We are finally completely done with the apartment complex, and entirely moved into our new home!
The cleaning was unpleasant, for both of us, and I'm fairly certain we didn't leave the place as spotlessly clean as we did the last place, but still, we did leave it quite clean. We probably won't get the whole deposit back, due to the one of the blinds breaking at some point in the master bedroom... but other than that, I think everything else is going to be fine.
Now I get to turn my attention to the great piles of stuff everywhere, which is... less than fun. But at least more satisfying than putting things into boxes. Last weekend Chris and I put together the kitchen, which is now almost suitable for cooking in. Everything has a home, and there's still some extra spaces here and there for more things. We really want to replace the microwave, though... it's older than I am, by some definitions, and didn't even come with a turntable. They put one in afterward that does a shoddy job. So that might be a project for this weekend.
In the meantime, I've made the guest bedroom my personal project. Last week I set up the bed and the shelves. After getting Chris' approval for the locations of everything, I put most of my books into the shelves today. I also made a small pile of books that don't make me happy, so I'm going to donate them. My mother, in this last decade, has been working on decluttering, and preached to me often that "if something doesn't make you happy, get rid of it." So I'm doing just that with some of these books.
As I was doing that, I was reminded of how much space actual physical books take, and bemused at current technology now... The text of all the books on my bookshelves could fit easily onto my support tablet, with room for thousands of other books besides. When I was growing up, eBooks were technically a thing, but they were rarely used. It was only after high school that everyone started having their own smart phones, which could then have eBook readers, and thus carry a small library's worth of books in their pockets.
So now I have to decide whether I should simply seek out electronic copies of these books that I do like, or keep the physical copies despite needing to dust them and organize them. For now, I'm going to keep them, or at least the ones that make me happy... but I'll continue being very selective about which books I buy in physical form.
In other news, I did attend and finish my part in the research study I mentioned last week. No word on what was actually being tested yet, but I found the psychological examinations both exceedingly boring and also frustrating. For example, there was a test of nonverbal intelligence. It involved matching patterns with simple and composite shapes.
Doing 5 of these exercises is one thing, but the booklet contained in excess of 70 exercises, so you were literally sitting there for an hour or so, just staring at little shapes and looking for patterns. That was one of the six tests I had to do. And that's in addition to the actual (probably) testing in front of the computer wearing an EEG cap.
Earlier this year when I was in Washington, I vocally and humorously expressed disbelief when some researchers said they had no problems getting autistic children to wear EEG caps. I now can safely say my response was extremely valid for the type of cap I had to wear. I'm afraid I quite forgot to take a picture of myself wearing the actual cap... but basically... First they had to measure my head to choose the right size of EEG cap. Apparently my head is average sized, which was handy.
Then, they had to prepare the cap, which took something like 20 minutes (and the length of another psychological evaluation... bleugh...). After that, they put the silly thing on my head (it was not very comfortable), and proceeded to scrape my scalp with toothpicks at the sites of the electrodes. This was so they could get a good signal from my brain, but it hurt and was quite annoying. Once that was done, cold gel was applied at those points to act as a conductor between my scalp and the electrodes.
Needless to say, all that gunk got in my hair. I would say "it's fortunate my hair is quite short now," but I actually can't find it in me to be grateful, since this was the result...
I know this would be worse if I still had long hair, but considering I basically had to soak my hair twice to get (almost) all of that garbage goop out, I am unrepentantly annoyed with the whole thing.
I had to rush out after the test, because it ran very late (also extremely annoying), and I was already upset because I lost my Rubik's Cube the day before. That's kind of a nice story, actually, because I didn't lose it so much as accidentally give it away. I'm learning to speedcube (solve the Rubik's Cube quickly) due to an acquaintance of mine, whom I respect strongly. He's having a hard time right now and has been out of contact, so I'm being supportive quietly by learning to do this thing, which he likes doing a lot. So I'd been bringing my cube with me wherever I went, so I could practice...
Well, so I was in the waiting room, killing time before the study started, and a little African American girl happened to notice me working on the cube. After some initial interest and a short conversation about it, she seemed to forget about the matter... But when I got up to go to the study, she stuck out her hand and confidently asked if she could try it. I quickly did mental calculations: How attached was I to this particular Rubik's cube? Would I get it back? Was she really that interested? How much would a new one cost me?
After a few seconds, I handed it over, having completed my calculations: not that attached, probably not, maybe? and $12 at Target. After that day's testing was over, the researcher and I went back to see if she'd left the cube at the front desk or given it to someone to hold onto for me. But my calculations were more or less correct, there was no sign of the cube and she'd probably gone home with it. I haven't heard word of it since.
So why was I upset? Well, I gave away my fidget-toy and time-killer, and I was right in the middle of trying to learn something specific when I did so. I've thus been tormented by the lack of having it, since I couldn't continue to try to learn the step I'd been working on. Every spare moment, I'd been spending working on this cube, and suddenly it was no longer there. For lack of a better comparison, the missing Rubik's cube makes me mentally and emotionally itchy, like having poison ivy or mosquito bites you mustn't scratch. Apparently I should have added, "how badly is this going to disrupt my equilibrium?" to my list of mental calculations.
