Me & Fitness

 One of the things I've done this month with all this extra time I suddenly have is, once again, dip my toes back in the workout pool. That's a metaphor- I don't actually swim for workouts, though I probably should as I love it- I'm just... you know. Trying to be regular with things again.

The last time I had any kind of regular fitness routine was honestly probably high school gym class, and even then the last time I felt like gym class was a good and fair workout was the time in the eighth grade we played lacrosse separated by sex (so girls played the girls, and boys vs boys- I maintain that all gym classes should be separated by sex after like, grade 7, because in that one class it became clear to me that the difference in ability between me and an athletic girl my age was far less than between me and a non-athletic boy my age. But I digress). The point is- I'm not particularly athletic.

That didn't matter for a long time. I was young, and more importantly, I was thin. I don't say this to say that I was healthy back then, just that nobody EVER got on my case about working out when I had a BMI of 20 or whatever. That did not last. I've talked before in bits and pieces on here about my weight gain, but suffice it to say it has been a LOT, fuelled partly by depression, partly by two years of undiagnosed and untreated hypothyroidism, and I suspect partly by birth control, despite what my doctor said (I've yet to meet a woman of any age who didn't gain weight on birth control, but there could be some confounding factors in that). 

Around 2017, when I was 22, I started my intuitive eating journey and brought myself to a much more neutral, better, functional place with food. I think of food now mostly in terms of sweet vs savory, and in terms of carbs, fat, protein, and fibre. I don't think about how "good" or "bad" it is except in terms of freshness and expiry. I think about things like taste, satiety, and energy. It's nice. I think being able to focus on what I enjoy and what I need from my food allows me to approach it in a better way. I feel a lot more peace around it and don't feel so out of control, and foods that were once overwhelming to me and that I felt an urge to eat until I was sick are now things I can just leave lying around for MONTHS. I have no regrets.

Fitness and exercise are the one thing I can't seem to figure out for myself. That's the place I'm at now. I'm the slowest, fattest one much of the time (I use the term fat here neutrally, by the way- I have more fat than others. My body is larger. Whatever you want to say). I tell people I am a slow hiker and they assure me they are too- only to outpace me dramatically once we actually get there. When I say I am slow, I am not kidding. I am the slowest hiker most people have ever met. Before I got on synthroid, I had next to no energy, weirdly no appetite, and a slow, never-ending weight creep (among other things). By the time I was diagnosed I had foot pain so bad I could not bear to walk for more than half an hour, and was sleeping 10 hours a night (I physically could not get up before 10 hours had passed). The foot pain wasn't from my weight. It was from my foot muscles slowly atrophying, crying out for energy my body could not deliver because it was too busy attacking my thyroid for no goddamn reason. The reason I know this is that I haven't lost much weight at all on synthroid, but my foot pain is completely gone. 

Recently, I discovered that the muscle atrophy was not just limited to my feet. My core is completely decimated. I have back pain all the time and my hips are tense and sore. I have shin splints from the way my body is trying to move around all the time. But this was kind of a gift- it gave me a fitness goal. Before, all my attempts were just sort of "guess I'll do this" until it no longer seemed necessary. But now, with every core workout I do, my back pain is just a little better, my posture just a little taller. There's an Improvement that I can see that pushes me to do more. It's nice.

I have tried to do fitness in the past since the days of high school gym class ended. In high school I started taking TRX at a family friend's gym. I liked her gentle approach, and I need the action hours for CAS for my IB program. In university, I didn't have time for much- I tried to take a TRX class once, and it got cancelled due to low enrollment. We were told to attend the other session- the one offered during my night class. Night classes also prevented me from joining the dance team, since their fucking tryouts were always only one day a week and ALWAYS the day I had a night class. I did take up swing dancing for a while, and that shit is surprisingly good cardio, and around then I started climbing stairs in the education building with my now-husband. I had really good quads for a while. But the semester ended.

One summer I biked to work daily until the abuse from my commute and the poor behavior of other riders finally just convinced me to take the bus (that and it rained all August). The summer after I did that, the city put dedicated bike lanes on the same fucking path I'd been taking. For a while during my unplanned year off, I attended a gym twice a week- I even did some small group classes with a trainer and saw some progress. But then I got into grad school, and the gym (which was women-only, and I miss that) didn't have a location in the city I live in now. I took a kickboxing class with two friends at the start of grad school, but I didn't enjoy it much, and at one point near the end of the class I got so dizzy I had to sit down (something I find happens to me often with high-intensity cardio). I was also the slowest, fattest one in that class. Shortly after, in the beginning of 2020, I decided that was the year I'd get fit and started taking two gym classes a week at the same gym I'd gone to in high school. And, well, we all saw what happened in 2020. Attempts to go back in 2021 and 2022 were thwarted by a chaotic schedule, both personally and with regard to lockdowns and reopens. In all of those classes I was also the worst one.

I mention the slowest, fattest thing because this has been the thing standing in my way so much. People who are of average fitness truly do not understand how fucking discouraging it is to know you are the worst one there. To see that you are the only one taking the modified poses or moves, the only one that can't quite make it through the dedicated time of the move, the only one who has to sit up in pilates class and ask for a different spring set for certain exercises because even the easy move offered in the beginner class is too much for you. Two summers ago, I went camping with my now-husband and my sister and her friend, and on a hike, my husband insisted I set the pace. I eventually let my sister and her friend go ahead, and had to explain to my husband through tears that it was mortifying to be at the front, red in the face, exhausted, huffing and puffing, while I could hear everyone behind me was just enjoying a walk. The shame of it all was too much. This was after I'd spent a few months in the winter doing 10 minutes of the elliptical every morning before spring busyness removed my energy for it.

Writing it all out like this, the one thing I can see is that I am nothing if not persistent. I will not give up. I keep trying, all the time, knowing that this is important for me. I just want to acknowledge how tired I am, how hard this all is. It is hard to never be the best one, it is hard to feel as though you never have a talent, it is hard after all this NOT to feel like I am just not athletic and should give it up. Engaging in "intellectual" pursuits comes easier to me. For a while, I thought this might be genetic, but looking at my parents' histories, this just isn't the case.

My mom ran constantly until she had my sister and I- even then sometimes, out with the stroller and the dog. She did cross country in high school, well enough to compete. She ran races. She ran all the time, until life got really busy. My dad was on the football team in high school (though he insists he was fat, and I can see this insecurity hasn't really faded in him). He played very minor-league hockey through medical school, and was even ski patrol a few winters at nearby hills. He can still skate laps around me, despite a back injury that means he can't do any of it at a very high level anymore. My parents also put me and my sister in dance classes until I was in the 9th grade, and that was very athletic. Most nights a week, I was doing exercise. Sometime around high school, that stopped for me, and by this point my parents had become very unathletic. Today that is largely because of age and other health concerns, but my parents were both somewhat active people back in their day. So why am I not?

I don't have an answer. I don't even have a guess at an answer right now. I'm frustrated by that. In studies of athletic ability, they find these things are more related to genetics than anything else- so if your sibling or parent is good at some activity, it's more likely that you will be too, and vice versa. I've never been exceptionally gifted at skating, skiing (my neck is still sore from whiplash from a skiing fall literally this past weekend), or running. 

Maybe it's that I'm looking for something I'm naturally good at rather than something I enjoy. I know people say that all the time- that the best activity is the one you'll keep doing. I think they are leaving something out- the best activity is the one you'll keep doing regularly, despite your relative skill. It's the one that fits into your schedule and your budget, the one you have access to. 

Two things stick out from what I just said upon some quiet contemplation. One, I am being too perfectionistic about all of this. Doing any exercise poorly and being the absolute fucking worst at it forever is better for me than never doing it at all because I can't do it well. It is also highly unlikely that I will find some magical form of exercise that is pure fun and just magically fits into my life at all points in time. Also- my "once every few days I guess" current attitude towards beginners pilates videos is SOMETHING, and I need to count it. Two, I have not even remotely tried all of the things I might like, not on a serious level. Those roller skates in the garage still fit me. I still have access to the university pool. I have climbing shoes I bought, and I go to the bouldering gym literally as often as my husband. I've been skiing TWICE this winter, despite living 1.5 hours away from a decent ski hill. I also completely left out my old walking commute from undergrad, which probably did a lot more heavy lifting than I gave it credit for (and is something I sorely miss). But hey- lockdowns are over. You can try out the gymnastics place. Maybe trampolines will do it for me. Maybe swimming will do it for me. Maybe I can get into roller skating now that it probably won't result in 8/10 foot pain anymore. 

