Astrid’s Journal

Stolen from this page.

Name: Astrid

Age: 20

Date of Birth: June 27, 1986

Eye Colour: Blue/green/grey

Hair Colour: dark brown but my father still calls it dark blonde.

Hair Style: Usually long and staight but since I just cut some of my hair and will have to go to the hairdresser, it’ll become half-long and somewhat curly then, cause my hair curls when it’s shorter.

Weight: 58 kg (128 lbs if I’m correct)

Body Type: Short, not skinny or fat

Physical Condition: Average

Race: White

Ethnicity: Dutch I guess

Religion: None, but I take an active interest in most religions.

Distinguishing Features (scars, tattoos, piercing, etc):

1. Big scar on belly from shunt surgery
2. Right now, ugly hair
3. Lots of small scars from past self-injurious behaviour that I didn’t know people would notice till someone confronted me about them.

Physical Features - Favorites:

1. Long hair when it’s long
2. My face (not sure why)
3. Don’t know what else

Physical Features - Wish to change:

1. Height, wish to be taller
2. …
3. …

Interaction Characteristics (voice tone, gestures, quirks)

1. Soft voice except when I’m angry
2. Fewer facial expressions than most (at least, that’s what my classmates say)
3. Don’t tend to make eye contact cause I can’t see the other person

Ancestral Lineage, Family Background: My father’s family are mostly educated, intellectual, politically-engaged people - would’ve been in the upper middle class if I liked classifying people that way - originating from everywhere around the country. My father was born in Hilversum, North Holland, a town between Amsterdam and Utrecht if I’m correct. My paternal grandfather did some radio work but I never found out what and my paternal grandmother was a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. My father went to university but didn’t graduate and now works as a system manager - not at all his field of study, cause he used to study physics. My mother’s family would be “working class” I guess, but I don’t know too much about them. They originate from the city of The Hague and surrounding cities. My maternal grandfather was a painter and I have no idea what my grandmother did, so I guess she was a housewife. My mother’s education is something similar to a GED, but she worked herself up in her career and is now something called a project administrator.

Allergies: Not sure anymore

Educational Level: High school, currently a college freshman

Areas of Study: Currently applied psychology

Degrees: High school diploma

Average Grades: Bs and Cs

Occupational Training: Got none

Career desired: Not sure. The one big thing I’m pretty sure about is that I want to work in the non-profit field and that I hate to be a manager.

Occupation: Being useless I guess

Income: Disability, currently about 560 euros a month

Past Occupations: N/A

Areas of Expertise: Uhm, don’t know

Miscellaneous skills, abilities, and awards:

1. Debating contest participant in 2003 and 2005
2. Good Internet-using and fairly good web development skills
3. Good writing skills (if I’m inspired)

Military Experience: Uhm, no, what would a blind girl do in the military? Besides, I’m a pacifist if that’s an English word not referring to the ocean (don’t got a dictionary so can’t look it up).

Goals, Short term:

1. Pass communication skills and psychology tests and job field orientation presentation
2. Improve picture of my situation
3. Not insult staff

Goals, Long term:

1. Live on my own
2. Go to college
3. Get a job

Desires, Short term:

1. Comfort, sort of
2. A regular sleep/wake cycle
3. Right now, coffee (what did I say about sleep cycles?)

Desires, Long term:

1. Not to feel this lonely anymore (man, I feel weak for admitting this)
2. More confidence
3. More clarity about what I desire/want/whatever, I guess, cause I can’t think of anything else.

Needs, Short term:

1. Sleep
2. A haircut
3. Time and energy to study for exams and practise presentation

Needs, Long term:

1. To lessen my confusion
2. To get out of here and live on my own
3. To go to college I guess

Every been arrested: No, but have been involved with the police more than once.

If yes, for what: Always cause I was wandering around and policemen think that’s illegal or something.

How long in prison: N/A

My Personality: I am open-minded, intelligent and creative and like to think I’m a good listener. On the other hand, I’m pretty socially awkward and kind of shy when it comes to acquainting people - I don’t mind talkign with strangers, but they can’t come too close. I also tend to be kind of pessimistic.

Self-Esteem: Pretty poor I guess, but that is kind of a tricky issue as I don’t like to admit to having poor self-esteem cause it in itself means weakness - hence, a pretty self-fulfilling prophecy. Actually, my self-esteem is, like most things, quite black-and-white: I have certain standards that I think I have to meet up to, and if I meet them, I’m quite hapy - at least, when, by then, I still find them important. When I don’t - and I usually don’t -, I think pretty badly of myself.

