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Open Thread for Personal Stuff: September 2014 Big Cat and Big Dude Edition

BFFs
Big Cat and Big Dude, BFFs

An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.

As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.

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Michelle C Young
10 years ago

I just read this last page of comments, and mean to go back and read the first.

OK, @littlekatze – I literally had to remind myself to close my mouth, since my jaw dropped. Whaaaaa? Even if it is like that in other universities doesn’t make it right. What the heck? WHY? Also, I’m burning with curiosity – just what subject is this, anyway?

Re: the problem with officers in that particular county – it wasn’t a problem with racism. It was a problem with general a**holery and an actual aversion to upholding the law, as well as framing fellow cops for serious crimes they not only didn’t commit, but weren’t even in the county at the time. Just because you’re not one of the “good ole’ boys,” and actually had the temerity to report being assaulted.

Re – my textbook – yeah, it was pretty uninformative. It said that there were two types of people in South Africa – whites and coloreds. So, whatever it means in South Africa, the textbook was written from a US perspective.

@marinerachel – OW! I hope your doctor can, and does, help.

@bunnybunny – Oh, I’m so sorry. That really sucks. I hope it’s not one of those secretly “don’t promote her, because we need her exactly where she is, but don’t tell her we selfishly value her in her current position so much that we will sabotage all her efforts at promotion,” because that would also suck, because even if it means they value your work, they don’t value *you*. Either way, it just feels so lousy, doesn’t it?

@Nitram – Heh. Have fun adjusting to your new meds. I hope they work for you. I’ve never been manic, but I can see how a little bit of it could be useful from time to time. You got so much done. However, I’ll bet you wouldn’t want to live like that for long. Sleeeeeppppp – is good thing. Good luck, and I hope your body stabilizes soon.

And now I’ve been completely derailed by all three animals going berserk in different ways at the same time, so I’ll just post this, along with good wishes for everyone.

Goodnight!

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
10 years ago

Wow, there’s a lot of suck going on! Hugs, commiseration, and congratulations where welcomed/appropriate.

Interviews: practice helps. I spent about 3 years interviewing people as part of my job, and boy did it ever open my eyes about how I’d blown all my previous interviews myself. Attitude is more important than skill sets. Any skill can be taught, but nobody wants to hire someone who’ll be more inter-personal trouble than they’re worth, or who won’t fit in to the group. My general recommendation: make your friends interview you (you can get a lot of questions off the internet, and lots of strategies for Behaviour Description Interviews), and make them BE BRUTAL. You don’t need them to tell you you’re awesome, you need them to tell you why they wouldn’t hire you. (Admittedly, it’s a lot harder to make a positive impression if you’re choking with anxiety about speaking to people. Introversion does make life challenging some days.)

The program I was with rejected a lot of people, but you could keep re-applying and re-interviewing if you wanted, and some wanted. We had one guy come back three times. He was SO painfully awkward, off-topic, and inarticulate, but at some point he went to an employment agency and got some coaching, and he rocked his third interview.

“Fit” is harder, though. It’s easy enough to reject someone who’s an obvious asshole, but when you select person A over person B, what makes the decision is often inarticulate instinct about how each person will suit the group. So a perfectly lovely, skilled, wonderful person can be rejected for no reason other than the other person “fit” better.

Which doesn’t help much. Sorry.

If it’s someone I don’t know, should I talk to them about finding appropriate emotional support our should I just ignore them? (I just got someone on a writing forum who I’ve barely interacted with sending me a long PM about her borderline personality disorder.)

I would send them some 1-800 numbers to help lines or crisis centres.

I had a life-long friend who went through some really painful years. Her parents and closest brother all died within 2 years of each other. I love her, and was close with her family, but she was leaning more and more on me, and it was becoming apparent that I was her sole emotional support.

I started talking about how helpful I’d found therapy. Gentle hints. Subtle allusions. I got more and more blunt. I told her straight out that she needed therapy and more help than I could give her. It did not sink in. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, I don’t know.

When her brother died, I wasn’t supportive enough, or not supportive in the right way, or something. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

At first, I felt horribly, horribly guilty, and beat myself up for being a terrible friend. And then I realized that I was actually really angry with her for putting that burden on me, and now I’m okay with not having a relationship with her.

