Thinkin' About Monkeys

I found pretty early on that it's hard to read most Tourette's literature. The only one I've found motivating is "Front of the Class" by Bradley Cohen. I liked it because he never stopped doing - he kept on living his life, forcing his way through all the bullshit that people kept giving him for his Tourette's.

I had trouble reading the books "Icy Sparks" and "Don't Think About Monkeys." I think that these books are good for the non-Touretter, but I just can't stand to read them. It seemed to me like these books were ways to express pain, to show how much having Tourette's sucked. I already know this; I don't need a book to tell me. I couldn't even get through the books, I just didn't want to hear about how depressed these people were!

On the other hand, about a month before I met Charlene, she read the book "Icy Sparks." Before this, she hadn't even heard of the disorder - how fortuitous that she would read it right before meeting me! That just goes to show how important audience is, I guess. For now, I'll just keep thinking about monkeys.

Classes

Today marks the first weekend after classes began of the new semester! I'm really excited about it, because I have a really great lineup of classes. I have Music Theory III, Psych 101, Intro to Rock and Roll (that's right!), Intro to Computer Programming, and Peer Leadership. The last one is a class I have to take because I'm an RA, :P. I forsee a lot of frustration with that class, but the good news is that I have it with my best buddy Bruce. Cool! I'm sure I'll be posting interesting bits here and there throughout the semester. Peace friends!

Speechless

I just experienced something that touched me deeply and I feel the need to share.

As for a bit of background, by now you know that I did not have Tourette's all my life, but rather acquired it suddenly in high school. I've always thought of it as that I got the easy; middle and elementary school are the really formative years, and lucky for me I didn't' have to deal with peers picking on my based on my TS all the time. In fact, I've even felt some shame because of that - who am I to join support groups, when I got to skip what is arguably the most difficult part of a Touretter's life? People are always surprised when they find out I haven't had it all my life, and when I tell them I always feel like I loose 16 years worth of credibility. Today I realized that isn't necessarily true.

Earlier, I was hanging out with two friends who were doing some homework. One friend was a guy who sometimes has a rather rough demeanor but always has a good heart; I think of him as a particularly masculine individual. The other was a young woman with a very unique, almost maternal personality. I was telling them about the guy I had met with facial tics in my Comp Sci class. They were both surprised and somewhat entertained at how genuinely excited I was when I saw his tics. I explained to them that I had never met anybody else with Tourette Syndrome, and that after everything that's happened, no wonder I'm excited when I see someone else who might have had similar experiences! The male friend said "I know how you feel. Actually... I don't. But, I can guess." When he said this, I was a bit confused and said that I didn't mind him saying "I know how you feel" even if he didn't actually have TS, and that it actually meant a lot to me in the first place.

After a moment, he said (and of course this is paraphrased, based on my crummy memory) "You know... I was thinking. I always thought that Tourette's was something you had all your life; but it seems like it would be harder how it happened to you." Even though I understood what he was saying and could predict what was coming next, I was confused. I had never thought of it that way before; also, he was beginning to tear up, which is even more confusing. "I have so much respect for you - I can't imagine what it must be like to do everything that you do even though that happened to you. I don't know what I would do." At this point, he was choking up and covering his eyes with his hand. "So when I say 'I know how you feel...' I really don't."

And with that he finished. I was speechless and he was embarrassed (which is why I've done my best to tell the story without revealing identity as best as possible. I hope I've written it well enough that he could read it and feel good about it.). There were a few moments of silence, and he left for the bathroom. When he was left, I didn't know what to say or do. "That's... never happened before" I said. "Really?" said the second friend, "because that's what everybody thinks."

I was blown away. Still am, actually. I never thought of myself as much of a fighter or anything like that, or even that my unusual onset of TS was any more difficult or inspirational or different than the 'normal' case. Especially when the second friend echoed his sentiment, I felt thrown into a whole new setting.

Many people have told me that my struggle with TS is motivating, but it never struck me like this before. I feel like I just found out I'm some strange kind of hero, but didn't quite realize what all was entailed. People I consider my equals or even superiors look up to me... valleys are mountains and mountains aren't really what you thought they were in the first place. Wow.