Introvert/Extrovert: In some ways, an introvert - mostly in the social contact I desire -, but I may come across like an extravert in my behaviour, cause I quite easily approach strangers but don’t tend to let them come too close.

Intuitive/Planning: Intuitive in my planning?

Judge/Accepting: Judge for myself and, when I’m angry, for others; otherwise, I’m pretty accepting to others.

Thinker/Follow Emotions: Both, yet at the wrong moment.

Temperament: Uhm, I’m a person of extremes - or I think I am.

How handle anger: Quite poorly. There are moments when I try not to behave badly, and mostly those involve stuffing anger, and yet when I do get angry, I tend to insult others and/or break objects.

How handle compliments: Don’t usually believe them.

How express love: Try to express empathy with other’s feelings.

Quirks:

1. May talk at length about one topic
2. Hair twirling when I’m nervous
3. My speech tends to vary greatly with my mood (ie. I can’t find words when I’m distressed)

Positive Traits:

1. Intelligence (though I’m not sure I consider that a positive trait)
2. Creativity
3. Open-mindedness

Negative Traits:

1. Poor frustration tolerance
2. Really bad decision-making skills
3. Quite pessimistic attitude

Good Habits:

1. Making cofee/tea for others
2. Caring for appearance / personal hygiene (tat least, I hope so)
3. Good studying habits, mostly

Bad Habits:

1. Nail biting
2. Hair twirling
3. Never put things in the same place

Sense of Humor: Not sure. People say I got it but I don’t know.

Fears:

1. Not fulfilling my parents’ dreams for me
2. Not being productive
3. Abandonment

Comment: Hmmm, I guess these are all three fears of mine cause I see them in a cause-effect relationship.

Phobias:

1. Poison. That’s about my only fear that might creatively be called a phobia, though it doesn’t meet DSM-IV criteria.
2. Used to have a phobia for dogs.
3. Also used to have a phobia for weird, tropical diseases.

Prejudices:

1. Every person graduating from my type of high school, goes to university.
2. Every person whose only disability is blindness, lives on their own and is competitively employed.
3. Every intelligent person has a university degree.

Comment: I fulfill none of these three prejudices and know at least one other person not fulfilling each of them, but I still can’t get myself to stop thinking this way.

Opinion on Others Prejudice: I hate stereotypes and actively fight the ones I even hold myself, but of course, everyone has prejudices, and I even read somewhere that they serve a good purpose.

I talk easily about:

1. Politics
2. Current events
3. Philosophy

I get embarrassed by:

1. Not being able to find words when I’m distressed
2. Having to admit that I’m not doing alright (when not in an angry/sad tantrum)
3. Discussions about things I know a lot about but have little experience with where the opposite is expected, like friendship

Past, Favorite Moments:

1. My 10th birthday party
2. International Computer Camp in 2002
3. Being accepted to two debating contests (2003 and 2005)

Past, Least Favorite Moments:

1. Being teased in elementary school
2. All of ninth grade in high school
3. The big parent conflic tlast April

Past, Psychological Scars: I tend to describe my life as a constant battle between people about my abilities and difficulties and what these imply, but of course it all depends on how I handle these situations how I feel about them, and, of course, I don’t handle them well.

Political Party: Socialist

Social Issues you are against:

1. Abortion
2. Euthanasia
3. “Preventive” war on terror

Social Issues you are for:

1. Public healthcare
2. Disability rights
3. Gay marriage

Hobbies:

1. Writing
2. Readign
3. Surfing the Internet

Interests:

1. Philosophy
2. Psychology
3. Disability issues

Comment: And a host of others, cause I have way too many interests and they tend to change depending on my mood.

Pets: Nope, but my family have a cat

Favorite Pet: My family’s cat, Morse

Favorite TV show: Don’t know

Favorite Band: Uhm, no idea

Favorite type of music: Folk

Favorite Song: Changes constantly

Favorite Colour: Black, blue, green, purple

Favorite Movie: Don’t know, never watch movies

Favorite Actor: Don’t even know any

Favorite Book: Currently The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Favorite Author: Hannah Green (aka Joanne Greenberg)

Favorite Sports: I only do fitness

Favorite Pastime: Writing

Do you drink: Nope

How often: Rarely

Favorite Alcohol: Don’t like any

Favorite Meal: Anything with rice

Favorite Restaurant: No idea

Diet (healthy, fatty, chocolate is a food group): Pretty healthy and varied, but I do tend to eat a lot of rice and pasta, coffee is a food group and I’m totally addicted to one particular type of candy

Clothing Style: Casual, but almost always black

Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual: Bisexual I think

Sexually Active: No

Love interest: Uhm, yeah, maybe

Favorite characteristics in love interest: What?

