Hey everyone, welcome to a new season of the all the things. ADHD podcast, all the things. So this is actually the beginning of season seven. It's not like we've been doing this for seven years, but it has been seven what we arbitrarily decided were seasons, um, this is also episode 97 so we are creeping ever closer. Yeah, I checked before we got on because, like, how many do we have left before 100 so we were creeping ever closer to 100 episodes, which may or may not happen before the holidays
this year. Make sure. Who knows? Yeah,
can we get three episodes in before the New Year? Who knows? Who knows? But we'll try, and if we don't do it, oh, well,
in the unceasing parade of now and not now, somehow we've managed something that has shaped like seven seasons and 97 episodes, despite having no idea how we did that? No,
exactly. Good for us getting through it, yeah, good for us. So it is at the time of this recording, the penultimate day of August. Penultimate it is a weirdly early labor day weekend here in the North Americas, and so it's, we're coming up. It's, it's Friday. We are coming up on the long weekend. My kid has been in school for two weeks. This is week number two, but he was off today. I know he was off today. We started our semester on Wednesday and and I had my birthday in mid August. SPECT in mid August. So happy birthday to you. I'm dancing to the tune you are dancing to that. Yeah. And I officially in my, like, just really solidly now in my late 40s.
Yeah, congratulations. My sister just turned 50 on August the ninth, and I'm roasting her super hard about that, cuz when I joined 50, she like, just did not stop coming for me. So, yeah, payback is great.
You're like, this is what you have to
look forward to. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, welcome. Welcome. Actually, she went with a bunch of her friends from high school. They all picked up right where they left off, some of these women she hasn't seen for like, 2530 years, and yeah. So they were in northern Ontario at a cottage on the French River, on an island on the French river that one of her friends has, and they called it for the weekend, get this menopause Island.
I love that. It's
like day drinking and in bed by 1030 I was like, That's amazing,
with no covers and fans pointing at them because
off Island, yeah, because it's too hot.
Yeah, I do love that too. I we did not really do anything for my birthday, just because of the timing of it is, you know. So even if things start ramping up for me and supportive faculty before the semester starts, because everybody gets back on contract, and now it's the push and all of the things, you know, I love the memes that were going out around like, when august 1 hits and it's a guy standing there and there's a huge tidal wave coming at him, yeah, like, yeah, until every academic and on August 1 well, it's really weird. I'm in trouble.
I find this really strange, like, I tend to take my vacations in July, or like, the beginning of August, like when it's summer, summer, right? Yeah. But so many of my colleagues, and I think most of campus, like, we have three trimesters, right? So we do have a full academic term in the summer, but most of my colleagues are not teaching in the summer. So those people take their vacations at in August, right? Because classes are done. But the rest of us, like, are on a research term, and it seems like almost everybody takes their vacation right at the end of August. I'm like, But when do you do your panicking? Yeah, right. I need panicking before I go back. Like, I can't imagine, like coming back from the cottage on Sunday before Labor Day, and then teaching that week. Like I just, I can't,
oh gosh, we usually same thing is that that there's this little window for the first week of August, yeah, that usually, if any of my kids are doing a summer activity there, it's over, but the push hasn't started yet, because faculty are still off contract and we don't really have to. There's no There's no time or space to ramp anything up yet. So that's usually the window the past couple summers where we've traveled, and we usually travel to Montreal, but we didn't this summer for various reasons. But yeah, that first week, because same thing, right? I'm like, we could do it a week later, and then I would send my kids directly to school after that. And I was like, why would I wouldn't be ready? Yeah, well, that's exactly it. I was like, why would we do that to them? Like, why? Why is like,
why are we rushing? We're not good with transitions. No, that too. We are definitely not good with. Marrow of divergent people are not good with transitions, like, for us at the beginning of the summer, it's important to do something very summery at the beginning of summer, because we have difficulty releasing from stress mode, right? We would just turn into a bunch of slugs watching TV in our assorted bedrooms by ourselves. We're just exhausted, so we have to, like, like summer short, we need to start so we usually go to camp, like the like, the week of the first week of vacation, and that's fine to switch from work mode, because that's a pretty like, cold plunge. Essentially, you're just like,
literally and figuratively, because modern you're like, oh gosh, it is still only June in northern Ontario.
It's like, really, really hard to unclench from work mode, right? But you can do it with a short, sharp shock of, like, going on vacation immediately, with no Wi Fi, right? And no real bras. Like, perfect, but, like, I wouldn't do that at the end of the summer, because it's harder, I think, to get back into being professional and, like, work adjusted, right? Like, it's, it's hard to, like, break yourself the habit of, like, I gotta do my email at night. I gotta get up at six in the morning. Like, but you can do it if you go to camp. But it's really hard to come back from, like, lazy river floating and be like, today I'm wearing a real bra and pants that I have over, over my sunburn, over my sunburn. Have a lesson plan and extra handouts, and everything is done. Like, no, like, I need to ramp into that a little bit more slowly.