New Toy

I've been itching to play/have an electric guitar for a while, and opportunity knocked on my door last night. My fraternity brother just bought an Epiphone Les Paul and was getting rid of his old elecrtic. He gave me his Squier Strat for an amazingly awesome price. I love it soooo much!! I'm still working on transitioning (or would it be expanding?) from acoustic style to electric styles, and it feels great. by the way I've been trying to figure out exactly what color this is - some say blue, some say purple. What do you think??

I MET A TICCER!!!!1 :D

Today in my computer programming class, I noticed a student who kept twitching his eyebrows everyfew seconds. For those who don't spend large amounts of time with me, I'm always on the lookout for someone else with Tourette's. I think I spotted one once a looong time ago and I didn't go talk to him; ever since, I've been on the lookout trying to find somebody else who shares the condition with me.

So anyway my 'tic-dar' was going nuts over this guy, and I knew I had to talk to him after class. I've always practiced what to say if/when I meet someone, but of course all of that flew out the window and it was awkwardfest. I walked over and asked if he had tics, then explained that I have Tourette Syndrome and I'm always on the lookout to find somebody else with the disorder. He said he did have eyebrow tics, but that he hadn't been diagnosed as TS and also didn't have any other regular tics. We introduced ourselves, and as he so eloquently put it "it's nice to meet somebody else with the same problem."

We'll see if there's more to come!

Leb

Hello again! Today was the first day of classes for UNC's fall '09 semester, an exciting day indeed!

Two nights ago, I was with one of my fraternity brothers who was feeling down. After talking things out, we picked up guitars and made up a song on the spot. He played electric lead while I played rhythm on his steel six string; I was his support while he poured his heart out. It was an intense and deep moment, and we played for at least ten minutes without stopping or changing the music.

This particular brother is very spiritual, and has talked to me about what is called the 'language of the heart. ' I'm sure I'm not able to explain this nearly as well as he can, but it is not a spoken language, but more of a felt one. It is more of an abstract language about love rather than a language to write a shopping list or a play. In Hebrew, the word for this is "Leb." Although it does not specifically have to do with music, in that moment I felt the language of the heart between us. We didn't tell each other what was going on or what the other was going to play, but it worked and it was beautiful. I was so honored that I could be a part of that, and that we have the bond that allowed that to happen. Love - be it romantic or brotherly - is magnificent!

Dell Support

A while back I had a particularly strong tic in my hand while I was typing that resulted in the right 'control' key being ripped off.

Today I talked to Dell support about an unrelated issue with the touchpad, which they are going to replace. I asked them if I could get the key replaced as well. "What happened to the key?" the technician (José was his name) asked.

"Well... I have a neurological disability that causes me to twitch and flail my arms sometimes at random. One time my hand got caught on the control key and ripped it off."

José said that they don't normally replace things that were caused by external factors, but that he would make an exception in this case.

Thanks Dell! :-)

Tourette's History Part IV

About a week ago in RA training, we spent a day talking about diversity and identity. It was ironic because I happened to be sporting a mohawk that day as part of an ongoing joke. I don't consider myself a mohawk person, even though people said it looked great. It felt so out of place when I would reach up and touch it! At the end of this training day, we broke into our individual building staffs - a group of about twenty people in my case. The Community Director (Josh) led an activity that helped us explore our own identities. First, we each wrote a list of ten things that we consider to be very important to defining each of us as a person. My list started with "Tourette Syndrome" and included other things like "good listener," "musician," things like that. Once the list was made up, Josh asked us cross off five of those things. It was difficult, but I picked the five that I felt least connected to and removed them from my list of identity. Then, he asked us to cross off three more. I was down to "Tourette Syndrome" and "Understanding of Other's Perspectives." Predictably, the next step was to pick one more item to cross off. I sat staring at the paper, wanting my best to have "Perspectives" be the one thing that I thought defined me, but I knew it wasn't true. I drew a bold black line through it.