Least Favorite characteristics in love interest: N/A

Turn-Ons: What does that mean?

Turn-Offs: Don’t know

Best Friend: Got none

Close Friends: Have none either

Acquaintances: Uhm, the online folks?

Acquaintance you wish to be a friend: N/A

Where do you live (home, apartment): One-room apartment

With who: Alone but since I live in training home we share one apartment that is for general use. There are seven clients here.

City: Apeldoorn, Gelderland, Netherlands

Assessment of living style (can’t wait to move, love city, hate state): Currently think training home really isn’t the right place for me anymore but alternate between thinking I belong in a mental institution and thinking I should’ve moved out on my own. Don’t have a problem with my city except that it has no colleges.

Where would you like to live: Don’t know

Favorite saying: Whatever?

Favorite quote: “The biggest argument against democracy is a five-minute discussion with the average voter.” - Winston Churchill

My Philosophy of Life: I’m a philosophical Idealist who looks for “realism”. Pretty contradictory, isn’t it?

Because I once again don’t fancy schoolwork - and besides, I did quite a bit of it this morning already -, here are some results from tests my psych instructor and the info folk form psychodiagnostic work would cringe at cause they’re totally unscientific. But they are fun.

You Are 36% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom’s basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

The profile of an insecure, kind of confused girl with a negative self-image, but nothing pathological. In other words, quite exactly me.

You May Be a Bit Dependent…

You’re more than a little preoccupied with being abandoned. You need a lot of support in your life, at all times. It’s difficult for you to survive on your own… And you don’t reallly think you ever could.

Geez, DPD (dependent personality disorder) was on my list of disorders I had an obsession with briefly in 2003… not that I ever really believed I had it, but, when I began to realize that some of my attempts at being “independent”, were actually making me emotionally (and sometimes, physically) dependent, I was in the habit of psychopathologizing everything, so therefore.

You Are 64% Bipolar

You’re more than moody - you’re a bit unstable. If your mood swings are effecting your life, you may need to seek help.

The thing is, the quiz doesn’t care whether you’ve been this way for a very long time or whether your elated or depressed moods are severe enough and when they happen (it doesn’t require all the symptoms to have occurred at the same time) - in order to be diagnosed cyclothymic you would have to have mood swings for at least two years, and in order to be diagnosed bipolar you would have to be in both a major depressive and a manic episode (and I think more than one), which essentially last two weeks in full force to be diagnosed as episodes. Furthermore, what is “elated” or “optimistic” for one person, is not so for the other, and what is “depressed” and “pessimistic” is not the same for everyone. For me, for example, “optimistic” or “elated” is how I felt on Saturday when talking with Marianne, and “pessimistic” is how I felt on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. And, while I was acting abnormally on Monday and Tuesday, I wasn’t at all on Saturday - the thing is, it was “optimistic” for me, cause I generally feel quite pessimistic. In short, while I feel I’m experiencing some degree of mood swings - never mind that it started only about five months ago -, there’s nothing abnormal about my “optimistic” moods - that are, for me, very unusual - and a hell of a lot wrong with my “pessimistic” moods.

Your Depression Level: 60%

You seem to have mild depression. A lot of people fall into your range, and it’s quite possible you don’t need treatment. If you’ve been feeling this way for a while, you may want to seek help.

In other words, the standard profile of a confused adolescent who has pretty poor coping skills and pretty screwed thinkign - duh.

You Are 24% Sociopath

From time to time, you may be a bit troubled and a bit too charming for your own good. It’s likely that you’re not a sociopath… just quite smart and a bit out of the mainstream!

Mostly checked the vague statements like the one about having been in trouble as a kid, cause, sure, I was a troubled kid, but not in the way they most likely mean it. By the way, what in the world does a high IQ have to do with sociopaths?

I’m still feeling kind of confused and getting sick of my schoolwork cause the job field orientation thingy is getting nowhere and I don’t understand my communication skills stuff, so just going to fill out a stupid survey.

Today, I still feel extremely confused. This morning, I was discussing Goldstein training - a form of social skills training catered to people with mild intellectual or psychiatric impairments - with Annemarie (the internship student). She has to do a paper on that, but could hardly find any info. Neither could I - I know at a basic level what Goldstein training is and what it’s supposed to do and how, but that’s about all I could find online -, and I’m quite good at using the Internet as a source. Then, Annemarie went up to her teacher saying that she could hardly find any info and even one of her clients, who is in college, couldn’t. (She would initially also have had to do a paper on some method called Liberman, but talked her teacher out of it cause neither of us could find any info and the other staff here didn’t know anything about it either.) This whole thing feels kind of strange: of course, the simple fact that I’m in college, doesn’t say anything about my ability to find information on social pedagogical work methods, but since my current programme leads up to, among other things, the social pedagogical care programme and since I have quite an extensive psychology book (the students were told to look in psych books for info on these methods), it’s kind of understandable (though not correct) that my being in college poses some authority. I didn’t learn about Goldstein in college - I learnt about it in one of my so many searches for information on how people with behavioural disorders are treated.

