*The European WP Meet in Central Southern France!*

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First of all, the country where I am living is Qatar (as EnglishLulu), in the city of Doha. Not Dakar in Sénégal !


I'm not opposed with flea-marketing, but visiting crowded places might cause me headaches and stress. Café terracing is a good idea. I hope we're going to visit the "Palais des Papes" in front of our hotel, aren't we ?
By the way, my parents will give me "a comfortable amount of money" to spend on cafés, flea-markets and such. I'm lucky.
I'm going to prepare myself for a party which my parents have organized. See you.

DarthMaxeuis.

Last edited by DarthMaxeuis on 22 May 2009, 2:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

First of all, the country where I am living is Qatar (as EnglishLulu), in the city of Doha. Not Dakar in Sénégal !


I'm not opposed with flea-marketing, but visiting crowded places might cause me headaches and stress. Café terracing is a good idea. I hope we're going to visit the "Palais des Papes" in front of our hotel, aren't we ?
By the way, my parents will give me "a comfortable amount of money" to spend on cafés, flea-markets and such. I'm lucky.
And yes, I am going to stay the whole week-end. I will leave on Monday at approximately 6'oclock.
I'm going to prepare myself for a party which my parents have organized. See you.

DarthMaxeuis.

Last edited by DarthMaxeuis on 22 May 2009, 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry about that.

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The "Palais des Papes" isn't actually in front of the hotel. The hotel is close to the medieval city walls, and not far from one of the old gates/entrances to the city, but it is probably at least 20 minutes on foot, perhaps more, from the Palais, which is in the heart of the old city.

I definitely want to visit that too. And although the occasional bit of crowd might be ok, I'm not keen on them either for longer periods, and I think at least a couple of the others have said something similar.

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I hope you have/had fun.

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Oh my! It´s getting down to the wire!

So...who are you all? What are your special interests?

At the moment, I´m quite interested in Asperger´s Syndrome...I know, that may be a little weird, but I keep wanting to read about it! So I may be obsessed with hearing about all your experiences....

I am also interested in various aspects of psychology and spirituality. I am a dance/theater person (by profession); I know some of you are musicians, anyway. It looks like we have people from all different countries, so that should be interesting.

Looking forward to meeting you guys!

Well, to answer Morgana's question, my interests are :
Video-Gaming, Science (especially Physics and Astronomy), Literature (Sci-Fi, and classical French Authors) and in general what I call "Intellectual Subjects".
I was recently interested by electrical outlets and fire extinguishers. (I know that's totally weird).
I'm also quite fond of knowing about ASD/PDDs in general (I'm on the spectrum, after all )
My favourite activities are : Video-Gaming (MMORPG, RTS, Simulation, Strategy, a lot more ), Tennis (even if I'm not really good at it), playing Board Games (I have a lot ; Risk, Monopoly, Dungeons and Dragons etc.), listening to music (Progressive Rock, Reggae). I'm also in a debating club, which definitely ended my "speaking in front of the class" problem

About my personal experience about AS... I don't have much, I'm only 16 and I only knew that I had AS in November 2008.
But it may interest you Morgana so I will go on...
I have had problems in relationships with people since my early childhood. Plus, my parents noticed that I had few interests, and that it was difficult for me to listen to others who had different interests. Most of my conversations were unilateral (I was speaking all the time). My parents also noticed my attitude of "little professor" towards the others. I had very meltdowns very frequently when I was a child, and thus my parents went with me to the school's psychologist, who thought, after making me pass an IQ test, that I had superior intelligence and that this was creating my relationships problem, and the relationships problem + the bullying, the meltdowns. But I know some NTs with an IQ over 140 who haven't got any problems in relationships, and they're often better than the others in relationships, because they have superior empathy. That wasn't my case. I was living in France at the time, and things, I think, were quite bearable because I had a few friends. Then, I moved to China, at the age of 8 year old.
Things worsened because I lost my friends from the moving. Beijing was a beautiful city, but quite polluted, and I don't remember well.
I well remember Shanghai. Very nice city, first psychiatrist who didn't diagnosed me everything, but made me took a poison called Risperdal.
Wasn't working at all, I had meltdowns as frequent as before, and I got excluded from the school for throwing a chair on one of my classmate who mocked me and a lot of similar cases.
I will skip the Abu Dhabi part, which was as disastrous.
When I arrived into Doha, I thought that things were going to stabilize themselves. However, it wasn't the case. At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, we went back in France to see a French Psychiatrist, in the "Maison de Solenn" a supposedly very good hospital with psychological support for teenagers. In fact, it is, but not for people with PDD/ASDs, mostly for people with Anorexia and Bulimia. They diagnosed me ADHD, because I wasn't looking in the psychiatrist eyes. That's silly. Thus, I took Ritalin until my AS diagnosis in November 2008. I forgot to mention that during all these years, I developed a Bipolar Disorder, I had an enormous ego, I thought that I was superior to the others.
And then things really stabilized as I was diagnosed AS, as I took Aripiprazole and Sertraline. I still have some behavioural problem, as people still think that I'm perverted (and I am, but at least I don't show it now and I don't say stupid things). But the meltdowns have completely disappeared ; I still got stresses in some situations, but I never have meltdowns now. I discovered a new world, thanks to my psychiatrist who diagnosed me AS. A world where I still have to fight, but an easier to live one. And I have WP to find some advice on how to cope with many things