Yeah. And I think that that's, that's what's interesting about the month of August, again, depending on where you go to school and depending on when school starts, you know, my birthday is August 14, and I always thought it was, it is absolutely ridiculous. I'm already seeing, like, first day of school photos before my birthday. And I'm like, if you are going to school in mid starting school, get in mid August. It is too early. It is ridiculous. Yeah, do not start school that early, but, but August very much is like you were saying from the New York Times article, right? That that August is the Sunday month of the year. This
is so timely, yeah. So the article which was published today, which is August 29 is, do you have a case of the September scariest, right? And the tagline on it is late August can be a time of sleepy summer pleasures and pit in the stomach dread for what's coming after Labor Day. Here's how to manage all the feelings, and it seemed really apropos today, knowing that our neurodivergent peeps are bad at transitions, and that vacation is nice and working is hard, and that no matter what field you work in, like the article says, even if you're not an educator or in school, there is a sense that September feels like, Okay, listen, we're all back at work now. Nobody's going to have away messages anymore, and the office is going to be a little bit more full of people. The
deadline is going to be a little bit Fridays aren't optional, right? Like, we're all working for pump well. And like, this is, this is a true European thing, but like, Montreal is infamous for summer hours on Friday, like, official or unofficial, right? Everybody goes out to happy hour on Thursday night, yeah, and then and sits outside and drinks, and then you, like, roll in, hung over, like 1010, 30. Everybody goes to lunch or brunch or whatever, and then everybody goes home. If, if, if that at all, like that is summers in Montreal when you work, that's what Fridays are just it's, you know,
yeah, and, but September, suddenly you're wearing shoes that have laces. Yeah, right. Like, Oh no, my iron,
I have to wear clothes so things with closed toes. Oh god. What's going to do? Yeah.
So today, I decided to watch some episodes of anime with my kid. We had a couple episodes left on this one that that they have seen earlier, and I have not seen was we're watching it. Love is war, so we're watching and so we finished the last episode, season three today, and then it turned out there was another episode. So we're all confused. But I was like, well,
let's do that because, like, listen, that's anime for you, though, too, right? Yeah,
we're back at we're back at school next week, and I've been sort of busting my butt this week thinking of like, the things I need to get done, like, I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays, but Monday's a holiday, so it means I teach on Wednesday next week.
Oh, hold on a sec. Can I tell you what our school does? And I think I've shared this before, but it's an absolute, like, just nightmare. Okay, so just because of when holidays fall during the school year, right? They're almost always on Mondays. Mm, hmm. So the Tuesday after Labor Day is a Monday. It's
a Monday. Yeah, they think they got that from the University of Waterloo, because we are regularly turning like, today, this Thursday is now a Tuesday because we missed a Tuesday. Like, What? What? Anyhow, what most people do is just cancel classes because it doesn't make sense. But yeah,
yeah, semester, we can't really though, like, that's the problem. Yeah, it's just, but I find my first thoughts on Thursday. I'll see him again for a week. But anyway, right,
right, because that Thursday was a Monday, but it's not actually Monday, yeah, yeah, but this Monday is a holiday, but next Monday will be a Monday, not. Thursday, and Thursday will be a Thursday, not a Monday. So that's very straightforward way to start the year, right? So my books, I mean, such as they are, are ordered, which is to say the bookstore still will not order them. So I have the Amazon links, and my syllabi are mostly done. And, you know, things are my websites are made because my RA put the materials in them for me. Thank you, Kelly, so but I was like, I'm gonna get this done. Get that I'm gonna get this printing done, and I just can't do it this week. I I was like, really trying. I was like, I'm gonna start the year. But I was like, Amy, you never do this. You do your lesson plan on the morning of right? And like, your handles will get done when you need to get them done. And I was like, Oh, yeah. Why am I hitting my head against this brick wall again? Because I don't want to go into the first week of term, like, exhausted with a sense of failure that I didn't do all the things in the last week of August when I'm definitely, like, prepared, like, my syllabi are done, the deadlines are done, the drop boxes are done, the websites are built. Like, there were some more things I wanted to, like, get prepared and done, but I don't actually, like, really have to, and it's not kind of consonant with who I am as a person. So yeah, and then Tom got us, like, literally last night, he yells up the stairs at me. He's like, do you want to go see dignitaro tomorrow? And I was like, is she inviting us for lunch? Right? Like this, he gets emails from this common place we went to
do they slide into your DMS? Like, really random, right?
It's like, do you want to see Tig Notaro on Friday? I'm like, okay, like, what? And, but there's a he gets this emails from this comedy place. So we've been to in Toronto before, and so there was like three seats left at this show, so he got two of them for us. And I was like, well, that's okay. So to go, but to Toronto, like, the show is at eight. So I'm like, Oh, great. Like rush hour on Labor Day Friday through Toronto is, like, just for people who don't know the 401, highway is the busiest highway in North America. Yes, yes. People in LA, it is busier than your highways, right?
And yes, yes, everyone from the DMV. I live here. I know how bad our traffic is. I've also done the 401401 is
it's, yeah. It is globally recognized by people who study this stuff as the busiest highway in North America. So rush hour and a long weekend. And I was like, pre panicking about work and stuff and and I was like, Yeah, you know what? Fuck it like. Honestly, this is the last weekend of summer. We have tickets to dignitara. We're gonna drive in Russia. We're gonna go earlier, which means I'm cutting my day short early so that we can, like, drive to Kipling and then park at the Kiss and Ride, and then take the train, like, pretty much all the way to like, like, past. We're almost in Scarborough at this point. So, yeah, yeah. So that's and it's going to be a long night, and I'm going to be tired. I'm like, but I'm going to be really tired Saturday. I was like, Amy, don't panic. School doesn't start till next week, right? Like, I don't do what I mean, yeah, you have until next Wednesday. Yeah, yeah. So I can enjoy this Friday night and then recover on Saturday, and I will still be able to get myself organized. And this article in the Times was like, a little bit like, it's hard because, like, if you have regrets about your summer, like you wish you'd done more things, or like you wish the weather had been better, or you can't believe it's so short and it's already gone, you'll feel very sad even through the end of your August, and then be a little bit dreading what's going to happen in September. Or you might sort of get this nervousness about, like, things getting busy again. That's going to ruin your last bit of August. And one advice, and that really stuck out for me, it said, if you're you know, have to go buy school supplies. Don't think of that as being like, Well, that's it. That's the final nail in the coffin of summer. It's like, go do that in the morning and go to the pool in the afternoon. It's still August, right? Like, your transition doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? Which is something we're familiar with now and not now. It either is summer or it isn't summer. Like, there's a little bit of way where, like, there's some things you have to do, like, make sure that the school email gets checked so that your teenager has their schedule of classes, and you have to remind them to do that, or whatever fees have to be paid. That's fine, but it doesn't mean that, like, you have to do that for eight hours. Like, maybe you do that and then you go to the pool still, or maybe you ease yourself back into I'm going to iron some clothes today. I have to pick my outfits, but like, the stuff I haven't worn since last spring that I need for work. Or, like, what did I do with that extra charge for my computer? Like, I could do that, but I don't have to do it all day. I can still ease my way a little bit into the fall. I don't know what kinds of, what is your kind of mood as you transition?
