on the heels of my old roommate going back to work after 5 months of mental health leave. I don't know if she knows that I notice, but I'm glad she's happy. She was one of the pretty, popular, normal girls that was always kind to me in a very genuine way, who seemed to really want to know me as a person. People who treat other people that way always go very far in life. I wish I had been able to tell her that two and a half years ago. I guess she maybe needed it.
In the past two weeks, two different people I know have broken their legs, so let's start at my last therapy appointment two weeks ago, when I was feeling good: I was in survival mode. I just had to get through the grind until Thursday and then I could be done and go see my sister for the weekend. I stayed up until 3 am that night, grading, because I thought it had to be done by Thursday, and I wanted to have a good chunk done for the lab meeting on wednesday morning.
When I arrived to this meeting, on 5 hours of sleep (which I understand is a lot for some people, but I do not function well on less than 6), the coordinator was on the ground. Which is a very odd place to see a male authority figure. Turns out he had slipped and broken his ankle, and he tried his very best to give us instructions for the week. One of his notes was that he sure as hell wouldn't be able to finish grading now, so it was okay if the rest of us couldn't. Please let me bring you back to the fact that I had, just prior to this meeting, awoken from what was essentially a nap after grading for something like 15 hours (which involved a lot of breaks, don't get me wrong). So we- the TAs- made plans for how to cover for it, one of the TAs ended up teaching every day that week, which only made me admire her more, and we dealt with it. And I didn't do any more grading. I still have grading. Our students understood; they had a midterm on Friday and wanted to be able to study, and were happy to not have an assignment.
On Friday I drove for 6 hours, twice past a bus that said "Marriage is permanent, to separate before death part is ADULTRY" which so efficiently encapsulates the Vibe of the rural areas of my province, and saw my sister. It was a good weekend, actually- I bought new shoes that are actually waterproof, and some new bras so I didn't have to keep wearing just one, and I saw 3 dear, dear friends I had not seen in a very long time. While I was there, Redbeard decided to head down to the mountains as per usual. So I did not see him.
I brought my sister home, which was another 6 hours of driving and idle chatting, and three days were just normal, except for how badly I wanted to be alone at the end of the day, leading me to stay at school until 10 pm because I just did not want to come home and have to make conversation and watch stupid movies and eat the horrible vegetarian lasagna recipe my mother had found and made since my sister is vegetarian. On Wednesday, I emailed my supervisor.
The previous week, I had sent her a copy of my new thesis proposal, which needs to be submitted to my transfer committee two weeks before my transfer exam. I was told, and my supervisor and I both genuinely believed this, that my transfer exam had to take place before December. She told me my committee was settling on a date in late November. If you do the math, last week was two weeks before that deadline. She gave me the notes on Wednesday, which included adding a whole new section on a whole new tumor. I realized I was going to have to do the best I could by Friday, and told my family I wouldn't be up for socializing too much. They understood. I got out of cleaning out the basement. I told Redbeard to delay visiting me until Friday so he wouldn't distract me. I stayed up until 3 am on Thursday night.
Two things happened between the hours of 9 pm Thursday night and 9 am Friday morning which really fueled my current collapse. The first was a call from Redbeard on Thursday night, which was not actually from Redbeard, but from a friend phoning to tell me he had broken his leg quite badly and was in the hospital in a little mountain town a few hours away. The friend told me he was otherwise fine, and that I was not to come visit that instant. I did not. I planned to visit the next day, after I had submitted my proposal. I stayed up until 3 am reading papers, adjusting the proposal, reading more papers, and finally giving in to sleep. I woke up at 7:30 am.
In the morning, my parents informed me very kindly that they had booked a hotel room for me for two days so that I could go see him, a great kindness considering the expense of booking in hotels in that area. Shortly afterwards, I received an email from the school of graduate studies. Congratulations. Your transfer exam has been set for December 11.
AKA two weeks after it was supposed to be set.
Needless to say I have not read any papers since I got that email, and aside from putting my cells in a buttload of media (aka food for cells), I have not gone back to the lab. On 4.5 hours of sleep, I drank coffee for the very first time as I made another long drive in the dark, alone. I sat with my boyfriend in the hospital as he came off the numbing from his surgery and suffered in a 6/10 bout of pain for two hours until I finally told him that they ought to give him more painkillers, he finally asked, and was given morphine. The next day I went in in the morning and helped him leave the hospital once they'd gone through all the how-tos and given him prescriptions for some very powerful painkillers. I paid for his crutches. I carried all his things to his car and drove him to the hotel and parked in a very stupid spot. I set him up in the room and asked for a shower chair and a second parking pass and got garbage bags and ice and lunch, all while my new boots I'd bought the previous weekend worked themselves further into the already- bleeding blisters on my ankles. I convinced him to just go to the hotel restaurant and asked for a special table and carried a pillow and a garbage bag full of ice and guarded his foot as others walked by. I moved almost all of his gear into my car and took it home with me.