And maybe I should admit to this paradoxical situation: I may be in a college-level psychology programme, but I’m also troubled myself. That’s not an actual contradictio in terminis - there are so many people out there going to study psychology even at the university level solely cause they want to understand their own psychological problems -, but it is a contradictio in terminis for me, cause really, for me, they’re completely incompatible and, for the most part, completely separate, with one major exception: sometimes, the “intellectual applied psychology college freshman” remembers the “behaviourally disturbed client”. Hell, how could I not have remembered my major temper tantrum - in a lot of ways, comparable to that of August 17 - yesterday? How can I feel that I can go on living life as if I’m not the confused, behaviourally troubled girl? How can I go to college on Monday and pretend I’m all fine, when really, I’m not? I’ve not been fine in all these weeks, but I thought I could make myself fine and I wanted to be fine cause, hell, I’m intelligent. And I did realize, in early October, how there’d been some things I’d done fundamentally wrong for all of these previous months, namely, thinking I could define what I was able of (ie. “realism”) without having the slightest idea of where I wanted to be. But, does it also work the other way round? In other words, if I define where I want to be, can I achieve it regardless? I’m not sure, cause I know I want to be in college, yet I still can’t always cope and I wonder which is first: the inability to cope or the confusion about my situation? In one sense, it doesn’t matter, cause I have no idea how to settle either, but in another sense, it matters, in that, if the confusion was first, that means it can go away - and there’s a good chance that it’ll go away if I make a commitment to whatever I want. Still, of course, that means I would have details filled in that I haven’t yet filled in (cause, of course, “college” is a very broad term), but at least for now I can’t be confused - what I want for this year has already been defined.

And here I am, cheering at my current education and the exciting projects in job field orientation (even though they’re really difficult) and the good thing about writing a paper for psych class (cause I love writing papers) and the exciting parts about different aspects of other classes like communication skills or orientation to Saxion’s programmes, and yet I feel I really cannot cope and I should be coping cause this is far too easy for me cause it’s not even university. And I feel confused and lonely and scared and bad for not being high-achieving enough and I can’t deal with the situation and I freak out and I feel that really I can’t be an intelligent college student cause I can’t even behave. Hmmm, if it feels like a circular argument and sounds like a circular argument and works like a circular argument, I guess it must be a circular argument. Bad thing I really don’t know how to change it.

Today, I feel kind of confused. Freaked out at the stupid scanning stuff - mostly, cause I accidentally dropped my psych book when turning a page and then the cover got loose -, and got all the usual negative stuff that is fully normal and perfectly appropriate when I’m acting out, but that set off a big flashlight in my mind: it’s really the *only* thing the staff care about nowadays. At their last multidisciplinary discussion, they concluded that I was doing better cause I was freaking out less frequently. Guess I was not at all doing better but just doing more my best not to freak out, folks. I don’t act inappropriately on purpose, but it does seem like it’s the only thing they “listen” to. A good thing I don’t want the negative attention they give me when I act out; otherwise every behaviourism newbie would’ve known it’d only make it worse. (Oh, a behaviourist would say I couldn’t know what I wanted or didn’t want, but I guess a cognitive-behaviourist wouldn’t.)