I think there's, there's two sort of, and I see this. I see this with my son, is the weight mode. We can get caught in the weight mode where it's like, you're sort of paralyzed, but it's like, I know school starts next week, but I'm so I'm just in weight mode right now. Yeah, I
can do nothing until school starts. Yeah, next, or Yeah, or,
or, it's the I just wish it would start right now, because it's like, because it's now or not now, and it's not now, and it seems like forever, but now I'm stuck in weight mode, and I'm not not having any fun because, like, I'm in weight mode, yeah, and so that. That's been something that we, we dealt with, was a bit of weight moting for that. But for me, I in so you'll, you'll find this funny. It's, it's actually coming as a relief to me, because my life has structure again. Yeah, that's true, right? Where now there is a rhythm that we will be able to get into that isn't like, stop, start, stop, start, like, you know, and especially for summer, summer, my son had to do summer school, but that was like just the month of July. So we had almost a whole month of June, or even not even the whole month of July, three the last three weeks of July. And so you had the rest of the month of June and July of just sort of unstructured, let's do things. But then, you know, daughter's graduation. So there was a lot of, you know, the end of
school year stuff, right? It gets very busy right before the end, yeah, exactly. It gets
very busy. And then you sort of have the lull, and and then, and then it was summer school. But that was only three weeks. And then it was so there's again. And then, just like, my daughter's schedule is all out of whack because it's summer, so everything is, is, there's no ability to get into a routine. And then the routines that you get into are not necessarily, I don't want to use productive, but like, good for you, right? You know, right? It's and we didn't go anywhere. And so there's just all of this, like, it was just a very chaotic summer for us, right? And so I am sort of like, Oh, good. Like I have, and I also have now limits on my time, because I'm going back into into the undergraduate classroom this semester. I'm teaching freshman writing again. And so it's like, it's like, no, I have to be on campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right? Like, if we You can't talk me out of this. And I have to be on campus at Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have to be there at 8am and there's no way to get around that. And and in some ways, in a lot of ways, that's been, it's been such a relief to be able to say that as it's just like, This is my schedule. Now it's a boundary. Lee, it's a boundary, and we all have to respect it. But also, just like with with the kids I there, they, they also, I think there's a little bit of relief for them too, right where it's just like, okay, good. Like, I know what my days are going to look like. I know what the times are. I know that, you know, X, Y and Z are going to happen, you know. And so there's, there's a because, again, you don't necessarily like surprises. Don't like things being unknown, and some summer can be a big unknown, yeah, in that sense, yeah. So it brings, it does bring a lot of, a lot of structure, a lot of boundaries, a lot of kind of reassurance and a lot of just like regularity that can be really of help when you are neurodivergent, right? It isn't just it's it's now, not now, but I know what not now is right. Like, I can look at a calendar and know that not now is fairly structured and repeatable and predictable, yeah, so
that you're not deciding at every minute, like, what, what am I going to do? My options are limitless, right? Which means that you're, you're not going to decide I kind of thrive, like, for summers in that environment, I like, I was supervising two master students this summer who were doing independent projects, and I was like, I'm going to meet you guys every two weeks, and I had two of them, and I'm like, I'm going to meet you on the same day. I'm going to meet you back to back, right? So it was like, every two weeks on Tuesdays, I had one student at two and one student at three, right? And I was like, that's all I'm putting in my calendar there, because I don't want to have to remember where I have to be, right? I just want to be Roomba methoding my way through the summer. Because I, as it turns out, when I have this kind of free time, I do things actually quite enjoy. And I what one of the things I really enjoy is not having my fucking time structured by anybody else, right? Yeah, so it's like, if I want to sew for two hours in the morning, I will do that if I just want to go to the pool and float any ice cream for lunch, I'm going to do that if I feel like cleaning out my entire linen closet and deciding, like, what things to keep and what things to throw out, or if I, you know, want to go shopping for new Apple watch bands or whatever, I just, I just decide it and I do it. So there's like nothing in the way of the thing that I want to do, because there's like, a schedule attached to it. And so that's that's been, that's been good for me. Could I go on like that forever? Maybe not, but I will say I do chafe a bit at the return of the structure in the fall. I mean, it's quite lonely on campus. If anybody is still on Twitter, I've been posting pictures.