In the morning, I drove his car to a nearby town with considerably better free parking, and got a ride back from a friend of his I'd never met, at 7:30 in the morning. I packed my car even more full with our remaining things and he insisted on helping, and therefore carried one backpack. We got brunch and did a very painful (on his part physically, on my part emotionally as he refused to let me get the car so he could stop walking) short hike and had a small snack. I dropped him off at his car, picked up another friend, and helped move things between cars again, before getting into my own car and driving 3.5 hours to a gas station where I had to pull over because I could not stop crying and thinking about walking in front of a truck.
This morning I woke up and sincerely, truly did not want to have woken up. I knew what was in store for me today: marking, marking, and more marking, restarting experiments that take a ton of time, starting other new ones that are physically exhausting and often disappointing. I stayed in bed until almost noon just crying.
And then I just went... okay, if this isn't the kind of day where I can say no, what is? What will the limit be? Will it be the day I actually try to walk in front of traffic? Will it be the day I try to swallow a bunch of pills? Will it be the day I don't even eat? If I am really, truly, living my life right now as everything happens around me so much, why am I not allowed to say no?
So I did.
I have not done any work today. The only person I have talked to is my mother. I have unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned old dishes out of my room, drank copious amounts of water, watched eat pray love in its entirety despite the fact that I do not care for julia roberts, and I am working my way through the laundry so I have pants to wear again. I will have a shower and take out some trash later. I will probably get to marking.
All of this is to say that I'm not sure I can call myself depressed so much as I can call myself overwhelmed. And maybe this isn't what other people's mental health days look like, but I thought... if I can't have one FUCKING day to myself to do all the things i have been putting off in service of things that were "more important" then do I really want to live this life? The answer was no. So I took one fucking day.
I will go back to work tomorrow. I don't have the luxury of taking 5 months off right now. But I will go back with clean sheets and clean clothes and a slightly cleaner room. I will go back with just a little more energy to tackle what needs tackling. I will have had one day to not deal with all the problems in my life- the marking, the reading, the proposal, the boyfriend with a broken leg, the fact that I can't move out of my house until my boyfriend graduates, and now that he can't finish his clinical rotations he probably can't graduate on time which adds another 8 months to our long distance, the transfer exam, the fact that I can't tell what time of day it is anymore sometimes, let alone what day it is.
I kept thinking that was avoidance. But I realized: the only way I can tackle these problems is if I have the energy to deal with them. I don't have any energy. I need to find some first.
So tomorrow I have another therapy appointment, and today I took a mental health day. I hope anyone reading this is having fewer crises than me.
Monday, November 18, 2019
Thursday, November 7, 2019
For fucking REAL tho being the teacher is worse than being the student
I had this epiphany while marking 61 thoroughly mediocre lab assignments. Let me lay this down for you.
I understand students have multiple classes. I understand they have multiple assignments due at a time and a plethora of other real-life shit to attend to. I get that- I fucking lived it, I get that. But here's the thing. When a student hands in an assignment, it's VERY obvious when they haven't given it their very best (I'm talking real stupid errors easily caught by literally proofreading your paper even ONCE, and major misunderstandings of what it was they even DID, and wording things so vaguely and confusingly that I don't even know if there's anything there to mark). But that's okay for them to do, they get to take a slightly lower grade and move along, and nobody gets mad at them for that.
Let's flip the tables. If I don't give my absolute very best when I'm grading, I get students hounding me about simple mistakes I made that could have been avoided with a quick review of my marking. I get students asking me why they were docked marks, which could have been avoided with me writing more comments (and just trying harder to get carpal tunnel). At the worst, I get called a picky bitch who is deliberately being unfair. I don't get to give anything less than 100% on marking, there are severe consequences for me.
You see where I'm going here?
Students get to slack off, pass the class, and move along. I have no choice but to be absolutely perfect at all times. I expect my students to give me their best effort: to read the lab manual ahead of time. To ask me questions when they are confused. Heck, even just having their work ready on time. Following formatting guidelines and simple instructions. Paying attention to me in lab. Starting their assignment more than just the night before, putting in some actual effort, and proofreading it once. And they can't even give me this.
They give me less than their very best at ALL TIMES. They give me mediocre, lackluster, don't care, and demand perfection from me in return. That is the definition of unfair. It is not fair to demand perfection of me if you won't meet me at that level. So either you give me your best and I give it back in return, and then you can complain when I slip through the cracks just as I dock you for mistakes, or you act mediocre and I don't focus as much when grading your assignment, and you don't get to complain to me when you fuck up.
"But my grade is in your hands!" bruh. It's in your hands too. Get your life right.
If you can't give your instructor your very best- you need to remedy that. Take fewer courses at a time. Switch to a program that actually matches your interests and talents- or be prepared to put in more work than everyone else that has the aptitude and interest you don't. Take time to save up money for school. Let me know when you aren't feeling well so I can give you extensions. Let me know about the accommodations you need. Take some time off, see a therapist, work with friends on assignments, ask me for help. Figure out what you need to succeed and how you can give that to yourself, otherwise you're being unfair not just to yourself, but to the instructors who have to deal with you.
