Yeah well. HARK! A POST!
I suppose this would fit better on my unschooling blog, except it's a bit disjointed because a) I'm still figuring out how I feel on this topic, b) I have one of these really frustrating backaches I get sometimes where it feels like it would go away if I just stretched one particular muscle but I cannot for the life of me seem to get into a position that stretches it, so I spend 90% of my time contorting myself into positions that make it look like I am suffering from a serious neurological disorder, and c) I am also distracted by my cat Dot, who still looks like a kitten despite being 2 1/2 years old, because she is doing that thing cats do where they tuck all their feet up under them and puff up like a bird and make this face: ^______^. Also I just noticed one of the rocks Litsong gave me has been knocked off the top of my book cabinet and I need to go and find it.
Crisis averted. Not that any of you knew I was gone for a minute because this is a blog post. But I found the rock, in case you were concerned.
I think it is ironic that a post that was intended to be about structure has become so rambly. But then maybe that is perfect because it kind of self-demonstrates the point I was going to make.
See, I am pretty sure I have some form of ADD or suchlike, a point I have carefully avoided mentioning to my psychiatrist because I do not want to be on Ritalin or anything like Ritalin. I've been on Ritalin before, when I was in college, and I did not like it. It sort of made me feel like a robot: I was really, really focused and productive, but I became totally devoid of all personality traits other than being really really focused and productive. Now, I am not one of those people who does not believe ADD is a thing, nor am I anti-medication, because I know some people really do need ADD meds in order to function. Personally, I need antidepressants in order to function. When I was not on them, it took me massive amounts of energy to do anything, so my days didn't require much planning. I just got up and went "ugh, what thing do I have to drag myself to today?" and then spent the rest of my time doing more or less nothing.
Now that I am properly medicated, I have a lot more energy and a lot more things I want to do, but I do not have much capacity for focusing that energy on those things. So while on the outside I still appear to be dragging myself to necessary activities and spending the rest of my time refreshing Facebook, on the inside my brain is running around like an understimulated dachshund going "I want to paint abstract watercolors and study calculus and bake banana nut bread and do chin-ups and learn how to skateboard and play seven musical instruments but WHAT DO I DO FIRST OH GOD?!"
So, making lists and schedules and things is extremely helpful to me. I enjoy making these. I do not enjoy following them, because what happens is on Thursday I will make a list of things I want to do on Friday, and then it will be Friday and I will become engrossed in an entirely unrelated thing that is suddenly 1000x more interesting than the things I thought were interesting on Thursday. Then I will be sad because I didn't have time to do the things I wanted to do on Thursday. I am bad at this. It is also worth noting that I have opened a new tab to look at Facebook approximately a dozen times during the course of writing this post, even though I am not expecting any messages or comments or anything in particular right now. Um.
I think the point I was *trying* to work myself around to is that, since my life is not currently well-structured in terms of being involved in activities and such, and since my brain is currently in LEARN ALL THE THINGS mode, I'm trying to put together some kind of schedule based on things like Khan Academy and MIT Open Courseware and such. Except I haven't even picked what kind of things I want to study. I just want to be doing stuff.
I do not think this post ever actually made a point. Well done me! \o/