We went around the circle and took turns telling the group about our lists and what was left as our most central identity trait. As we went around the cirlce, many people had heavy subjects and some were emotional. I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head. I thought about how I would introduce the points that I was particularly proud of, and of little jokes I could throw in here or there to make it light. But when it was almost my turn, I looked at my list and saw a list of nine perfectly good personality traits crossed out and one horribly life-changing disability sitting like king at the top of them. All the sudden everything hit me at once and I reacted to my Tourette's in a way I had never done before.

I started to cry.

I did my best to hold it back at first, because it was my turn to speak. It was a very emotional moment and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'll give my best shot at recreating the moment: "Today I've talked about my Tourette Syndrome a lot. Two and a half years ago I was a normal guy; I never really processed it until right now. It may not seem like a big deal, but for every tic you see, I have about twenty - and I feel every single one of them. I feel like it's a cage that I'm trying to reach out of, but crossing everything out made me just see the cage. That's... That's all I got."

I began to cry freely and to my surprise, many of the people around me did too. The guy next to me stood up and gave me a huge bear hug, even though I was to weak to stand up and return it. We continued going around the circle, although it was hard for me to concentrate on what was being said. I kept my eyes down and shed silent tears; it was so hard to think about anything or the people in the room. I felt so rediculous crying like a baby with a badass mohawk. I wasn't slowing down any, even though the next couple people were already talking. I remember looking up momentarily and being overwhelmed with the size of the cirlce in front of me. Maryam, who had also had a rather emotional list, came over to kneeled next to me and put her arms around me, which gave me the strength to stop staring at the piece of paper and crumple that shit up. Finally, we took a water break for everyone to refresh and recharge their batteries from the heavy things we were discussing. I stood up and started to head to the bathroom to clean myself up. I still hadn't recovered from my turn, and three or four people came in tears to where I was before I could move, showering me with reassuring hugs and words. It's odd to me to think that other people can be so heavily affected by something that happens to someone else, but it was very thereaputic to be able to share the moment. One person was crying almost harder than I was. She told me how great of a person she thought I was and that she felt lucky to know me. We hugged about three times; her actions meant so much to me at that moment, more than I can describe in words.

As I left the group and headed off to the bathroom to clear out my nose, I began to gasp for breath. Not knowing what was going on, I started crying even harder and louder than I had before. I didn't even make it to the bathroom; Josh and Maryam came and rescued me halfway there. I dove into them and sobbed harder than I think I ever have since I was little. It was one of the deepest, realest, most meaningful embraces I think I will ever experience. I don't know how long we stood there as I poured out the contents of my heart, lungs, and tear ducts onto them.

When I was done crying, Maryam took me on a walk around campus. We discussed each other's lives and issues and how we felt about things. We walked and talked until the mosquitos drove us back inside. Maryam is such an amazing person, always fighting for the right thing. I know that someday she will have a great impact on the world; indeed, she already has on mine.

Looking back (although admittedly it hasn't been all that long), I don't really know what exactly happened that day, or where I am now because of it. I do know that I took a step. A very large step indeed, but the direction of which I am unsure of. I guess that can only be determined by time and heinsight, right? I wish I had a better way to end this enormous post, but unfortunately I think it's just going to have to stop. I wrote this in a long, multi-hour single sitting, so I'm sure there are a bunch of errors in typing and junk like that in it. Whatever, I'll fix them tomorrow.

My Tourette's History, Part III

Pretty soon after the actual diagnosis of Tourette's, vocal tics began. Whether it was the power of suggestion or just the natural course of events is debatable, but it happened. They began as malformed unpredictable thoughts. For example, seeing my dog would make me think about having tics that sounded like a dog - a few minutes later I started growling and barking! It's a true story, I remember my poor dog looking so confused as to what was going on. In fact, I even remember beatboxing about 8 measures worth of music totally involuntarily!

After a while the vocal tics settled on a regular pattern of gibberish words. I'd blurt things like "tertabidable blibl!" and stuff like that. It was so odd because I always knew exactly what I had just said and even how one would go about spelling them, even though they were nonsensical words.

