257: How I'm Different - A Detailed Overview of my Life

I have tried writing about myself before, twice with "All About Me" and "Socialization and Outsiders", both which were very unclear and I concluded that I didn't establish my point clearly. This post is the monster: it's much more specific on me, not the general "us" group (just a warning, this post is very long and you’ll need time to finish it). For documentation: the following is written in Grade 11, when I am 16 years and 7 months old. To note, I will probably dissect some bullets in the future and write about them in detail with a specific post; this post is solely on my life right now.

Appearance: I...

Smile Frequently

Mostly Huge smiles (showing abundant of upper teeth)
All smiles on photos
Smile at something unrelated moments before someone tells a joke and everyone else bursts out laughing.
Smile for no apparent reason
Smile at silly jokes
Smile because the whole class is laughing but I still don't get the amusement.
I do frequently follow the social cycle and smile if something funny happens eg. if everyone laughs that a video had a funny cat noise made by a boy.
I don't laugh; I smile (usually very wide smiles): - I don't usually make any noise.
I sometimes employ a very slight smile that involves the tightening/squeezing of the sides of both lips together (like the teddy bear smile) creating parentheses on the sides of my mouth. This is used when others are laughing or the room is happy but I don't want to create a genuine smile yet want to display that I do actually get the laughter and maybe am having a bit of fun. Or, it is used when someone suddenly looks at me and I want to look happy without looking ridiculous with a teeth showing smile.
On photos, I have always smiled. The only problem was that at one point I didn’t know how to smile (Grade 6-9). Thus created a few years of awkward smiles in photos. The yearly school photos have been changing year by year. The smile itself, face expression, pose, eye contact, head angle have been changing every year since forever in my school photos. The only thing consistent is the fact that there is a smile.

Wear

My clothing, especially pants, are 2 sizes too small
Some of my t-shirts 5 years old
Don't buy clothes, my parents buy them for me (usually at the Bay or Sears), and only occasionally get to choose what I buy. I also wear "free" clothes, eg those that come with a summer camp, or are handed out at Skytrain Stations, or you get for the Sun Run etc.
I do pay huge attention to what I am wearing.
Have a really good sense of fashion-not the mainstream media magazine type of fashion-My fashion sense is to know what I look like in anything I wear, whether I look good or if my clothing sends a message. Even so, I frequently just decide that it doesn't matter too much what I wear.
Spend too much time choosing what looks better, the blue track pants (that are extremely tight and small) with a green t-shirt (with a collar too big for me), or a better looking cotton black pants with a blue polo (that's too big for me and looks too formal).
Ceased wearing sweatpants in Mid-Grade 10. I found them too comfortable and soft, as if there was a teddy bear surrounding my legs. I also felt socially awkward wearing sweats, mainly because I don’t think men look that good in loose sweatpants.
Had a week long experiment with Jeans Mid Grade 10 and concluded that I looked too mainstream and they weren't comfortable enough.
Highly dislike wearing the same thing as another person unless everyone is is uniform.
Clothing is not too fancy, I try to avoid logos up front but it seems like my whole wardrobe is of them. Plain is my wish, nothing to stand out too much (no rainbows or different style tank tops or extra long sleeved shirts). I stand out by having different wearing style in normal clothing. That means maybe rolled up sleeves, t-shirt worn over a long sleeve.
I have 3 different styles that I choose between: Formal, Childlike, Casual.

Formal: Polo shirt with regular pants, the objective is to look more formal than the other students, but not too fancy that it seems like I specifically cherry picked my uniform. Flaws: Every time I dress formal I just don't feel "right" as if my energy is lower, can be attributed partly from the less comfortable shirts, but being formal also commits myself to follow a more professional attitude (If I dress formal I must act formal) which outlaws jumping in the hallways etc. Also, my formal wear is too large for me, I'm not fat and my neck is not gigantic; but my shirts are designed for that.
Childlike: This clothing may be too small for me, or at most fitting just right. I feel best and happiest in this wear, ie if I dress like a child, I can act like a child and jump and run and barely miss people in the hallway. The clothes are usually just fitting, almost skin tight but loose. It may or may not be colourful. Too bad I only have a few childlike pieces of clothing as they always seem to go missing... The problem with this is it is the least presentable, (looking like a child who understands child fashion), but in highschool that doesn't matter much, as I feel great and look great in those clothes.
Casual: My regular, nothing special clothes. Clean, and not fancy, no special things. Probably just a red or blue sweater or hoodie that I can get at the Bay. There may be a canucks logo or canada circle logo in the front, no companies, elaborate pictures or words, it’s basically a simple, designed to fit in with the crowd type of clothing. Casual includes the act of wearing my jacket all day, Not because the shirt inside doesn't look good, simply because I love my jacket, I don’t have pant pockets to put my cellular phone and wallet so I must put it in my jacket pocket, and because I feel fine in my jacket, feel like myself, not great, normal.

