(Long Overdue) Update

I'm sure I have one or more posts with this exact same* title, but I don't mind.
   *this is possibly one of those "wrong," redundant expressons, oh well! ;-P

After resurrecting a post deep from the drafts folder two days ago, it's time for a real update.

sigh...

It's not "writer's block" exactly, but its part and parcel of living with ADHD. Certain things just feel so overwhelming! Blogging is generally therapeutic for me, it helps me process what I'm going through and also to record life's events (a really important facet of blogging in my view), but it's one of the things that I also "avoid" for fear of getting sucked in and not doing what I need to be doing. This doesn't really work because I find many other avenues of procrastinating and avoiding work that are way less interesting and productive than blogging, but well... that's what I do.

So, if you're wondering, everything went super well with the citizenship interview a week and a half ago. I was afraid it would take very long and even though our appointments were at 1:05 and 1:45 pm I made arrangements for both of our sons to go home from school (they leave at 5 pm!). My husband only waited 15 minutes for his appointment and I less than 10. In addition, the very upbeat African American lady who did my interview called my husband to come too, so we could "celebrate this moment" together.

There is nothing really "celebratory" about the perfunctory interview. (1)You swear to say the truth,  then (2) they do an "English exam" (answering one super ultra simple question and writing one short sentence that they dictate to you -- in my case it was "What money do you pay to the government?" "Taxes!" and then she says "Write here: 'We pay taxes.'"), then (3) there are the six history questions from the 100 questions we study; and finally (4) they go over the application, including checking phone numbers, trips out of the country (she declined to write down my super short trips to Argentina and Canada last Fall because she said it didn't matter, while my husband's interviewer wrote it all down), and asking all the sensitive questions at the end, about crime, and terrorism, and communism, etc. They also make sure that we understand we will have to pledge allegiance, and serve the country, bear arms, or other non-combatant alternatives (I guess in the case of females?) and it's done. It takes less than 20 minutes -- for straightforward, "clean" cases such as ours. I'm sure they keep anyone who says yes to anything much longer.

Yeah, that was it. There will be no celebration whatsoever the day we do the swearing in. We will get our passports ASAP and I will immediately register to vote.

Side note: my husband wants to register as an independent and doesn't want to donate money or work on any campaigns, ever, I don't know if I will try to convince him otherwise. He just watched a bunch of documentaries about Waco & he's mad at both parties. He agrees with everything the left stands for, but he doesn't feel comfortable being involved in politics, I guess I don't blame him, but I'm desperate to do something, anything!

What else...

Yeah, I'm undergoing my review for the renewal of my three year contract (which doesn't expire until next Spring, but that's how they do it, they renew a year and a half before the end of it). I have to prepare a mini-dossier and I was supposed to be writing my teaching statement now, not a blog post.

In six and a half years I had never read my course evaluations. That's now I bury my head in the sand, ostrich like, but just yesterday I learned from this article that most ADHD folks have "rejection sensitivity disphoria" -- I TOTALLY HAVE THAT!! This in addition to other things that I already knew I experienced, but didn't have the right terms to express: we have an "interest-based nervous system" which doesn't respond to regular incentives (importance, priority-based) and "emotional hyperarousal" -- oh, yes! The feelings of frustration when something goes wrong are HORRIBLE and physically overwhelming and just don't go away! Pretty much ever! (I mean... after a long while they get better). 

In any case. I had to read them and for a few moments there I nearly died (and began writing a desperate blog post which I didn't finish), but then I continued reading the next day and I got over the few negative comments. Most are great and very kind! YAY!!!

So, yeah... that's what's been going on. There are other things I need to blog about -- upcoming trip to LA, I'm singing in a choir again!, my parents coming in the summer, my brother abroad... and more that I can't remember now. I hope to be back soon!