Oh my goodness, I have more. Like, I
have more. I just like, was like, it was so depressing that I just like, canceled what I was going to do and I went on a little campus tour with my camera and took pictures. Am I going to make art out of how fucking miserable it is here, swearing a lot because I don't have my, like, grown up voice back. But yeah, I was taking pictures on campus for people who haven't seen them. Of, of what looks like, you know, like birth after us. Like, it was that series of, like, yeah, you know, 50 years after the what's gonna happen after the bomb drops? Right? It's like, well, one week later, it looks like this. And. Weeks later. Well, you know what come to my campus after like, 30 years of structural underfunding, and it's like sand piles and cigarette butts and weeds growing through the patio stones and like benches that face into nothing, and like everything just it's like a Wes Anderson movie crossed with something much more depressing than a standard.
Who does the Mad Max stuff?
Oh yeah, there you go. It's like, Mad Max mixed with Wes Anderson. So it's post apocalyptic. There's a lot of dirt, but also one point perspectives and very angular stuff. So it was, like, just depressing to be on campus, actually, because it's like, has anybody we did anything this year. Like, I was just at Guelph for a defense. I was external examiner on someone's dissertation. Like, the flowers were beautiful everywhere, and birds were chirping and bees were humming and it smelled nice. Then I came to campus and I'm like, Oh, look, it's a snow drift of cigarette butts in some sand that washed away when the rain came. I was like, All right, super. So it's like, not been pleasant to be around there. I do like when campus is full of people, again, I like knowing that when I go to my workplace, I won't be the only one there, right? Like that is something I do like about going back. And I like the energy that I get from my students, and I will build myself the most secure but minimally numerous set of obligations, right? That will add the structure to my days like we were joking before we started recording that you are teaching at eight in the morning, and I am not, because I have an accommodation for my insomnia where I don't start teaching before 11am and that gives me just enough I'm teaching as much as anybody else, right? Yeah, but I don't start before 11am and that allows me to have enough freedom over my schedule, that if I have a terrible sleep, I can get out of bed at 10am and teach at 11. And that's that's fine. So it's that that balance between needing that structure, right? Because I do like teaching in person a lot more than I like teaching online, as I've mentioned on this podcast, because there's people in it, right? And it's deadline oriented, like it the class is going to happen whether I'm prepared or not. So I am going to be prepared, right? Which is different from online teaching. So like, for me, that's the kind of balance of, like I need the structure back of of having regular meetings with people in the classroom, but enough slack in that, that that I can self accommodate some of my needs. And it's always difficult for me to to go from having very few constraints on my time to going back into the swing of things. Do you want to hear something embarrassing? Always Okay, great. I want everybody to know that I am a professional and I am highly skilled, and this story has a great ending, but I was examining a dissertation at the University of Guelph that was supervised by my former supervisor, Susan Brown. And I read the dissertation. It was great. I sent in my report on time with no reminders. I have been told it was a very good report, and that was on Monday the 20th, no Tuesday the 20th. And it was like because we had to send it in one week before the defense. So Guelph is just down the road for me, so 40 minute drive, and I'm like, I'm going to be there in person for the defense on the 27th and then on the morning of the 27th as I was watching clips from the late night talk shows in bed while eating caffeine laden chocolates at 930 in the morning, I got an email from Susan saying, What is your license plate, so that we can get you parking and
I thought, fuck I forgot. I
completely forgot that there was going to be a defense, yeah, and that it was like, today. Like, I was so lost. I was like, am I already late? Right? Because, like, yeah, the email had been at eight in the morning, I was like, motherfucker, have they started without me? No, it started at one, so I had time to get there, so, but I was like, Oh, wow. And I, like, texted my husband. He's like, wow, that could not be more on brand. Yeah, I've
done that so many times for so many different things, yeah,
like when you went to that conference and had forgot to cancel your class. Yeah,
no, all that. Yeah, exactly where or I will, like, I've been, you know, we all have those, well, maybe we don't all have those stress strains, but I still have those stress streams. You know, where you, like, can't find your classroom on the first day classes or, like, none of the clocks work, so you never know you're on time. Yep,
there's a dissertation defense, and you forgot about it, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but that would literally happen to me with this one evening class. So, like, there was a, like, a rhythm for every other day of the week, but like, one day of the week I taught an evening class, right? And I kid you not, I forgot about it every freaking week for the entire semester. Yeah, Mom, aren't you supposed to be teaching
like? The crazy thing is, you will have been doing the grading, you will have been preparing, you will have been thinking about the class all week, and then you forget to go
and teach it, and it'd be like, and the more you try, it's all it's almost. Like, the more I we try to will ourselves to remember, remember you teach on Thursday, Tuesday night, remember you teach on Tuesday night? Remember you teach on Tuesday night, and then it's in
your eye, yeah, yeah. And then somehow you you lose it, yeah. So I'm afraid. I'm always afraid at the end of August, I'm like, Oh, is it possible? I'm never going to get this back. I'm just ability to, like, not forget really important stuff that, like, yeah, to have stood out, I will say the defense was amazing. The candidates work was amazing. It was when I was super prepared. I just forgot that I had to go again. I went and it was amazing, and and all of that. But I was like, wow, I am always, like, just one email reminder away from utter disasters. And it's like, a little a little bit worse during the summer, because I like present type of constraint, and then I'm always worried, right? I get the the September scaries of being like, Wow, is this the year that this doesn't come back my ability to to work within a structure. So yeah, having classes scheduled and having my office hours like be written on the syllabus, where I, like, will be showing up for those and, like, booking regular meetings with my grad students, instead of saying, like, email me if you want a meeting. Because, like, that's I'm never going to answer the email or we'll have a meeting. I'll forget. Um, so making those things more regular is is better, and I'm trying to be kind to myself about it is the end of August, and the pool is closing this weekend, so I should go as many times as I can, because I will probably regret that more in early October than I will be grateful that I spent like eight extra hours fussing the language on the handouts. Do you know? Yep, but it's hard not to panic.