Shoes are always running shoes (unless it’s the annual day where I decide to wear formal dress shoes to school). Underwear has always been briefs, I have not gotten into boxer briefs that don't feel as comfortable or even worse boxer shorts.
Shorts is not my style. Long Pants is my type.
I also don't wear glasses, and I hope to never need to wear them. If you wear glasses, you admit to having an imperfect body, where you have something inferior, where you have lost control of your eyes. I do agree that people with glasses look more professional and intelligent, but I have gotten over the social looks better stigma and tried to base my judgement more on true intelligence rather than appearance smarts.
Here's a big one: I wear jackets around school, all day. And I zip up all the way to the top. It just feels natural, doesn't feel like the jobs done half way if I don't zip it all the way (something's missing). My Jacket is designed to be for fat people, and so at the waist, there is lots of room between body and jacket that makes me look skinny and childish. ie. it looks like my jacket doesn't fit me.
Wearing a jacket and a couple sweaters while running may make me overheat and sweat, but I enjoy that feeling of being groggy and almost fainting. I also work best when I wear my jacket and am warm.
My backpack is always changing. The thing that has been consistent is that I tighten the straps to the smallest possible arm hole. This serves multiple purposes: 1) I enjoy holding on to the excess strap and tying knots with it. 2) I desire the sensory stimulation of having something held tight to my back. 3) A loose backpack that is worn low feels loose and about to fall out, and it doesn’t look good. Like with my jacket, I have an intangible attachment to objects; I love my backpack, maybe not as much as my jacket, but it feels like my backpack is a part of me, like an extended body. For example, when I am angry, I can hit my backpack to feel the pain that the backpack is receiving. I have never had a backpack that I genuinely loved, only one has ever come close. All the backpacks I’ve had are too flimsy, or of too poor a quality, or just not my style. I dislike backpacks that tear after I go for a run, those that get wet quickly, those whose bottoms sink, or those that are black all over and look ugly.
Theme days are not my thing. I haven’t worn pink in 3 years, no real halloween costumes unless they are required by a course and you don’t count nametags as a costume. Bad hair day doesn’t count because I don’t fix my hair anyways.
I have for a time worn a watch on a daily basis. Like my jacket, I had a very close attachment to my watch. But then it ran out of battery, I disassembled it, and haven’t gotten the will to replace it; it’s still sitting in front of me in a plastic bag and has been for 2 years. I loved my watch because it was the only watch I have had that was comfortable enough for me to wear it. I would shake my hand with it on, enjoying the friction it created when it wiggled. I set my watch exactly according to school bell time, knowing exactly (within a second) of when the bell would ring. Being able to pack my stuff and leave the door just as the bell was sounding was a very satisfying feeling, saving me valuable happy seconds during breaks to run out into the hallway before it crowded.

Body:

FACE:
I have a smooth, childish looking face with little acne and few wrinkles.
I have never gotten braces, but the majority of people around me have. It's the norm in Vancouver (especially for boys), usually a matter of when and not your ethnicity or financial situation. I have little objection to people who have had them as it’s generally the choice of the parent and not the boy. I don’t see any benefit to braces though, it seems all negative: You have to pay thousands firstly (maybe helping local dentists is a benefit :)), you have to suffer pain and the hinderance of extensive time cleaning and going to the dentist, and the humiliation of having people look at wires in your mouth for a year, and you can’t close your mouth properly without looking like an ape. I have found that when my lips close, they touch the front of my teeth. It seems natural. After braces though, it seems like the lip has adapted to the extra room in front of the teeth, which causes your lips to have grown outward adding extra room in between lip and teeth. This causes you to look like an ape for the rest of your life, where your mouth is enlarged in a forward direction.
My eyes are always wide, except when they're closed. It makes me appear that I'm always alert and awake, which I am usually. I am an expert at facial expressions, and much of it involves the eyes and brows.
My mouth, when I'm not smiling, my lips are closed with the lower lip slightly rolled in under the top lip (my default lip position). I have seen and compared the lips of people around me, and observed that for many, their default "resting" lip position is with their lower lip slightly ahead of their upper lip, making them look mad and angry. With my lower lip rolled under my upper lip, it resembles a very slight smile. At the least, I don't look mad, I look like I'm at least neutral at all times. I occasionally breathe through my mouth with my mouth slightly open-this helps me focus and get more oxygen into the brain, and exhilarate through the fresh air entering my mouth. Even with my mouth open, my lower lip is still rolled in.
Haircuts are meant to be non-fancy and out of the way. I always have had short haircuts (a less than 2 cm full head shave), mainly to avoid the need to do any maintenance at the start of each day. After a cut, I feel better; more alert and awake, enjoying the cold refreshing air and rain on my brain, and feeling as if my head has been relieved of some weight and the heat of having my brain trapped in a hot hair-made mushroom. I have always found trouble with hair that, after a few weeks of growth, starts to stand up like porcupines. Worst is in the morning with a bed head where my head looks like an uncut wild grassland. I have tried but never gotten used to fixing my hair with water then putting on a touque to shape it. I find that though this process significantly improves my hair’s presentability, it's too time consuming and makes me more sleepy for the rest of that day. Facing the social chaos of returning to school after a haircut is occasionally problematic, but usually not a big deal, as generally I feel that much more refreshed and the new cut feels natural in no time. If I don't notice that anything's changed and I don't care, other's won't notice or won't care either.
Shaving: The goal is to look as clean as possible without putting too much emphasis and spending too much time. I generally shave once it grows long enough that it can be seen by myself through a mirror I'm standing half a metre away. That's generally once every 2 weeks currently. I make no big deal out of it, just to keep clean and to avoid any comments by not making it visible so they won't notice that anything's happened.
BODY:
I am skinny. I was originally a chubby squirrel, but overvaluing money at the onset of highschool, I decided to save a few dozen dollars of lunches. And so I am still now a skinny squirrel. I have muscles, I am strong, I have abs. I also have bones, and relatively little meat or fat.
My legs are muscular, large thighs and less large calves, a runner's leg you could call it. I have a very heavy upper body comprised of larger shoulder muscles, biceps and chest, mainly from the training we had to do in PE.
I also have a very weak neck though you wouldn't be able to tell.
I do have a very upright posture. When I stand, I am straight, or almost straight.
Sitting, if I don't have my back to the back of the chair, I am usually straight. If I do have my back to the back of my chair, I am usually slouching. My regular seating position is cross-thighed ie. Put one thigh over the other thigh. I enjoy this position most because I enjoy the sensory pressure on my thighs and I don't need to worry about where my knees go and it's stable. Otherwise, if this position isn't possible, eg in strings class, I sit with the 2 knees close together so that they are or almost are touching.