I'm tempted not to post this. But I'm noticing a trend lately where I will write posts and not post them. So here goes nothing.

I need to write about what happened, but this isn't for you

So at the end of August, my ex effectively terminated any and all positive feelings I may have had towards him. He send me the nastiest fucking email I've ever read, and the only way I can make sense of it is that he wanted me to hurt like he did (this was out of character and was why I had posted in September that I wasn't going to do this anymore). Accused me of hurting him on purpose. Referenced a whiny Alanis Morisette song. Accused me of "replacing" him (my breakup with him had exactly nothing to do with Redbeard, and that's the last I'll mention of him in this post). And I've been furious about it.

Let me be clear- the fury comes and goes. Seeing him on campus sends me into a rage, especially in the science buildings. It's like- get out, these are my buildings, I am the science one, you need to fucking leave.

The whole thing was extremely childish. He knows I never meant to hurt him, I gave him sincere apologies, and if he didn't want to believe them, there's nothing I could do. I did not owe it to him to help get over the breakup with me, that was not my job as a friend, you did not have the right to learn about the new things happening in my life in regards to relationships because I knew they would hurt you. So you went on here, read that I had found somebody new, and instead of seeing the entry where I had written that the last thing you deserved was to be hurt, you thought that my finding somebody new instantly meant I thought nothing of you. Which is the most selfish, ridiculous thing I've ever heard. That wasn't what was happening, but you had to make it alllll about you, didn't you?

I've been sitting and stewing on this a lot lately, which is how I know I'm probably going to be rid of it soon. I'm so angry that you got to hurt me and have the final word, but I wasn't about to sink to your level, and I'm still not going to. I'm mad at you, and I have every right to be. You lashed out to purposefully hurt me and did not apologize. I tried misguidedly to protect you and apologized for it many times. I am sorry I hurt you, but that wasn't my intention, but your intention with that email was absolutely to hurt me. You wanna think about that for a minute? What that says?

Like, congratulations! You decided to act like a kindergartener with the logic of "you hurt me, so instead of being the bigger person, I'm going to hurt you back." There were a MILLION better ways to burn this bridge. You could have said "I'm sorry, we can't be friends anymore, I can't do this anymore, I don't want to talk about it, don't talk to me again." That would have stung, but it would have stung less than deciding to lodge yourself, in the shape of a knife, firmly between my shoulder blades. I'm still trying to fucking heal and I hate you for that. It seems clear from the time I saw you following that other girl to the class after mine that you've moved on.You took all your pain and inability to heal and dumped it on me instead. How thoughtful of you. I wanted to grab that girl and warn her- stay away from him, you want to hear what he did to me?

Look, I'm sorry we didn't talk much. I didn't know what to say. Maybe I should have explained that to you, but you could also not have jumped to the conclusion that I hated you. I mean, what the fuck? "We don't talk much anymore. Is there a reason for that?" would have been, y'know, the adult thing to do. Like, oh my GOD, dude, what the hell??

You know what's funny? I still wonder what your mom thinks. Whether you told her this entire drawn out story and made her hate me, or whether she saw what was really going on and is disappointed in you for sinking to such a pathetic level as to attempt to hurt me for what I "did" to you. I'll never know. That makes me sad. It's not like I haven't debated sending her your email on facebook, just to see if she knew about it or not. But it's better not to. I don't want you to know that I even exist anymore.

Furthermore, I don't want to know anything else about your life. I don't want to know if you've met some other girl, I don't want to know if you're still miserable, I don't want to know if you still go to our school, if you're still getting a degree, if you're still in this city. I want you out, out, out. It's like sucking out the poison from a snake wound, even if I'm told that's what you're not supposed to do. All my memories of you are poison now, and you did that. Congratulations. You hurt another human being. Are you happy with yourself?

Are you proud of yourself now? Does this make you happy? Is this what you wanted? Is this who you wanted to be?

I've been sitting on this entry for ages. I feel like I can't rant to anyone. Writing about it privately doesn't help. I need to get this OUT, I need to be free of it. I don't want to be bothered by it anymore. I am so done. This is old news. This is annoying. This hurt has no place in my life anymore, and I am trying my very best to be at peace with it.

I know you'll never read this; I don't want you to. This isn't for you. This is just... a public declaration to the world. On this blog, I've always found it comforting that anyone could read this, even if no one did. It's the could that helps me, heals me. I'm hoping this post will allow me to let go, let all this hurt float away into the sky like a balloon until it bursts somewhere high and far away from here, and is no more. I guess posting this feels like revealing evidence. Our relationship got rough near the end, and I made some mistakes, and I'm sorry. I told you that and I meant it. I did not meant to hurt you. I guess you didn't believe me.

Honestly, I could fill this post with a million nasty thoughts. But I don't want to do that. Those thoughts are very obviously private- they're not something you air out in public. Sometimes we don't like other people, sometimes we want to hurt them because they have hurt us. But I'm trying to do what you couldn't-be the bigger person. So I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope the rest of your life is.. I dunno. OKish. Whatever. Just leave me alone.We're not friends anymore, and I'm not going to forgive you and let you back into my life. We're just done. That's it. The End, as your email was so dramatically titled. The end.

-swegan

Names

When I was about 7 or 8 (as far as I can remember), I wondered why, just because I was a girl, I would have to change my name if I got married someday. I wasn't really set up to critique yet that maybe I wouldn't get married, maybe I'd like girls, etc, but I did latch onto that one point. Why did I have to change my name? It seemed so arbitrary. And yet it was all around me, within my own family, within the families of everyone I knew. And I decided, probably when I was about 9, that I would keep my name forever. I didn't bother thinking about the logistics, I just vowed to do it.

To this day, I'm still pretty dead set on that promise.

I mean, we all know where this came from, right? When women were property, they'd change their name once they changed families and the "ownership" changed. Having the father's name was a way to prove that those children were his and not another man's. And this is still around because...? I'd like to think people don't care about that as much now, and furthermore, women haven't been property for a long-ass time now. So why does this continue? Just because? It seems harmless enough, I guess, but it pisses me off.

Furthermore, why is it so revolutionary that someone should take my name? Just because I have a vagina? It's ridiculous. And, this is the one that really gets me- if women do all (yes, all, if you disagree with me here you can literally go to hell) the hard work of childbearing and giving birth, why the everliving FUCK don't their children at least get the chance to have their mother's name? If I'm gonna go through hell, possibly risk my own life, to bring these children into the world, you bet your ass they're going to have my last name. If you disagree? I'm not having children with you. The end.

But. But. I know that hoping for someone to take my last name and agree that our children should have my name is never going to happen, and it pisses me off so much. It's like being tied to a chair. I can't do anything about it. Any of the boys I come into contact with will have been raised with the expectation that they'll never have to give up their identity, and they won't part lightly with that (and I can't blame them, given how little I want to part with mine). They grow up with the knowledge, somewhere in the back of their mind, that someday, should they marry and have kids, those kids and their wife will have their name. And it's such bullshit. Even the nicest boys I meet have never even stopped to second guess this, to think "you know, maybe that's unfair." Which is how privilege works, I guess: when you have it good, you don't want to question it.

There are many, many reasons I dislike being female. The blame for all of them lies in other people (with the exception of periods, which are just unfortunate). This is near the top of the list (along with the idea that I'm more likely to be sexually assaulted, that some people view me as an incubator, and that I'm less likely to be taken seriously, especially when emotional, etc). And that bothers me, because I shouldn't live in a society where I dislike how I was born. And then that gets into a lot of issues with disability that I am definitely not informed enough to talk about, so I'll leave that there.