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
10 years ago
kittehserf
10 years ago

That looks really yummy, Unimaginative.

blahlistic (@blahlistic)

It’s entirely possible that the law enforcement people in Ferguson are actually part of one of these “pockets” of culture, enforced by jerks in power. It’s also entirely possible that there are an awful lot of these pockets of culture, enforced by an awful lot of jerks in power.

I think that there are so many of those pockets of toxic law enforcement culture that there ought to be effective federal-level countermeasures taken up…probably for the foreseeable future.
Acceptance of the status quo isn’t ok because the status quo’s racist, sexist, and LGBT-phobic.

blahlistic (@blahlistic)

Wanted to also promote two different efforts to collect data on deaths due to interaction with US law enforcement…
http://www.fatalencounters.org/
http://regressing.deadspin.com/were-compiling-every-police-involved-shooting-in-americ-1624180387
The fellow who founded fatal encounters started it because he wanted to look up federal statistics on police-involved deaths in his town to compare it to other towns.
He found that nobody collects data on that.
He believes that lack of data collection is deliberate.

Hmm…Wonder if someone could do a sort-of cousin site to Fatal Encounters…Racist Encounters: A submit-your-story about racist police encounters…Hopefully with audio and/or video as proof?

…Hmm, have to mull that over when not as tired as I currently am. But if you want to get rid of rot, exposing it to light helps.

Kim
Kim
10 years ago

Even though it’s only just Spring, I think Summer might already be here.

I took the sides off my Jeep today and was cruising around with my music up and the wind in my hair. What a feeling!

Also, I heard on a podcast recently (This American Life) that parents trying to impersonate their kids say Awesome and Cool and give themselves away as people just trying to sound young and with it. Personally I say awesome and cool when I am being myself and I am of an age with said parents most likely, so it mihgt not be faked.

But it leads me to wonder – what is it the kids are saying these days, if not cool and awesome? Any teenagers here who have the inside scoop?

Kim
Kim
10 years ago

*or parents of teenagers who spy on their kids

littlekatze
10 years ago

@ Michelle
Law, actually. The problem is, since there are no tuition fees and (at least in the case of this uni) no restricted admission, they take on anyone who signs up for it, many more students than they can actually handle (as indicated by the fact that tthe largest auditorium has 700 seats, but there were always over 800 students present during the first year), so they weed by means of pressure and laughably high failure rates.
It might be because of the way money is distributed by the state but I suspect they just don’t want to do interviews because…dunno, too much effort or something.

re: lawenforcement

The fellow who founded fatal encounters started it because he wanted to look up federal statistics on police-involved deaths in his town to compare it to other towns.
He found that nobody collects data on that.
He believes that lack of data collection is deliberate.

Yeah, I believe him. That’s the sort of thing data is usually colected on. I did a quick google search and found that there are two official databases on that sort of thing (police involved death, police involved injurie and police officers killed in the line of duty) and a few non official ones.
So, yeah, there’s really no reason there shouldn’t be an official database.

After officers here (understandably) refused to wear name tags, they’re testing locally if fitting every patrol officer with cameras helps lower claims of police brutallity. (Spoiler: It does. Dramatically. Who would have thunk?)
I don’t know how I feel about this, to be honest.

@Unimaginative Oh. Yes. Let’s do that. It looks absolutely delicious and it sound easy enough . The only question that remains is…cinnamon or garlic?

katz
10 years ago

Littlekatze: Eesh, I can’t imagine trying to get an education under those circumstances. Best of luck.

(Can I call you Minime?)

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

I had a laugh this afternoon. I was sitting in Fawkner Park, knitting, and a rubbish truck pulled up (a little one that empties the park bins). Dude jumps out, calls out cheerfully “What are you knitting for me?” I held it up, said “Is this really your colour?” and he joke-grumbled that he’d really wanted something pink and besides it was too small. We then talked about winter being better than summer and he said he’d be back next week to collect his jumper, and drove off. The jacket should be finished by then, so I’m tempted to go sit in the same spot and tell him he was right, it wouldn’t fit.