Actions (doing):

Movement: I love to run, and jump and spin and move. Not necessarily the long distance marathon, but the short track and field type of energy boost.

I run everywhere and anytime; between classes, loop around the school, on the track, commuting between the train station and school, outside going in circles. Usually these runs are done with my arms stretched like airplane wings. I love the feeling of air in my face and around my arms.
Jumping is also done anywhere and everywhere too; up and down staircases (I can go up 5 stairs at a time and down 3 at a time with a 7 stair jump onto the ground), Jumping to touch the piping on the ceiling, jumping outside in the air, or jumping in the hallway to rise over everyone in the crowded hallway to see the whole hallway length and all its people.
Spinning is done to initiate dizziness and view the altered world around me after stopping. I also find pleasure of zoning out the entire world and enjoying the contours of the large outdoor neon green circle painted at our school. Spinning at a period of 3 seconds (very slow) can still cause myself to believe that I and the circle are spinning on a magic carpet together at a rate of 50 kph.
My Stimming includes the 3 above but also the more traditional types. These traditional stims are usually with the arms:

Drumming: with both hands or one or with fingers, pretending that your thigh or table or leg is a drum and hit uncontrollably consecutively quickly like your hands are the drumsticks. This immediately increases my happy endorphins, causing me to smile. This stim is frequently accompanied by a sudden jerk up that feels like a shock wave of happiness has hit me. I usually can’t detect the exact time it happens, but I can sense it coming a minute beforehand, as if I am solving a problem and I suddenly find the solution.
Arm moving: Stims with the arm vary tremendously, but most achieve the same result. Most common is making circles with both arms together (stimming is usually symmetrical) direction doesn’t matter and maybe clapping hands together a the front or back. Arm stimming is done to feel the sense of freedom that the arm has, experiencing the joy of being in control of something, and feeling the wind and the sensory that your arm receives.
Hand flicking: This is rapid flipping of hands, like when you’re trying to fling the water out of your hands after washing them. I sense this stim as if your hands are moving in gooey chocolate; a sensory thing that satisfies a sort of desire for touch. This stim is extremely similar to the drumming one, and are often used subsequently and interchangeably.
Continuous hand shaking and Shaping: Stretching my fingers and flicking them or turning my hand continuously like I’m operating a screwdriver. This makes me feel occupied and aids thinking.
Body rocking: Voluntary rocking my body back and forth usually and sideways less common to calm down and concentrate and think better. I also can concentrate watching things rock, like a pendulum.
Verbal Stimming: Saying phrases (similar to echolalia), because it sounds good, the word looks good, the word means something good, or just because we have an intimate mysterious attachment to the word or sound.

I have always been excellent at all sports. In elementary, I joined every single school team for 3 years, and could be said as the most consistent member of the group in all the teams. Sports has always been natural to me, where I can catch up on the rules in no time and boost quickly over everyone. In highschool, I could have as easily joined the basketball team as the rowing or soccer or track team; I was that good, not excellent, consistent. But highschool sports is more about socialization and more of a club, and I’m glad I refused to waste my time playing ball. So not one team in highschool, and now my main “sport” is urban cycling and jumping :)
I have always been quick at learning all hands on activities. I have the skill of “do it once, remember it forever” where I can learn canoeing or knitting or shoe tying or any trade in half or a quarter the time of the regular learner yet retain it for years.
I’m very good at acting. I can formulate different feelings and expressions with my face. I’m also great at hiding things, secrets, myself in hide-and-seek, or anything I don’t want revealed. I act as the person I want them to see me as in each situation, diligent before teachers, quiet before strangers, devoted before family etc.