It's only fair.
I understand students have multiple classes. I understand they have multiple assignments due at a time and a plethora of other real-life shit to attend to. I get that- I fucking lived it, I get that. But here's the thing. When a student hands in an assignment, it's VERY obvious when they haven't given it their very best (I'm talking real stupid errors easily caught by literally proofreading your paper even ONCE, and major misunderstandings of what it was they even DID, and wording things so vaguely and confusingly that I don't even know if there's anything there to mark). But that's okay for them to do, they get to take a slightly lower grade and move along, and nobody gets mad at them for that.
Let's flip the tables. If I don't give my absolute very best when I'm grading, I get students hounding me about simple mistakes I made that could have been avoided with a quick review of my marking. I get students asking me why they were docked marks, which could have been avoided with me writing more comments (and just trying harder to get carpal tunnel). At the worst, I get called a picky bitch who is deliberately being unfair. I don't get to give anything less than 100% on marking, there are severe consequences for me.
You see where I'm going here?
Students get to slack off, pass the class, and move along. I have no choice but to be absolutely perfect at all times. I expect my students to give me their best effort: to read the lab manual ahead of time. To ask me questions when they are confused. Heck, even just having their work ready on time. Following formatting guidelines and simple instructions. Paying attention to me in lab. Starting their assignment more than just the night before, putting in some actual effort, and proofreading it once. And they can't even give me this.
They give me less than their very best at ALL TIMES. They give me mediocre, lackluster, don't care, and demand perfection from me in return. That is the definition of unfair. It is not fair to demand perfection of me if you won't meet me at that level. So either you give me your best and I give it back in return, and then you can complain when I slip through the cracks just as I dock you for mistakes, or you act mediocre and I don't focus as much when grading your assignment, and you don't get to complain to me when you fuck up.
"But my grade is in your hands!" bruh. It's in your hands too. Get your life right.
If you can't give your instructor your very best- you need to remedy that. Take fewer courses at a time. Switch to a program that actually matches your interests and talents- or be prepared to put in more work than everyone else that has the aptitude and interest you don't. Take time to save up money for school. Let me know when you aren't feeling well so I can give you extensions. Let me know about the accommodations you need. Take some time off, see a therapist, work with friends on assignments, ask me for help. Figure out what you need to succeed and how you can give that to yourself, otherwise you're being unfair not just to yourself, but to the instructors who have to deal with you.
It's only fair.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Stop telling me to validate girls who wear makeup and are pretty in the name of "feminism"
If you are a girl and you wear makeup you are not being brave or original or feminist. You already know that wearing makeup is "okay" and if you really need me to tell you that, maybe you aren't as confident as you claim? idk tho
Why why WHY are we all wasting so much goddamn time pretending that we have to "support other women who wear makeup" THEY ARE ALREADY SUPPORTED. BY EVERYONE ELSE. ALL THE TIME. People who don't think about this shit constantly are like "women wear makeup and that's normal and how it is" and then see me and are like "who let this child into graduate school?" because nobody fucking knows what an adult woman looks like anymore. Also i do genuinely have a baby face, but that cannot possibly be all of it.
"um actually sweaty people bug women about the amount of makeup they wear all the TIME" People don't support women wearing makeup because women are told simultaneously that they must be beautiful, which requires care, but that caring about beauty makes you vain. You are trying to break that cycle by saying "it is not vain to care about beauty" even though that is the literal fucking definition of vanity. I am trying to get you to focus on the "women must be beautiful and care about beauty" part. Why aren't we getting rid of that part. WHY CANT WOMEN BE UGLY IN PEACE? Men have this privilege. Men are allowed to be so ugly and that's fine. Women should be allowed to be ugly also.
There really is no trend online of being like "yassss queen, save that money by not buying makeup constantly! Challenge actual real life expectations by going bare faced for normal ass days at work and school! the best actual literal way to reduce makeup waste is just NOT TO FUCKING WEAR IT!" nope. there is like, no celebration of makeupless women, aside from a buzzfeed post that circulates now and then about "All of these female celebrities posted makeup free selfies on social media once, and we should talk about it" ok, sure, these women are already conventionally beautiful without makeup and likely have a lot of money to invest in skincare (which tbh is just the beauty industry under another name) and sleep and fucking plastic goddamn surgery, but like, ok sure, but why is this just one buzzfeed article?
"you just want people to celebrate you" actually no. I mean partly sure yes, because what I am doing actually (somewhat) bucks trends (but i do admit I am thin and white and have no acne), but partly because it's beyond hypocritical to say you support all women but then only really support them when they do what the entire world expects them to do anyway. Like woo, yay, let's play it safe and never challenge anything. let's never examine our own insecurities and instead hide them behind a veneer of "doing this for me."