It just... ugh. I'm not totally naive, I know that I'm never going to get what I want by virtue of living where and when I do. But I still hold out a lot of hope for some kind of compromise, like whomever I marry keeping their name and me keeping mine, or both of us changing to some agreed upon different surname, and then finding some way to compromise in terms of kids. Honestly, I'd still be pretty happy with that- it's still nontraditional and is very balanced. And I'm not willing to be with someone if they aren't willing to compromise with me on that- either I don't change my last name, or we both do. That's it. That's the line. I will not cross it.

As for now, I just got riled up about this for reasons I can't remember, but it's late and I have a midterm in the morning.

yer pal,
swegan.

FUCKING VOTE

It bothers me to no end when friends I have say that they're not going to vote. They offer up excuses- the most common of which is "I just don't care"- and it is so infuriating. To hear that so little of the population votes is even more so. THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO VOTE. NONE. Canadians living in other countries are figuring out how to vote. There is no excuse for you to be lazy and irresponsible.

Don't care? Too bad. Democracy only works if you take the time to figure out who you think should be making our country's big decisions. If democracy isn't working, it's your fault. I'm not even kidding. It's not the fault of the politicians, it is the fault of people who did (or didn't!) vote them in. So don't bitch to me about how the government sucks when you didn't take the time to fucking vote.

"I don't have time to get informed" too bad, it is your goddamn responsibility, take half an hour to skim through the platforms and make a decision about what matters to you. Pay attention to the news. Decide what issues matter to you personally and which person, or party, or whatever, is going to best represent those. You have no excuse for being lazy, I'm just... augh. AUGH. VOTE. PLEASE.

This isn't even because I want Harper out (which I do, but if you wanna vote for Harper, you have every right to do so and I will not stop you). This is just because democracy only works if people fucking participate. Your voice matters. Your vote matters. It's not even hard. You stand in line, you mark a circle, you hand in a slip of paper. Done. Boom. You are legally required to get time off work. There are advanced polls. You can mail in a ballot. Figure out how you're going to do it, and then do it.

Apathy is no excuse. Being ill informed is no excuse. "But my vote is just one of millions!" is no excuse. You are lucky, you are privileged to be born in a country in which you are able to have a say in who governs you. I will smack you with a fish if you try to tell me otherwise. There are people in the world who can't vote. There have been suffrage movements to get certain types of people to vote.

The only honest-to-god excuses I can think of are if you're living in Canada and haven't gotten your citizenship yet (I honestly do not know how that works, but you probably do), or if you're under 18. If you're a citizen over 18, you have to vote. Why? I said so. Democracy says so. Just do it. Don't make me smack you with a fish.

It's a privilege, a right, and a goddamn responsibility. Please, fellow Canadians- and, what the hey, anyone living in a democratic country- FUCKING VOTE.

yer pal,
swegan

Competition

A long time ago, an aunt of mine shared an article on facebook. I don't remember exactly what the title was, but I do remember that the jist of the article was about "don't do so much! Slow down and enjoy life!" I remember feeling incredibly bitter about that. How in the fuck, I thought, am I supposed to slow down and yet compete with everyone my age for the same scholarships and jobs??

Of course, the article's intended audience was obviously people around my aunt's age: people who have already done any post-secondary they might intend to do, people who are no longer young, people who have had kids and gotten married and worked for quite a while. You know, like, real adults. People with established careers and nice houses and cars, shit like that. I am not one of those people, obviously.

A lot of my insecurity about the stuff in the last post revolves around this. I'm happy not doing a lot, for the most part. I feel like I ought to be more well-rounded, but a lot of the worry there comes from the fact that I'm painfully aware of how well other people my own age are doing. This, coupled with the fact that I've always felt like I'm in the bottom of the top of the heap, gives me quite a bit of anxiety. I've never had a leadership position in my life. I'm not one of those kids who gets Really Good Holy Shit Amazing grades (and I get pissed whenever a character in a book that is depicted as Smart has a 4.0, because I know literally nobody with a 4.0 (or if they have one, they're not telling me)), I'm just one of those kids who gets Grades That Are Good. Like, my GPA isn't bad, but I'm always so aware of the fact that it could be better by it being LITERALLY 0.1 BELOW WHAT I'D NEED TO GET ON THE HONOR ROLL (I am so mad about this, in case you couldn't tell). I have some volunteer experience, but I'm always aware of the fact that I could have more (and the bulk of mine is from high school, anyway).

The other issue is that I tend to befriend people and like people who, at least in my eyes, can successfully do this- volunteer in things, get actually really good grades, maintain a group of friends. Win scholarships. That sort of shit. Some of them excel in certain categories more than others, but that's just the thing: they excel. I've never really felt like I excelled at anything. The only time I remember being the best was in 7th grade when the unofficial class appointed #1 smart kid left for four months, and I, as the unofficial class appointed #2 smart kid, became #1 for a brief and glorious period of time. I was never the best at piano. I was never the best at dance. I was never the best at writing (though, I suppose, I was the most prolific of anyone I knew for quite some time).

I still feel that way, that I'm this weird kind of Good Mediocre, that I'm doing okay, but I could still be doing better. And I feel that I can't just sit there, complacent, and accept that I'll probably get somewhere being Good Mediocre, because I feel like- and this is compounded by the fact that I attend a large university- there are literally hundreds of thousands of my peers who are competing for the same stuff I am. I know that's not quite accurate; my university isn't that big, nor is my faculty (though it is the biggest), nor is my specialty, nor is the group of people interested in my field of interest (medical research, at the moment). But there are still other kids out there, and they are studying harder and volunteering more and winning more awards than I am, and they are always out there.

I know I should strive to do better, all that, but honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm already doing as much as I can reasonably expect of myself, and other times I look at the amount of effort other kids put into assignments I decided were not worth that much stress, and I think there's your problem. While other kids are doing shit like going to the prof and the TAs and spending hours working over some god-awful what-the-fuck-is-this genetics problem set, I said "this is worth 5% of my grade and my biochem midterm next week is worth 40%" (and yet I still did not study hard enough for that biochem midterm) and consequently put in about 8 times less effort into the problem set. Unless those kids are lying (which, if you are, literally go fuck yourselves I hate you), it feels like I'm not doing enough. Constantly. Which is annoying, because I know how to fix some of those problems, but not all of them, and all of it stresses me out probably more than the aspect of getting a degree and having to venture off into the real world.

Then, I think, there are still heaps of students who say things like "I don't feel like going to class today, let's go get lattes" or who sit in class and look at tumblr and facebook and youtube instead of paying attention. I am definitely doing better than those kids: I save my tumblr and facebook and youtube for when I'm at home and supposed to be reading some stupidly boring chapter in my chemistry textbook (guess what, I barely did any of the reading for all 4 chem courses, and I've passed them all with varying kinds of Bs), or for after the hour of 8 (or 9, or even 10, depending on the point of the semester) when I know I'm not productive anymore and can't get anything done. But I don't really care about those kids. They're not even good competition.

And in that, I think- maybe those kids who are trying that hard are good to have around, because they make me try harder. Wouldn't I just get lazy if I knew I was already at the top? Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe I should just accept that I'm not the best- certainly not at everything, maybe not at anything right now. I'm still good enough to get a few awards, I still push myself enough to participate in a few things outside of class, I still have a pretty decent social circle. And maybe, because it's August and this is probably one of the last summers of my life during which I get to be this lazy, I should go and watch TV with my sister.

yer pal,
swegan

Anti choicers: please pull your heads out of your asses

No, I'm not sorry.

These people have been crying about free speech ever since they arrived on my campus and I am beyond disgusted. Acting like this debate needs to be reopened is like saying criminalizing abortion is a valid opinion to consider. It fucking isn't. Get OVER it already, oh my GOD.

I don't CARE that you feel like fetuses=children, that you all worship the fetus over all others, ESPECIALLY women, I don't CARE. Criminalizing abortion leads to dead women. Did you not hear that? CRIMINALIZING ABORTION LEADS TO DEAD WOMEN. CRIMINALIZING ABORTION LEADS TO DEAD WOMEN. If you think your pathetic, immoral pleas are going to stop women from getting abortions any way they can, you are beyond naive. You are literally the stupidest.

