Coordination is a thing?

I’m going through and rescuing some old drafts that got lost in the draft box, so hopefully for the next couple weeks I’ll be posting more frequently. Some of the details might be a bit out of date, though. Also, some of these posts might be a little bit silly and maybe not my best writing.

---

 

I have horrible proprioception. I used to think it was depth perception, but maybe it is actually proprioception. But I have always been excellent at climbing things. I scared all the other moms when I would climb to the top of everything in Mommy&Me classes and just lie on the poles. I’ve always climbed trees (except now… it is a lot harder to find trees to climb in a city because mostly they are other people’s trees and you are supposed to ask for permission before climbing other people’s trees.). Of course, I didn’t run until after my younger sister learned how to run.

I have excellent fine motor skills. I can inject DNA into a single-celled embryo and dissect very tiny glands from larvae. This requires really intense hand-eye coordination because the forces and tissues are so small and delicate, you don’t get any sensory feedback so you have to learn to judge your movements by the microscope and without any touch response. When I rotated in a neuro lab, the first chick brain I dissected was perfectly dissected (even though they had set aside many brains for me to learn how to mangle the first few). I also do some other very complicated and rare embryo manipulations that would definitely be identifying because VERY FEW labs do it and I am pretty darn good at it, and I picked it up super quickly.

But I also fell down the stairs daily at high school, walked into the counter daily at home, walked into walls regularly. But maybe that was because I insisted on wearing shows two sizes too large in high school because I hated shoes that touched my toes. I haven’t fallen down stairs in years. I also tend to struggle A LOT with doors, specifically with opening them but also with walking through them instead of into them.

Lying on the cold hard ground

I’m going through and rescuing some old drafts that got lost in the draft box, so hopefully for the next couple weeks I’ll be posting more frequently. Some of the details might be a bit out of date, though. Also, some of these posts might be a little bit silly and maybe not my best writing.

---

I like to lie on the ground. Almost all of the day almost all of my life, I would just rather be curled up in a ball. And I mean this in a positive way–I just really love lying down. I’m enjoying myself a lot when I am lying on the ground. Also, I really hate standing around (often talking) when you could be sitting–or even better just lying on the ground. I know eye contact is more important to a lot of people, so I guess that isn’t why people don’t have conversations lying on the ground all the time.

Maybe not everywhere I am, but a lot of places. Even if it is somewhere I am enjoying myself, I know that it would be more enjoyable if I could be lying on the ground. Except, there are reasons not to lie on the ground:

1. A lot of time the ground is dirty or unsafe. Such as crossing the street.
2. Sometimes I would get in the way of people
3. It is not something you are supposed to do. For some reason, even sitting on the ground seems weird to some people.

So, I generally know I am not supposed to lie on the ground.

But when I get drunk, I care a lot less about this so I lie on the ground a lot.

And that is actually how I realized I always want to lie on the ground.

 

Criss-Cross Applesauce

I’m going through and rescuing some old drafts that got lost in the draft box, so hopefully for the next couple weeks I’ll be posting more frequently. Some of the details might be a bit out of date, though.

---

I don’t sit still.

At least not as a general rule.

As a general rule, when I sit in chairs, I swing my feet. I kick things
(accidentally) and make unfortunately loud noises in class. Sitting
formally in a quiet room is a struggle, because if I am sitting properly,
feet on the ground, maybe ankles crossed, I have to spend so much focus on
being quiet and not distracting.

Which I don’t mind, really, because the tapping of feet and the clanging of
hitting chairs and the resulting table bouncing is an awful thing. I hate
when other people do it. It is distracting. It is painful. I understand
that there are situations I need to sit quietly.

But if I can sit on my feet, or criss-cross, with legs folded and wedged
into place, then I can sit quietly for hours (assuming I am also doing
something else, like typing or listening or reading or learning). Because
then my legs are comfortably wedged into place. I don’t have to worry about
forgetting that they are there, because they can’t go anywhere. It
generally requires conscious effort for me to take my feet out of
criss-cross. It is something I seldom do while I am paying attention to
something else.

But of course, not everywhere you can sit like this. Most of my clothes are
criss-cross appropriate… it is something I try to keep in mind when I buy
skirts and dresses (I’ve never really seen a pair of pants or shorts that
threaten flashing by sitting criss-cross, or at least not anything that
would fit my other clothes requirements.) Sure, I definitely have a few
skirts and dresses where I have to sit on top of my feet instead of
criss-cross, but I also usually wear shorts under those, so as long as it
isn’t too formal, I can usually get away with sitting criss cross.

The thing that is the real problem, though is desks. Those desks where the
desk and the chair are attached. Those can be difficult to sit criss cross
in. Those I generally have to settle for just sitting on one leg.

The other problem of course, is that sitting criss cross isn’t the formal
and appropriate way to sit at nice events. That isn’t how to sit at formal
dinners or at interviews.

And I have manners very thoroughly well ingrained, with the rules at least.

(I think my mom taught us something along the lines of “I know it is less
comfortable to sit with your feet down but manners don’t make sense they
are just a thing that everyone sticks to and then the other person knows
you are putting in extra effort because you respect them instead of just
being extra comfortable and easy).

P.S. I should write about manners and social expectations sometime.

P.P.S. I’m writing this while sitting very successfully quiet in a library
box working on prelim stuff. I am not the annoying library person. Well—I
am typing furiously, which I actually do get annoyed by other people doing
but that is a relatively quiet thing which I probably just need to get some
headphones to avoid.

---

For instance, from this P.P.S. I can tell that I wrote this over 4 years ago, since I took my prelims near the beginning of grad school.