😀

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

(Can I call you Minime?)

Bwahahahah I was thinking along those lines!

Not strictly relevant but I saw this the other day and lol’d.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/SpiritMage/LOTR/Minime.jpg

oraclenine
oraclenine
10 years ago

Reading along and Holding A Good Thought for folks. Others have had good suggestions and advice. I’ve got Good Thoughts in abundance… and a wee little story.

I am up late tonight because there’s smoke in the air . Turned on my scanner app-yup, small wildfire in a wilderness area across town. So, I’m kind of half listening as they have the discussion of which streets they can let people back into their homes as opposed to ordered to evacuate. And among all this there’s still the ongoing stuff that makes up a fall weekend in a college town.

Dispatcher has asked a cop to go back to a previous call because the highly intoxicated person they thought they’d settled down has decided to go for a jog and her friend is very distraught. Not unreasonable. Dispatcher asks him to get a description of Highly Intoxicated Subject’s clothing so rest of patrol can keep an eye out for her.

Longish pause. Cop comes back on channel.

“She’s wearing a tiara.”

Dispatcher “A TIARA?’

Cop “It’s a kind of little crown-like thing…”

Dispatcher “Yes, thank you. I got that part.”

Oh, Oregon, never change.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

Hey, if you’ve got to be highly intoxicated in public, do it in style! XD

What I want to know is if she was wearing anything but the tiara. I know it’s summer there, but yeesh.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

I wouldn’t suggest running around in just the tiara – think of the poison oak!

blahlistic (@blahlistic)

Running with no bra is a bad idea…yoinkyoinkyoinkyoink starts hurting me and I’m a mere b- cup.
Pantsless running…maybe…

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

Running pantsless, egad, no way! Even if thigh-chafing weren’t an issue, that would be hella uncomfortable.

Anarchonist
Anarchonist
10 years ago

Nothing important to say here, just feel like venting a bit. I’m having trouble processing my emotions at the moment, so pardon me for any typos or other mistakes in the following bit.

So, I was just on Facebook, reading other peoples’ status updates, because why not. Someone going studying, someone cooking with avocado for the first time, someone hating bugs, someone having lunch. You know, the usual. My mother even shared a link to a pretty thoughtful piece on thoughtfulness, forgiveness and compassion. Fits nicely in with her Christian beliefs.

Then I scrolled down, and her previously shared link (no commentary from her) was to some right-wing hate site article about a nameless psychologist diagnosing transpeople as deluded, mentally ill deviants. It’s not a one-time occurance of her linking to awful stuff either. A while back, she gleefully agreed with a pastor condemning gay people to hell for being abominations.

Oh my fucking godless existence. I can’t really describe my feelings when I see my mom agreeing with this terrible, bigoted shit and then promoting compassion right after as if nothing had happened. All I know is that I’m crying and I can’t make it stop.

I rarely check in on Facebook. Now I remember why.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

Anarchonist, lots of hugs. A whole barrel of kitty hugs. That’s so horrible.

Alex
10 years ago

All the hugs you want, Anarchonist. Parents can be the worst, but you turned out to be a good person in spite of her fucked up beliefs. Still sucks, though. Have a baby monkey! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MLgG3fqw3c&list=UU10Tc1mzoPTibXDyVXFf9fw&index=122

marinerachel
marinerachel
10 years ago

My mom’s beliefs aren’t hateful but… lots of righteous obnoxiousness so I get feeling kind of sick at the stuff your mom posts all over Facebook. It’s hurtful and it’s embarrassing.

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
10 years ago

INTERVIEWS: I remembered a thing when I went to bed last night, and have miraculously remembered it this morning.

When they get to the question about your future plans (where do you see yourself in 5 years, or however they word it), they DO NOT WANT to hear about the house you’re going to buy, or your vacation plans, or how many children you’re going to have.

They want to hear about your CAREER plans. Are you going to stick around and be worth the training they’re going to invest in you? Are you planning to work your way up the ladder with that same company? Or are you going to suck as much money out of them as you can and scarper?

