Y hallo thar everyone!

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Hi, another newbie here posting his first message. Better make this good...

Well, I'm a 16 year old male from the Long Island, New York... I guess the best description of me would have to be "a geek among geeks". My main interest is video gaming, particularly games made by Nintendo, with favorite game series' including but certainly not limited to Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, and Smash Bros. Other interests include computers (a great many aspects, from hardware to web surfing to screwing people's faces up in photoshop), ytmnd.com, acting, and Naruto. I spend little to no time outdoors, I've never had a girlfriend, I have almost no taste in music aside from game music, and I wish I was Japanese.

Yep...doesn't get much geekier than me.

Personality-wise, I'm very aloof and detached, I rarely intiate conversation with those I don't know well (though this isn't neccesarily true on the internet), and I like it best that way. However, to those I'm close to, I can be very intelligent and funny, and I'm actually quite expressive. I have both a strong sense of creativity and a relentless sense of logic, with little to no tolerance for those who do not employ rational thinking.

Also, I happen to be very prejudiced against nuerotypicals (yes, prejudice against a vast majority...so sue me ), and hate anyone who doesn't accept AC and the concept of Nuerodiversity.

Now for my life story (minus all the boring parts ):

I was born in a log cabin I built with my own hands... No, wait....actually I was born in Mineola, New York. With my mother at 42 years of age, it took a full 24 hours for me to be released into this stupid world, but I came out a perfect, healthy baby , which my mother still regards as a miracle. She named me Geoff with the British spelling because she wanted me to be unique...boy did she get what she asked for .

I developed at a slightly faster than average pace in most areas. Then, they put me in Nursery school and everyone was shocked to find I wasn't interested in interacting with the other kids (And why should I have been? At that age I found trains and crapping myself far more interesting than those brats...). So they sent me a Preschool where I would happily frolic about, blissfully unaware of my percieved "disabilities" (damn do I hate that word...). Then, I was sent to Elementary school in the ever-lovely North Shore school district. I thought it a bit strange that I was in the smallest class in the school (*cough*special-ed*cough*), but I took it for granted and went about my day, performing excellently in academics, while mediocre behaviorally. This continued until 3rd grade, until some idiot decided to destroy the school's one special-ed class and split us up into regular classes. Of course, they ascociated my learning differences as learning disabilities and I was put in the class for kids still on a first-grade reading level. The academics were painfully easy and it gradually became more tormenting. Countless easy spelling tests, a crappy speech pathologist, an untrained aide, and several outbursts later I was put on home schooling while my parents hopelessly fought the ignorance of the school district. Thankfully, I survived to the end of that horrible school year to discover my love of Pokemon, which in turn, would lead me to discover my love for video games in general.

For the next year I was sent to a crappy BOCES program in Suffolk county, but there was a major difference-I now had a one-on-one aide. Nobody realized it at the time, but this would seal my fate as a problem child for the next fex years. The aide herself wasn't a bad person, but just having and aide in the first place made me much less independent (I couldn't so much as write my own work), and much more inclined to misbehave. Unfortunately, I would stay with her for the next two years. The next year I went back to my old school, then went on to the middle school for sixth grade. Then came the decisive blow-seventh grade. It looked promising at first-I was given a new aide who was much more personable and understood the embarassment that came with having an aide. However, the school suddenly decided to stop making sensible decicions as it had the past two years, and make mistake after mistake, driving me into a constant state of depression with nothing but a few friends, my dog and my trusty Nintendo Gamecube to cheer me up. My parents decided enough was enough, and started seriously looking into private schools for me. We were originally going to move to Texas so I could attend a program there, but my parents had also visited a certain residential program in Connecticut they were considering as a back-up. One night at dinner we were discussing this other program, when I made the worst decision of my life; I said "Maybe being at a residential school wouldn't be so bad."

...two months later I was there, and while I became much more independent, it's been a loathesome experience ever since. The program is called "The Learning Clinic", and it totally sucks. It's run a sixty-something old fart who believes people with learning differences are all incapable of living in the real world without rigorous independence training. He also exploits his position as Director of the school to impose his personal interests on us, mostly consisting of nature-related stuff. As such he wastes money on pointless things (like a program in Maine we'll only make use of once a year), discourages technology, and generally disregards the happiness of the students. At least I can go home on weekends...


Well I hope you all enjoyed my ranting. For more info, you can check out my myspace (link in signature).

...now if you'll excuse, I'm gonna watch some downloaded episodes of Naruto.

Good enough intro for me...and welcome from a fellow (but new) Long Islander!

Greetings & salutations

I am 40something and just finding out why I always felt out of it.

When I was your age, Vietnam was in full swing and no-one had heard of AS. I dont know what a BOCES program is but I wonder whether any programs are really any substitute for a good teacher in a normal class (What I got. private school ). Anyway, I am a bean counter so don't take any advice from me.

Welcome

Ian

PS 'cause I don't know and I'm curious, is Long Island an upmarket part of New York?

Hi!

Welcome from an unintentionally on again and off again member. I'll be back for a while, so please don't be surprised if you see me online more often.

I hope you enjoy posting here!