I am done acting like these people have any validity or right to their opinion that abortion is a criminal act. It isn't. If you don't like that, go cry me a fucking river, but there isn't anything you can do about it.

And furthermore, get the FUCK off my campus with your misogynistic guilt-shaming bullshit. In case you couldn't tell, the posters getting ripped down were a clear sign that your BS is not welcome here.

Leave.

And take your sexism with you.

-Swegan

*That* girl

Basically all of my life, I have been somewhat underweight.

I was a very short kid, my mom was a dietician and has a BSc in Nutrition, and I danced about 5 nights a week. I was lucky enough to be one of those girls who, during my teenage years, really didn't have to worry about what I ate. My mom made pretty much all of my food, and that was always healthy, and even though I complained about not getting the same kinds of snacks in my lunch as the other kids and not eating dessert at all until I was like 12 (seriously, dessert for me is still not something that is "required" after a meal), I know that it was just mom looking out for me and trying to keep me healthy.

Of course, now I am living away from home (and I miss home food terribly). The food in my building is good, that's for sure- lots of fruit and vegetables all the time, and meals at very regular times, which is something I appreciate- although I have become more picky about it and as a result, eat less and less of it.

Last semester, I decided that restricting myself from eating what I wanted was silly, as long as I didn't spend too much money. That did not turn out well for me. I mean, obviously I'm still fine, but since then I have decided that that mantra is not a good idea. Not only did I waste a shitton of money, I ate a lot of crap. Like, a lot. And I mean, I'm young, I'm in university, it's almost expected that I gain weight at some point. I think I've avoided that thanks to avoiding uni campus "dining halls" and meal plans, but I'm still kind of restricted in what I eat. The meal plan here is already paid for until the end of the year, so I can't really cook for myself that much.

This is why the whole "fitness movement" type stuff (especially "fitspo" etc) on the internet really bugs me, especially when it says "what's your excuse?" my excuse is that I live on a meal plan because I am a student, you twat. If I want to get good grades and maintain a social life and enjoy myself, it becomes very hard to fit in waking up at 5 AM to go running every day. Plus, I live in Canada. It's fucking cold outside. I know some people can run in winter, but that requires some kind of special workout gear or whatever. So if I want to do that, I have to invest time and money into figuring it out. And as for a gym- I'm too self conscious about my complete and total lack of fitness knowledge to even bother to go, since I wouldn't know how to use the machines, and I don't have a plan or anything.

Furthermore, eating healthy is expensive. Frozen pizza is pretty darn cheap, from what I understand.

And yet every time I think of these reasons why I cannot for the life of me commit to changing my entire lifestyle right at this moment, there is still a part of me that thinks "but those are just excuses. If you really wanted this you would do it instead of being lazy." Which I think is ridiculous. Not everyone has the money and time to devote to changing their whole entire life.

What I wish fitness movements were about was encouraging people to work to the level they are comfortable at. Like, maybe I can't restructure my whole entire diet. But I can try not buying extra junk food so much. Maybe I don't have the time to figure out how to make time for exercising every single day. But I know that if I leave a little earlier, I can walk to school daily, and I can take a very intense exercise class once a week. Those are all things that are good for my health, and yet I still feel like by the standards of Fitness Types Everywhere, I am failing.

This doesn't even include the standards of Beauty. Basically every kind of media I see- movies, TV shows (when I get around to watching them), shit, even some youtube videos (ESPECIALLY music videos) have girls that are tiny, with flat stomachs and nice cheekbones and all those other things I get self conscious about. Recently, that kind of stuff has really been getting to me, especially considering all the weight I have gained last semester and over the summer (when I probably bought chocolate pretzels from bulk barn at least once a week, possibly more).

I know these things are ridiculous. I know it is stupid, because I am smart and funny and kind and those things should matter far more than how much I weigh or whether or not I have "the right" cheekbones or cellulite. But they still get to me. Sometimes it is just in the form of "These pretty dresses I have don't fit me anymore!" which is like well, duh, you bought those two years ago and since then you've moved out and started university. Sometimes it is shopping for school clothes with mom and getting comments like "weren't you wearing (slightly smaller pants size) last year?" or something like that. Sometimes it is even just acknowledging that I know people who are very fit and in shape or who don't weigh very much (sometimes that is just by virtue of their genes or body type). Often, it is stupid fitness stuff on the internet.

I wish I could be satisfied with myself for making small changes within my life. I wish I could feel like walking more and eating less junk food and taking a TRX class was acceptable. There is still a big part of me that insists that You used to be so skinny. All your life, you have been a skinny girl. The skinniest. With a BMI that is underweight. What happened to you? Who are you now? and it's like without the identity of being the super super super tiny girl, I have to define myself by other things. I never had to worry about my weight or what I was eating before. Ever. Never in my life have I had this stress. I don't like it. I miss being able to just eat whatever I wanted and still have a BMI of like, 17.8 because that was how I was, and I don't like this new realm of motherly advice consisting of weight-related things.

But I feel like the only way to go back to being the way I was is to be that girl. The girl who denies herself everything, who says "no cake for me, thanks" or "I don't really do dessert" or "can we get something else instead of pizza?" or "I'll just have a salad" (I have nothing against salads, but there is something about saying "I'll just have a salad" that implies restrictions) or who makes herself go running and works out every single day and never, ever, ever touches a cheeto or a potato chip or a brownie. I do not want to be that girl. I don't want to deny myself food because I'm scared of being fat, I don't want to work out every single day for a flat stomach and a thigh gap, and yet I feel shitty about it.

I don't want to be that girl, I don't want to be fat, I don't want to be unhealthy, I don't want to continue to get comments from mom about "don't let your thighs get lumpy and ugly" or "you're growing out and not up now so you have to watch what you eat" or "do you really need that size of jeans now?"

I don't know what to do beyond continue on my present course of baby steps because it's still better than doing nothing. My relationship with food has clearly become very complicated and annoying. I don't want to analyze everything for its nutritional value before eating it. I don't want to feel guilty for eating junk food, or carbs, or sugar, like by doing so I've done something wrong. But I don't want to look the way I do now, and that seems seriously fucked up to me because I'm pretty sure I am within the range of normal health right now.

yer pal,
swegan :S

I am so mad about sex in the media

Like oh my god it is so inaccurate and wrong!

This is mostly talking about movies/TV shows with teenagers or young adults in them, that sort of age. Sex inevitably comes up in most of them, and I suppose the portrayal is accurate in that that's what happens most of the time. And then there's all this confusion muddled up in "do I wait?" and shit like I just have so many things I want to scream at the characters every time this gets brought up on a show like

1) If you can't have a straightforward conversation about sex, it's probably a bad idea to have sex
2) You are allowed to do it now or wait until you're married, it really doesn't matter. It's up to you.
3) If you're excited about it, looking forward to it, etc, those are probs good signs that you're "ready" or that you'll handle it well
4) It is going to suck the first time. Like a lot. That is normal. It is nobody's fault and I really hate that on a lot of shows relationships end b/c the first time having sex was bad. Like, news flash, if you had waited until your wedding night, it would also have been bad too. Also, it will probably continue to be not-great for a while. Practice makes perfect.
5) THERE ARE OTHER THINGS TO DO. I don't mean like, be totally chaste, I just mean there are other things to do with someone you are sexually attracted to beyond sexual intercourse. There is like this whole range of other activities that are still a lot of fun that are not sex and do not carry with them the same risk of pregnancy (yes, I get this only applies to straight couples. That is my only experience). Furthermore, that is a good way to work up to being comfortable with someone, establishing trust, intimacy, being able to discuss things with them, etc. I say this b/c it bothers me immensely that teenagers in media go from just making out to full-out having sex and there is no in between, which is totally ridiculous and unreasonable. (Pls don't interpret this as having to do other things first, just be aware that this range between complete chastity and sex totally exists and is there to explore).
6) It is probs not a bad idea to know about the other person's anatomy/your own anatomy.
7) Bring. More. Than. One. Condom. Oh. My. God. The first one might break, or you can't get it on right, or the first round sucks and you want to try again after half an hour of doing something else. You never know.
8) Also, just saying- it is not going to be a big painful, bloody mess. If you're going slow and everyone's nice and turned on and especially if there is lube involved, everything should be fine. Slightly uncomfortable and a little "Oh, so that's what that's like" but not painful and messy and bloody. I hate this lie. I mean, maybe there's bleeding for some people, I don't know, but I really don't think that there should be. Vaginas can push babies out. A penis should not do that much damage.

