving round towns, and I probably never will, but my first lesson was good. I'll hold out hope that there is a good chance of passing - my old instructor told me in direct words that I would never pass, but Dave said he'd 'help me over the hurdles.' Let's hope he does. My next lesson is already booked up for this coming Monday.
(Comments)
A day in my life
posted at 06:59 pm on 04-10-2008
Hi. I feel like I need to say a few things, and here's as good a place as any. Maybe someone might even read this.
Today's been a long day. It's been a good day, but long and tiring nonetheless. Where I study, at a college, I have lots of free time throughout the week, and Thursday happens to be the only day where I have lectures straight from 9am-4pm, except a short lunch break.
I'm generally pleased with how I did today. I know I shouldn't analyse myself too much, but I feel it's one way I can learn from my mistakes.
The two-hour Psychology class in the morning was all about groupwork, which I find difficult at the best of times. It turned out well today, though. Basically, we had to design the most unethical Psychology experiment possible. Ours involved giving badgers electric shocks. (We weren't actually going to carry out the experiment, sadly.) I was able to contribute my ideas to the group and I even ended up being the person who organised much of it. At the end, I (and another guy, Paul) volunteered to stand up in front of the class and describe it. That went fine. In fact, I enjoyed it. I managed to come up with a few funny comments too.
Then, it was 4 hours of English. Yes, four hours, with just a 10 minute break in that time. English is one of my favourite lessons, but then again, I'm only doing three subjects. The first hour and a half entailed writing an essay on our own. For the next two and a half hours, we have a different tutor, so it was more focussed on group work. That was okay too; the two people in my group, Steve and Amy, are my closest friends in the class. I always seem to do well in that English class, in terms of social interaction. It's more relaxed than other classrooms and there's always a good atmosphere there.
After the class finished, I was outside, walking to the bus, in a world of my own, and I heard someone calling what I thought was 'Ron.' My name's not Ron, so I carried on and thought nothing of it. Then, the next thing I knew, Amy was walking alongside me, wondering why I had just ignored her. Gah. I told her I didn't recognise her voice and thought whoever it was was calling 'Ron.' Yeah, that wasn't very good. Luckily, she's got to know my eccentricities a bit, but I need to stop being in a world of my own the whole damn time. I'm the type who would happily walk into a burning building and wonder why the breeze had suddenly become hot.
When I got home, the first thing I wanted to do was unwind. A day full of successful interaction with other people is great, but it just takes all my energy away. I feel like a frazzled rat once it's over. Believe it or not, it's taken all evening to shake off the fatigue. Still, this day measures, overall, as good.
(Comments)
Sleep paralysis - nightmares when you're awake
posted at 06:27 pm on 04-05-2008
What's sleep paralysis, you ask? It's a condition that causes temporary paralysis just before falling asleep, or shortly after waking up. It can occur as little as once in a lifetime, or as often as several times a week.
The sufferer is fully conscious, but unable to move, and this is sometimes accompanied by terrifying hallucinations, a perception of a heavy weight on the chest and a feeling of a 'presence' in the room.
These symptoms can last from mere seconds to several minutes, though the episode usually feels much longer than it really is.
I experience sleep paralysis every now and then; typically once a month. It's not nice at all. In fact, it happened last night. Since the experience is still vivid in my mind, I'll try and describe what it's like, as if it's happening right now:
I can't sleep; I've lost all track of the time. It's still dark, so I hope I can get a few more hours' sleep. I begin to feel myself relaxing, drifting off, floating...no luck, it didn't work. I'm still awake, and I need to turn over. But I can't! I can't move; my whole body is stuck in position. Now I can hear some strange sounds. It's not music, it's a tune playing in my head over and over again, slowly fading until it stops. I can just about breathe, though I'm afraid. It's not the fear of anything particular in the room, it's the fear that I might start hallucinating something terrifying. It's happened before. I try to move my arms and my legs but they're rooted to the spot. I can't close my eyes, turn my head, call out. I'm powerless. All I can do is watch the room with my eyes glued open. Finally! My fingers begin to move; I feel myself slowly regaining control of my body. With a great deal of fumbling around, I manage to move my whole body round. Power flows back into my muscles and a wave of relief hits me. It's over for now, but it could happen again tonight.
Sleep paralysis hasn't been researched a great deal because it's essentially harmless. It doesn't cause any physical or mental problems but as I tried to describe in the paragraph above, it's always an unpleasant experience. It's actually fairly common and is recorded in cultures across the world.
What's fascinating is that the hallucinations seem to be strikingly similar across different cultures. In African-American culture, sleep paralysis is commonly referred to as 'the devil riding your back.'
In Turkish culture, sleep paralysis is often referred to as "karabasan" ("The dark presser/assailer"). It is believed to be a creature which attacks people in their sleep, pressing on their chest and stealing their breath.
In Ireland it is also known as "the hag." The expression originates from reports of an old woman that was believed to be seen near the sufferer during paralysis. Scary stuff.
The frequency of sleep paralysis is increased by sleeping in the supine position (on your back,) sudden lifestyle changes, irregular sleeping patterns and stress.
I've taken to lying on my belly recently to avoid sleep paralysis episodes but it's nowhere near as comfortable as lying supine. So it's a bit of a Catch 22 situation: do I sleep on my back, and risk an episode of 'the hag,' or do I sleep on my belly and risk not getting any sleep?
I can't say sleep paralysis is a huge worry in my life. It rarely happens more than one night a month (though it can occur several times in one night) and I know deep down that the auditory and visual hallucinations I experience are just that - hallucinations.
Even so, it's a pretty nasty experience, and just writing this article brought more than one shudder down my spine.
(Comments)
An introductory blog entry
posted at 06:46 pm on 04-03-2008
I've posted most of this info in a thread already, but I thought this would be a good first blog entry, so that everyone reading this will know a little about me first, before I start ranting to myself about weird and wonderful topics.
I'm Jon, I'm 19 years old, single, and I live in Wales, UK. I am supposed to look old for my age - which seems to be the exact opposite of most people here. (Gah, I'm the odd one out again, and that's without trying...) My looking old comes in handy, as I was served in a pub when I was 15 (the minimum age for buying alcohol in the UK is 18.)
I live with my parents but I'll be going to University next year to study Linguistics, a subject that hardly anyone's ever heard of. When I tell people I'm going to be doing Linguistics, most of them nod and smile politely, or ask 'Wow! how many languages do you know?' Fair question - I can speak 86 languages. (Not really - just 2 with any fluency.)
I was officially diagnosed with Asperger's last summer, though I knew about it for about a year previously. Truth be told, I knew that I was different from a very early age because, well, I was. I've always been isolated from my peers, because I didn't join in group activities, or if I did, everyone else would start wishing I hadn't.
On the plus side, I've learnt to be independent, and I'm self-motivated, and able to dedicate a lot of time to the things I'm interested in.
As I got older, my social skills improved somewhat, but I still found the problem of having virtually nothing in common with any of my peers. Ironically, the one socially acceptable thing I do take an interest in, football, wasn't an interest among any of my closest friends. Sometimes, you just can't win.
My hobbies (going from normal to geeky) are: music, swimming, cycling, walking, reading, gaming, natural history and languages/linguistics. And my personality? I'm easy-going, friendly (if not a little withdrawn,) honest and I have an off the wall sense of humour, bordering on the absurd. You have been warned.
So that's me, pretty much.
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