Yeah, I don't. And again, this might be I'm trying to think, and I would usually panic, be panicking a little bit more in August, but, like, I was, and I do usually resent, like, like, constraints on my time, but, but again, this summer was just so chaotic. It was just like, Oh, thank God. Like, so we have a new puppy. Yes, I saw we have a new puppy. Cute. Yeah, he's napping behind me. Oh no, he's not napping anymore. And puppies
don't care about your schedule, no.
But puppies also get really upset when you break their routines too. Oh,
absolutely, yeah. So he's in charge, yeah, yeah. And
so like, and again, he's been sort of experiencing the Apollo has been experiencing the chaos as well. And so, like, Monday, he was all out of sorts. And then I realized, why is because we were home all weekend. Oh, and like, Yeah, well, he was like, where's like, usually there's like, a rhythm to my day, but there was no like, we all love that about Sundays, right? Like, yes, okay, there's like you were saying about summer, right? There's no rhythm. We're just gonna, like, lounge, and, you know, maybe vibes, yeah, it's just vibes, right? And it's like, okay, well, maybe there's a couple things we have to do, but we're just and I'm gonna sew, and I want my, like, back to school dress to be done. And, and the dog was so confused, and on Monday he was just like, and then on Monday, everybody was up and out of the house, and he's like, what is happening?
Yeah, dogs don't get the concept of the week.
Yeah, no. And so, like, he is just, you know, he'd be, he'd be happy if we had the same routine every single day, seven days a week, right? Like, he would be so happy with that, yeah, because they are, you know, they very much need that. It's like having a baby again, right? They want structure. They want routine. They want, you know, they want their food to be on time, at the same time every day. They want, you know, they want what they want, and but, but I like that was the thing that I noticed, and my daughter was panicking, because it's her dog, it's going to be her service dog, actually. And I'm just like, oh, no, what happened? And I'm like, Sunday happened? Yes, like, Sunday happened. Sunday is what happened. Like, we all slept in, and he was like, what is happening? And then we all hang out at home all day. And he was like, I still don't know what's happening. Why? What? What is going on?
Yeah, it's hard to go from routine to no routine, right? Or from routine to changes in the routine, right? Like all of those things are a bit stressful for companion animals, service animals, as well as neurodivergent people, right? And like last week when I was trying to be in at the office, where I'm like, I have to acclimate again to, like, yep, going places and doing stuff. And I was trying on, and it was like, Oh my God. And like, filling out these freaking forms, like, all these web forms. I'm like, I'm just trying to order some books for the bookstore, which is, like, not possible. And like, anyhow, all the stuff I'm doing, I'm like, I don't know why this task that should take five minutes is taking 45 minutes, and I didn't even manage to quite accomplish it. And like, doing all this stuff, it's not rewarding, and it's very frustrating. And I would come home and normally, like we've talked about in the general course of things like the difference between rest and relaxation, right? And I was like, normally I would, like, blow off some steam by drawing or sewing something. Playing piano. But I was like, I went in the phone hole a couple of nights last week where, like, get on my bed after supper. I haven't even changed yet, and I just like, am farting around on my phone for three hours. And I was like, Yeah, I'm too tired. And I would notice that. I'd be like, I don't want to I'm too tired to play piano. I am too tired to cut fabric for this thing I want to make. I am too tired to figure out what I want to draw in my pencils or in another room. And I was just like, do I want to go for a walk? No, I like, I want to get comatose on my phone. I was like, Oh man, I don't want to get into that routine, right? So sometimes, like, if we don't ease ourselves kind of back into the lifestyle, it can be a real hard landing. And even if it is a hard landing, it would probably do me well to not panic, right? Because, like, when I was working with Rebecca Schuman, who was my writing coach for a while, she was like, What are we gonna do the first weeks of school? And then she's like, No, there's no writing goals the first two weeks of school, she's just forget it. Just forget it. Because the two weeks of like, that's not the rest of your semester. The first two weeks of the semester are their own special kind of animals. So do not start a pattern in those two weeks that you think you can sustain, right? Like, because you can't. So, like, Let the world be what it's going to be the first two weeks of school. So, so maybe as we make our, like, New Year's resolutions, you know, for September, the way that, you know, we tend to do is not like, maybe we give ourselves a bit of a grace period. Because when everybody comes back, you know, and everybody's away. Messages are turned up, and everybody has like, a 600 email backlog of stuff, some of which needs to be looked at, and some of which doesn't, I expect. There's like, a whole flurry of like, you know, like, when you start the car in the morning and a poof of black smoke comes out the back, you're like, Oh, God, something wrong with my car. But it's like, this, it hasn't been turned on for a while, right? And it's just like, that's the dead or winter? Yeah, so the dead of winter is like, making terrible noises and it smells like brain damage and like you're just like, yeah, um,
for like, 20 minutes before you, before you drive
right? And we know, with my lousy theory of mind, haha, being autistic, I always think that I'm the only one right that's struggling with the back to school, with the too many emails and the weird constraints and the stupid forms and like all of the confusion of new students and stuff that I always think like nobody else is struggling except me, but we probably all are, and frenetic work is probably more frenetic in the fall, just because everybody is coming out of the summer slump, and everybody is like, Oh yeah, that thing I kind of dropped in June, like, Okay, let's start that up again, right? So it's like a whole flurry of new asks at the same time as you're buried in all the stuff that you didn't get around to doing before.