That ends Swegan's Sex Talk. Seriously, I'm just so frustrated. Oh, but one last thing:

9) Pls keep checking up on each other, like ask "how are you doing" periodically or something like that. Just because someone says initially that they're OK with something doesn't mean they'll continue to do so. Also, this means that if you're like "welp I am not wanting to do this anymore" that you should say something. And if someone says stop, stop. Like, completely. That one is a no brainer. And this ties into the communication thing again (#1).

Honestly, I'm starting to think that the most important thing any good relationship has is good communication. If someone doesn't feel comfortable communicating or isn't being listened to, the relationship needs work or is not good.

And like, jesus christ, there is no appropriate period of time after starting a relationship at which you need to have sex. None at all. You can go on the first date, or wait a year. Whatever suits you, and your partner, obviously.

Furthermore, this has to be something you can talk to a doctor/your doctor about, too. Even if you get all embarrassed talking to them about ANYTHING relevant to sex. Doctors are there to help, for srs.

Just... be smart. Pls don't be like the kids in the media who feel all awkward about their first time being bad and blame each other or their connection and who only have one condom and who can't talk about sex or communicate during sex and just... be safe. Do whatever the hell you want with your partner, as long as you both agree and you're being safe.

I know this is pretty high and mighty of me given my limited physical-stuff-in-a-relationship-experience, but I think it works pretty well. IMO, sex should be something fun, something that you look forward to and enjoy, and should never ever make anyone feel uncomfortable.

And hey, it's totally fine to just not want sex in a relationship, or to want the relationship to be JUST sex, or any mix in between.

I feel like all of this is totally "Duh" to me... actually, I kind of hope that it's "duh" to everyone, and that at this point Laci Green has managed to educate a large portion of young adults about safe sex and things of the like (I am once again going to mention that she has a kick ass youtube channel which actually taught me a bunch of stuff that I am kind of relaying to you here, so you should all look it up regardless of whether this post was like "wow really?" for you or "uh, DUH" for you.)

anyway, I'm done. I need to get up early tomorrow.

yer pal,
swegan :)

I know exactly what I want and it terrifies the shit out of me

This often happens in the fall and winter. I find myself pining for the mountains. But lately, I've found it happening so often that a scenario has started to take place in my mind. It's what I would like for my future life to be, ideally. I live in the mountains, or at least, my house is fucking surrounded by trees. Everywhere. And there's neigbours, but not too close, because of all the TREES.

I want to live in a small town, but in my reasonably-sized house with trees. I want there to be a university in this town, though, so it can't be too small. It should also be reasonably close to a larger city, for those nights when I want to go out on the town.

I work in the research department of that university. One way or another, I've obtained a "Dr." in front of my name, and I do research. Whether it's medical research or just biology research I don't know, but that's what I'm doing. And I run my own lab. I am in charge of it, I appoint the summer students, I do all the conferences, me. It's my lab. The lab of Dr. Swegan.

And I just like imagining coming home to my house in the trees and having it be warm and cozy, with lots of leather and varying shades of brown and lots of wood, wood furniture and flooring and ceilings. Like a cabin but not entirely like a cabin. It's cozy. I have a big bed covered in pillows and my room has a huge-ass window that is also a door that opens onto a balcony and so when I wake up and go to sleep, I see trees. Preferably with a sunrise over them in the morning.

And I have a little cozy spot in front of the fire, in a huge leather chair that's the kind of chair you sink into with a good book, and I sit there and stare out at the trees because that's right, the entire back of my house is also big-ass windows.


This same pining happened last year, only this year it feels worse. It's especially bad when I listen to a playlist of music I have that makes me feel safe, because this imaginary home and life is now my happy place.

The funny thing is, I don't ever see another person living with me. I'm always solitary, which is kind of unappealing. I think I'd want somebody around, even just a friend. Even just being at home by myself creeps me out- I'd need another person living in this house with me. But I think what's more significant is that there aren't any children. Obviously my mindset is that I'm still too young and I haven't lived much of a life yet, so I can't know if I want children or not. I don't know. I know I don't want them now, or any time in the next 10 years or so, that's for sure.

However, this is weirdly specific and very different from the idea I usually have, which is me living in a tiny, somewhat crappy, but cozy apartment in a small town. I don't know why I'm idealizing this small town in my head; I grew up in a small town and got to experience firsthand this summer how much it sucks living where there is almost nothing to do. But somehow, in this more young-adult version of the same town, I have things to do, and people I see, and I'm never bored or unhappy (well, I mean obviously I probably still am unhappy from time to time but never in a permanent way).


The problem with these fantasies is that I feel like they're so specific, they can never happen. Where in Canada am I going to find a place like that? BC somewhere? Vancouver Island? I don't know. And besides, I'm in my second year of an undergrad degree... getting either a Ph.D or an M.D. Ph.D is gonna be like a shitton of hard work that I am really not looking forward to, but I know that this is (at least for now) reasonably close to what I want to do with my life. I'm fairly confident that I could get into medical school somewhere if I started putting effort towards that, like I think I could pass the MCAT with enough studying and I'm finding things to do in this city now that help me feel... busier, I guess. Less like a homebody. Like I have a life, even if that life is just going to dance class once a week, having a regular date night, and sometimes hanging out with Carina to make food and watch netflix at her house. Carina and I keep trying to have wild adventures, but then I always chicken out. I'm shitty at trying new things that way.


In somewhat unrelated news, my roommate got me a birthday gift which was super sweet of her. It was a little sampler of tea from David's Tea, and the flavour was pumpkin chai, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU GUYS, THIS TEA IS SO GOOD. It's got caramel in it which I think is the reason I like it so much, but it also just looks cute because the tea itself has little pumpkin candies in it and UGH you guys seriously, try it. It's cozy and perfect and delicious and UGH.

yer pal,
swegan :)

What I hear when people say "I'm a humanist/egalitarian, not a feminist"

"I am willing to totally throw out all that feminism and its proponents have fought for over the last couple centuries because instead of continuing to work within the movement as it stands to make it better and challenge those who use it to fuel a weird victim-biased agenda, I would rather take the easy way out and start a new movement based on the exact same things that feminism stands for, further making it look like feminism DOESN'T stand for those things even though it has all along."

To me, choosing this path is cowardly and disrespectful. Of course feminism has issues. It always has. It's likely it always will. But feminism has accomplished a lot of good, too, and to just leave the movement behind to me looks like throwing it in the dirt. People who say these things to me show that they aren't willing to put in the hard work of letting people know that feminism is about equality, but would rather just start a new movement from scratch that has accomplished literally nothing ...

To me, it's like feminism fought battles, and now people are refusing to honour their war dead. Step your game the fuck up, put on your analyzing hats, and get it through your fucking heads that feminism is about equality and always has been, oh my fucking god how many more times do I need to say this????

Yes, over the last century, it has focused on women's rights, because when feminism began to get popular, women weren't even people. Heck, I'm sure there's still parts of the world where they aren't. But I'm sure if we can recognize that women can be sexist and contribute to oppressive practices too, we can expand to discuss men's issues (so long as they are not rude, unnecessary interruptions of discussions of women's issues, which are just as valid and important). Feminism has already become way more intersectional than it used to be, in the days when feminism was kind of completely about upper class white women (who occasionally did make issues of working women's rights and the rights of immigrant women, see for example Nelly McClung (YES she was crazy into eugenics, and that is an unfortunate part of her legacy, but it doesn't cancel out the good that she accomplished. People aren't all good or all bad)).

