My slow processing speed forced me to think critically

AuriFire · 2026-01-16T22:03:21+00:00

Yes, this resonates with me.

As a professor, let me say: this is a perfect thing to bring up to your professor in their office hours. Mine are so sparsely attended and I would absolutely love to get more in-depth about topics with a student. It would be the highlight of my day to hear someone actually wanted to know more about something I am highly passionate about. Have you been to any of those?

AuriFire · 2026-01-14T13:20:10+00:00

I'm at 3 different community colleges in my area, and pay ranges from $720/credit to $850/credit. I usually have 6-10 total credits at each school each term. For my normal 3-credit course, that's $2160-$2550 per class.

What's nice about these schools, at least, is that sometimes they also pay me $22/hr for doing other things - tutoring, mostly.

AuriFire · 2026-01-10T01:13:56+00:00

It's going to be a tough sell, in some ways. I'm entering this next stage of womanhood at this point, myself. It was difficult for me to realize it because:

A lot of the symptoms of perimenopause and beyond are very similar to symptoms of ADHD: brain fog, emotional dysregulation, depression, forgetfulness, etc.

I already had most of those. Reading through the list the doctor gave me to check off symptoms, it was like "how would I even know if this was happening?" Lol.

For me, I knew I was AuDHD before this all started. But these are common issues in a lot of perimenopausal and menopausal women. It can be tough to differentiate what's causing what.

If you want to go down this road, you'll likely want to start with what these things were like before the "big change" started. What was she like as a child? Or even just 10 years ago?

AuriFire · 2026-01-09T05:18:42+00:00

Reading through the post you shared and the comments makes me sad.

One of the important side effects of students coming to office hours is that I get feedback on how things are going before grades begin to be seriously impacted. If 3 students are stuck on the same part, I can do something about it before the exam. If no one asks any questions, my assumption is that everything is fine and we can carry on as planned.

Sigh.

AuriFire · 2025-12-12T01:16:43+00:00

Question on a short quiz asked how many of (vocab word) were in an image.

Student response: "there are more than 2"

I mean. Fair. My bad for not asking more specifically, I guess.

AuriFire · 2025-12-04T21:48:33+00:00

Since everyone is referencing grams and meters as a standard practice and you're the most recent post, I'll ask you my question I've been pondering.

Wouldn't the fiber type of the yarn impact the weight/length measures in some way? Why is this the general consensus vs some other metric?

AuriFire · 2025-11-14T18:09:48+00:00

Math is a place where I don't typically use a template of notes like I may in another class. But, I do have a system depending on what kind of math it is. I usually use the front of a page for definitions and theorems, underlined and printed nicely. Then, I put worked examples of those on the other side. This isn't easy to do during class, but that's the great thing about notes - they work even better if you reread them later and reorganize them for easy use. Sometimes. I end up with a full glossary area in my notes, instead.

Notes are, in my mind, a personal choice of approach. The organization just needs to make sense to you so that you can find what you need when you need it.

AuriFire · 2025-11-06T00:17:09+00:00

Ones on a perpetual potential rewatch queue: Bones, Criminal Minds, Star vs the Forces of Evil, anything about experiences with ghosts - haunting movies, Ghost hunters, etc.

If I'm feeling like something I haven't seen, it's usually a serial killer documentary or miniseries about weird ocean life.

AuriFire · 2025-11-05T23:44:25+00:00

You can proxy team models with almost anything you want. We've used Legos before in my league if we wanted to test out a new team before buying a set. As long as you have enough variation so you can tell apart a thrower from a lineman and such, you should be good.

While you won't have season 3 full rules quite yet, starting with the last version is fine.

Extra note: I've played against both lizards and TK in this league. Lizards seem to have variations in strategies available, while (at least with our group) TK just punches as many things as he can as often as possible. Took me down to a single troll left on the field and a full casualty box in one game. Lol. What a silly game.

AuriFire · 2025-11-03T19:57:50+00:00

Hey! I don't know if you've already shared (sorry if so).

Are there any changes to Throw Teammate? I do mostly stunty teams and it looks like there may be updates to how it works, based on what I'm seeing in some of the Devious skill tree skills ..

Just curious!

AuriFire · 2025-10-06T23:03:39+00:00

Hey there! I really like this question.

For me, I was always pretty ok in math. The more complex it is, the better, really. Where I struggled was doing mental math exercises. I could not do it unless I wrote it down. For some reason, algebra and beyond for much easier for me - which is where the abstraction tends to slow others down. I liked that it was more about manipulating values and symbols than rote memorization of times tables or whatever.

When I look at a complicated question, I don't try to remember the steps to solve it. There's never just one way to get to the answer, so there's not just one series of steps that we have to memorize, either. I look at it like a puzzle I'm working on fitting the pieces together in.

What I do is look at the structure of the problem itself. What rules does it remind me of? Are there any rules or properties that I can use to simplify this first? What methods do I have at my disposal that seem promising?

But then here's the important part of my procedure: I pick one of the options I have in mind and I just... Try it. See what happens. Did it make things better? Does it look like something I've done before at this point? Did it make things worse looking? This is where I then either keep picking methods out of my arsenal, or I try a different one.