Of course, I know I’ll have to figure out the whole thing of whatever is going on with me and what to do about it by myself and on my own, cause, geez, these are my issues, but then I wonder why the staff just don’t kick me out, so at least they won’t be bothered by me anymore. This is not a charity for otherwise homeless, behaviourally disordered and utterly confused adolescents, it’s a training home, you know? Today, I feel like giving up on ever making any progress on this very lonely route to an unkown destination. There are days when I’m more optimistic; on these days I feel I at least know that I will reach some destination eventually cause, heck, I’ll be kicked out of here by August, 2007, and “You need to do something by then.” On these optimistic days, I also realize that it’s my own very confusion that’s making this thing a lonely trip, cause if only I could ask well-worded, clear questions with the right intonation and in the right context, no-one ever would’ve given up on me - well, they just merely detached and decided their only priority was escaping from my tantrums, but the way it comes across is the same. I know that I alone am the cause of the situation where no-one cares how I’m doing or whatever, and I know I cannot expect the folks to care. I’ve gotten on their nerves too much for that. They really, genuinely, have no idea how to go about approaching me anymore. Heck, they’ve not had an idea since July. That’s not something I’m unfamiliar with, and nowadays I know more that it is my problem and I should solve it than I did a few years ago when this same thing was happening in all sorts of places - cause of course I’ve known this everywhere. The thing is, I still don’t know how to go about and settle this stuff. Hell, still not. I’m twenty and I’m still confused - I’m even more confused then I was a few years ago. And I’ve been given up a lot more times then I’d been a few years ago. And I’ve tried a hell of a lot more strategies for settling my confusion than a few years ago. And I’m worse off than I was a few years ago and, when I’m optimistic, I hope I’m better off than I was a few years ago. Hell, a few years ago, there were times when I dreamt of being where I wanted to be in a few years like I now dream of being where I want to be in a few years, but I always realized I wouldn’t be there in a few years and I should be farther in a few years like I now feel I can’t be there in a few years and I should be farther in a few years. Did I say I dream and want? Yes I did. And I really know I have genuine dreams and wants that are not duties to be fulfilled or “things I could do” or plans for success. They’re not detailed, but at least they’re there.

Now the real problem is that I’m too confused to know whether I can judge appropriately whether what I think I dream or want, is genuine, because, heck, one’s decisions are always influenced by one’s character and circumstances, and I do feel so are one’s desires, even thoguh I guess the British Idealists didn’t. Of course, I’m liberal enough to think that oneself is the only one who can decide on this, and maybe I could, but how then, do I deal with these constant feelings of uncertainty and having to do extremely great? You know, like I said yesterday, this whole thing is in the in-between spectrum, but my mind is a black-and-white picture camera and I made a commitment to “realism”. Is this fear or shame or something else?

I know I’m still confused about my whole situation, and I feel utterly unable to be independent enough to determine my whole situation and how I’m going to get at it on my own. It carries an extreme sense of loneliness with it. Hell, my whole life, as I perceive it, has been one big bettlefield of all sorts of people fighting *about* me and hardly *with* me. And here I long to know that I *can* take a stand. (That’s weird, huh, for someone who’s taken stands on all sorts of political issues, including taken a stand on which she has almost no allies, ie. being pro-life?) And here I long for support, while I know I pushed everyone who could’ve supported me away by routinely fighting everything they said. I never had my parents as supporters - cause I didn’t feel it that way - and, if I had them, I pushed them away, first, by deciding not to go to Nijmegen by 2005 or 2006 and, then, by being paranoid about their motives when asking me about my current education or training home situation. Same goes for my sister. Other family don’t know anything about my situation or know too little to support me in whatever way. Same goes for school and those folks. And here I am at training home, where people used to support me, but can’t anymore cause I pushed them away by routinely fighting whatever they said and coming across too confused, so they genuinely didn’t know what to do anymore. Fuck, why am I so stupid that I act paranoid to my parents and sister and rudely to the folks here? Why don’t I know what to do about any of this, while I know in my head that neither does anyone else? Why do I feel lonely when really I’m the only one who can solve this, while I don’t know how? Maybe really the only thing I can do is to travel that route to an unkown destination alone and hope I can figure out this whole stuff magically (or not-so-magically) on my own. Maybe I could get used to being completely alone then, cause I really know that after I leave this place, I will be completely alone - cause the only people who might still care about me, ie. my parents and sister, have lost my trust in April and then later in August again. Is this a problem that needs to be solved - and if so, how? - or is it just “realism” that has to be accepted - and if so, how?

Over the past week, I’ve had a few quite interesting discussions with Marianne and other folks here about education and career stuff. It started on Tuesday or Wednesday with my comments on the elementary education (one of the possible majors to choose from after this year) info from Monday - I don’t like elementary school teaching and this opinion was only strenthened by the info - and the psychodiagnostic work info from a few weeks ago - I do find that interesting. For some reason, I decided on going to Saxion’s open day on November 25. Marianne read about this open day in the report, and asked me about it, cause she might want to enroll in the applied psychology programme I’m now in next year. I, of course, was very eager to promote it. Then, we got to discuss the differences between two social work programmes: social pedagogical care (SPH, the college-level equivalent of social pedagogical work) and social work and services (what is just called “social work” in most countries). I have a fair amount of knowledge about these programmes, so I shared it - though I still know less than Marianne, cause obviously she oriented to them.