Senses:

Touch is usually under (but sometimes over) sensitive. Pain is not detected through touch usually, I can hit my head and tolerate it. My touch is over sensitive when it is unexpected and light. I am highly sensitive to tickles, and the slight touch to my side.
With hearing. I have never owned ear buds as I find them intrusive and irritating. I do use headphones though. I haven't put on ear buds in 2 years but I think I should retry them soon. I cannot stand loud stuff (mainly unexpected noises) that I know will cause hearing loss. Sometimes, even getting through a conversation physically hurts-my ears, as after a certain point, by ear becomes sensitive to the sudden cacophony of vocal sounds. I have excellent relative pitch, and occasionally perfect pitch. I am highly skilled and natural musician, composer and I find I can recite entire scores by memory a few months after hearing the piece.
Sight: I have perfect (left eye) or almost perfect sight (right eye). But what is more difficult is the way my brain deals with the signals: fluorescent lights and the sun makes me tired, and computer screens and old CRT televisions are distracting. I have the ability to control my Culinary Muscles (I think), adjusting the focus of my eyes and being able to make things seem blurry things at will. This also gives me the ability to see through near sighted glasses, and being able to calculate the degree of near sightedness that I pair of glasses is designed for. I can also adjust my sight to look through a person, ie. stare at them while focusing my eyes on the bird outside the window, making it appear that I am looking at them but dozing off in a daydream. This is freaky to them, as it really looks like I’m staring through them (which I am) because my eyes don’t move with their head. Finally, I have the ability to focus on the surrounding environment without moving my eyes, with peripheral vision.
Speaking: Since I don’t speak much, (you’ll know if you can count the number of interactions at school you have had with 2 hands) my voice is “foreign” to many people. Because of my non-verbal nature, I have been mistaken for someone else autistic. Also, when I speak, you would know it and enjoy my voice since you don’t hear it often ie. you’re instantly surprised at my fluency and tone.
Smell: I have a large disgust towards things that ruin the fresh air, or makes stinky the surrounding area. This is mainly perfume and gasoline, and less so garbage or dirty stuff. For a short period, I can block out (literally) smelly stuff by shutting off any air through my nose, breathing through my mouth. Like when you pinch your nose if you want to block out smelly foods or smells, I can do this without my hands, simply switching off my airway to my nose.
Sixth Sense: Extrasensory perception or Intuition: I am highly intuitive, getting feelings or sudden impressions that are frequently correct, usually formulated from my subconscious, but frequently guided by my conscious mind. Examples are knowing that the bus is about to come, without even seeing or hearing the bus around the corner (then running to catch it), or knowing what to do in a situation just because I sense it’s correct.
Bodily senses: Usually the senses in my body eg) hunger, tiredness, enjoyment, discomfort, adrenaline, boredom etc are easily overridden by my conscious mind. The only exception may be when I wake up to an alarm clock, but at that point my conscious mind hasn’t been fired up yet.
From senses: reaction and preferences:

Usually I don’t pay attention to my senses much, unless they are deeply intrusive. I don’t make many decisions based on an emotional empathetic basis relying on senses, unless it’s my intuition telling me; I like to think things through and conduct qualitative analyses. To ensure that my senses don’t interfere with my conscious mind and thinking ie. is out of the way, I have a set of preferences:

When Working: a warm room (almost a sauna), abundant but not excess lighting, minimal sunlight, no interruptions.
No fluorescent lighting, and no sunshine with a calm screen that doesn’t shiver.
Rocking, bodily with a chair or with a real pendulum in front of me.
A comfy soft chair that doesn’t sink (isn’t too soft).
Silence or with classical music (mozart)

Eating:

As an orthodox chinese family in Vancouver, rice is the food that most of our dinners are built around. To learn more about chinese style meals, there are lots of resources on the internet.
Lunch is usually packed lunches from yesterday’s dinner that I must reheat at the microwaves at school. Due to the shortage of microwaves at school and the lengthy waits to use one at the lunch peak in the cafeteria, I have developed my daily school routine to accommodate heating my lunch, resulting in me heating my lunch in my classes that have microwaves or during non-lunch breaks where microwaves are in the cafeteria. The side effect is that my lunch time varies from day to day, from 11:35 lunch on some days to after 14:40 on other days (and sometimes even not until 17:20). I do feel hungry, but I don’t want to waste my time waiting for a microwave. I also find that I am more drowsy after noon if I eat lunch, and a less tired if I don’t eat.
Breakfast is always cereal. My default cereal is Kellogg’s Vector, unless we’ve run out then I’ll have Honey Nut Cheerios. Even on weekends, I usually still have cereal. When we have run out of milk, I’ll substitute it with water.
On weekends, lunch is spent with my family eating out. We visit a variety of family or chinese restaurants. Most frequent is the Hong Kong style cafes like icafe or in Chinatown: Goldstone or The Boss. Others include Red Robin and White Spot. It’s become routine for us- eating out; it’s family time at the end of the week.
I strive to eat less meat to some success. My main fluid is water. My favourite water is hot (or very warm) boiled tap water. I highly detest the taste in water bottles, as I have high awareness of taste of foods.

