Howdy, Steemit Friends - Here's my Introduction

Howdy! I’m Ama and this is where I introduce myself - today is my one month steemitversary, so this is way overdue. It’ll probably get a little long, so go grab a cup of something delicious. Use the bathroom. Bring the pets in to sit on your lap.

All settled in? Alrighty, let’s go!

Definition of AMA (n): lover, listener, friend, adversary, investigator, instigator, pro-choice activist, artist, poet, vagina warrior, hippie, nerd, bookworm, gardener, photographer.

In person, I curse a lot and talk with my hands. My face turns red when I’m nervous, embarrassed, or just if the room is too warm. I’m a sensitive lady! I’m also sarcastic and an exaggerator. I’m a tiny little thing hovering around 40 years of age who comes in a 5”2” and under 110lbs – but I feel like a 19-year-old middle linebacker. I’m tough! LET ME DO IT! I hate asking for help, and I am quick to admit when I’m wrong … unless I’m wrong about asking for help.

I have associative synesthesia (not projective) - associators will feel a very strong and involuntary connection between the stimulus and the sense that it triggers. For example, in chromesthesia (sound to color) a projector may hear a trumpet and see an orange triangle in space while an associator might hear a trumpet and think very strongly that it sounds "orange". For me, brass instruments are different shades of lighter blues, a triangle or high-hat is light yellow, piano on its own is grey-white, and woodwinds are green. I don’t get a lot of purple until instruments start playing together. I also have a touch of auditory-tactile synesthesia, meaning certain sounds can induce sensations in parts of the body. This (I believe) also plays into my dealings with misophonia, which is a neurological disorder that has negative experiences (anger, fright, hatred, disgust) getting triggered by specific sounds. Basically, if you eat popcorn with your mouth open or slurp your soup, I'm going to want to punch you in the face. I won’t – and haven’t yet – but I’ll want to.

I grew up in a small town of around 700 in central Texas. I learned about hard work, about patience and lean times, about frugality, about wisdom and respecting your elders, about kindness and the importance of family. I also learned about racism and bigotry, about gender inequality and homophobia, and about the abomination that are FIRE ANTS. I now live & work out in the islands of the Pacific Northwest, where I volunteer my time to right all of those wrongs. No fire ants up here, though.

I have a degree in Psychology, and dreamt of being either a neurosurgeon (nope, not good enough at chemistry or higher math) or a Doctor specializing in Personality Disorders (nope, I recognized I’d just internalize all that drama). I do tourism now and have done marketing, e-commerce & web design for over fifteen years. Like, my issue for the past few days has been dealing with an SSL Certificate causing a host of issues between the site & a third party program. I wear a lot of hats! I still love reading books over neuroscience, and I try to stay up-to-date on advances in that field.

I’m a fool for personality test & labels. According to the Myers Briggs Personality Type, I fall into the INTJ category, which stands for: introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment

• According to Myers-Briggs, INTJ represents "The Architect". INTJs are one of the rarest of the 16 psychological types and account for approximately 2% of the population. Women of this personality type are especially rare, forming just 0.8% of the population. this is my face being smug right now
• INTJ strengths include, but of course are not limited to: high self-confidence, quick and versatile mind, jack of all trades, independent and decisive, hard-working and determined, imaginative and strategic, honest and direct, and being open-minded.
• As with everything in life, there are balances. The INTJ weaknesses feature: arrogance, perfectionism, likely to over-analyze everything, being judgmental, also being insensitive at times, and loathing highly structured environments.

I had a breakdown right around my 30th birthday (hey, I got it out of the way!), and I cut all my hair off. Since then, I’ve taken a three-week vacation and traveled the west coat & midwestern parts of the US by myself. I changed jobs and went from working 60+ hours a week to working right around 40. I’m listening to my intuition, I’m cutting the unnecessary hogwash out of my life, and I’m doing things that scare me. You know what? I AM THRIVING. It’s still terrifying at times, but I still smile every day that I wake up. I’m still “that weirdo new age girl” that I was when I was 15 – I’m into stones, crystals, chakras, lucid dreaming, feng shui, shamanism, wicca, astral travel, and a plethora of other things.

Why am I here? For community and connection. To continue my education with other folks who inhabit this universe. To share some of my cooking, gardening, & homesteading stuff that I know how to do. Like I said, it’s been right at a month, and I am so incredibly happy that I am here! I was recently “hollered out” by @goldendawne and am currently being EMBRACED by her this week. Along with a spectacular group, she sponsored us for @qurator membership as well!

I am freakin' thrilled to be here! It takes me back to my days of using LiveJournal (LOLZ). If you'd like to learn more about my interests, stick around. Leave a comment. Or go back in time and check out some of these posts:

• Join in this here soup challenge
• Check out my first ever fire and start praying now that I don't get splinters
• Savor the deliciousness that are dehydrated pears
• Read through some of my homesteading book recommendations

many of the technical terms above were explained using information from Wikipedia – click through each word if you’d like to learn more about synesthesia, misophonia, or the Myers Briggs Personality Types