I remember the first day of my high school Senior English class, asking my teacher to let me stand up and explain my condition to the class. She had been planning an 'ice breaker' type thing anyway, so she let me go first. I stood up, told the class my name and favorite ice cream flavor, then said something along the lines of "I recently developed Tourette Syndrome. It's new to me, so I'm just as confused about it as you guys are. So you may hear me make noises and stuff, but that's just my Tourette's." I think a lot of people were particularly moved by the part about it being new to me, and all were understanding. In the same class, I did my final presentation about why disabilities awareness should be taught in public schools. As an example of what this might look like, I made a video explaining two disorders, Tourette Syndrome and Albinism. I explained Tourette Syndrome and an Albino friend of mine helped with the second part. When I gave my presentation in front of the class, everyone clapped really loudly and a few girls even started crying! I think I lost that video file before I could get it on YouTube, which is unfortunate.

Another significant moment happened one day in Wind Symphony class. It was towards the end of rehearsal and people where packing up. All the sudden I felt a vocal tic coming on, different than any of them before. I had been ticcing "shhh- shhh-" every so often, but it finally finished itself: "shhhit!" it wasn't loud, and probably sounded like any other explative. I knew it was involuntary though, which is what made it so wierd. Somehow, halfway across the room in the trombone section, my best friend Fletcher heard it and somehow understood the significance. He and I locked eyes across the room - "was that what I thought it was??" his face said. And alas it was - the dreaded coprolalia, the involuntary blurting of socially inappropriate things. Fortunately this episode only lasted about two days. For more, check out the post titled "Coprolalia."

I worked with a psychologist, Dr. Carl Mumpower in Asheville, to learn strategies to reduce the tics. We made up a technique we called "Psychido," a play on the martial art form aikido. In aikdido, the idea is to use the opponents energy to bring him down using as little force as possible. I learned how to relax and ignore the tics; I let them flow freely through my mind without actually being expressed. Once I learned this, I soon found that the vocal tics were fairly easy for me to control the vocal tics and greatly reduce the physical tics. Now I don't have to consciously think about it as much, the psychido comes somewhat naturally.

Life moved on and I started heading towards college. I began meeting other Touretters online, like Catherine, Faith, and Jimmy "Tyrannasaurus Rets." Each of us at different stages of our lives and in different parts of the world (US and UK), I felt a connection to each of them. We could talk about our experiences, and yet at the same time it wasn't perfect. All of us had differenct experiences with their Tourette's which affected how each felt towards it. I noticed very quickly that I had a very optimistic outlook on things since I had developed it after I had already settled into my high school social life and personality.

When I went to college I was able to get a single room as a disability accomodation. The logic was that I need a place to go and be able to relieve tics or stress without the worry of a roommate, or to keep him awake at night twitching (even though I don't twitch in my sleep). The plan was admittedly half legit and half a plot to not have to deal with a roommate, but there were a few nights where I got so stressed out and twitchy that having a roommate would have been bad. In that case, I guess it was worth it!

My father does public speaking on ethics part time, and he encouraged me to think about speaking publicly about having Tourette's. I liked the idea, but never really had any place to go about it. I thought it would be great if I were able to make jokes about it, jokes from my point of view. Tourette's is the funny disease, because cursing randomly is always funny, right?! I thought that by making real jokes I could educate people and make it fun! My opportunity came knocking with the Carolina Comedy Commission put on their big comedy weekend. They had various comedic events that all led up to a stand up show including Wyatt Cenac, Maria Bamford, and Lewis Black. At the last minute, I saw a sign advertizing a student stand-up competition that weekend. I had missed the deadline for sign ups but I emailed anyway and made it into the line-up. I threw an act together and practiced it in front of my dorm's housekeeper (Joseph) a couple of times, and once in front of some friends. You can see the final result on YouTube under the name Crosa Stands Up. Th next day I saw Lewis Black walking around the campus of UNC. He didn't recognize my face from the competition, but he recognized my tics. Turns out he was there watching the competition. He told me about a movie he saw once about a guy who had Tourette's, even though he "couldn't remember the name of that ffffah-king movie." It meant a lot to me that he reached out like that - and that he watched my comedy bit!