I also had a few discussions with my sister and my mother on respectively Friday and today. In both, I noticed that I had to think of balancing genuinely liking my current education with what I know my parents and Sigrid want me to study next year. Sigrid, for example, was suggesting I go the social sciences route, cause “you like your current education, don’t you?” and my mother was commenting on psychodiagnostic work in the form of our current problem-centred education case (which is about a student needing testing for learning disabilities), that I find really cool, by saying: “That’s remedial education, isn’t it?” (I think she was somewhat ironic besides being incorrect, cause she would never want me to study that), and at the same time commenting on my needing to study communication studies (which I’m going to go to at Radboud’s open day) or linguistics, mostly to contrast my statement that I wasn’t going to study English anyway with. By the way, she made some rather illogical statements about how I should be deciding now, while she herself is facing possible career changes and says she isn’t going to decide what she’s going to do till the definitve plans are within seveal months from being introduced. I don’t need to decide yet - though I do need to explore and think seriously about what I want, cause of course I don’t want to decide on the fly again (though it did seem to work out with my current eudcation, huh?) -, cause the most important thing that has to be arranged in time, is housing (though I know I’ll get housing quicker when I, my doctor and the student counsellor file a request at the SSHN), but that has nothing to do with what exactly I’m going to major in, only with where I’m going to study. Besides, if I’m correct, I’m still in the SSHN system from last year’s application. The other thing that has to be arranged by May 1 (ideally), which does require knowing what I am going to major in, is getting my books scanned by the library for the blind. Well, we’ll have to write a paper outlining our decision for Orientation to Saxion’s Programmes by late January anyway. That thing, of course, is about Saxion’s programmes only, but it makes no sense to say: “I’m not going to enroll in either of Saxion’s programmes, but I don’t have a clue yet as to what I am going to study.”

Another question which I’m dealing with when talking with my family about my education, is: how much can I say about what I do and don’t like about my classes? My mother has some tendency of connecting everything I say about my classes to its corresponding college/university programme or profession. Even when I said something about language acquisition being a part of my psych book’s chapter on language that I did like, she made some comment about it being something for speech/language therapists. Well, Mum, speech/language therapists treat disorders of speech and language and, while they do need to learn about normal development, language acqusition is a part of applied linguistics and is being discussed to some degree in psychology and remedial education. She also has some tendency of making statements that are more or less true regarding how much one can like one’s studies whenever I make either a positive or a negative comment about some part of my education. She keeps repeating that there are good and bad parts to each programme, and I fully agree - I for one thing, like my current education for the most part, but don’t think each case in job field orientation is equally interesting (the new one about a guy in long-term unemployment going for vocational rehab, doesn’t interest me one bit, for example) and I don’t like each chapter of my psych book -, but I can’t keep from noticing that she uses this argument only to talk me into going into English or linguistics. I’m 99% sure I’m not going into English, but linguistics is still on my list of interesting programmes (though I’m not going to visit its info round in Nijmegen cause I’ve already been in it). I had very specific plans with my English thingy - too specific and very screwed. I, namely, was sure at the time that I wanted to work in healthcare, social services or education, and, because none of these programmes are acceptable with my parents, I decided to study American studies to either go to the States and never leave (cause, you know, the U.S. being the country of unliminted possibilities, haha, I’m a die-hard socialist) or to become an English teacher. I never tell anyone about this, cause I cannot be a teacher and besides, the whole idea is screwed, cause, in university, you don’t study for some career you want - with a few exceptions of course, like dentistry. My mother is the first to highlight this whenever I make some statement about career perspectives with certain studies, so she should agree with me that this was incorrect logic. She did, as I explained the situation to her.

Another hurtful comment my mother made, was that I really had to do something next year. Sure I do, but she said it in a tone of voice as if to say I wasn’t doing anything now. “Yes, but that’s one year, so you’ll have to do something else next year.” Of course, but I’m not sitting on my ass doing nothing. I wonder if I leave that impression with my mother. The ideal impression I leave, which is the most correct one, is someone who is exploring and starting to plan but doesn’t yet know what she wants specifically.

