Hello! It's been a while! Life is hectic as always, but this morning
was my last midterm of the semester, so I have a few mildly chill
weeks until finals start to happen. I have registration for next
semester tomorrow morning. There are still open spots in all the
classes that I want to take, so unless something goes terribly wrong
in the next 16 hours, I should get the schedule I want. I'm excited
for next semester! I'll be taking some interesting classes & I won't
be working, so I'll actually have time to, you know, be a student. (I
still need to let my boss know that I won't be working when January
rolls around but I'll deal with that in a week or two...)

Today is cold and rainy, typical November weather. It's pretty
cozy. (Of course, right as I write that, the landscaping dudes start
up their noisy leaf blowers. It's raining, guys! You're just blowing
water and wet grass around! but whatever). I think tonight I'll do
some reading for school and then some reading for fun, maybe even
something as scandalous as a video game!!! I've been having a hard
time relaxing lately, so doing some non-work sounds good.

A few other random things - I've been thinking about grad school. I
keep going back and forth, partly because grad school is expensiveeee
but also because I'd be using it as my excuse to move out of the state
I currently live in and that's something I really want to do! Also, I
just want more school. I love learning and I feel like I'm just now
starting to get into the good stuff, but I only have about a year left
of undergrad. Also, COVID kind of made last academic year a blurry
haze of sitting in front of my computer and feeling miserable, so I
don't think anyone can blame me for wanting more "real" school. There
are just a lot of decisions that I'd have to make. Thinking about the
future is both exciting and a bit terrifying.

In the slightly closer future, I have a second interview for an
internship on Thursday. I feel pretty good about it, and I think I'd
enjoy the position and the team. I knew all the tech questions they
asked me (for the most part), I just kind of struggled with putting my
thoughts into coherent words. My ability to at least seem confident
and friendly is certainly helpful. It would be nice to get the
position and not have to worry about spending all my free time trying
to get an internship, but I'll be okay with whatever happens. I'm
trying to be slightly more chill about things.

Okay, last thing that I want to ramble about. I still haven't found a
therapist, even though that was one of my goals for October... oops. I
have a few that might be good, I just need to call them and figure out
who would work best and all that. I really need to get this done,
it's just kind of a hassle to set up. And especially since I'd like to
find someone who is experienced with helping autistic folks. I've
suspected that I'm autistic for the past few years, and the more I
think about it, the more it makes sense. I need therapy to help with
my anxiety (that keeps getting worse as time goes on), but I think it
would be hard to really get to the root cause of that without
considering autism (or at least having to function in a neurotypical
world where there are lots of rules I neither understand nor can
follow). That makes things harder and a bit more
anxiety-inducing. During this research I learned that an official
autism diagnosis can cost several thousand dollars (yikes) and tbh I
don't think I need that anyway, especially since I don't know what the
legal/insurance implications are). Also, I'm an adult, I look like a
cis female (kind of), and I seem relatively well adjusted (mostly) -
I'm worried that I'd pick someone and they'd immediately brush it off
with a "no, your grades are too good for someone who has autism!" or a
"no, you're a girl and you act normally, you can't have autism!". Just
another thing to worry about, I guess.

I've rambled for far too long, but these are the things on my mind
these days. I still have a bit more work and another class to go to
this evening, so I'm going to do that! Hopefully I'll be more active
on tilde.town soon <3