Speaking of friends, I just want to throw in that my friends are SO awesome! They're always supportive of me and (almost) everything I do! A special shout out to Bruce, Josh, Maryam, my PMA brothers, and my [then] girlfriend Charlene. There are tons and tons of people that have helped me over the years, but way too many to name!

Check out Part IV for more. I went back and separated them months later into logical sections, so some comments may be referring to things said in that one!

The Scatman

While I do haven't read anything that scientifically proves this, I've always thought of stuttering to be related to nervous tics, and therefore to Tourette's. Last night I actually listened to the lyrics of a favorite song, "Scatman" by Scatman John. I was floored by close to home the song hit, and I wanted to share it on my blog. I can't embed this particular video, so I'll post a link:

LINK!

Here's the lyrics that speak to me:

Everybody stutters one way or the other 

So check out my message to you. 

As a matter of fact don't let nothin' hold you back. 

If the Scatman can do it so can you. 

Everybody's sayin' that the Scatman stutters 

But doesn't ever stutter when he sings.

But what you don't know I'm gonna tell you right now

That the stutter and the scat is the same thing. 

Yo I'm the Scatman.

The Marching Tarheels begin!

Today was the first day of the Marching Tarheels Band camp! It was also my first day as an official trumpet, and it was awesome. Having recently picked up the trumpet it was much more difficult for me than most, but it was exciting. Last year I played on the drum line, but many there were many factors that influenced my decision for trumpet.

One of which is that a lot of the trumpet players are in Phi Mu Alpa Sinfonia, the music fraternity I am a part of. It is very exciting for all of the brothers to be back in town after a long summer without them. After not seeing them all summer, I forgot how significant it was to have so many people around me that I have such a deep connection with. No matter where we may interact on campus, the brothers support each other and mean a lot to each other.

Also, I went to the doctor about a wrist injury that happened a few days ago. I hurt it in my sleep, and after looking at the x rays it looks like it might be broken just a little bit after all. I have to go to orthopedics to get that all figured out - more about that as it comes.

More later - bed now. Goodnight, internet!

Music in the Heart

Today as an RA staff, we volunteered as a group at an organization called Club Nova. It's an organization that provides a lifestyle for people in the community with mental disabilities and handicaps. It's called a "Clubhouse Model," where members and staff both participate equally in running the organization. They have three main components of the oragnization: the house, the thrift store, and the apartments. The apartments were recently taken over by the government and are now Section 8 housing, but many of the members still live there. The house has meeting places, offices, a kitchen, and is just in general a place for people to hang out and be social. The thrift shop is pretty self explanatory, that's where I presume they make the majority of their income.

It was an odd experience being around so many people who have disorders and disabilities that are much more extreme that my own, and I think some of my fellow volunteers felt similarly. It was very clear that all of the members had a normal underlying self and personality, but there's was some barrier or difference that changes them in unfortunate ways.

The house had an upright piano wich of course I ended up at during our lunch break! Many of the same RAs from the Pachelbel post were with me at the piano, too. We talked about music theory some, discussing the difference between major, minor, and diminished triads and what exactly a seventh chord is. One of the members came over and talked to us a bit. Because of the barriers, I wasn't sure exactly what he said, but he definitely asked to sit down at the piano. He talked about listening to the radio and how he hasn't had much inspiration for a while. He mumbled something that didn't make a whole lot of sense about tuning and playing in band, so I was slightly skeptical when told me he was going to play me a pop song. He proved my ignorance when he began playing a beautiful chord progression right in front of me, complete with inversions and sharps and flats and everything beautiful. It made me remember that music is a part of all of us, and is a form of communication that bridges lingual and cultural and even disability barriers. I felt that I could experience the person he truly was, despite the differences in the way our minds work.



The video unfortunately doesn't have sound, but perhaps it's still interesting to watch.

Happy Birthday!