Oh, and, and inevitably, something changed. Someone changed something on campus over the summer, and either you did get the email or they did a really poor job communicating it. And then you're just like, what or so this is, this is screwing with everyone. So Canvas made slight changes to the interface. Oh, those are like, not enough that you'd be like, ooh, Canvas has changed, right? But enough where you're like, I thought that there used to be a more prominent button to set due dates for assignments, yeah. And now it's like, folded into this little link at the bottom. And I'm like, Oh, why did you do that? And then, like, everything is just a little off. And I'm just like, and so they're like, coming to us for help. They're like, so can you help us with catch? We're like, Sure. Why not? And then we're like, going on,
yeah, is this actually kept? Yeah, this sounds like a Boeing problem, you know, like the Boeing 737, Max. So they tweak it in such a way so that it wouldn't actually have to require new training for pilots on it, right? And, like, So Canvas will do, like, we just change, like, it's just a little bit of things on the interface. Nobody needs, like, new training. It's not a major rollout. Like, there's no except, like, now everybody's like, Where'd the button go? Yeah, the one button I need. Yeah. Now you're gonna spend 40 minutes, like, looking for it, and you're like, what
I mean, it really was comically bad, where it was like, Oh, she's like, well, there's no due date on this assignment, and I can't figure out how to set the due date. And I'm like, that's weird. It's pretty simple. And then I look at it, and I'm like, wait a minute. And I called my colleague over, who knows cannabis even better than I do and does a lot of the canvas. I was like, Peter, come here. It's like, yes. And I'm like, where's the due date? Yeah. And he's like, it should be. And then he's like, oh, oh, they've changed this, right? We're both like, he's like, we should really take a look at this, should we? And I'm like, Yes, we were not, like, we were just totally not prepared. And we're like, how does this happen?
I have a theory I'm just building for you right now. So my theory is that these software updates that we don't see coming and that are not appropriately documented, just like one morning you turn your computer on, everything is different. It's like a kind of tech culture gaslighting, right? Because it's very disruptive to your routine, your process. Like the metaphor I was using and I gave that talk in Oregon in May, was like, it's almost like the way they keep changing the software and expecting us to adapt is, is gaslighting, because these things are hard to adapt to. It's like, if you got up in the morning, went into the bathroom to go pee, flicked on the light switch. But. Light didn't come on. The toilet flushed right? You're like, but yesterday, this was the light switch. So you go over to the toilet, you press the flush button, expecting the light to come on in the shower starts. You're like, Okay, but what now you're like, doubting your own apprehension of reality. You really have to go pee, and you can't see anything, and now the shower is going right, like, so
I move the toilet completely. Yeah, yeah. So you just pull down your pants to go sit down, and then you're like, ass on the floor. Like, ass on the floor
because there's no light. You don't know what's happening now. You've pissed yourself. You're like, Oh no, I peed my pants. I'm a bad person. Like, listen, no. Like, you should be able to expect that things are going to be solid and durable and like, that's probably a tax that autistic and neurodivergent and ADHD people pay generally, is like, so be aware, often we come back, you know, after a break, and like, we've spiffed up the interface. Or, like, there's
a whole new website coming in, like, Oh no, right? Or they, or they've moved something in your office. They've moved something in
your office. Or, like, me, one day I came in, there was some animal ladder in the ceiling of my office, and I couldn't get in, and I said, Excuse me. And he said, I'm just going to be another 20 minutes. I was like, uh, but this is my office. He's like, Well, I'm doing something. And I was like, I also, I feel like Canvas and like Blackboard and and desire to learn and bright space like that. They do that to us all the time, right? Like, the just, and it's pretty easy to think that you're crazy when you go back after summer, nothing works the way that you thought it should. But, like, there's not been a big release, or you remembered it working this way? Yeah? You remembered it working this way, yeah? Like, Outlook. Like, Outlook is, oh yeah, Word, you know, like, everybody's like, don't add an image in Word, like, and in the distance irons, right? Like, like, everything turned to Cyrillic, and my picture disappeared and now my documents locked right like so outlook is like that too, with message threading. I guess people just cannot find stuff or like you click on the invitation for something and the agenda disappears. You don't know where it went now. So, like all of that stuff, my neurodivergent friends, you have had perhaps a summer break where you have been blessedly free of Microsoft Outlook, possibly, or the Gremlins of Team invitations or document sharing or trying to, like, create new stuff in bright space, or whatever it is that you're working with. And it's possible that all these softwares have changed in ways that are slightly worse, but which no one has advised you, because it wasn't really a major change. But now nothing works the way that you wanted to, and you're extra frustrated, and that's the first
two weeks, and your work and your workflow is just gone. Your workflow. Is your workflow that you spend so much time trying to refine, yeah, and get down so that, like I it, it is the problem of, you know, when we say, outsource things for ourselves and and sometimes these routines, these going on autopilots, yeah, are, are the outsourcing, right? I'm going to just train my business like riding a bicycle, right? I don't need to think about riding a bicycle. I'm just going to ride my bicycle. I don't need to think about, yeah, how my email works. I'm just going to do the email thing or, you know, and then it's like, Wait, that doesn't, you know, we're going to take off the front tire. Wait, what?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, like, we manage our energy often, so it's difficult to come back, you know, from a lazy or summer, even if you're not an academic schedule, because the expectations for productivity and professionalism go up again at the same time as the tasks may have got harder, because things that we could do default network right, or things that have been a routine where it's like, you don't really think about it, like the way you drive to work in the morning, you follow the same route, and often get there you're like, wow, I don't even remember most of them. Yeah, exactly know how to do it. So, like, that's another danger coming back in September is like, often things get refreshed and updated over the summer, when people aren't as busy, and then the things that you expect to work in a particular way that has become routinized or not. And so now you pay a kind of cognitive tax for that. And I think neurodivergent people pay it a little harder because it involves task switching. Now you're like, How does my email threading work? Not where is the email I'm looking for, right? And so now we'll get extra confused and overwhelmed. Well, also