Like O K i get that this is deeply rooted in my distrust of pretty people (people who are pretty, who know they are pretty and have always known it, and who care deeply about this, are the WORST people, who will 100% judge you on sight for being an ugly gremlin and liking nerd shit, do NOT recommend. This does not include people who are pretty but do not know or care, people who are pretty but do not care, or people who have only recently become pretty, or people who are pretty without knowing it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk), but seriously, s e r i o u s l y, I'm tired of being asked to support women who would never in 5 million years turn around and support my choices back. they just defend themselves and then accuse me of being anti-feminist for not supporting them. Sorry queen! Guess you'll have to get your validation from everyone else in your life including mainstream media sources, and not one ugly girl on the internet. Oh no!!!
Newsflash! Washing my face every 2-3 days and sometimes forgetting to moisturize saves me a buttload of money, energy, and time (again, I understand I do not have painful acne)! It is not actually important to be pretty! We all gonna age, we are all going to get wrinkles and die. You can do nothing to prevent it. Please just give up and have a good time instead. I haven't spent money on mascara since 2017.
Like genuinely, actually, really though: do whatever the fuck you want, but stop asking me to validate you, stop asking me to make you feel better about your choices. Wearing makeup is not and never will be a feminist action, so you can either wear it and live with that or stop wearing it to align better with your principles. Those are your choices. Stop trying to make there be some magical third option where anytime a woman makes a choice, she is a feminist- that is not even remotely how any of this works. None of us are perfect. I shave my armpit hair to avoid arguing with my mother. That's Not Feminist! But here I am anyway, accepting that and living my life and not asking people to validate me. Not everything you do will align perfectly with your ideals, and that's your mud to wade through. Ok? cool.
(is this my most well thought out post? nah. But here it is anyway!)
Why why WHY are we all wasting so much goddamn time pretending that we have to "support other women who wear makeup" THEY ARE ALREADY SUPPORTED. BY EVERYONE ELSE. ALL THE TIME. People who don't think about this shit constantly are like "women wear makeup and that's normal and how it is" and then see me and are like "who let this child into graduate school?" because nobody fucking knows what an adult woman looks like anymore. Also i do genuinely have a baby face, but that cannot possibly be all of it.
"um actually sweaty people bug women about the amount of makeup they wear all the TIME" People don't support women wearing makeup because women are told simultaneously that they must be beautiful, which requires care, but that caring about beauty makes you vain. You are trying to break that cycle by saying "it is not vain to care about beauty" even though that is the literal fucking definition of vanity. I am trying to get you to focus on the "women must be beautiful and care about beauty" part. Why aren't we getting rid of that part. WHY CANT WOMEN BE UGLY IN PEACE? Men have this privilege. Men are allowed to be so ugly and that's fine. Women should be allowed to be ugly also.
There really is no trend online of being like "yassss queen, save that money by not buying makeup constantly! Challenge actual real life expectations by going bare faced for normal ass days at work and school! the best actual literal way to reduce makeup waste is just NOT TO FUCKING WEAR IT!" nope. there is like, no celebration of makeupless women, aside from a buzzfeed post that circulates now and then about "All of these female celebrities posted makeup free selfies on social media once, and we should talk about it" ok, sure, these women are already conventionally beautiful without makeup and likely have a lot of money to invest in skincare (which tbh is just the beauty industry under another name) and sleep and fucking plastic goddamn surgery, but like, ok sure, but why is this just one buzzfeed article?
"you just want people to celebrate you" actually no. I mean partly sure yes, because what I am doing actually (somewhat) bucks trends (but i do admit I am thin and white and have no acne), but partly because it's beyond hypocritical to say you support all women but then only really support them when they do what the entire world expects them to do anyway. Like woo, yay, let's play it safe and never challenge anything. let's never examine our own insecurities and instead hide them behind a veneer of "doing this for me."
Like O K i get that this is deeply rooted in my distrust of pretty people (people who are pretty, who know they are pretty and have always known it, and who care deeply about this, are the WORST people, who will 100% judge you on sight for being an ugly gremlin and liking nerd shit, do NOT recommend. This does not include people who are pretty but do not know or care, people who are pretty but do not care, or people who have only recently become pretty, or people who are pretty without knowing it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk), but seriously, s e r i o u s l y, I'm tired of being asked to support women who would never in 5 million years turn around and support my choices back. they just defend themselves and then accuse me of being anti-feminist for not supporting them. Sorry queen! Guess you'll have to get your validation from everyone else in your life including mainstream media sources, and not one ugly girl on the internet. Oh no!!!
Newsflash! Washing my face every 2-3 days and sometimes forgetting to moisturize saves me a buttload of money, energy, and time (again, I understand I do not have painful acne)! It is not actually important to be pretty! We all gonna age, we are all going to get wrinkles and die. You can do nothing to prevent it. Please just give up and have a good time instead. I haven't spent money on mascara since 2017.