Hello friends! It's been a while since I last posted. Since we last talked, RA training finished and the school year is growing ever nearer! Over the course of the last few days I've had much deep introspection about what having Tourette's means to me and to my identity, and unfortunately I can't say it's all positive. The best thing for me to do is keep on keepin' on, finding hidden rays of sunshine where you'd least expect them.

Elephant Follow-Up

Hello again friends! It's only been a few days since I wrote about my question-ball trick. Since then, I've been making it a point to bring up my Tourette's in group conversations to show that I'm comfortable talking about it. A few of the staff have since approached me either in private or in a small group asking me to answer questions they have. Everyone has been extremely polite about it, and I've done my best to assure them that any question is a good question if it's a sincere question. At least one of them even had prior experience with somebody with Tourette Syndrome, and that's always a good feeling.

Also, I finally started mentioning my blog to people. It feels so wierd to me to promote myself like that, especially since I don't really think I have anything all that special to say in the first place! However, I feel like a do a better job explaining Tourette's in writing than I do in person, so perhaps it's not that bad after all. That being said, if you're reading this blog after I told you about it in person, I really appreciate the time and interest you're giving me - holla!

Mohawk

So today in RA training, my staff did a skit based on the popular video game Guitar Hero. We dressed up like hard rockers - let's just say I got a little carried away!

Yes, the mohawk is real. No, I do not plan on keeping it for very long!

The Elephant in The Room

Let's face it; Tourette Syndrome is a rather visible disorder. What makes it so difficult to live with is not so much that it's painful or harmful, but that it's embarrassing and awkward. It can be particularly difficult in groups of new people, and different based on if the majority of the new group already knows each other (such as transferring to a new class) or if everybody in the group is new to each other.

In the RA training that started yesterday, I've been in the latter situation where everybody is new to the group. There are twenty people on my staff, and I've mentioned my Tourette's to some of them here and there, but as a group it hasn't been brought up. I felt like it was a 400 pound elephant in the room that everybody was wondering about but weren't comfortable talking about. I grabbed the bull by the horns and found a way to bring it up in front of the whole group.

As an "icebreaker" game, our staff tosses around a beach ball with questions written on it. You read out the question that your right thumb is touching and answer it to the group. Today when the ball was thrown to me, I faked a question that would let me open up to the group.

"What is your greatest fear?" I pretended to read off the ball. Fulfulling the ball's inquiry by telling everybody wether I was a dog or cat person would have to wait.

"Well...." I said, pretending to pick my brain for fears and phobias. "I'd have to say that my biggest fear is more of a smaller, constant fear. I have Tourette Syndrome, which is a disorder that makes me twitch and what not. I'm always nervous that it will cause a particuarly awkward situation or make me do something that's hard to explain." Then I departed from pretending to answer the question, and went straight for self advocacy: "I'm really open about it, and I don't mind answering questions about it."

And with that, I felt more at ease and I sensed that the group was more at ease. Whether they really were or not I don't know, but I can relax now and twitch comfortably. I trust that everyone feels comfortable coming up to me and asking questions about my Tourette's - and that's what it's all about.

Half a Pachelbel

Today was the first day of RA training, and it went quite well in my opinion. I got to meet my coworkers for the next year and start building relationships with them. After the training was over, three of the more musically inclined guys made their way to my room, where we proceeded to jam. We had a drumset, two guitars, and a mandolin going (all of which were my instruments except for one of the guitars). The guy playing the mandolin was new to the instrument but picked it up with surprising speed - the man's got good string sense!

We all doodled around a bit with various melodies and chord progressions, but we locked together on one in particular and had a really awesome groove going. The chords were C, G, Am, and F repeated. In the key of C (which it was,) this is reffered to as a I V vi IV progression. The C chord, being built from the first note in the scale, is symbolized by roman numeral I; the G chord is built from scale degree 5 and is symbolized by roman numeral V, and so on. This can be heard in a great deal of songs, like "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey, "Let it Be" by The Beatles, "Sk8er Boi" by Averile Levinge... you get the idea. People refer to this as the "Pachelbel chords," but this is wrong.

