Redux part 2

Ok I meant to rekick this blog off some time ago but I returned to school full-time to pursue my bachelors so I've been busy. I just finished up a "slammed" 6 week summer course yesterday and have no classes for two months until the fall semester begins.

Yesterday's final exam brought back to mind my intentions to rework this blog. Originally, it was sort of a commentary on my libertarian political ideals and some of my experiences with living in the desert. A lot has happened since the origination of the blog and while I could have started a new blog the name of this blog is so appropriate that I decided to pull a redux.

Anyway, back to the final and just what the heck I'm talking about. I came to the realization about a year ago that I have Asperger's Syndrome. I'm kind of one to ignore my own issues unless a limb falls off so first of all it took me until 39 years old to put the pieces together and second to realize I may have to take measures to help me help myself to better navigate through life.

Yesterday's exam was a glaring reminder that maybe I can't just trudge through and ignore my limitations. It was an online course for Microsoft Access 2010. I've never worked with Access previously but had a 100% average in the class...until yesterday. The final exam was held in a computer lab on campus. We had an hour and a half to follow a list of tasks to complete in the database. The twenty other people in the lab took off clackety-clacking on their keyboards and I froze. I couldn't remember the macros or how to make crosstab queries. I struggled through best I could but it wasn't nearly enough time for me to complete, especially after all the distraction of all those people typing at once. This morning I got my grade: 55%

Maybe I should have told her at the beginning of the course that I had Asperger's. I'm not officially diagnosed so I don't know if the school would be required to accommodate me. Maybe give me a privately proctored exam, I don't know what else would help. When I commented to her after the test that it was not nearly enough time for me to complete she said that having a time constraint like that is more true to life and that we need to get used to being in a crowded environment with deadlines on our work. I can tell you right now I wouldn't be able to work in an environment like that. I need to be squirreled away in a server room somewhere or at home programming code in my pajamas.

When I got home I googled "career Aspergers" and one of the sites said that 80% of adults with Asperger's don't work full-time. I know the times that I did work full-time I felt like my head was going to explode. I definitely need to find something I can do freelance or from home or some other environment where I'm not around a lot of people. Not that I don't like people. It's just that they don't understand me and I don't understand them and they're generally a distraction from what I need to focus on. More later...