Ning

I'm writing from the subway while headed to the manhattan pride center! I'm optimistic about this being the place to help "legalize" my transition. I haven't had the mental capacity, steady address or money to change my name, I am still legally my Christian name. It's supposed to be pretty easy to do around here, I've got the money and I'm being sent a copy of my CA birth certificate, I don't forsee any issues. My biggest concern is arranging my identification for Thailand, I have a passport, but I'm looking forward to having one with my proper name/gender marker, same with my drivers license. There's lots of resources on the Internet, but much of it is outdated, poorly expressed and confusing, and this gets me on the topic of different ways of learning.

I did awful in school. I was in a ton of advanced programs when I was little and then the classic tale of divorced parents and lack of giving a fuck began. I went from a christian private school to the public school system in Rosemont, California because my folks could no longer afford it, they were barely able to in the first place but wanted to give me and my sibling a proper education. I was smarter than most of my peers, but none of the other kids had that kind of care in their formative years... but they had also been toughened up, I was pasty and tiny, my fear of God and eternity was only equal to my fear of the other kids around me. These were not good times, I was living between my 3 parents, a mom, dad and alcoholic stepfather, I lied about doing my homework and when I did  put in the effort, it was often lost it in transit. I was really into computers, hacking and hardware and that became my life, I went to a less trashy middle school, still constantly in flux with my living situation, started making friends and getting into Drama classes, got involved with a casting agency and started working as an actor. The staircase incident put a huge wrench in my plans and kept me from pursuing my digital dreams, still to this day my dexterity is shot. I became very unliked, the kid who assaulted me was very popular, life added a big un to my bearable situation. My two other hobbies at the time, bowling and masturbation, were also hindered. I was suicidal at a very young age, afraid of myself as much as I was god or the devils around me.

Throughout highschool, I mostly made jokes in class, tried to look up girls skirts and read books that interested me. I worked on extra curricular activities like Every15Minutes, I was well liked by the faculty and made friends with students and teachers. I started a ton of clubs (including Jedi Club) and got my ass kicked a number of times for just being small and different, I became friends with the scary trenchcoat kids and eventually started getting respect from bully's. I barely graduated yet I was the only student to speak at graduation, story of my life.

I went to city college for 9 weeks and dropped out, mostly due to a geology class. And that's where this story ends, a little background to help make my point. I have never been able to open a textbook and retain information, taking notes helps a little, but I've learned more from narratives in film/books/other media than I have when I'm using study materials. I've always been a different kind of learner,  as opposed to an idiot or lazy, as I was perceived in school. I've never done myself the disservice of getting a clinical perspective on my learning abilities, I would have totally been on all sorts of drugs, but fuck that! The system wasn't designed for us, the millions of people that feel the way I do. Some say ADD/ADHD/Aspie, I was always called "street smart", I feel there's many different ways to learn and all can lead to the same discoveries.

My stops coming up so I'll take my leave for now, look forward to an update and I'll look forward to getting more info to share with you :)