Pachelbel's Canon is I V iv ii IV I IV V. In the key of C, that would be C, G, Am, Dm, F, C, F, G. If we compare the first four chords of Pachelbel's canon to the other progression, you see that they're the same except for the last chord. However, this is somewhat forgivable because a Dm and an F chord are the same except for one note (D minor is D,F,A; F is F,A,C). The real issue comes in when you realize that "Don't Stop Believin'" and the other songs have four chords, but pachelbel has - count 'em - eight! That's right, what many musicians think of as the "Pachelbel progression" doesn't even have the right number of chords! For a song that uses legit Pachelbel, listen to "Graduation" by Vitamin C. That doesn't really count though, because she (they?) actually has Pachelbel's original piece playing in the background. It's a very nice tribute, but you can see how that's not quite what we're going for.

Luckily for you, you've read this blog and you know the truth. Therefore, the next time one of your musician friends tries to impress you by saying "You hear that? That's Pachelbel!" You can turn around and say to them "Oh yeah? Then where's the other half?"

Zombie Mints

While I was in the bookstore yesterday, I stumbled upon a box of 'zombie mints.' I couldn't resist buying them, as I was about to hang out with Noah and Bruce, who are always preparing for the zombie invasion.

What I thought would be brain-shaped mint-flavored candies actually turned out to be candy-shaped brain-flavored "mints." Noah and I both had to buy a soda just to get the taste out of our mouths, but Bruce was smart enough not to get one. Yuck!

Beginning of the beginning of the second quarter of the way through college

Summer is finally wrapping up and Resident Advisors (RAs) like myself are beginning to move in to campus. It's great to see campus coming back to life after a summer of camps and frat boys. I was lucky and was able to live during the summer in the same room that I will live in during the school year. Basically, I don't have to worry about moving in on move-in day! I spent the day helping friends move into their respective dorms. It was really great to help people get settled in their new homes and to see old friends again. A few highlighs:

While I was in what is the first building of UNC (built in 1793), a friend and I happened upon a way to peek out from the roof. I got the following shots from my camera phone:

New East, and the Alumni Place parking lot.

Columbia street and Playmaker's Theater.

The lights in the background are Hamilton Hall and Davis Library.

Earlier in the day, Noah, Dirk and I were helping my buddy Bruce move into his new RA room on south campus. When we pulled up there was a seemingly abandoned car seat sitting at the edge of the parking lot. It was kinda (ish) near a dumpster so presumably left as trash, even though it appeared to be in perfectly useable condition. It even had two cup holders attatched to the side of it. It was the perfect chair to play video games in, so naturally Noah and I grabbed it and took it up to Bruce's room.

Noah and I went back to the car to get more stuff while Dirk and Bruce wrestled with the carpet in the room. When we got to the parking lot we saw a van parked next to our car and a confused and somewhat upset family of three standing next to a it, the father of which was staring intently at us. Immediately realizing what had happened and what awkwardness was about to ensue, Noah and I went with our first instincts: avoid eye contact and act natural!

As we drew closer the man asked us "did you guys see a van seat sitting here? We put it right in front of this parking space." Noah stepped up to the plate and boldly replied "um... I don't know..." From that point on, both parties knew exactly what happened, but the intricacies of social interaction got in the way of us fixing the problem. Noah and I mumbled that there was a chair that we though belonged to a buddy of ours, so I "went to the room to see if he had picked it up by mistake." By "went to the room," I mean really mean that I went around the corner of the building (I had no key) while I frantically called Bruce (twice) and told him to bring it down.

When I returned to where Noah was, the family had just opened the van door to show him what the seat looks like. "Yeah, that was it!" he said, with a pretty good attempt at acting surprised. Not knowing what exactly Noah had said to them and not wanting to contradict the story he may or may not have told them, I said the most vague thing I could: "They're bringing it down."