In the end, I have no idea whether that girl had any luck with the cube, or if she simply left it somewhere... But perhaps it's for the best. I've since ordered a Rubik's cube that's designed to be solved quickly (more expensive than the ones at Target, sadly), and will probably do better using that new cube... but I do wish it'd hurry up and make its way to me already.
 |
| This is now what I see most mornings instead of the cars and parking lots I used to see at the old place. |
The cleaning was unpleasant, for both of us, and I'm fairly certain we didn't leave the place as spotlessly clean as we did the last place, but still, we did leave it quite clean. We probably won't get the whole deposit back, due to the one of the blinds breaking at some point in the master bedroom... but other than that, I think everything else is going to be fine.
Now I get to turn my attention to the great piles of stuff everywhere, which is... less than fun. But at least more satisfying than putting things into boxes. Last weekend Chris and I put together the kitchen, which is now almost suitable for cooking in. Everything has a home, and there's still some extra spaces here and there for more things. We really want to replace the microwave, though... it's older than I am, by some definitions, and didn't even come with a turntable. They put one in afterward that does a shoddy job. So that might be a project for this weekend.
In the meantime, I've made the guest bedroom my personal project. Last week I set up the bed and the shelves. After getting Chris' approval for the locations of everything, I put most of my books into the shelves today. I also made a small pile of books that don't make me happy, so I'm going to donate them. My mother, in this last decade, has been working on decluttering, and preached to me often that "if something doesn't make you happy, get rid of it." So I'm doing just that with some of these books.
As I was doing that, I was reminded of how much space actual physical books take, and bemused at current technology now... The text of all the books on my bookshelves could fit easily onto my support tablet, with room for thousands of other books besides. When I was growing up, eBooks were technically a thing, but they were rarely used. It was only after high school that everyone started having their own smart phones, which could then have eBook readers, and thus carry a small library's worth of books in their pockets.
So now I have to decide whether I should simply seek out electronic copies of these books that I do like, or keep the physical copies despite needing to dust them and organize them. For now, I'm going to keep them, or at least the ones that make me happy... but I'll continue being very selective about which books I buy in physical form.
In other news, I did attend and finish my part in the research study I mentioned last week. No word on what was actually being tested yet, but I found the psychological examinations both exceedingly boring and also frustrating. For example, there was a test of nonverbal intelligence. It involved matching patterns with simple and composite shapes.
 |
| This is a simple example, directly from the test I took, in fact. Below this would be six options for your answer. You point to the one you think is correct, and the researcher takes note of your answer. The difficulty quickly ramped up, suffice it to say. |
Earlier this year when I was in Washington, I vocally and humorously expressed disbelief when some researchers said they had no problems getting autistic children to wear EEG caps. I now can safely say my response was extremely valid for the type of cap I had to wear. I'm afraid I quite forgot to take a picture of myself wearing the actual cap... but basically... First they had to measure my head to choose the right size of EEG cap. Apparently my head is average sized, which was handy.
Then, they had to prepare the cap, which took something like 20 minutes (and the length of another psychological evaluation... bleugh...). After that, they put the silly thing on my head (it was not very comfortable), and proceeded to scrape my scalp with toothpicks at the sites of the electrodes. This was so they could get a good signal from my brain, but it hurt and was quite annoying. Once that was done, cold gel was applied at those points to act as a conductor between my scalp and the electrodes.
Needless to say, all that gunk got in my hair. I would say "it's fortunate my hair is quite short now," but I actually can't find it in me to be grateful, since this was the result...
 |
| All those bits sticking everywhere, and the white gunk you see? That's the goo, drying out. That's after I wiped most of it off with paper towels and picked at it for half an hour... |
I had to rush out after the test, because it ran very late (also extremely annoying), and I was already upset because I lost my Rubik's Cube the day before. That's kind of a nice story, actually, because I didn't lose it so much as accidentally give it away. I'm learning to speedcube (solve the Rubik's Cube quickly) due to an acquaintance of mine, whom I respect strongly. He's having a hard time right now and has been out of contact, so I'm being supportive quietly by learning to do this thing, which he likes doing a lot. So I'd been bringing my cube with me wherever I went, so I could practice...
Well, so I was in the waiting room, killing time before the study started, and a little African American girl happened to notice me working on the cube. After some initial interest and a short conversation about it, she seemed to forget about the matter... But when I got up to go to the study, she stuck out her hand and confidently asked if she could try it. I quickly did mental calculations: How attached was I to this particular Rubik's cube? Would I get it back? Was she really that interested? How much would a new one cost me?
After a few seconds, I handed it over, having completed my calculations: not that attached, probably not, maybe? and $12 at Target. After that day's testing was over, the researcher and I went back to see if she'd left the cube at the front desk or given it to someone to hold onto for me. But my calculations were more or less correct, there was no sign of the cube and she'd probably gone home with it. I haven't heard word of it since.
So why was I upset? Well, I gave away my fidget-toy and time-killer, and I was right in the middle of trying to learn something specific when I did so. I've thus been tormented by the lack of having it, since I couldn't continue to try to learn the step I'd been working on. Every spare moment, I'd been spending working on this cube, and suddenly it was no longer there. For lack of a better comparison, the missing Rubik's cube makes me mentally and emotionally itchy, like having poison ivy or mosquito bites you mustn't scratch. Apparently I should have added, "how badly is this going to disrupt my equilibrium?" to my list of mental calculations.
In the end, I have no idea whether that girl had any luck with the cube, or if she simply left it somewhere... But perhaps it's for the best. I've since ordered a Rubik's cube that's designed to be solved quickly (more expensive than the ones at Target, sadly), and will probably do better using that new cube... but I do wish it'd hurry up and make its way to me already.
No comments:
Post a Comment