the difficulty of dealing with trade. With change, yeah, right, like the getting to an outsider, yeah, or a Normie, irrationally angry, yeah, right, figured out. Yeah. They're like, it's just, I know it's annoying, but it's not. No, you don't understand. You don't understand this room. I really do not understand how like almost and in some cases, really painful it is, yeah, because I go from something that was easy, mm hmm, to something that is now giving me a migraine. It is so hard, it's something
you have to start from scratch. Again, I was looking for my my master's students, the completion form, which used to be, God bless, used to be a paper form that was available outside the office of the grad Secretary that kind of like a casa, like, I
don't you call like, this a little like, mailer folder. Yeah, you could, like, just take the
form out and get it filled out or whatever. But now it's online. We where. Or is it online? Nobody knows, right? So we used to joke about the University of Waterloo website was so bad you could never browse or search for what you wanted internally, that your best bet was to open a fresh window and Google what you were looking for. Yes. Now Google is also broken, right? So, so here I am. I It's like the story of my life, that I am absolutely 100% competent to supervise these master's projects that I am not competent to fill out the paperwork to make sure people graduate because they can't find it. Yeah, I know it exists somewhere here. But, like, nobody works on campus anymore, and the offices are shut down for most of the summer, and I'm like, Well, we have to submit this paperwork, if only we could locate it. So it's like me and two grad students sitting in my office, all of us Googling, like, I know the form exists, right? Yeah, where is it like,
and what is it called? Because you'd think it was called graduation form, but it's not called graduation form. It's called something else. So you're like, Google is like, giving you what you've asked for. But in the University
of Winnipeg, also, like, I'm just like, No, listen, that's not what I want. Or, anyhow, that's the kind of like, tax a little bit too. Of like, I had this page bookmarked, but now the URL changed, and also the whole site structure changed. So I don't know I have to like something that's going to take one second now, like, takes a lot longer, but I still want to be swimming and wearing sunscreen, right, not wearing a real bra and heels in my office, where the air conditioning is still set to 15 degrees, and I have taped my vents shut, and I have a cashmere sweater at the office for summertime wear, because it's 15 degrees in my office. So,
so just, just be clear. Just be clear that Celsius, yes, if it was 15 degrees Fahrenheit, that'd be real, real cold. It'd be real Celsius is probably what in the 50s, something like that, or like, low 60s, high 50s. I think it's, yeah, cold.
It's like, could preserve food for a while cold, then, yes, not great. So I've taped my vents shut. So that's what I'm doing at work now. I'm taking photos for a series on post apocalyptic campuses, and also getting packing tape from the supply closet to tape all my vents shut, and then trying to figure out where the weird whistling noise is coming from. And I almost got run over by a long board in the hallway. So my office is on the second floor of Hagee Hall and there's nobody there, like the lights are not even on. Like I have to turn the lights on as I'm going I have my door closed so I can collect some of the sunshine coming in the window, so I'll be less frozen. And I open my door at 4pm to leave, and I step one foot into the hallway, and I'm nearly run over by a dude on a longboard whipping down the hallway, and I thought that's a stupid way to die. Yeah, right. Like, I'm not saying when I left the building, I'm saying when I opened my office door into an interior hallway on the second floor, somebody was skateboarding down the hallway, and, you know, I already got hit by a car this year. Once, I'm like, I am not here, not today, not today. So I just want summer to keep going. I do have a case of the September scariest, mostly because I've had near death experiences in the hallway while being I would have shattered too. I was so cold I would have shattered almost certainly.
Well, also the look at the bright side of this too is that, like, if the students are back, certainly somebody will not be able to longboard down the hall, because there would be too many people.
Now I need, like, a I need one of those mirrors, like they have in parking garages, so, like, when I open my office door, I'll be able to see down the hallway before, like, if I just stuck my head out, I would have got schmooch, right? I was like, What on earth is happening here?
Does it open inward, or does the door open inward? I
know my door opens inward. Yeah, yeah. And I have to sort of step out to see what's happening. Because that would have been funny had you open the door and clock. Oh, I closed one. That one that would have been great. I would like listen, dude, million to one shot, not my fault, substantially your fault. Yeah, so I'm wearing a bathing suit right now while we're recording this podcast, because I'm not ready to let go yet, but I know enough about myself that I'm a rip the band aid all the way off person that I don't ease back into things for very long, just like I don't prep my classes two days in advance. I do it the day of, and I know that that works and I'm not lazy. It just saves me some misery, and the results are good. So today I'm going swimming good, and I'm gonna go see Tig Notaro after an eternity of a subway ride and driving through rush hour traffic. But that's okay, because I'm not in a rush. No, until next Wednesday,
until next Wednesday, and I am going to keep putting together patterns, and then I'm going to cut some new patterns, and hopefully you sew a dress or two this weekend and now. And so this is the other other funny part about my job is that we have this the big rush right before the semester starts, yeah. And then once the semester starts, it just dips, yeah, right, like. And I'm looking at my calendar next week, and I, you know, I have worked Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, and I. Do not have any meetings. Oh, the dream until Thursday. And I'm just looking at my calendar going like, How did this even have? But it's because it's too early in the semester to have any programming at this point done. We did all our programming pre semester, and so nothing has you know, it's like you said, don't do anything the first two weeks. That's basically us at the Teaching and Learning Center as well. Yeah, right. We're not we. There's no point in doing anything the first two weeks except help help faculty put out fires if they need it, right? So it's so it's this really interesting lull next week where I'm just like, wow, I don't have a lot to do, and I finished. I actually finished all my summer projects. Amazing. Yeah, I know I finished all the summer projects and but none of the fall projects are really started up yet, right? And so you're I'm just sort of like, okay, well, good, alright, let's enjoy this. I didn't get a break this summer, but I maybe I'll get a break the first week of September. I
figured out twin needle sewing on my machine with actually, two needles, but I had a bit of a mishap. I don't know if you can see this. Oh, yep, that it's in two pieces now. Yes, it just like, bent in half. Yeah, snap. That was a good time. So I'm glad I was wearing my glasses.