At Home:

I speak 3 languages at a Fluent Pace. I am much more involved and connected to my family than most teens. This is mainly because I was trapped in a familial bubble for 13 years, rarely venturing off on my own, never having many friends to talk about things. Even now, the tradition and normality is to spend my entire weekend with my family, day trips, snowboarding, shopping, eating. It is unwritten but accepted that I be home by 18:00 as that is the time my parents arrive home. Simply put, I spend huge amounts of time with my family, doing things together, depending on them, like I have been for my whole life. But this connection is degrading fast. I am striving for more independence, with ever growing secrets I’m keeping. I have already a view and road map for the following years including long term goals. Lucky, familial demands aren’t that harsh, and I still get more than 5 hours of work time everyday. So it’s not all bad, but it’s eroding. I have seen how the regular teen around me treats their families, and it’s only now sinking in how much I’ve been in my inter-familial bubble.
I technically don’t receive allowance, but I do receive monthly payments into my bank account for my living expenses. This includes purchasing my own bus pass, lunch, occasionally buying groceries and paying for my language lessons when my tutor comes. But I have been extremely conservative in my spending, and when my lessons are now funded by my parents, I get an excess of a few dozen dollars each month. The money I should have been spending on lunch has really added up as my hunger is only a short term concern. My main revenue source is from familial members who give us money on my birthday or new year.
All of necessities incurred when my family is present are covered by my family eg) clothes, food, groceries, school fees, stationery, appliances. My monthly “allowance” is technically supposed to cover necessities when they aren’t there.

At School:

You’ll not find me anchored anywhere on a consistent basis.

Before school, I arrive anywhere from before everyone else, to 10 minutes late for class, though both are uncommon. I frequently find it difficult to find something to do during the mornings before class, as I have no desk or place to settle. Therefore, before school, I’m either still commuting, in the library, outside watching the buses and cars and students, outside my locker, walking around the school with no destination, or settled down somewhere reading.
Lunch break is not much different. I rarely eat lunch during lunch, since I am free during lunch break and trapped during class, I like to explore. This means eating when I am trapped in front of a teacher. Lunch is spent usually in the computer lab in the library, at Choir on Monday and Thursdays, or walking around outdoors or indoors. A few times a month I take the bus or walk to the train station to get lunch, which I enjoy but I hate needing to spend money on food anyways while wasting my precious lunch 3 quarter hour. Because, lunch (and the Breaks between classes) is one of my happiest times of the day, where I am free. I spent a good portion of lunch and the break doing the movement described above; jumping, spinning etc.
My locker is neat-at least from my perspective. I have gotten my own ways of keeping my own locker for all 4 years of highschool so far even though everyone else is sharing. I very rarely take my textbooks or workbooks home (once every 3 months), only my assignment binder. This is partly because I live relatively far-lugging a heavy textbook is effortful, partly because I don’t want to damage my text in my backpack, and mainly because there is no need for me to take my books home as studying can persist at school.

I have participated in doing voluntary garbage cleanup by taking the tongs for a quick yard cleanup. I have also helped with numerous school initiatives, but recording hours is too time consuming and complex. The purpose of volunteering isn’t to volunteer, it’s to gain experience, and that is usually done informally voluntarily doing tasks.
I am late for class not too often, and when I am, it’s usually voluntary. eg) I want to watch the late comers run of the bus so I stay outside even though I know I would myself be late.
I enjoy going camping, but not with schools or other children on a noisy bus. I’m an outdoor enthusiast who really knows how to survive, but in a cabin with ninety other city dwellers? Nope.
My handwriting is a direct descendant of the type they taught you at school. I can write relatively quickly, 50wpm, but at this fast rate there’s a left slant and is usually only legible to myself only. My “neat” writing, the one I use to fill forms, is not that neat. The bottom of letters are not situated above the base line evenly, and the writing is detached letter by letter. We write with good pressure, and our strokes are part of each letter ie. there are no lines connecting letters. But our writing is extremely legible, like how a grade three would write. (to see a sample of my handwriting, see the education logs I posted in the class by class analysis).
At school, I have no bullies. Though this is probably because of my luckiness to be in a school deprived of cliques, I have no enemies because few people know me. To be sure, no one truly understands me in this world, they just know a part of me that I see them (not even my true friend). In fact, reading this post you probably know me as much as anyone else.
The courses I have taken in Highschool, for every single year, has been above my grade, or just abnormal. I have taken Physics 11 in Grade 10, Accounting 11 in Grade 9, AP Calculus in Grade 11, Both Fine Arts 8 and Band 9 in grade 8 etc. There is no student in my school that has completed courses at such quick of a pace as I. And I am proud of my record; I’m not the downright academically gifted in my grade (though darn close), but I’m definitely the smartest personality who really knows how to game the education system and win.

In my backpack, I carry...