PS: Sorry for double posting, I don't know what happened

Golly, that sounds like a total nightmare. I'm glad you're feeling so much better.

I also went through a bipolar period, three years or so of hypo-mania and depression, ( after years of increasing grandiosity, recklessness, disconnection etc ), in my late twenties. I almost never went to doctors though. And I discovered that I could eliminate both the depression and the hypomania, aswell as feelings of unreality, anxiety, brain-fog etc and frequent severe headaches too, by excluding gluten completely, ( in wheat, rye and barley ), and cutting down on dairy. I also have to watch sugar, corn, and a couple of other things, but the main one was gluten. It was incredible the effect it had, and still has.

I was really into Runescape for a while. Still like it, but it's my son who plays my character now! Tried Guild Wars but hated it; couldn't explore properly, and had this stupid bunch of "automated heroes" accompanying me everywhere!
I love Monopoly and Risk. Don't get much chance to play them now though; not enough people around who want to!
I did that too, for a couple of years. Great fun!

My interests/favourite activities are: Reading, ( brilliant children's books, detective fiction, science fiction but less so in recent years, classics from the 1850s onwards, astrology books, and books/articles etc on nutrition; its links with mental health etc ), watching films, drawing faces, ( and sometimes painting abstracts ), astrology, ( and tarot a little ), the whole nutrition and mental health field, language and meaning, certain aspects of philosophy and religion, and sitting in the sunshine at café terraces with a coffee and a cigarette, talking to like-minded people about interests in common! I also love rooting around in second-hand shops/flea-markets, and walking/sitting by the sea, collecting stones/shells.

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My interests:
Playing the Stick ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_Stick ).
Listening to music: Classic Pop/Rock, Progressive Rock, Latin Jazz, and just about everything else.
Researching the Autism Spectrum, Autistic Community and Autistic Culture.
Learning about clean technologies (solar power, electric cars, algae fuels, etc.).
Detective/mystery books/films - especially ones made for children.
Researching the positive aspects of Globalization.
Walking around second-hand shops' flea-markets' streets.
Walking/sitting by the sea.
And, of course - sitting in the sunshine at café terraces with a coffee/tea, talking to like-minded people about interests in common

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that another one of my favorite activities is reading. When I was a child, I used to read everything, but nowadays I prefer non-fiction, generally whatever my main interest is at the time.

oiunon: for awhile I was interested in learning Tarot reading, but I never got around to it because another interest came along before I got a chance to do it. But I´m also quite into "esoteric" stuff, as well as nutrition and the effect it has on the body, and mental/emotional mind patterns that can affect health, positively or negatively. As you already know, I am a celiac, so I avoid gluten as well- (I also have allergies to dairy and soy... ) and when I first discovered I was a celiac, studying celiac disease and gluten intolerance was my special interest. And, like you, I noticed some differences when I went on the diet. One of the main differences I should probably mention: I make much more eye contact now. I just thought I´d throw that out there, since if anyone would prefer I don´t look them in the eyes, I´d be happy to oblige. I know what it´s like not to want to be looked in the eyes. I had that problem for many years. Even nowadays, some days, or in some situations, I don´t like to make eye contact; I never really know what it´s going to be like in any given situation. But some people have accused me of staring, so I thought maybe I´d better mention it.