Like genuinely, actually, really though: do whatever the fuck you want, but stop asking me to validate you, stop asking me to make you feel better about your choices. Wearing makeup is not and never will be a feminist action, so you can either wear it and live with that or stop wearing it to align better with your principles. Those are your choices. Stop trying to make there be some magical third option where anytime a woman makes a choice, she is a feminist- that is not even remotely how any of this works. None of us are perfect. I shave my armpit hair to avoid arguing with my mother. That's Not Feminist! But here I am anyway, accepting that and living my life and not asking people to validate me. Not everything you do will align perfectly with your ideals, and that's your mud to wade through. Ok? cool.
(is this my most well thought out post? nah. But here it is anyway!)
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Period ramblings
This weekend I went camping with my boyfriend (still Redbeard) and forgot my birth control. It's the patch so I had a couple of days before the period really set in. I've learned from the past when I've done this and I know that once the period starts, it's here, and you can't just slap another patch on and pretend everything is okay. Just accept it.
But as we were driving out to the campsite and I had this realization, I referred to it as a mistake. Oops, I forgot my birth control, dammit, now I'm going to have a period, what a mistake.
I was driving home today when I realized how fucking stupid and shitty it was of me to say that.
It's not a mistake that when I don't perfectly control my menstrual cycle it happens at unplanned times. It's not a mistake that I'm menstruating right now, that's what my body DOES. That's just the kind of body it is. And then I took it further. It is not my fault that I was born into a world where menstruating is something shameful. I mean, people say women get so emotional, they get tired, they can't do work, you can't give them menstrual leave, it will just make men look like better candidates. Yeah, because the world was set up by men, dumbass. It's set up for men, and men don't menstruate, so why would they have to consider that at all? (thinking of other people, nope, never heard of it)
If menstruating didn't make me tired or grumpy or in need of rest, it wouldn't be a problem at all. the fact that I need those things is the "problem" because i'm just supposed to work forever and be efficient all the time. That's why birth control has made my life so much easier: when you don't have to manage having a period all the time, you get to experience the world like it was actually made for you.
But in my case, menstruation still comes.
It is not a mistake. It is not a problem. It's just a fact. I have a body with a uterus that produces a uterine lining and sheds it unless a very worthwhile embryo implants (because that's the whole point of menstruation, to protect women from undeserving embryos that would waste their time and resources and risk their life even though the embryo has no chance of surviving. It's not my body punishing me for not being pregnant, it's my body protecting me from pregnancy unless it meets only the strictest, highest standards), the lining is shed. This lining is the equivalent of a small organ, and growing and shedding it takes physical energy from me. That is why menstruation is tiring. The hormones in my body change to facilitate this process. That has other physical effects on me. This is just a fact.
I can control this with artificially high levels of estrogen, I can create the hormonal signals of pregnancy in the body in a way that stops the cycle. For a period of time. For me that is about 3-4 months at a time, but that lining starts coming out eventually no matter what I do, and that's why I can't just not have a period, ever. My body will have one whether I like it or not.
I think I got too into that, into pretending I didn't have a uterus and was able to exist in this world like it was designed for me, and experience all the convenience of that. And when I need to take time to rest, when I'm tired and my hormones are different from how they normally are and I need a different sort of care for myself, the world cruelly reminds me that that's not allowed, that's not considered normal, it's a problem and a liability and this world was not built for me to have a period, and because of that it's not built for women.
My body and its normal functions are not a mistake. Me failing to perfectly control those functions such that I may experience the world as if I am one of the people (men) for whom it was designed is not a mistake. it's just how things are. And I realized how much I was alienating myself from my own experiences by calling them wrong, bad, mistake, stupid.
So I'm having a period. The world should be built for me too.
But as we were driving out to the campsite and I had this realization, I referred to it as a mistake. Oops, I forgot my birth control, dammit, now I'm going to have a period, what a mistake.
I was driving home today when I realized how fucking stupid and shitty it was of me to say that.
It's not a mistake that when I don't perfectly control my menstrual cycle it happens at unplanned times. It's not a mistake that I'm menstruating right now, that's what my body DOES. That's just the kind of body it is. And then I took it further. It is not my fault that I was born into a world where menstruating is something shameful. I mean, people say women get so emotional, they get tired, they can't do work, you can't give them menstrual leave, it will just make men look like better candidates. Yeah, because the world was set up by men, dumbass. It's set up for men, and men don't menstruate, so why would they have to consider that at all? (thinking of other people, nope, never heard of it)
If menstruating didn't make me tired or grumpy or in need of rest, it wouldn't be a problem at all. the fact that I need those things is the "problem" because i'm just supposed to work forever and be efficient all the time. That's why birth control has made my life so much easier: when you don't have to manage having a period all the time, you get to experience the world like it was actually made for you.
But in my case, menstruation still comes.
It is not a mistake. It is not a problem. It's just a fact. I have a body with a uterus that produces a uterine lining and sheds it unless a very worthwhile embryo implants (because that's the whole point of menstruation, to protect women from undeserving embryos that would waste their time and resources and risk their life even though the embryo has no chance of surviving. It's not my body punishing me for not being pregnant, it's my body protecting me from pregnancy unless it meets only the strictest, highest standards), the lining is shed. This lining is the equivalent of a small organ, and growing and shedding it takes physical energy from me. That is why menstruation is tiring. The hormones in my body change to facilitate this process. That has other physical effects on me. This is just a fact.