I am sticking with feminism because I can see all that it has done for me, and this is my way of paying my respect. I'm not going to desert a movement that got me the right to vote, own property, and obtain a divorce. I'm one of the young generation now. I feel it is partly my responsibility to make the world a better place. I also feel like all the feminists who are now aging have to pass on the torch. It is now our responsibility to make feminism better, and yes, it is a lot of fucking hard work and trying to use logic and reason to be heard above the extremists... and now, too, above the people who aren't willing to be a feminist even though they still spout feminist ideals and have feminist mindsets.

And to anybody who tells me "you're just using emotion to sell this cause and make it seem noble" why yes, yes I am. Good job picking up on that. That was exactly my goal. Feminist goals are noble to me. I'm glad you got that.

yer pal,
swegan

I did not want it to come to this

I just unfriended my brother on facebook.

Now I know some people won't think that facebook is even a big deal at all. And I'm sure other people might think "How could you do that to your own brother????" BUT, neither of those people read this blog... I think. I'm fully aware of how low my readership is but... ehh. that's not the point of this post.

First things first: My brother. Is. An. Asshole.

I mean, I love him, but god, he's an asshole. He is! My own mother has confirmed it. She won't let me swear ever, except when I am calling my brother an asshole. He's impossible to deal with. I don't like having him around because he aggravates everyone. He posts offensive things on facebook (hence why I have unfriended him). I don't want any of my friends to meet him. If I ever get married, I don't think I want him at my wedding.

All of this sucks. I don't like it either. But he seems hell bent on offending me lately, posting these horrendously offensive things because he knows they piss me off. I've listened to my mother describe his behaviour and that of his friends in the past, and it sounds exactly the same.

Just... we had him out at the cabin last week, and not only did he not offer to help with dishes or dinner ANY of the nights he was there, he also made a big scene at dinner by just... having annoying opinions that are really offensive and continuing on and on AND ON while my sister's friends had to sit and watch it, and it was so embarrassing. Later, when my sister's friends all decided to sleep together in one room and have a big sleepover kind of thing, he thumped on the floor when they were maybe giggling a bit too loud (this was at midnight, too- not even late). Passive aggressive much? He could have, I don't know, gone downstairs and asked them to be quiet?

He has a problem with everybody, and I'm sure he's only going to get worse now that I've unfriended him, but I don't care. My plan for the future is to avoid him as much as possible. I know my mom feels the same- she hates it because she feels like a bad mother, but shit, it's not her fault he's decided to behave this way. The only person he'll even listen to anymore is dad. NOT TO MENTION when we went to Ireland (a trip on which he paid for NOTHING, by the way) he started ranting about how "disrespectful it was" for mom to show up late for dinner. I was like, excuse me, who paid for you to be here? Of course I didn't act that way outwardly, I was an awkward mixture of trying to diffuse him (we were in a nice hotel and I didn't want to make a scene) and trying to agree with him (I have my own grievances about mom making me late, which I have acted on perhaps not so nicely in the past- and probably here, and frankly, I'm embarrassed about it). Another one of my sister's friends had to witness that, and she later said it was weird.

Honestly... dealing with him is like dealing with a 4 year old, only worse. He doesn't know how to be an adult, he doesn't know how to make polite conversation, and having him around is a liability since he's bound to embarrass us all at some point.

Most of why I've unfriended him is due to not wanting to see his offensive shit anymore (seconds before I did it, I commented on a selfie of his that I really enjoyed his facial expression, which was pretty great). I want him to be a part of my life, I do. I want to talk to him regularly, I want to be close to him, I want to want him at family events. I want to be close to him, but he makes it impossible. My family continually invites him to Christmases, birthdays, and on family vacations, and he continually acts like an ungrateful ass. Honestly at this point I'm embarrassed to be related to him, and I hate that I have to say that because I love him and want to have a relationship with him. He's my brother, for crying out loud.

Of course, I'm now afraid he might come by the house and blow up at me, call me a bitch to anyone who will listen, or ... shit, I don't know, slash my tires. What does it say about him that I wouldn't put any of that past him?

They say you're supposed to cut poisonous people out of your life. My brother has become a poisonous person. Because I love him and because I still want to have a working sibling relationship with him, I will hold out hope that he can change or at least learn to bite his tongue, and I will take him back if he proves he is willing to grow the fuck up. I want that to happen. But I can't do it for him. He has to change for himself, and I'm not going to sit around and listen to his shit while I wait for that to happen.

I'm sorry, brother. But this is what it has come to.

sincerely,
swegan

I'm mad about twilight again

GOD, THE INTERNET

One of my favourite lines from the videos of the "Feminist Frequency" channel on youtube was something along the lines of "it's important to remember that it's still possible to enjoy media while being aware of its more problematic aspects." I'm aware that twilight is problematic. I'm aware of the toxic relationship standards it suggests and promotes. And yet I'm also aware that it's everyone's favourite thing to hate.

Look, even I get a bit uppity about it sometimes. Some parts are kind of... ehh, but then some parts in EVERY book are like that. Just look at the first chapter of Harry Potter, for crying out loud! Seriously, I cannot get past that chapter. It's all exposition, and honestly, it bores me. I can't read a book unless it hooks me in in the first chapter, and that one didn't. But whenever Harry Potter is criticized on the internet, it's done so in a thoughtful way, in a way that fosters discussion and learning. And whenever twilight is criticized, it's "wow this created a better love story than twilight" and "wow it's sad when twilight does something better than you" and "jesus this book is sad and a piece of crap."

I don't really know what my point is anymore. Yeah, there's horrible elements in that book. The relationship is abusive. There's an instance of sexual assault somewhere in the third book that I never even read as sexual assault until someone pointed it out to me that way- but hey, Bella was pissed about it, wasn't she? She was mad because he disrespected her boundaries, and her father disrespected them further by encouraging the assault b/c it was the lesser of two evils- not from her somewhat creepy, possessive boyfriend, who was really only mad about the whole thing because she was kind of his property. Christ, he forbade her from visiting a friend... who, albeit, later turned out to be the friend that sexually assaulted her, but jesus fucking christ, you're going to sit around and call this character weak and stupid and shallow and pathetic? To a certain degree, it kind of feels like she's caught up in shit, and btw, the way I did read her creep boyfriend defending her from the friend that decided kissing her when she said no was okay was that she called him knowing that at least he would get this guy away from her. That's clever. She knew. She knew.

And that doesn't say anything about other characters in the story who happen to be excellent characters.

Look, I'm just saying, the entire book isn't a shitstorm, okay? Besides, the only reason I stick by those books is because they got me through a period in the beginning of high school where I had no friends. Reading them again takes me right back there. It's a comfortable place, a safe place, where I wasn't lonely, where I was somewhere else living someone else's life, having someone else's adventures. I read all those books in less than four days.

I guess I can understand that some people are mad b/c this book is heralded as genius by some teenagers who don't see the darker parts of it, the parts that aren't that great, the parts they should shy away from. They see it as a piece of problematic, sexist media that's being marketed to teenage girls yet again. And I'm mad at that part. I'm mad that those things happened, because at the end of the day, I liked the story. I did. I got into it. I was a part of the world. I went on an adventure. I had fun. I enjoyed a cast of good supporting characters (including some pretty great female ones btw). And it really sucks to see something you love get absolutely shit on everywhere on the internet. It's worse than that thing about reading a book where there isn't a fandom, because at least then there aren't people who are going to treat you like you're stupid for liking the series.

And god, for the love of all that is holy, stop making fun of teenage girls for liking this, okay? Teenage girls get enough shit for being rabid fans of things. Leave them alone. Especially you, teenage boys (and girls!) who think it's okay to make fun of your peers because they like the series. Leave them alone, too. Just let them be. Clearly they're happy, okay? They aren't vapid, or stupid, or idiotic. They like. A book. Series. Leave them. The fuck. Alone.