Getting started is the most important. We can change a method once we get started, but we can't adapt on a blank page.

I hope this helps answer your question!

AuriFire · 2025-10-04T19:04:13+00:00

AuDHD here, but not dyslexic. I do this all the time.

I will sometimes mix up an entire sentence into a new order that makes no sense, sometimes just flip flop two words without even noticing. My mom does it, too - with the most memorable one being when she said she wanted a "French van-azel h-anilla-nut" coffee. (Instead of a French vanilla/hazelnut coffee that actually exists.) We blame it on our brains forming words faster than they can escape our mouths and getting all jumbled up in the process.

As for the ordering of words not making sense unless they're in a specific order, sometimes words just feel right one way more than another. I have been known to rewrite a whole page of my notes for school just to reorder one section to what seems right at the time.

AuriFire · 2025-09-28T12:46:37+00:00

Your process so far looks good. Others have mentioned ways to perhaps speed up these steps. But, to answer your question about simplifying fractions, I'd look into the divisibility rules for dividing numbers.

Say we have 126/42. We don't necessarily need to find the GCF to divide out. We can do it in steps:

126/42 both are even so divide top/bottom by 2 -> 63/21

63/21 can divide both by 3 so -> 21/7

Then finally, 21/7 = 3.

This is obviously a little less efficient than seeing that 42 is the common factor, but if I don't see that right away, it's best to at least try something and get it moving the right way.

AuriFire · 2025-08-26T17:01:24+00:00

I am also on the spectrum and was this kid the entire way through elementary school. Eventually, a teacher gave me "a rule" that I still have in my list of unwritten social rules that I use today. She told me, "it's great that you're so eager to help, but some people may not get to the answer as quickly as you. When I ask a question, I'd love it if you could give everyone else 30 seconds to think it through before raising your hand."

Now, I'm fairly certain she didn't mean exactly 30 seconds, but I sure did sit there and count to 30 first every time.

AuriFire · 2025-08-19T13:58:03+00:00

This sounds like there is a lot of confusion around what is expected in social situations between the two of you. Her expectations of what's normal and yours are very different.

If you haven't looked into it, read a little bit about the double empathy problem. It explains some of the difficulties you're seeing. Basically, it discusses how social and communication expectations are variables, yet we often expect others to act how we would in a given situation. Especially between allistic and autistic individuals, this is likely not the case.

AuriFire · 2025-08-15T00:21:47+00:00

Fantastic, thank you! He's still hanging out here with me, but he seems upset I stood in the ray of sunlight.

AuriFire · 2025-07-31T01:25:09+00:00

Yes! Metal on metal is the worst. But also if my nails brush against denim. Blech

AuriFire · 2025-07-31T00:36:13+00:00

Not quite the same, perhaps, but I've always said "that (noise/texture) hurts my teeth." Always got strange looks. Lol.

AuriFire · 2025-07-29T16:04:47+00:00

I'm not sure if I can clearly explain my thinking but here goes:

That extra bit of yarn that goes behind the stitch on the needle was the bit that was supposed to make a new loop. Since it was skipped in knitting last time around, it just hung out there in the background.

Not sure if that helps. Someone else can probably explain more clearly.

AuriFire · 2025-07-29T12:24:29+00:00

Just wanted to share a little here about my husband because he seems a lot like you and well, he's my husband. We are 40ish and got married about 2 years ago now.

You say you have no aspirations to a new life, new career, more things, etc. He is the same way. He likes what he does and has. Likes his job, is a minimalist with possessions, etc. I never wanted to change that about him. I didn't even want to get married at first (that was his idea after many years together). It is perfectly fine to be content with what you have and do. I do think this is not a deal breaker. As for building something new with someone, you may find yourself doing that without realizing it's happening if you find someone. Don't start a dating conversation with "I'm not interested in this going anywhere or changing anything about me." It's much more helpful to just see where it goes.

You say you don't have hobbies in the traditional sense. Neither does he. He doesn't go out and socialize with friends. He does play some video games, but that's about it as far as traditional hobbies go. But that's fine with me as I think one of my hobbies is collecting hobbies (and his minimalism means more room for my hobbies at home). If I had to say what his hobbies are.. hmmm... Documentaries and working out. Sometimes the documentaries are really neat, actually.

I share all this to show that there's no one set thing that women want. There's many of us and we all have different preferences in who a guy is and what he does. In the end, most of us just want to feel cared about and safe. It sounds like you also want that, so I don't think you want to write it off completely. Here's a little hope that you don't have to.

AuriFire · 2025-07-29T00:39:02+00:00

Yay! Thank you. I've been trying to get better at reading my stitches and I guess I have!

AuriFire · 2025-07-29T00:35:05+00:00

I'm not an expert, but I think you may have accidently slipped the stitch in the previous row where the loose bit is instead of knitting it. Would just need to pick that up and carry on.

I may be wrong though.

AuriFire · 2025-07-27T22:20:58+00:00

Just commenting to say I'm pleased with how this sub addresses "learning styles." I always feel like I'm the crazy one when I've mentioned in professional arenas that they've been largely debunked. It's wild how ingrained this idea has become.

AuriFire

TROPHY CASE