This is me. I am nobody special. Just a guy. A teenager who likes things organized. Like my room. I like my blue bedspread and matching sheets. When Mom does laundry I can’t stand going in my room until the bed is made again, just the way I like it.

And my schedule. I have to follow it. When Mom messes things up by wanting to go somewhere different it upsets me. So she has to warn me way ahead of time. I keep a calendar on my wall above my computer. On it I write my activities.

Mondays and Wednesday I go to the Adult School where I take computer classes. I am learning to write code. My teacher says I am good enough to get a job, but I keep going to class anyway because there is more I can learn. Class begins at nine and ends at noon.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to the same gym my mom belongs to. She goes to a Zumba class that begins at nine-forty-five. It lasts for forty-five minutes. I swim laps. I can swim half a mile and then shower and be dressed by the time she’s finished.

Fridays we go shopping. I hate the grocery stores because there are too many colors, too much stuff to choose from, too much noise, but Mom makes me go because she says it’s good training for when I live on my own. Like that’s ever going to happen.

Saturdays we go to Lake Chabot and walk the trail. Down the hill, past the parking lot and one end of the lake, then up the hill and back to the car. It takes us almost an hour.

Sundays we go to church. Mom sings in the choir which means I have to sit by myself. I don’t like that, so I sit in a pew to her right, as close as I can get without being in the choir. You would think that I don’t like the singing because it is noise, but that’s not true. Because I’ve gone to church my entire life, I know the words and sounds of every song. I find it relaxing. And comforting like my favorite blanket.

I get up every day at six, even on weekends. I don’t need an alarm clock because I have an internal clock that regulates my day. The only time I have problems is when time changes because of Daylight Savings Time. It confuses me. I don’t understand why we have to move back an hour or jump forward an hour. I understand why it was so in the beginning when our country was based on agriculture, but that isn’t so anymore. I am not a farmer and so don’t need to change my clock. Mom says that next year I can vote and if a measure is on the ballet to stop Daylight Savings Time and I mark the box. I am looking forward to having my thoughts validated.

In the afternoons I walk around our neighborhood. I leave precisely at one. Even though I no longer attend school, I still walk the ten blocks to the high school, approximately 2,000 average-sized steps for someone six foot tall like myself. I have long legs, according to my mom, so my stride is longer than most people’s.

After passing the school I continue around the block. There is a little grocery store two blocks away which is where I buy a Milky Way candy bar, a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water. I wish I could turn back and go home but Mom says I can’t. She says I need tons of exercise now that I no longer take Physical Education at school.

So I keep going. I pass four houses where dogs charge the fence snarling and barking. Even though I know they are going to do that, I still get startled when it happens. Each time I step into the street, placing myself as far from them as possible in case there is a hole in the fence and one of them gets out. I’ve never been bitten, but there is always a first time.

Some of the neighbors want to engage me in conversation. I don’t like that either. I hate talking to strangers. Mom says that the neighbors aren’t strangers because I see them every day. I think she’s wrong because I’ve never been introduced to them. I don’t know their names and they don’t know mine. One of them, an old man who sits in a lawn chair in his front lawn, waves high every time. I wave back because Mom said it was the polite thing to do and I don’t want to be rude. I’ve never been rude. At least not since I was very small.

When I was a little kid I didn’t talk to anyone. Even my mom. She took me to a specialist who measured my hearing. I can hear just fine. In fact, my hearing is sharper than most. My mom doesn’t believe that, though. She says I am more sensitive to sound than the average person. I like that explanation because I prefer to think that there is something unique about me.

I am sorry that I graduated from high school in June. I miss the rules and regulations. And the schedule. I knew what to do, where to go, and how to satisfy my teachers. The problem was that I knew everything before my teachers presented the lesson. I am not a braggart. I read voraciously about a variety of things until I feel like I am an expert on any topic.

Many times I knew more than my teachers. I discovered this whenever I asked questions. My teachers would all turn red in the face, stammer, then change the subject. Mom explained that I embarrassed them and that I shouldn’t ask complicated questions, but I really wanted to know the answers. Who was I supposed to ask?

Mom says that when I go to college in September I won’t be such a pain as my professors will be experts in their field. I think she’s wrong. She signed me up for classes in May, so I’ve already been reading textbooks that I check out from the library and journal articles published by researchers because I want to know as much as I can about each of the classes that I will be taking. If my professors aren’t well read, then they shouldn’t be teaching. After all, a student should never know more that the teacher. At least that’s what I think.

Now you know a lot about me. What you don’t know, but maybe have guessed, is that I am a unique person. When I was little Mom worried about me because I obsessed over things. Such as dinosaurs. And John Wayne movies. I knew the name of every dinosaur and could recite the dialogue from every John Wayne movie after the first time I saw it. I have an excellent memory for detail. Mom says I have a photographic memory, which means that once I’ve read something I can quote passages in entirety and tell you on which page the phrase was printed.

I am also excellent at math. I passed all the math classes offered at my high school by my sophomore year, so I took classes at the local community college. I passed all those within four semesters. I have completed all the math requirements I need to get a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, but I’d like to take more classes at California State University, East Bay.

I am terrible at making human connections. I have no friends. Throughout my education I participated in social skills exercises with the Speech Pathologist but nothing she told me changed the way I am. It’s not that I don’t want to have friends because I do. The problem is that no one wants to be friends with me.

I am autistic. Asperger’s Syndrome. Which means that academically I am advanced but years behind in social skills. Mom says I am like a two-year-old in that I can sit beside someone who is talking about sports while my mind is analyzing a complex mathematical problem and it doesn’t bother me that I am not talking about sports.

Why am I telling you these things? When I visited the campus I met with a counselor in the Disabled Student Services Office. Mrs. Meyers told me that to succeed in college I need to tell my professors about being autistic as soon as possible. She suggested writing a short paper that explained who I am. That’s what this is about.

I want you to know that although I am autistic there is nothing wrong with my brain. I think faster than most people, remember everything I read and hear, and desire to have excellent grades. I will complete every assignment as long as I understand what I am supposed to do. Because I am a linear thinker, I get confused when asked to formulate opinions. I don’t have opinions. I collect facts.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions, Mrs. Meyers said you can talk to her.