What is Se? I don't really know. How do I know something is Se and not Si?
I suppose I could throw down a list of things I do and y'all can tell me whether or not that's Se or Si?
I've been an artist as long as I can remember. 3yos usually draw crappy stick figures, right? Not me. I drew Teletubbies in detail. I had a good sense of how to draw a person's face (and was never quite happy with the upside-down seven that was how my grandmother taught me to draw noses), complete with the nosebleeds and pants-soiling tendencies I had at that age. I once decided, after seeing that my aunt had a black refrigerator, that I wanted my play refrigerator to be black instead of white, so I scribbled on it with black crayon; my parents didn't like that much. I was also known for taking the ink things out of markers and drawing on my (white) dresser and myself with them. Nowadays I maintain a DeviantArt account, and while I don't post everything, I think the stuff on there is pretty good for an amateur (going with the "amor" = love definition of "amateur" rather than "novice"). I gravitate toward realism and styles with thick, solid lines and contrasting colors, as well as drawings with some intellectual variable (ex: drawing spirographs with a protractor and a ruler, dual colorability of 2-dimensional graphs where each shape is a closed figure, and other things you can learn about on ViHart's YouTube channel).
I have perfect pitch (I prefer to call it absolute pitch but eh). I get asked about it a lot, and I've come up with the following ways to explain it:
Q: "What is it like?"
A: "I can hear a pitch and know that it's an A the same way that I can look at your shirt and know that it's red without comparing it to a color wheel. Similarly, if you ask me to give you an A, I can give you an A as easily as I can pick out the red marker in the box."
A: "I suppose you could also call it a permanent pitch memory."
Q: "When did you first discover you had perfect pitch?"
A: "Honestly, I never put any thought into it. I thought it was normal. It never even crossed my mind that some people just couldn't. I found out in high school when I was correcting someone on a note, and our guest technician ground our sectional to a screeching halt, ran to the piano, plunked a bunch of notes and chords which I identified correctly, and started having a fit because "Ohmigod you have perfect pitch!" I didn't understand-- was that not a normal thing?"
Q: "Oh, so it just kind of always was there?"
A: "Obviously I had to learn it at some point, but I don't remember how or when. I don't remember how or when I learned the color red either though."
Q: "Do you hear pitches in people's voices when they talk?"
A: "When I focus on it, yes. Otherwise I tend to ignore it."
Also it means my relative pitch sucks lol. Our music school teaches Aural Training with movable "do" (relative pitch). I tested out of that class because I can fake relative pitch with perfect pitch. For example, I hear a G3 and a C4, and I automatically go, "G3 and C4." "Perfect fourth" or "P4" is secondary, conscious.
I had a short bout of tinnitus in my senior(?) year of high school, where one ear had a dull roar, like the sound you get when you're taking off in an airplane. Through that roar, whenever someone talked, I could hear their voices both at their speaking pitches and at higher harmonics above. Furthermore, anything I heard in that ear that was pitched I heard a half step lower. Our bell for lunch was a B4. My good ear would hear B4, but my tinnitus ear would be hearing A#/Bb4. And since the sound itself hadn't changed and I wasn't receiving both pitches in one ear, it didn't sound dissonant at all. Of course, by the time I got an appointment with an ENT it had gone away. Murphy, right?
In other music-related things, I've been able to pick up wind instruments very quickly when given the opportunity. Originally I started on piano (but never liked to practice), dabbled a little on the electric organ in my grandparents' living room, learned flute in 6th grade, clarinet and alto sax in 7th, (all while picking up fingerings, embouchure techniques, etc from oboe and brass instruments without actually playing the instruments), a little bit of percussion in high school, etc etc. I "accidentally" memorize most of my music, as well as other people's music. This makes me a crappy section member because I'm the one pointing out the flaws instead of letting the section leader (who's soooo much slower at it ugh) do it.
This was also a thing in marching band. "No, you're supposed to be there, not there. See how you line up with these people? Now fix it." "[Snickie], shut up, you're a freshman, you don't know anything, let the section leaders do their job." *inf Fe kicks in and I sulk in silence for the next few rehearsals, biting my tongue every time someone sets the form wrong and nobody else seems to notice*
I know how to assemble and disassemble my clarinet, and I learned it without the diagram they gave us at summer clarinet academy. In high school, I figured out how to sort-of replace some pads on an oboe. I say sort-of because we didn't actually have pads that fit the key so I improvised by cutting out some cork. Also I didn't have a torch to melt the glue so I had to scrub it out of the key manually.
I am sensitive to changes in the sounds of the road when driving. My parents never even noticed until I pointed it out to them, maybe a year ago, but I've been noticing it since preschool at least. Also it's one reason I love (or used to love, before all the construction madness) driving on I-4 through downtown Orlando. There's a rhythm in the what I can best describe as panels in the road that I've always loved.
I'm sensitive to the smell of raw celery. My parents make fun of me for this all the time. I don't like working with raw celery because the smell clings to my hands for hours afterwards. It's not that it's an offensive smell. It just lingers... There are other things I'd rather smell.
I don't know if this counts, but I was a picky eater as a child. I liked bland things. White pasta with margarine, macaroni & cheese, white rice with margarine, white bread (without the crust! though apparently as a baby I only liked the crust), milk, etc etc etc. I also ate broccoli, spinach, fish sticks, chicken nuggets, etc. I learned in kindergarten that if you were allergic to something, you couldn't eat it. So anytime someone tried to serve me something I didn't like, I told them I was allergic. My parents found out and laughed as they corrected the teacher that, no, I wasn't allergic to anything. I've opened up to different foods over time, and I've gone from a cheap date ("we'll have sushi, and she'll just have a bowl of white rice") to an expensive date. No in-between. XD I still don't like cornbread, beans (except for green beans), or peppers (any kind) though, and I'm very picky about my apples and bananas.
I am a texture eater. So as much as I like the taste of chicken dark meat, if I chew on something that's even questionable (if I get a part of the meat near the bone that's just a little chewier than the rest), my gag reflex kicks in and I lose all my appetite. Same thing if I accidentally chew a fish bone, or a piece of fat or grissle on a steak (I'm sure the fat tastes good, but I wouldn't know because I get so wigged out on the texture), or an uncooked part of a sweet potato. On the other hand, I like baby octopus, which is decidedly very chewy and also very interesting on the surface level.
I've never considered myself an athlete, although I've done athletic-ish things in my life.
I started a 5k training program a few months ago (and had to quit in the past two weeks due to massive amounts of homework and lack of sleep, especially with my junior recital coming up).
I did Judo for a year, did sort of okay I guess?, until the day I threw up on the mat and I just couldn't anymore. Ju no Kata was good though. I was a master at that. Nagi no Kata not so much. I also used to be really good at climbing the rope in the dojo, though I admit my technique wasn't exactly great.
I was a gold swimmer when I was 3-4yo. Then I didn't swim for a few years (lack of access) and my mom's fear of everything invaded my mind and made me not a strong swimmer when I took classes again when I was 8. (They weren't beginner classes, just a summer thing...)
I've taken swing dancing lessons in the past year. I'm okay at it...
Uhhhhh. What else is sensory? Uhh.... vivid dreams? Grapheme-color ideasthesia? Chromesthesia? (Even though these are both secondary.) Clothes? Clothes. I gravitate toward bright colors (though not neon bright). But I've been trying to pull myself away from that lately.