I have made a list of necessities to carry around at all time in my backpack. The problem is that I have not followed through as I find it too time consuming to gather all the items. These include: granola bars, a flashlight, cards, bandages, maps, a whistle, plastic bags, socks, juice, calculator, bus schedules, stationary, mittens, touque, and paper towels.
I have attachments to all those things listed above. Some, like the flashlight, I have never gotten one that is suitable and durable enough to carry around. My water bottle is my beta-blocker that calms me and keeps me moving. Cards can be used to pass time (by building card houses) or to stimulate conversation, paper towels in case I get my ever frequent nose bleeds or need to wipe something, bandages because they are always needed, socks in case they get wet, bus timetables because I need to give them away and am always asked for directions.
I also carry a book, always non fiction I read. There is a binder I carry around at all times, and this is the binder that has all my latest school assignments and some of my portfolio; the only binder I really need for class at school. Frankly, if not for the bus schedules and portfolio, I would need no backpack to school.

Routines:

My day starts out with my alarm clock. I turn off the sound with snooze and hope to get up but the conscious mind even sometimes doesn’t agree that I should wake up. When I finally get up after 6-8 hours of sleep (I record my nightly sleep hours), it’s immediately to breakfast. After that is time to go to the bathroom to poo, then to get dressed. My “pajama” is sweat pants (with underwear) with a regular t-shirt. Then time to get ready to leave, by preparing my backpack, filling my water bottle, getting my lunch and drinking 2 cups of water. This morning routine usually takes 25-40 minutes. Waking up between 6:50 to 7:40 and leaving 7:20-8:10 to make it in time for school. Commuting is complex and I will describe it in more detail below. Afterschool is total free time for me. Usually it means going home directly or with a visit to the library in between. I am usually desiring some food by home time, scouring the house and fridge for apples, cookies, bread etc. Then it’s time to hit the internet, finishing my blogroll that I didn’t complete during lunch or the morning. I also go to finishing games on Chess.com and completing the 3 daily tactics, checking my emails, logging onto twitter and reading the articles there and school websites to keep up with the news. This process takes less than half an hour if I’ve done half of it during lunch, if else it takes an hour. I complete all my work on the computer accomplished with mozart, either his concertos or symphonies or other compositions but not anything vocal. After the news roundup, it’s time to actually get down to work, my main work is either studying or research or writing, almost exclusively for hobby rather than school. Starting at 18:00, my parents and brother arrive back home, imposing on duties such as dinner preparation and chores. Occasionally they may settle for television of the game, but usually I need to play piano at this time. It’s an unwritten rule, but evenings are family time, and I am the biggest violator. Dinners are spent at the living room table together, and dessert follows. The winding down for sleep starts at 21:30, some of my family sleeps by 22:30 but I usually only get to shower and brush my teeth after 23:00. I enjoy continuing my research late until the night, and view the hours before sleep as my extra time saved from the 2 hours I get sleeping 6 hours rather than 8, time I use to learn. Of course, my parents will come in and plead me to sleep at some point, by that time it’s after 24:00 and I only get to sleep after (showering and dental work if I haven’t already) stretching and ab workouts and diary writing between 24:10 and 25:10.

Mind and Thought:

Academics and Learning:

I have always done great in the traditional school system. Since letter grades were first put on Report Cards in Grade 4, I have yet to receive a grade in any course of a C+ or anything lower. I guess this keeps the pressure on me to keep achieving, but a B is seriously just more than a 73%, extremely low by my standards.
I have undergone analyses of my classes.

My recordings of the activities that we do in class can be found in my earlier post. Through that analysis, I have found bounty of free time during classes. More than half of my classes I define as non-engaging, where I can get through them without listening to the teacher’s lesson and only reading the text. They are ranked from most so to lesser so: Pre-Calc, Socials, English, Physics, Chemistry (and Music doesn’t count). Adding up all the “work time”, the time the teacher gives students to work quietly (or loudly) on an assignment, and the lesson time, that I can skip by reading the text, mounts to more than ¾ of the day. That’s right, more than three quarters of the entire day I can be free to do any quiet thing I want. No wonder I have usually zero minutes of homework (that I do at home) a night but sometimes I need to work 5 continuous hours to complete a project (happens once or twice every month).

I am a socials nerd, a math whiz, and most of the science concepts are quite simple for me to grasp. Therefore English is the only class where I must work, but my writing is on a higher level than most. The slacking during class hasn’t gotten me any problems with teachers. I strike up personal conversations with most teachers, and come in after (or before) class to ask questions to make it appear that I am a diligent student who strives to study. I know the approximate or exact residence of almost all my teachers, in addition to some political or personal conversations. I have never been on bad terms with a teacher, though they may be on my bad list because of their lack of teaching quotient.
I have gone through the possible reasons on why school is so easy for me, and I have found it not to be exclusively natural smarts. The memory process that I use is significantly more efficient, involving pictorial thinking and understanding the concept and not the fact.
Public speaking is definitely not my strong suit. I get highly nervous in front of a crowd. The tipping point is around six people: more and I stumble every sentence, less than six and I can really entertain the group.
My vocabulary has never been the best, but it is passable. I have always been accused of not using risk taking words, but it’s usually that I have words in my head but they don’t fit the thing I’m writing about.
I’m Smart. I know how to do things as effectively and efficiently as possible, with extremely high standards. The problem is I have time finishing projects once I've lost the initial motivation. I'd try to slug myself to finish what I've started, sometimes unsuccessfully
I have excellent memory, specifically LTM. My STM and Immediate Memory isn’t as polished though. You can see more on this topic on an earlier post. I also rely on pictorial thinking and spatial memory. This means remembering floor plans of all the malls in metro Vancouver and the airport, remembering streets and how they look etc. I can take a mental picture of a parking lot in one second, and then count the number of cars by looking through the picture in my mind with incredible accuracy. I remember numbers by associating it with transit bus numbers, where I can remember the “feeling” of being on a specific transit line and recall the number of that transit line. This gift, Pictorial/spatial memory and thinking, is something I treasure and am grateful for.