It was pretty quiet between everybody as we waited for Bruce and Dirk and Seat. Once the finally arrived, Dirk hit the nail on the head when he quietly sang "aaaawkwarrrd" in a high falsetto. The father looked kind of like a policeman taking stolen goods from criminals, while we felt like dumsterdivers who found out they weren't actually in a dumpster at all. And basically... that's what happened.

Coprolalia

Hello again! Time for a new vocabulary word, haha. There are two classifications of tics: vocal and physical. It's interesting to observe that people with Tourette's may have one but not the other, or may have more tics of one type but not the other (I have more physical tics that I have vocal tics, but they happen every once in a while). Coprolalia is a particular kind of vocal tic, which is the subject of this post.

Coprolalia is the involuntary saying (or shouting) of socially inappropriate words or phrases. This is the side of Tourette's that is primarily shown in the media, although in reality it's pretty rare amoung us Touretters. It's estimated that only about 15-20% of people with Tourette Syndrome experience coprolalia. This can be as simple as blurting isolated curse words, but can be phrases or even complete sentences. According to Dictionary.com, the prefix copro- comes from greek origin and means "dung." Basically, 'copro' means shit. -lalia is a prefix that is also from greek, and it means 'talking.' In English, it is used to denote impediments or other disorders related to speech. So, coprolalia literally means "shit talking."

A couple days ago at work I experienced coprolalia. It didn't last long, only about as long as my shift. I was lucky because my task did not involve interacting with people! The worst time I experienced Coprolalia was the first time it ever happened. I was sitting in my AP statistics class (senior year of high school) when out of nowhere I started yelling "SHIT!!" at the top of my lungs. I had no reason to be yelling it, I wasn't mad at the teacher or anything like that. In fact, it was a pretty normal day for me other than the coprolalia. What was so bad about it this incident is the frequency with which the tics would come. I was saying it about three or four times per minute! This went on for the rest of the school day which presented many awkward situations, but life goes on. The worst part about coprolalia is that I feel so awkward filling a stereotype - I'm sure everybody has felt similarly at one point or another. As for right now, the stressful part of work is done with and I can relax and enjoy the calmness!

Bicycle!

So in anticipation of the school year ahead and of the long walk from South Campus to classes, I bought a bicycle. I took it for a ride today and absolutely love it! It's a Mongoose mountain bike that I got from Kmart. Charlene bought one with me - we haven't gotten a chance to ride them together but that'll be a cute date when we do. Since this is a music blog, here's a video that Charlene sent me of Pink Floyd's "Bicycle," a cute song about love and silliness.

Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale

The pentatonic scale is composed of only five notes, as opposed to the tradition seven-note scale. Imagine playing a song using only the black keys of a piano. As difficult or unnatural as this may seem, plenty of very common songs are composed using a pentatonic scale, including "Cowboys" by John Williams and "My Girl" by The Temptations. In fact, one of the first original songs that I wrote for marching band turned out to be in a pentatonic scale. I didn't even realize it until years later!

I found out about Bobby McFerrin a while ago through YouTube and I'm amazed by everything he does. A coworker recently sent me a video to a demonstration he gave at a conference called "Notes and Neurons." It's an interesting look at how the pentatonic scale is almost hardwired into the human brain. Check it out!

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Monkey Love

The name of this blog is "Music and Tourette's," but so far the majority of my posts have been Tourettical and not musical. So! Here's a song I made not too long ago for Charlene. Be sure to watch through the first thirty seconds, because that's when it gets interesting!

Tourette Syndrome Stand Up

It's no secret that Tourette Syndrome is the "funny" disease. If it's portrayed in movies, it's usually just a character blurting curse words. I knew that I could make jokes about Tourette Syndrome from my point of view that could raise awareness and be entertaining at the same time.

I got my opportunity back in April 2009 at the Carolina Comedy weekend at UNC. There was a comedy competition for students to give their best three-minute stand up routine; the winner got to open for Lewis Black that weekend. My goal was to just try telling positive Tourette's jokes and see if I really could do it. I did not win the competition (although one of the judges later told me I was in the top 5), but I reached my goal and I'm happy about that. I can't wait to do it again!!