I know, of course, that whatever I say has its implications. When I said I liked the psychodiagnostic work thingy, Renee was eager to point at this as an option and my sister asked whether I was thinking about going into some social sciences programme, and when I was reading the linguistics flyer with her a few months ago and was making nice comments, it was not at all surprising that she concluded I may be majoring in this. This is an important thing to notice: in early September, I said that I had no idea where I wanted to be in three years or even where I might be. Then, on September 22 I realized that I had several ideas, but that they were so polarized that I couldn’t deal with “realism” being something in between. I must’ve known that this was screwed thinking, cause a while later I was very eager to admit my black-and-white thinking in this situation, yet I said I didn’t have in-between images. Now, I realize this isn’t true: I have a lot of images that are between the third-year university student, approaching a honours Bachelor with a great GPA in some very esteemed subject and living completely on her own without any assistance, and the girl in an assisted living place and working, she might hope, as a receptionist or some other stereotypical blind person’s job. (The reaosn I pick these examples is cause I mentioned them as my *only* two images a few weeks ago.) Yet the problem with each of these images, is that they’re black-and-white images. Of course, this is logical, as all it means is that there are good and bad aspects to each of these, but I cannot agree on any of these with myself at all. And the same goes for the high-achieving university student and the receptionist: the high-achieving student has the “black” part that I feel it’s a duty, not something I want, and the receptionist has the “white” part that I’m at least pretty sure I can do that. Like I said it on September 22 regarding living arrangements: being a responsible user of housekeeping assistance seems like something between no assistance and a lot of guidance, but it really isn’t cause there’s no greater agreement within my mind about this than there is about any of the other two. Now I must say that there is some greater agreement about the in-between images - all of them, ranging from a third-year student in an esteemed field with not such a great GPA to a receptionist who’s not in some sheltered living place - than there is about the two extremes, but that may be cause in-betweens are more likely to come true than extremes.

Are there things I want or don’t want, amongst all of these images, or is it all about one thing being my duty yet my not being able to do it and another thing being within my range of abilities but being completely unacceptable? I do think there are things I want, and I think they’re in the in-between spectrum, but I’m not sure where. Heck, there’s even some part in my mind that wants to be a receptionist cause at least she’s working then and contributing to society, but this is something I rarely really think, and, in one way, I can say it’s a duty thingy, not a wanting thingy. And, of course, what other people say or think, influences my perspective, because, heck, I’m not a person in my own little cage without any contact with outsiders, and you can’t say whether you make decisions truly objectively. You’re free to decide for yourself how you’re going to live your life, the existentialists say, but I disagree, cause whatever you decide is influenced by your character and your circumstances - even though that doesn’t make it any less of your decision. That’s what the British Idealists say, if I remember correctly, and it’s far more practically true than the existentialist view.

Yesterday, I was filling in this career test that the folk from spychodiagnostic work gave us as an example of what tests these folks use and for us to fill out and score for ourselves. The results, as much as I say I don’t know what I want, were not at all surprising: I scroe high on working with people and creative work and very low on working in trade or economics, and all the rest is average compared to other females. (I say this cause technical work was very low as far as number of selected items is concered, but apparently very few women desire to work in the technical field.) Now I’ll still have to fill out the other test we were supposed to administer to ourselves, which is some thing about personality in employment situations - hmm, the instructor must’ve thought that all part-time students are employed, while some are not. I guess that one will type me as about as uncommunicative as can be. So go about doing highly creative art work on an attic somewhere. Thing is one needs to trade one’s creative works oneself if one is going to do this. Oops.

Watched a news show this evening that featured a Ph.D. dissertation on the biological aspects of criminal behaviour, such as low heart rate and a deficiency in some hormone called Cortisol (or something like it). This is interesting, as it appears to be the first completed research project on this topic in the Netherlands. That’s not to say it was the first attempt - about thirty years ago, we had this professor Buikhuijsen who was offered a fellowship or something like it and planned on researching biological aspects of crime, but was defeated by columnists, juvenile justice workers and fellow scientists because, at the time, it was supposed that only social factors contributed to criminal behaviour. Eventually, the prof resigned cause of the objections by his colleagues to his research.

I do feel it’s important that this research is being carried out here, not cause of any preference for biological psychology, but because of the fact that scientists should be able to carry out scientific research as they please - within ethical limits concerning the wellbeing of subjects, of course -, and we shouldn’t get to debate its legitimacy till we know the results. Even this time, the Amsterdam juvy system initially didn’t want to parttake till Amsterdam’s mayor intervened stating this thing.

Still, sure, I understand the fear amongst critics that now we’re going to screen babies for criminal behaviour when they’re adolescents, but I assume everyone will acknowledge the fact that one’s social environment does contribute. In the news programme, there was this criminologist stating that the same personality factors, caused by this Cortisol deficiency as I understand it - ie. a decreased sensitivity to stress and fear -, that might contribute to criminal behaviour, are very useful in certain professions. Then, it’s social factors that cause some people not to be able to get into these professions, so that criminal behaviour might serve as the outlet for these traits. And that’s why I don’t oppose this research or its implications: I don’t like the idea that you can, or should, fit people’s behaviour into a mould just by giving meds or otherwise adjusting their biology, or that you can completely predict what someone will be like based on their biological profile - cause, after all, the brain is constantly rewriting itself based on environmental factors -, but neglecting one perspective - in our psychology class, we approach topics from biological, cognitive and social-cultural viewpoints -, is as bad as overemphasizing one, I think.