Skills and interests:

One distinct feature of me is my intense interests, subsiding everything else at times. My biggest interests ranked from highest down are:

Urbanism (urban planning/design/places/transportation and bikes)
Psychology (Autism, Brain Science, subconscious stuff, learning languages, human learning methods, analysing things to do with the brain and with personal development- - anything to do with the way we think and the consequences of our actions)
Music (listening to ‘real’ music and analysing it and playing it)
Chess (see sidebar to join chess.com, and play for free)
Computer (computer science and technology-programming and web design)

Anything noted in this post above and below, is overridden if it conflicts with my interests; for example, I will not join any clubs, except choir, an exception because I love music. I will not participate in theme days except maybe one that involves remembering fallen victims of car crashes (November 21 or 18th).
My interests are what keeps me going throughout the years, and I can’t imagine my life without them. With the exception of the last one, I visit and enjoy each and every one of my interests everyday, through writing, listening, reading, playing, or analysing.
Another interest of mine is skill acquirement. Many of these are time saving skills, effort saving skills or simply skills from hobby. I admire skills because they stick with me lifelong. Examples include learning languages, using Dvorak Keyboard etc, with speed reading, memory improvement and handwriting on my list. I also enjoy building things, card houses, 3D structures, programs etc.
The skills that I do have are very spread apart and miscellaneous: Cooking (I’m an excellent chef who cooks for the family, making things from whatever’s in the fridge), walking, self awareness, parenting, organizing, exercising, filing, budgeting... things that are needed to survive but are too often discredited, little things that I know how to do and are unimaginably useful.

Fears:

There are few things I am afraid of. Public Speaking is one of them, because I can mentally see all the people staring at my every flinch. I am still scared of heights, but my conscious mind can override that feeling by asserting that the designs are fully safe and the chances of falling are nil. I am afraid of electricity, and the chance that I become shocked by the electricity. I have had too many experiences with electricity, at one point burning a nickel in an electrical outlet and too frequently becoming shocked by batteries and other people. I also fear things that crawl in general, especially if it moves fast. This includes dogs, pets, spiders, and creepy crawlies like ants if they move especially fast.
What is worth noting is what I am not afraid of: being alone. I lack sense of fear in dark scary alleys or outside in the forest by myself, or in a dark hallway. I have no fear to roam out by myself, possibly because of high self-confidence or just because I can’t “sense” the danger. I can stand inches from moving cars and not sense the danger. Same with flying bugs, I’m calm around bees, but not mosquitoes because they crawl. I am not afraid of risk taking; physical, financial or mental. Jumping down 9 stairs is a risk, but if I break my leg, the health care system will pay for it. So far, I have not gone to the hospital for my personal sake for 15 years. I’m simply not scared of jumping. I see no point in not risk taking; I’m young, fearless, and there’s always a social safety net below me if my risk breaks.

Socialization:

I have never had an abundance of friends. Before Grade 5, I never possessed a friend that I kept more than a few months. Now, I still only have one true friend, but we are drifting away as I type. He is also an outsider who, like me, has few friends. He doesn’t go to the same school as I, and I see that as a benefit, as I wouldn’t want to need to see him everyday. We meet only occasionally, to share experiences, future plans and talk about life.
I have not tried to put in effort to make friends, I find them to be a waste of time and energy. If an appropriate friendship arises, I would cautiously enter it, for I have had too many one hit friends. One hit friends are people who I exhaust in a week; ie. I talk to them a lot for one week, get bored of them and spot our differences and drift away, just because I have lost my interest and energy in sustaining that friendship. Friendships formed too quickly are easily broken, friending should be a gradual process where we find similar interests and activities that we can do together and talk about. So a friend isn’t all bad, I can express my feelings to him, and maybe enjoy experiences together. Even with the internet, though it’s not hard to share my opinions, the deep feelings cannot be broadcasted across the net, and a friend is a good person to share experiences to.
I am unable to sustain semi-friends who I play with sometimes; I need either a person to be fully committed to a friendship that I can get to know well, or a not a friend, just a classmate who I happen to know well. I'm actually pretty good at connecting with classmates, as I can socialize properly and sustain a conversation. Just to clarify, I'm just a normal neurotypical in having conversations and small talk, I can do it! (though I may not want to) and I have no problem talking about the weather or "getting to know" someone. It's just the next step to transition from a classmate that I know well, to a true friend that I can't accomplish.
So there you have it, no friends at school, and spending my school days and everydays alone. I’m not angry or lonely or depressed because I have no friends- usually the opposite, feeling liberated from the need to maintain continuous socialization and communication-but there are always a few times every month that I would want a friend to share my experiences.
In Grade ten, it was the peak of time I desired a true friend, a time when the path was foggy, when I was just coming out of childhood. I desired to seek what was different about me, I joined facebook, started a blog. And I still didn’t get any friends.
To see why I find it hard to socialize, see the last part of my last article. I can sometimes follow the ebbs and flows of the social atmosphere, but it is not as natural in me as in others.
I am good at one on one or one with two conversations, as I can really connect to people and keep the conversation interesting with Theory of Mind, but even this takes effort. I am really good at doing something, but it takes too much energy.