I can control this with artificially high levels of estrogen, I can create the hormonal signals of pregnancy in the body in a way that stops the cycle. For a period of time. For me that is about 3-4 months at a time, but that lining starts coming out eventually no matter what I do, and that's why I can't just not have a period, ever. My body will have one whether I like it or not.
I think I got too into that, into pretending I didn't have a uterus and was able to exist in this world like it was designed for me, and experience all the convenience of that. And when I need to take time to rest, when I'm tired and my hormones are different from how they normally are and I need a different sort of care for myself, the world cruelly reminds me that that's not allowed, that's not considered normal, it's a problem and a liability and this world was not built for me to have a period, and because of that it's not built for women.
My body and its normal functions are not a mistake. Me failing to perfectly control those functions such that I may experience the world as if I am one of the people (men) for whom it was designed is not a mistake. it's just how things are. And I realized how much I was alienating myself from my own experiences by calling them wrong, bad, mistake, stupid.
So I'm having a period. The world should be built for me too.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Real quick and in relation to the post below
Me: I'm so vindicated. I got rejected by so many profs for my undergrad GPA and now I have a 4.0. They didn't want to take a chance on me being a good grad student and they were wrong.
Some idiot: yeah that happens to everybody because you only have to take one course at a time in grad school. that's not unusual.
Major FUCK YOU to this person. How dare you take away from me how much that meant to me? Think before you fucking speak next time. Jesus christ. You don't know what I went through. You don't know that I thought about killing myself for a solid year because I was convinced I wasn't good enough for the real world if I couldn't get into grad school and then having that not-good-enough feeling confirmed by several rejections. Why on earth would you try to take that away from me?
There are many things in this world I could not ever be this successful at. There are many people in the world who could not be this successful at this thing I am good at. This is my victory, this is my win, I worked hard for this and I am damn talented. This is not just something that happens to everyone in this program. Or maybe this is easy for you but I want you to know how horrible what you said was.
Fuck you.
That's all.
Some idiot: yeah that happens to everybody because you only have to take one course at a time in grad school. that's not unusual.
Major FUCK YOU to this person. How dare you take away from me how much that meant to me? Think before you fucking speak next time. Jesus christ. You don't know what I went through. You don't know that I thought about killing myself for a solid year because I was convinced I wasn't good enough for the real world if I couldn't get into grad school and then having that not-good-enough feeling confirmed by several rejections. Why on earth would you try to take that away from me?
There are many things in this world I could not ever be this successful at. There are many people in the world who could not be this successful at this thing I am good at. This is my victory, this is my win, I worked hard for this and I am damn talented. This is not just something that happens to everyone in this program. Or maybe this is easy for you but I want you to know how horrible what you said was.
Fuck you.
That's all.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Look at me now
I have said it time and time and time again, I am so salty that mountain goats crave me, and I am finally proven FUCKING RIGHT.
I cannot tell you how many times I was rejected by professors and funding agencies because my GPA wasn't high enough. That was literally the only reason. Oh, that and the casual mental health discrimination (and this is from someone who, compared to others, barely suffered, suffered in a short-term way, and found a way out of it without professional help or drugs, and was never even officially diagnosed). That casual being asked why you are applying late, what exactly your "health crisis" was even when you let them know it's now well under control, all the way to that blatant "Are you depressed?" Which I shit you not I was asked by a prof once, while I was currently working for them. YOU CAN'T ASK PEOPLE THAT SHIT and it was clearly designed to weed me out.
After all that I ended up going back to a lab that knew how good I was, that knew all my experience and references and A+ grades in independent research courses meant something, that trusted me, supported me, and wants the best for my mental health... and now I'm in grad school, I'm in the process of transferring to a Ph.D, and I GOT THAT 4.0, BITCH!
Yes, this is because it's a thesis-based program, and I'm only required to take 2 courses, 1 at a time. But those courses are related to research, being a graduate student, and my subject area.... lo and behold, I'm good at this stuff, like really good at it. But being bad at chemistry, having tough-ass english profs, and struggling with mental health through a huge transition period meant being told that I was good but not good enough, that no one would give me money, that there was no proof I was a safe investment.
I feel really vindicated today. I'm in grad school and despite all the setback and struggles I am thriving, just like I told them all I would. I told them all I have an aptitude for this, I have people who will vouch for that, and grades that reflect my talent, and none of it was enough for them, because my GPA was 3.4.
I don't want to be petty, and I know they'll NEVER know, but... it is really nice to have proof that I was right, that my self-selling-pitch was on the money, that I know what I'm about and what I'm good at. I'm just glad I finally found my place, at least for now.