I was just feeling like doing some random quizzes, and, since we’re going to have our national elections on November 22 - yeah, I’m going to vote again! -, I thought it’s a good idea to figure out how socialist I actually am.

You Are 8% Capitalist, 92% Socialist

You see a lot of injustice in the world, and you’d like to see it fixed. As far as you’re concerned, all the wrong people have the power. You’re strongly in favor of the redistribution of wealth - and more protection for the average person.

I eventually did get a schedule for this week, because Arda was willing to put mine on the central schedule and I did want a schedule. That still doesn’t mean that I don’t want to experiment, and I’m contemplating (but, knowing me, I guess it will remain contemplating…) doing this next week, because then I will be more prepared and it’ll be worked out in a more acceptable way, cause this did feel like something I’d not decided on myself (even though it was my fault that the scheduling went wrong on Thursday). Maybe I do need to be radical next week in order to achieve any kind of realism.

Today, I realized that the way I created my schedule isn’t black or white at all. After all, I did some cleaning activities that the staff say I should ask for assistance with on my own - concluded that using a kitchen chair to stand on while cleaning my kitchen cupboard tops, isn’t effective -, and yet folks assisted me with things every reasonable blind person should be doing for herself, like finding a recipe for this evening’s cooking. Much more accurate is to say my schedule was like a black-and-white cow print or that chess board I discussed last week, cause I felt really not confident and yet I felt I ought to be able to do all activities - both feelings pretty much at the same time. So it was still the way it was before, the only difference being that I decided on this schedule myself, so I have no right to avoid responsibility or to blame others for it. That was one goal this scheduling plan had, but there was another, in my mind, and that was my ability to experiment with that thing called “realism”. Is experimenting with different black-and-white cow prints the way to reach that thing, or is that overly nuanced for a black-and-white thinker like me? I do think, in a way, that when I do the cow print thingy, I will never achieve satisfactory “realism”, cause the uncertain part of mine can avoid exploring alternative techniques that will make her more independent than however I’ve decided that she’ll be for that week, and the perseverant, independent part can continue presuming that there really should be a way to do this or that without any assistance without experiencing the difficulties of having to do it on her own. So I do think it’s best to go radical and only request assistance with those things I really can’t avoid getting assistance with - ie. getting my food money (I just can’t steal it from the staff) and such. The independent part of mine really thinks - and I do feel she’s correct - that after nine months in training I should really have overcome this big uncertanty that is still with me or I’m really a loser with a bad attitude - which I am, of course, but don’t want to be. Accidentally, my mother was asking me last Sunday what I still needed assistance with, and I only named my mail and checkbook because I can’t read them, cooking - but I added that I was going to discuss this with Ellen once she’s back (which I will) - and getting my cleaning checked. These - except for the cooking -, are the only things that I can rationally not think of an alternative technique for doing, but I’ll have to think about the checkbook/mail stuff, but these are by far not the only times during the week that I get to see a staff member. So, this is big time comfort zone stuff and, if I ever want to earn the Competent Blind Adult (going to abbreviate it as CBA) degree (which I’m not sure I want, but which I know/think is my duty to earn), I should radically abandon this comfort zone. That is that stage which Kenneth Jernigan calls “rebellious independence”, that I now realize I never really entered. The reason I speak of three different states - fear and insecurity, rebelliosu independence, normal independence - instead of stages, is cause I act upon the first two alternatingly, which does create a very dependent situation (even if radical independence has been one of my pursuits for many years), because, when I react so ambivalently (black-and-white) that I get to defy whatever others say - whether it is that I have this or that ability, or that I don’t have it -, yet never come up with my own alternatives (cause I don’t have any), I still pretty much leave it to others to define my abilities and difficulties. Then, I may not turn out physically dependent - cause people here do aim at getting me to be independent -, but I will become very dependent emotionally, because I for the most part let others define me. And that’s exactly what I have been doing in the name of “realism”, and there have genuinely been times when I did rationally think that others (my parents, the staff here, my sister) were more capable of defining me than I was myself. And I still think so in a way, in that I am certainly not capable fo defining myself, but I really know that, if I’m ever going to be independent, I’ll need (and want, cause that’s one thing I do know I want) to be able to define my situation for myself.

Now, is that radical form of independence I’m thinking about scheduling for next week, going to be the way I actually am? Rationally, I don’t think so, but it is the only way to define for myself what is genuinely keeping me from being as radically independent as I think a CBA should be - or whether I actually am - and whether I’m going to accept that position, will be fighting it, or am going to practise accepting it like I had to with asking the line ten driver where line three will stop.