Yeah, you haven't. You haven't sewn your finger yet, though, so that's No, I have, and
I don't know how you've done that. I am, like, watching my thing. I'm like, I'm like, I'm not even sure how it would be possible to get my finger. I think about that all the time. Lee, I'm
doing something finicky, right? But I'm also now complacent, because I think I know what I'm doing. So that's and i i also think I just pressed a little too hard on the pedal, right? And it just speed. Yeah, yeah. It went hyper speed right away. And so that was so now, yes, I look at my finger all the time and I'm just like, nope, too close.
That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Well,
you should go to the
pool. I'm going to the pool. I have, I have
dogs and puppies rushing around in the background right now. So
all of our listeners have to know, if you have the September scaries, this isn't actually a neurodivergent thing. No, everybody gets this, and that's okay, right? That's okay. And extend grace to yourself, yes, as you reintegrate into the busier real world, even if you've been in it the whole time, but everybody's been on vacation, and remember that everybody else is probably just as freaked out by their backlog and their projects and stuff. So give it two weeks, right? Be kind to yourself, to
the other drivers, because everybody's back to school, so traffic is about to get way worse again. Oh,
listen, it's moving weekend here. It's moving weekend late. We call it. It's preceded by couch season, which is, like, every time you drive down the road, there's like, 50 abandoned couches on the curb and, like, gross mattresses and stuff. Like, we don't even get like, oh no. And now it's clueless parents driving around with their blinker on at about, like, 15 kilometers an hour. And they're going to turn right eventually, but they gotta cheat out 30 feet to the left to make this turn. And then they change the minds at the last minute, because nobody knows what they're doing. Nobody knows what they're doing. So I'm just walking
places now. Yeah, I told, I told my daughter. Was like, I think I can go to Target. And I'm like, it is moving weekend. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't, don't. No, no, no. Hey,
maybe next time I'll tell everybody a story about how my kid and I spent a 24 hour sojourn in New Jersey when our flight got canceled, when we had already had our whole trip and needed to go home immediately or we were going to have meltdowns. Yeah, we've got a better target in New Jersey. Yeah, it's a good time. It's coping skills and how we managed to locate some of them. Oh, the New Jersey. Yeah,
in New Jersey. So sorry. I just I was reminded of something, and it made me laugh, because I guess Plattsburgh is booming. Plattsburgh is, oh, sorry, Burlington Vermont. So Burlington Vermont is just across the border from Montreal, and by just across the border, it's about an hour drive, and Burlington Vermont, it's a college town and and it's Vermont, so you know, that's where we caught all of our American television stations from, was either Plattsburgh, New York, or Burlington, Vermont, and but now they have a target and a Trader Joe's. And so I guess that's where all the cross border shopping
takes place, yeah, where
it wasn't worth it for a long, long time, and it was like, maybe if we open to target and Trader Joe's
Canadians will flock. Yeah, they have French cashiers now they're probably that'd be pretty
Yeah, no, they I've the reason why I know this is because one of cassie's friend's brother goes to UVM and works at the target. And was like, French Canadians are the worst. I'm like, hey,
hey, those are my people. Shut up. That's why it's very funny. That's very funny. Well, okay, I'll save that story. Yeah, save it for another time. Yeah. And what a delight to be back with everybody. Delight to
be back. We're gonna get 200 episodes. I'm so excited. Gonna be missed. You so much.
Yes. We missed everybody so much, and maybe we'll be back before Christmas. You don't know, though, you don't know it'll happen. You don't know. Yeah, stay tuned.
Stay tuned. Wait and see. Alright, so I'm ready writing on various social media platforms, and you are, did you walk on
on various social platforms? No longer banning people from my Instagram, yeah, yeah.
And this was all the things ADHD you can It sure was, yeah. You can also email me at all the things adhd@gmail.com and I say me and not us, even though Amy eventually gets them in her Twitter DMS, yes.
And I wait, shout out. We won't say by name, but the person who sent us the email whose sign off was, I will not be proofreading this email. I almost dropped my phone. I was laughing so hard that was like a mic drop moment from that listener. It was a very long email because they all are, and had 50 topics in it, because they all do, and it was a pure delight to read. But I have never seen a send off like that, which was like, just Mic drop. I will not be proofreading this email. Boom. And I was like, That is the best thing I read all summer. Thank you. So keep those cards and letters coming, and we will forward them to me.
Alright, everyone, have a great end of August, beginning of September. And yeah, take care. Bye.