Y'all can call me Dr. Swegan in a few short years :P
Friday, February 8, 2019
An ode to the universe in all its mysterious glory
So I've been doing this thing, lately, where I buy snacks. It's about once a week, and probably bad for my health, even considering all things intuitive eating, but when the most dangerous thing my parents buy is popcorn, I think I have to just do it somewhere. So naturally, I stop at WalMart, where one can buy uncanny amounts of chocolate for just $2, and while I'm in there I think hey, I have that sweet grad student study carrel now. I should buy some of that low-quality microwaveable Kraft Dinner to leave in there in case I need a quick snack. And there I am, in line, juggling 3 10-packs of Reese's and 4 separate cups of microwave KD, and of course WalMart lives up to its quality promises and lets us know they can't take anything but cash today because their machines are broken.
An embarrassing squat on the floor tells me that I have only $5 in my wallet and the line at the ATM is longer than I want to pretend my lab work went on for before I came home WITHOUT stopping at WalMart first, so I leave. But of course, I don't want to be one of Those Customers so despite the fact that I have been walking all over creation since 8:45 because my stupid campus was built by a moron who thought surely students would enjoy the scenic views of the river valley enough to enjoy climbing 5 flights of stairs to get from one's car to one's lab, and because they also put my one required class in the farthest building from that first building- despite all that I walk back to the aisles where I found my shit to put it back in its place. It's then that I see they were selling easier-to-juggle-in-your-arms pre-packaged 4-packs of KD, and curse myself, and leave the WalMart in a righteous fury.
"I know" I think. "I'll go to the Dollarama that's just... somewhere across the street." So I get in my car, and drive across the street- and I should mention here this is like a 6 lane main street, and it would have taken me an hour to walk to this Dollarama and back- and as soon as I turn I'm like "Oh shit, there's no Dollarama here, but there is a Dollar Tree and that's basically the same thing" so I park, realize I'm in a disabled spot, park again, and go inside.
Except the thing is that Dollar Tree isn't basically the same thing as Dollarama, not in this story. Dollarama has this air of laziness that just sort of hangs around, and yet it's always full of people despite the fact that there's always ONE aisle where an employee is stocking new seasonal shit onto mostly-empty shelves. Dollar Tree is perhaps the quietest place I've ever been in my life. It was almost a little alarming at first, like I seriously considered for a second that I had gone deaf right there in the Dollar Tree, because I've never heard silence that quiet before. I used to sit in the car in the empty garage in the morning, waiting for my mom to drive me to school, but that always had a sort of dull ringing to it if I was quiet enough. Not in Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree is the poor man's equivalent of that one room scientists invented that's so sound absorbing you actually go insane listening to your own heartbeat, but at least here you can buy anything for $1.25 or less (inflation really is a bitch).
And I swear to god, I was literally just looking for the Kraft Dinner and the fucking Reese's and got swept in by this fucking Dollar Tree. I spent extra time in there again DESPITE the fact that my campus is stupid and I'd been running all over since 8:45. I wandered up and down every aisle. I entertained vivid fantasies of this being the place where I came when life was too stressful, to remind my mind what true peace and quiet really is. They didn't even have the Kraft Dinner and I wasn't even mad solely because of the fucking ambiance of Dollar Tree.
Eventually I decided that my feet did hurt badly to overcome my fascination, and got in line to pay. The woman in front of me was buying something like 50 rolls of duct tape because of course she was, this is Dollar Tree. And because it was late and there were literally 5 people in the store, the cashier asks her what she's doing, and she explains- and you really just have to appreciate how this added to the whole experience so far- she explains that she's making a dress mold for herself to make her own wedding dress out of doilies. Because she's getting married in a chill little hippy wedding in the woods in August, and of course this entire story is immediately the best thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I mean, I know you can make crazy shit out of duct tape, but this is hands down the best reason to buy 50 rolls of white duct tape at a Dollar Tree that I can even fathom. The world truly is a more interesting place when you leave your house.
So ANYWAY- the cashier gets to me, and she's ringing up my candy and the giant ass can of Peace Tea I bought solely because I've always been fascinated by the size of the cans, and I tell her it's for my weekend of marking, and we have this nice little chat about marking and feedback and courses and she convinces me to buy a bag for $0.05 and by the end of it I felt like I'd been Immersed In My Community and was already planning to only buy my snacks from this exact Dollar Tree from now on.
And on the way home I realized that sometimes we think that the universe did things for us, or some other higher power or whatever, because it's really nice to think that there was some Force that saw that I had a bad day and needed to be steered away from WalMart and into that Dollar Tree, and I know that that's not how the world works. I know that it was just a random coincidence, but I only had $5 in my wallet from paying for yoga on Sunday, and I only had cash to pay for yoga because my grandparents gave me some for Christmas (that was literally stapled into the card- I feel that detail only adds to this story so far), because my Grandmother believes that it's bad luck to give someone a purse without putting money inside it, and I guess they got me a purse because I'm A Girl. And I only know about yoga because of the friends I made in high school, and I only made those friends because my parents made me go to the high school with the IB program. And I only get to go to yoga because I applied to grad school here after being depressed and not applying to grad school literally anywhere else. So in conclusion, thanks universe, for the X chromosome, nerd brain, depression, and the shitty day that led me into Dollar Tree.