Seriously, I heard some doozies. You’re interviewing for a job in heavy industry, and your future plans are to open a summer school for children? No. You’re interviewing for a job at a hospital, and you let slip that you’re germophobic? No. You’re interviewing for a landscaping job, and your future plans are to not have to work outside? No. You’re interviewing for a shift-work job because you like the idea of all that time off? No.

What I’m saying is, the interview is not about how much better your life will be if they hire you, it’s about how much better their company will be if they hire you.

BIGOTRY: I have a close relatives who’s getting more and more racist and intolerant. I don’t even know how to respond. I mostly don’t, because any reaction on my part that he finds entertaining will only make him worse. He’s wonderfully compassionate in many circumstances, but he’ll go on and on about *slur* and *more slur* and *even more slur*. I don’t even flinch when I hear the n-word anymore, because he throws it around so much.

It’s a weird thing where real, in-person people that he knows are human and eligible for compassion, but people on tv or in news articles are abstract, and can be written off as not-eligible for compassion. And, of course, behaviour he hates from POC is because they’re POC, and behaviour he hates from white people is because they, individually, are drunk or stupid or assholes.

I don’t know. Do you speak up for justice and confront the bigotry and possibly ruin your relationship with a relative whom you love despite their wrongness, or do you stifle it to maintain family harmony, and speak up against bigotry only in circumstances where it costs you less personally? And if you choose the latter, does it make you a giant, irredeemable hypocrite? I guess, which situation could you live with less?

Alex
10 years ago

GAAHH!!! Fucking fuck. So, my sister’s pregnant, and it’s due in four months, and while I’m trying to support her decision as much as possible, I’m not sure how well she’s going to handle the whole being a parent thing. Well, a friend of my mother’s is an anti-vaccer. I have my own issues with getting the flu shot every year (don’t want it, won’t get it), but generally I’m good with the ones that protect little children from fucking Polio, and Whooping Cough, and Measles, and all those other nasties. Well, this friend is doing her best to influence my sister, and now I’m basically fighting an uphill battle trying to get my sister (who’s both impressionable and stubborn) to understand that, no, vaccines don’t cause autism; yes, vaccines do work; yes, those nasty diseases can and do kill children; and no, even if vaccines did cause autism, autism’s not the end of the fucking world. My mom’s friend recently posted a testimonial of a woman who claims her three-year-old son was perfectly normal and then got his fourth “mercury-laden” flu shot and suddenly turned autistic. My mom’s friend tagged me in the video. Among other things in the comment I left, I said even if vaccines do cause autism, I’d rather have a kid with autism than watch her die of Polio. FFS I don’t really want to start a fight with this lady, but much more of this, I’m going to flip and tell her to stay from my sister and my fucking unborn niece or nephew. bduoerjroqujuro2!!!!!!11`~eleventy!

LBT (with an open writeathon!)

OH OH I CAN HELP WITH THIS! I can help, Alex!

I have a relevant educational comic that debunks that whole bullshit! It is simple, cites its sources, and shows just how full of bullshit that anti-vaxxer horeshit is.

It is DANGEROUS not to give vaccines to children. Children DIE OF THAT. When someone is anti-vax, they are saying that my autistic friends would be better off dying of some curable fucking disease. What allistic fucking horseshit.

(I’m sorry, I’m having a day and am apparently just angry.)

contrapangloss
contrapangloss
10 years ago

Alex, hugs and stay strong on this.

We’ve had a national resurgence of whooping cough, and a pretty decent outbreak in my community, because of anti-vax nonsense.

There are some people who literally can’t have certain vaccines due to allergies or compromised immune systems. These people depend on the immunity of others to keep them from getting exposed to diseases like polio, pertussis, diphtheria, and others.

Herd immunity is a thing. Even if it might not kill her children, not vaccinating puts children with suppressed immune systems at risk. Also, diptheria, polio, pertussis, chicken pox, and other diseases are nothing to sneeze at.

For instance, chicken pox as a kid equals potential shingles as an adult. Shingles is not fun. At all.

Polio can leave people paralyzed, among other things, if it doesn’t kill them.

Alex, I’m with you on this one.

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