I guess I kind of know what my sister means about the whole one direction thing. I haven't been fair to her about that. So you know what? I'll take that cause up, too. I may not be a fan of their music, but god, not being a fan of something doesn't give you the right to make fun of the whole fanbase for it. And please, please, can we stop with the "this isn't real music" YES IT FUCKING IS. It's just a different kind of music. Please stop telling me the Beatles are better. Just because you don't like bubblegum autotuned boyband pop does not make it a lesser choice.

(And yes, I am aware that saying a lot of this makes me hypocritical in certain respects. I'm still learning, too).


yer pal,
swegan :P

Pro-lifers piss me off

NOW BEFORE I GET STARTED. I know there's people out there who genuinely aren't comfortable with abortion personally, but are adults and recognize that other people have the right to make choices about their own health and life, and that their own personal opinions on abortion are not mandatory for other people. I like those people, because they recognize that abortion is a personal choice, not something for other people to intrude on, and while they may categorize themselves as "pro-life", they are not included in my category here.

I think what's really hypocritical about people who claim to be pro-life is that they say they want abortion numbers to decrease, but then they also don't want to support things like birth control coverage in health insurance plans (I'm looking at you, Hobby Lobby and supporters of it) and think places like Planned Parenthood, which to the best of my knowledge offer far more than just abortion procedures, should be shut down.

Let's throw some logic at this whole scenario, okay? You want to bring down abortion numbers. That's great! Unfortunately, the number of abortions performed is never going to be zero. Let's just accept that, right now. Even if abortion becomes illegal, women will find a way. There is no such thing as a world without abortions. There just isn't. Don't even try to argue with it, because you can't win. What we have here are worlds with safe abortions and worlds with unsafe abortions. Being pro-life means you are a supporter of a cause whose end political goal (make abortion illegal) will result in a world full of unsafe abortions (which means you cannot call yourself pro-woman, btw, because guess who suffers from unsafe abortions? WOMEN.). But back to the original point- you want to decrease the number of abortions, having accepted now that it will never be zero. That's great! I want to decrease those numbers too, and you want to know why?
Abortion is what happens when someone has an unwanted pregnancy and is able to be rid of it. Whatever your reasons, be they medical, financial, life-plan-involved, whatever-- that pregnancy is unwanted. Usually these are the results of oopsies, or in horrible cases, sexual assualt or incest. Sexual assault can be prevented by ending rape culture- not blaming victims, lessening the sexualization of women, altering masculinity so it is not so wrapped up in violence, domination, having power and not being able to be a victim (although men as victims of sexual assault is not the issue when it comes to abortion, b/c men can't get pregnant), etc. I'm not really sure about incest, but I think the same principles apply (I really haven't thought about it much so forgive me there). As for oopsies... guess what prevents oopsies?
That's right, it's comprehensive sexual education and easily accessible contraception and family planning! If you teach people how to have safe sex (in the heterosexual sense here, b/c that is the kind of sex that produces pregnancies) and give them access to tools to help them prevent pregnancy, there will be a LOT fewer pregnancies! I don't see how that doesn't make sense.

But I think the problem most pro-life people have is that in addition to being pro-life and thinking they have ANY business dictating other people's medical choices, they also don't like contraception, comprehensive sex ed, or family planning services of any kind. Want to know why? These are the kind of people that don't like sex.
I've never had sex (well, typically speaking), but I feel like people who don't like it are either a) asexual, b) have been through a traumatic experience, or c) crazy. What's not to like about sex? It's all good times as long as everyone's up for it, so what's the big deal?
To me, there is no other explanation other than these people don't want other people to have sex. They don't want them having safe sex, they want sex to be a tool only for procreation.
Well, I've got news for you. Remember when I said that the numbers of abortions performed could never be zero? The same principle applies to sex: people are never just going to do it for procreation. People. Like. Having. Recreational. Sex. They will find a way. And if you make it as hard as possible for them to find the safe way, they'll just end up having unsafe sex, which is how you get a) sexual assault (if sex ed isn't comprehensive, it probs doesn't talk about consent which is really important and also really mandatory ok) and b) unwanted pregnancies! ding ding ding ding!!!

So for me, pro-lifers don't give two shits about all those unborn fetuses. What they care about is people, and in the case of abortion, women, adhering to bizarre gender roles and societal norms that say YOU MUST NOT HAVE SEX FOR FUN EVER. This leaves women with no choice but to either a) stay abstinent or b) run the risk of becoming pregnant (like, I'd think nature made it relatively easy to get pregnant b/c we do have to continue the species somehow). Like, seriously, if you were really against abortion, you'd support things like Planned Parenthood and not things like the Hobby Lobby decision, because the former prevents unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortion.

I DON'T GET WHY THIS IS SO HARD TO GRASP. Like, do you even logically think through your problems? Seriously.

And in the end, if you realize that that is the way to fewer abortions, I would like to say another thing: I'm not writing this post and saying I want the number of abortions to go down b/c I'm pro-life and think abortion is some horrible sin. I'm saying I want the number of abortions to go down b/c I want the number of unwanted pregnancies to go down. I don't want  the number to go down in the pro-life way, meaning I want lots of unwanted children brought into an already overpopulated world. That position doesn't make any sense to me.

yer pal,
swegan

Trigger warnings

PEOPLE'S THOUGHTS ABOUT TRIGGER WARNINGS IN UNIVERSITY CURRICULUMS PISS ME OFF SO MUCH OH MY FUCKING GOD.

"People these days are just too sensitive" they say. No. NO. People these days are just more aware that SOME PEOPLE HAVE LIVED THROUGH TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND DESERVE FAIR WARNING WHEN SOMETHING MAY CAUSE THEM TO RELIVE THOSE EXPERIENCES.

These people are not being sensitive in wanting to be warned before getting into content that may contain triggers for them. Trigger warnings are not about people in general not being able to read about touchy subjects. I am so fed up that people keep insisting that they are.

If you lived through a horrible experience as a child and are now a functioning adult who for the most part is okay but can't handle violence against children in movies or books, and decide "hey I'd like to take a university course on (x)" and that course involves readings that contain depictions or discussions of/about violence against children, that person might not handle it so well, and can you blame them?

This isn't to say that people who have lived through those experiences will all react this way. Perhaps that person has truly moved on from their past and is able to handle reading about things similar to what happened to them. I don't know. I can't speak for all traumatized people ever, but I do understand what trigger warnings are for.

I'm not sure about trigger warnings for things like "red meat," which seem just a little off to me, but then again I don't have an explanation for/against them so I don't really want to have an opinion just yet.

Also, I should mention that I'm lucky enough to have lived life without having lived through a traumatic experience. I've reacted poorly to things like assholes in middle school teasing me relentlessly and being woken up not by a fire alarm but by my mother's screaming (because she has night terrors) in a hotel one time (that fucked me up a little, to the point where I just avoid alarms in general because they freak me out more than they should and make me want to cry and make it hard to sleep), but I wouldn't really qualify those as traumatic experiences. So I guess I'm kind of writing about this to a certain extent from a position of not knowing a lot about trauma.

Anyway. This is really just a definition, and my own anger at people who think trigger warnings mean we're all turning into a bunch of sensitive wusses. I think they do make us sensitive, but sensitive in the way that we acknowledge that bad things happen to people and giving them a chance to not relive or be reminded unnecessarily of those bad things. That's called empathy, and it is a common trait of decent people.

yer pal,
swegan

PARENTS

UGH
I swear I am going through a late teenage rebellion phase. I had my boyfriend over this weekend, and it was very, very awkward. My parents keep saying that everything needs to still be covered up at this point, and keep saying "we're just worried" while continuing to insinuate that if I'm not dating someone marriageable I shouldn't be dating, casually mentioning that a starter-home they went to see on the weekend was $530K and oop, don't you need a husband who can help you pay for that? It's like, jesus fucking christ, I am 18 years old. I am not getting married. I AM NOT GETTING MARRIED. Besides, I am not worried about my future. I am doing well. I am working hard and trying to take advantage of things and keep my head up and that is going fine. I will go good places if I keep this up. I am not worried about myself in the slightest, especially since I have no desire to get married at all for like 5 or 10 years. I'm young! I want to live! Surprisingly, I want to travel! At some point, I'd like to become more independent! And gosh darn it, if I want to be in a relationship with someone who genuinely appreciates me and who I genuinely appreciate, who loves me and whom I love, then I will do so. What I do in my relationships from here on out is nobody's goddamn business except my own. I realize I am 18 and plenty of adults will laugh and think I'm so cute, but we are all 18 once. This is what I want to do with my 18.