And like I know, I get it, "swegan, what the fuck is wrong with you, this is the most basic ass thing" like O K A Y sure, fine, but you weren't in that Dollar Tree.
An embarrassing squat on the floor tells me that I have only $5 in my wallet and the line at the ATM is longer than I want to pretend my lab work went on for before I came home WITHOUT stopping at WalMart first, so I leave. But of course, I don't want to be one of Those Customers so despite the fact that I have been walking all over creation since 8:45 because my stupid campus was built by a moron who thought surely students would enjoy the scenic views of the river valley enough to enjoy climbing 5 flights of stairs to get from one's car to one's lab, and because they also put my one required class in the farthest building from that first building- despite all that I walk back to the aisles where I found my shit to put it back in its place. It's then that I see they were selling easier-to-juggle-in-your-arms pre-packaged 4-packs of KD, and curse myself, and leave the WalMart in a righteous fury.
"I know" I think. "I'll go to the Dollarama that's just... somewhere across the street." So I get in my car, and drive across the street- and I should mention here this is like a 6 lane main street, and it would have taken me an hour to walk to this Dollarama and back- and as soon as I turn I'm like "Oh shit, there's no Dollarama here, but there is a Dollar Tree and that's basically the same thing" so I park, realize I'm in a disabled spot, park again, and go inside.
Except the thing is that Dollar Tree isn't basically the same thing as Dollarama, not in this story. Dollarama has this air of laziness that just sort of hangs around, and yet it's always full of people despite the fact that there's always ONE aisle where an employee is stocking new seasonal shit onto mostly-empty shelves. Dollar Tree is perhaps the quietest place I've ever been in my life. It was almost a little alarming at first, like I seriously considered for a second that I had gone deaf right there in the Dollar Tree, because I've never heard silence that quiet before. I used to sit in the car in the empty garage in the morning, waiting for my mom to drive me to school, but that always had a sort of dull ringing to it if I was quiet enough. Not in Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree is the poor man's equivalent of that one room scientists invented that's so sound absorbing you actually go insane listening to your own heartbeat, but at least here you can buy anything for $1.25 or less (inflation really is a bitch).
And I swear to god, I was literally just looking for the Kraft Dinner and the fucking Reese's and got swept in by this fucking Dollar Tree. I spent extra time in there again DESPITE the fact that my campus is stupid and I'd been running all over since 8:45. I wandered up and down every aisle. I entertained vivid fantasies of this being the place where I came when life was too stressful, to remind my mind what true peace and quiet really is. They didn't even have the Kraft Dinner and I wasn't even mad solely because of the fucking ambiance of Dollar Tree.
Eventually I decided that my feet did hurt badly to overcome my fascination, and got in line to pay. The woman in front of me was buying something like 50 rolls of duct tape because of course she was, this is Dollar Tree. And because it was late and there were literally 5 people in the store, the cashier asks her what she's doing, and she explains- and you really just have to appreciate how this added to the whole experience so far- she explains that she's making a dress mold for herself to make her own wedding dress out of doilies. Because she's getting married in a chill little hippy wedding in the woods in August, and of course this entire story is immediately the best thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I mean, I know you can make crazy shit out of duct tape, but this is hands down the best reason to buy 50 rolls of white duct tape at a Dollar Tree that I can even fathom. The world truly is a more interesting place when you leave your house.
So ANYWAY- the cashier gets to me, and she's ringing up my candy and the giant ass can of Peace Tea I bought solely because I've always been fascinated by the size of the cans, and I tell her it's for my weekend of marking, and we have this nice little chat about marking and feedback and courses and she convinces me to buy a bag for $0.05 and by the end of it I felt like I'd been Immersed In My Community and was already planning to only buy my snacks from this exact Dollar Tree from now on.
And on the way home I realized that sometimes we think that the universe did things for us, or some other higher power or whatever, because it's really nice to think that there was some Force that saw that I had a bad day and needed to be steered away from WalMart and into that Dollar Tree, and I know that that's not how the world works. I know that it was just a random coincidence, but I only had $5 in my wallet from paying for yoga on Sunday, and I only had cash to pay for yoga because my grandparents gave me some for Christmas (that was literally stapled into the card- I feel that detail only adds to this story so far), because my Grandmother believes that it's bad luck to give someone a purse without putting money inside it, and I guess they got me a purse because I'm A Girl. And I only know about yoga because of the friends I made in high school, and I only made those friends because my parents made me go to the high school with the IB program. And I only get to go to yoga because I applied to grad school here after being depressed and not applying to grad school literally anywhere else. So in conclusion, thanks universe, for the X chromosome, nerd brain, depression, and the shitty day that led me into Dollar Tree.
And like I know, I get it, "swegan, what the fuck is wrong with you, this is the most basic ass thing" like O K A Y sure, fine, but you weren't in that Dollar Tree.
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