Theory of Mind and Observations:

I have the ability to conduct observations and analyses of the situation before acting. This means I can see what others are doing then follow suit after thinking.
I have excellent theory of mind, not only of NT’s but of all people and animals and biotic things that can think. I know (or have a great idea of) what you’re thinking at any given moment, whether I am talking to you, or you are staring at something, or listening to a lecture. This skill, (un)fortunately depending how you see it, cannot be learned. It’s natural for me to know what you’re thinking, which is why I never offend anyone, unless I intend to (a large part of this is facial expressions too, which also cannot be learned). I also know how to make people feel great, indifferent, simply by Theory of Mind and manipulating my tone and face and word order.
I do get quite angry at myself when I mess up your Theory of Mind, or miss an observation.

Personality and Philosophy:

I am highly introverted, partly to do with narcissistic withdrawal, but more to do with my lack of interest and ability in social situations in general. It goes more like: I can’t do it (socialize), so why do it when I can spend my time doing something more productive that I enjoy?
I am an INTJ. Little explanation needed. Main thing to note is that I may be aloof and enjoy structure in my life. I hate people who take 20 words to say what they could in seven, those that try to praise me for doing something well but ends up wasting my time.
I don’t follow an orthodox religion; I don’t believe in god, but I might not classify myself as atheist so soon. Religion is too much a waste of time and effort, too abstract and not opaque enough; I cannot see it.
I love seeing how others around me react and interact. I have made lots of observations about other people. I have noted their qualities, extrovetism, mood, way of thinking etc. Sometimes, I get trapped in the social stigma, and get attached too horribly to words and feelings. I take a step back and go alone to muse over my errors and misjudgements, frequent self reflection.
I’m very philosophical, enjoying long walks in the cold, with rain dripping on my head, where no one’s around and I feel alone and isolated. This is the environment where I can think the best and give my best outlooks and analyses. I have a very complex mind, and you may try to guess what I’m thinking, but I’ll guarantee you’ll be wrong. Things with me are never as complex as they seem, but you’re thinking too little and simplistic if you’re trying to decipher my smarts.
I am intellectually older by many years than my peers, most apparent in Grade 9. Grade 9 is the year I experience my realization as a being; the year when I started seeing things as an adult rather than a child. I see some of my peers are still stuck in their childish ways, and their questioning of deep issues won’t come until later. At a realization in grade nine, I had no chance of transitioning from child to teen to adult, I jumped directly from child to adult. I have skipped over any atrocities that I might experience at a teenage stage.
I frequently ponder over whether it’s a blessing or a curse that I’m smarter than everyone else. I constantly despair over how ignorant and simply dumb and stupid so many of the people around me are. If I wasn’t as smart as I am, I wouldn’t even notice how dumb everyone else is. But I’m smart and I notice; I notice how others get mad because they lost in a game, because they messed up on their speech. Why can’t they get over it already! They fail to observe and take note of simple instructions and can’t see what they’re doing wrong even when they’ve been told a dozen times.
But even through other’s ignorance, I have devoted my life into serving others, because smarts isn’t totally natural, though a large portion is natural smarts. If we have the right mindset, and we learn to stay afloat, I don’t see why I can’t succeed in helping others succeed.
I frequently feel like I have been successfully assimilated into this Neurotypical world. I obey traffic signals, stop for cars, don’t bump into people in the street, don’t steal, know what’s right and wrong, etc. I wonder what the world would be like if we lived differently. I wonder how I got assimilated in the first place, where I was at the beginning, and why I must obey what every other human believes right; why I can’t follow my own rules.
And I look up in the sky, and if the sky’s still blue and the sun still shines, I know nothing in the world has changed, even after I publish this post, that the world will still be the same even after I change the world.

So that’s me. I’m nowhere near finished describing myself, but I can’t keep going on forever without posting it. Heck, this post is more than NINE! thousand words long (describing the lives of just 10 people like this and we’ll have a decent sized book :). So if you think you are like me, have a similar life, please let me help myself help you by understanding the unwritten rules to our lives by sending me an email. We might even become friends one day. Feel free to share stuff about yourself and you can count me in on reading it.

-Kyle - Mar 2013

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How I'm Different - A Detailed Overview of my Life

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