And wow, you all sound like a cool bunch of people!

I also like walking/sitting by the sea.

And, of course, sitting in the sunshine at cafe terraces with a tea/wine (I don´t drink coffee), talking to like-minded people about interests in common

I have no particular preferences, so I will go with whatever the majority decides to do. (we could also split into 2-3 groups for some periods of time, if different people want to go to different places).

I was into "esoteric" stuff when I was a teen-ager. It fit in nicely with my then obsession with psychedelic and progressive rock. It also had a lot to do with growing up as an undiagnosed autistic. I no longer believe in any "esoteric" stuff, but I still like the artistic expression of various mystical traditions - tarot as an art form, sacred dances as an art form, sufi poetry, etc.

Interests:
* news and current affairs
* social justice issues and activism and campaigning
* travel
* cooking and nice food generally (I sometimes cook for a vegan catering collective but I'm not vegan, and I love going to good restaurants and eating out with friends)
* pottering about, bimbling around, bumping into friends, hanging out in cafes and chatting and watching the world go by
* I love living in cities by the sea and chilling out along the sea front, I find the sea really soothing but although I love swimming, I don't very often swim in the sea because I have a fish phobia, so I swim in hotel pools
* reading (books: fiction, biographies, fact; magazines, newspapers)
* watching films at the cinema (I go fairly often, if I'm stressed out or upset, I like to go to watch a film as a distraction, it 'reboots' my mood, I started out just watching comedies and romcoms like this, but now I'll just turn up to the cinema and watch whatever's starting next, horror, action, thriller, romcom etc, but I prefer to go in the afternoon or a quiet week night, because other people walking into the auditorium 20 minutes late, wandering up and down, talking to their friends, talking on their mobiles drives me barmy)

I also really like movies, and I watch them to help me wind down in the evening...in fact, that´s sort of one of my "rituals"...though I do it more in the form of dvds than going to the cinema. I like being able to rewind something if I didn´t get it the first time, or get up and get something to eat, etc. But, yeah. I´m sure we´ll have that to talk about! I watch a lot of movies, though I´m sort of picky about what I see.

And I also appreciate good food! (And good wine!) Looking forward to hanging out in restaurants in France with all of you...

With the interests people have listed so far, I'm confident we'll all have a lot to talk about!! !

I'm interested in different cultures, especially eating their food and any associated intoxicants. When travelling I like to get off the beaten track. And I have a theory that within a few hundred yards of any well known, totally overcrowded, expensive 'tourist trap', there is invariably something far more interesting that nobody knows about and will be deserted.

Same here. Although these days I am a board game snob who turns his nose up at the Old Skool games in favour of Euro games like Ticket To Ride, Memoir'44, Carcassone, Lost Cities etc etc etc.


Yes - I like Prog & Reggae too. Not so up on reggae these days, however, I remain a total Prog Nerd who, given half a chance will talk about the microphones used by Pink Floyd during the 3rd take of Breathe that didn't make it onto the final album because...... . You have been warned!! !! I also listen to latin, blues, flamenco, afro-cuban, drum'n'bass, trip hop and adore The Cocteau Twins.

I have a laymans interest in many things to do with science. Mind sciences and philosophy in particular. I remain fascinated by this mysterious Aspergers Syndrome, regularly changing my opinion on what it (or they) actually is (or are). History, specifically prehistory has generally been a big interest, partly driven by a fascination for the concepts of 'primitivism'. The discontents of Civilisation. Which leads onto other 'back to nature' interests such as permaculture, woodcraft and hiking through the wilderness.

Also I have a practising interest in 'spiritual' pursuits, although I generally don't separate them from 'normal' life. I tend not to talk about such pursuits, preferring to let my whole life do the talking like a piece of cheese shining in the darkness of a closed fridge.

I agree!

What are Euro games?


Yay!

Looking forward to meeting all of you. Just three days to go. I know some of you are going to be there before Friday so this is a last post to ask if anyone has any questions? Does everyone know where to go, got somebody's number to call if need be, etc?

See you!

PS. Anyone who suddenly thinks they would like to come is welcome; there may still be rooms available at the Etap Hotel, and Ryanair still had cheap flights, ( around £70 return from Luton to Nimes, not far from Avignon ) a week ago!

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