Stuff and Things

Again, this was written way before it was actually posted. In this case I wrote it yesterday as opposed to two days ago. Um.

I haven't been updating a lot lately because I'm not constantly connected to the Internet and I have a dial-up connection at home, which is really annoying. So I generally don't want to bother. But I should keep in the habit of writing, so I'm updating and letting everyone know I'm still alive.

I'm also still studying for the GRE, which I will take at the end of the summer. I also have an idea about what I might do after college. I recently read an article in the New York Times magazine about adult A.D.D. and how it's dealt with in the workplace. Apparently if you are significantly impaired by your A.D.D. or A.D.H.D., you can get accomodations from your employer, which include sessions with a consultant who specializes in helping adults with A.D.D. find strategies for coping and dealing with their problems. This doesn't just include suggesting medicines, of course, but discussing organizational strategies, behavior changes and ways to get others to help. Since I have A.D.D. myself - well, it was A.D.D. before, but now the definitions have changed and it's combined A.D.D./A.D.H.D. - I think I could do some good in a job like this. Even though I haven't gotten over all my problems (you never do), I've learned how to deal with most of them, like organization, remembering things (an organizer helps with that), and various social stuff. You have to be certified, of course, which means you need to do a training program. I don't know if there are prerequisites like having a Master's degree in something or having psychiatry training, but I got the impression from the article that you don't need to be a psychiatrist, you just need to take a training course. If it doesn't need psychiatry but needs some kind of Master's degree I could probably do it. If it does need psychiatric or psychology training I'm screwed, as far as that goes.

Oxhine recently replied to a message I sent him about theories for my Ruse fic. Luckily he likes my half-baked ideas, for the most part, and the parts that aren't consistent with the canon were easily fixed. He also likes that I'm going against the popular Ruse "conspiracy theories." I hope others will share that opinion. Those who don't read CrossGen's other titles will probably still get what I'm doing (I'm trying to make it so you don't need to know about the rest of the Sigilverse to understand all this), which is good, but now I also have something for people who've read other CrossGen series. Once I have the story finished I should send it to someone who only knows Ruse first so they can look over it. Of course, that assumes that I'll get motivated and finish the darn thing...

Home Alone

Don't worry, this isn't about the movie. On Friday morning my parents will be leaving for a while and they won't get back until Saturday night. I'll have the house to myself for that time. I have to feed Dad's fish, but otherwise I don't really have anything else that needs to be done (unless Mom pops something on me at the last minute). I think I'll burn CDs of some of the stuff on my desktop that I haven't put on my laptop yet. And there's this book I have to find...

Anyway, let's talk about today. It started earlier than usual, since Dad wanted to drop off some of our old stuff for a rummage sale at Adat Shalom. That means I had to get up early and go with him to drop the stuff off. Dad's going to do a Torah reading soon, so he had me read the portion to him out of his chumash. I probably didn't spell that right - and for those who don't know, a chumash is a book with Torah text written in it, both the way it's written in the scrolls and how it looks in modern Hebrew with vowels and cantellation marks and whatnot. I'm surprised that I can still read Hebrew: I don't understand it, but I can sound it out. I stumbled over it a lot though.

We took the Metro from Tennleytown today, which means we had to walk up River Road and I will have to drive home from there this afternoon. Now that I've actually been driving around a lot I know where things are. It's taken me eight years to figure this out.

One of the offices in Decatur House is being refurbished, so there's no desk or computer in it. I brought in my laptop, a chair and a spare Internet cable. Since there's no computer here nobody's going to need to kick me off to use the Internet, so I have it to myself. Yay!

I actually got some more ficcage done yesterday, though I got carried away on something and had to erase it. It's all Joan D. Vinge's fault. Don't ask.

Ouchies...

I just had an object lesson in what you do when you get into a car accident. That and some other things.

On the way home, as I was driving down Tuckerman, I accidentally ran a red light at an intersection (or that's what seems to have happened, I can't remember, probably because I wasn't paying attention). Another car hit me on the driver's side (I remembered it as the passenger side, which shows how screwed up I was). I lost control of the car, which spun and hit another car waiting at the red light. We hit each other side-on. Luckily nobody was hurt and no airbags deployed. My car was up against the side of the guy I'd hit, and with the help of some people who lived nearby (who called the police for us), we managed to get the two cars apart. I was in the van, which was still driveable, so I parked it on a side street.

The guy who'd hit me was about my age, and the son of a diplomat (his car had diplomatic plates and his dad turned up later). The front bumper of his car was torn off. Those people from the house nearby took it out of the intersection and helped to calm me down. We wrote down each other's addresses and insurance information, which took a while because I forgot to get mine out of the car and the policeman came while we were exchanging paperwork and had to look at everything (it was raining while we were all milling around out there, so it was quite miserable). I called Dad, who called Mom. She called me - I said everyone was fine and the van was still driveable. But Dad told her to drive over to me, so she did. She thinks now that it was a bad idea, because the guy in the second car (the one I spun into) was all right while only I was there. After all, I was young, scared, profusely apologetic and probably really pathetic. When Mom got there he seemed to get upset and he took pictures of the van as I drove it away. Mom's afraid he might sue us, but since nobody was hurt and the police officer saw that, I think we'll be okay. The other drivers were nice about it, too, again because I probably seemed pathetic.

The other two cars had to be towed. The guy whose car I spun into looked fine but stalled out when he started it. I managed to drive the van home, but the sides are dented, the front passenger door won't open all the way and the car seems to think the rear sliding door on the driver's side is open. Since the car has several thousand miles on it Mom doubts that it's salvagable.

After the police officer sorted everything out, he said I was at fault, which was true, but didn't give me a citation. I wasn't being reckless, just absentminded. I'm lucky nobody got hurt. It could easily have been a lot worse. Mom didn't yell at me, though she said this is going to drive up our insurance premiums. Before this the fact that I was female (well, I still am) and had good grades kept our premiums down. Mom figured this was going to happen some time. She's worried that if Daniel gets in an accident, it will be worse, because of course he drives like a typical teenage boy.

Mom and Dad haven't forbidden me from driving - they think this will make me more careful in the future. I'm taking the bus home tomorrow and I don't intend to get behind the wheel again for at least a week. Dad's still at work, so I don't know what his reaction will be, though he sounded all right over the phone.

And me? I was pretty shaken up, but I'm fine now. I once wrote a story about a girl who narrowly escaped a fatal traffic accident and felt guilty for surviving (it was a very bad story that I wrote for a fiction class and I shall never show it to anyone ever again). I'm glad I don't have somebody's injury or death on my conscience - just the cars, the inconvenience I caused, and what will now be higher insurance premiums.