Anyway, Ptarckas is home now, but I'm really glad he got to come down. We didn't do much aside from watch movies- he didn't see much of this town, but then again, he was coming to see me, not the city. There was lots and lots of snuggling- we are snuggly people- and many I love yous. He is turning out to be a very good boyfriend for me- we seem to want similar things out of a relationship, we get along really well, and... well, I realize that compatibility isn't exactly what makes or breaks a relationship, but I think some people just click. It even happens with friends- you meet someone who you can talk to all the time, who is always friends with you even when you don't see each other for a long, long time. Obviously it happens in romantic relationships too. We just... work, on some level. That doesn't mean that Ptarckas is the only person in the whole world who clicks with me like that, obviously, and I'm not going to run around saying he's my soul mate because soul mates are bs. I may love very few people in my life, or I may love many. But that's not something I need to worry about right now.

I found myself getting very philosophical this weekend. As I grow, I find I am turning into a very responsible person very fast, someone who uses reason and good sense to remain calm and focused. I'm very happy for that because it means I am rarely unstable. I don't like being unstable

Anyway. This post kind of veered. The original point was, my parents cannot just be happy that I am studying something I love or dating someone I love, there must always be success and support in that. I must make money to be stable, comfortable, settled. I must date only people who I could later marry, and those people must be on the path to being stable, comfortable, settled. And yet I watch all my friends have fun, party, get drunk, go out, live and do crazy things. I don't want to do those things, but my friends are still an inspiration to me. They make me realize that there are other paths out there besides the one I am following, which is the one I have been pushed towards my whole life. They travel, they work, they go to school, and all in a million different orders to study a million different things. It's really awesome to watch as each of them does their own thing, becomes their own person. It makes me want to try and be myself more, whoever I am. I don't get that from my parents, wise as they may seem to be.

yer pal,
swegan

More dreams

This one was a school conference thing. We were waiting outside of a classroom, and for some reason a big mix of parents and kids (myself included, but I think I was my 12 year old self, which should have been the first warning) were going to sit inside. When they opened the doors, it was an exact replica of my seventh grade classroom, except we were coming in through the back, and the lights were off, and it was gray.

For some reason, the other seats filled up, and I went and sat in that seat right up front near the door where I always sat. I was there for two seconds before I started hyperventilating, screaming, and fell on the floor crying. I then proceeded to run from the room, where the voices in my head that were logical turned into my parents saying "why didn't you just sit somewhere else?" and "really, dear, you're making too big a scene out of this" and suddenly I was 18 again. It wasn't horrible, traumatizing, terrible. It just sucked, and I woke up tired.

I'm getting real sick and tired of this shit coming into my dreams. I think it's being home again, when it's so small here and I'm terrified of bumping into them again because we live in the same neighbourhood, the same city. I'm just so afraid of it, I don't want it to happen. I don't want them to remember me, or that I exist, or that I ever existed. I'm ready to be rid of this whole thing and I want it to be done and over and done with.

This was the nice thing about every academic step I took after middle school. First a new high school, one they didn't go to, where I got to start over and meet the best friends I've ever had, friends I am still trying to hang onto and whom I love with all my heart. Next, a university several hundred kilometres away, where finally I felt that I didn't have to worry at all. I forgot about the whole thing for most of this year, actually.

It's weird, because this has never resurfaced this much until this year. I just want to know why. I want to be done.

I think I'm going to go watch some kid's shows and read LBD fanfiction until I feel better. Oh, and make the bed downstairs- Ptarckas is coming to visit tomorrow and I am beyond excited. Hopefully work tomorrow doesn't suck as much (I spent the morning making gels, then one plate broke so I had to redo the whole gel, but I ran the other two, and then ate lunch, and then came back and finished the other one and ran the other two, and then started making five more for tomorrow, two of which decided to crap out, and then I blotted the first one but didn't keep track of which gel was which so then they were useless at the end of the day because they are from different experimental groups, and then I was getting nervous about blotting my second one because these two exchange students in the lab that I hate for honestly no good reason used up ALL THE FUCKING BLOTTING CONTAINERS and I was like srsly why the fuck do u guise need like 4 containers but then luckily someone else finished with theirs and my supervisor was like "no, it's okay, I used to do that all the time too, where you're working fast and all of a sudden you're like...oh no, which one was it?" and just said I can make them again tomorrow. So tomorrow I get to make four more gels, two 12% and two 8%, so let's hope I don't fuck that up, and then run those and blot them along with the other three 8% ones, and then I also have to apply primary and secondary antibodies to the membranes and just UGH IT'S GONNA BE SO ULTRA BUSY) so I won't be quite as grumpy. Although Ptarckas has an excellent effect on my mood, so perhaps if someone in front of me goes 40 the whole way home this time, I won't flip them the bird for extended periods and play my beyonce ultra loudly to try and get across my FUCK YOU SRSLY message. It occurs to me that I am perhaps not the best driver and need to not freak out so much.

yer pal,
swegan :(

On Fitness

I've started riding my bike again lately, and I am trying so hard not to make it into a weight-loss thing. The fact that I am the heaviest I have been in my life (which isn't saying much when we're talking about me anyway so there's no reason to make a big deal out of it) should not influence whether I go biking or not. I just like bike riding, I do. I get to see the city, be outside and surrounded by nature, and get some exercise. I am being very firm with myself that losing weight should not be a motivator in riding my bike. I am still at a healthy weight. I am not unhealthy. I'm not very active, and I can count on one hand the number of strong muscles I have in my body.

But sometimes I feel like though I may be biking also for those myriad other reasons (and it is something I really enjoy as it lets me see the city without using a bunch of gas in my car and having to drive super fast, but I'm still going somewhat fast and I don't get tired as quickly), I am also biking to lose weight. I hate this. I don't want to be obsessed with this. I haven't for most of my life, and I thought that was because I was above all of this, but really it's because I've been stick thin and weeny-tiny all my life until now and I don't know how to handle it.

While BMI may not be the best indicator of health, my mind still fixates on it. For most of my life I have been underweight, just slightly. I am now firmly in the middle of "healthy weight" and it's weird. Given, I was small for most of my life because I was dancing all the time, and because I guess some kids are just like that. I wasn't developed yet, I was very active, and my mom never bought dessert.

I think it was in my last two years of high school that that changed, because I wasn't doing gym class anymore and was spending a lot of time just sitting and studying. Which meant I became pretty smart (and insecurities about intelligence are a completely different topic-- let's just say when you're hanging out with the really, really smart and hardworking kids all the time, you start to feel bad about your own abilities when your grades don't measure up), but also meant that I gained weight. This wasn't a bad thing. I'm not going to say I was unhealthy before, when I was a twig of a girl, but it's not like I was unhealthy after. I just weighed more. That was all. And there wasn't anything wrong with that. I was still healthy.

In my last year of high school, as I'm sure you all know by now given how much IB still rules over my life, I had to find a way to do 50 hours of action activities. That meant like physical activity, not taking action on causes- something which was covered by the 50 service hours I had to complete as well. I ended up taking TRX classes at the gym- something I tried to go back to this summer, but the schedule at that gym has now changed (they used to do punch cards- as in you buy a card, when you show up for a class, they punch your card-- very handy-- but now they do 8 week "sessions" and while I would need something for june-july, there's only may-june and july-august so I meant really I'd be paying for two sessions and only going to half). I really liked TRX- I had actual mucles. In my arms, too, which was really something for me. I also gained about 10 pounds over the course of the year, which I attributed to muscle mass building. I don't actually know if that's accurate or not- I only went to the class for an hour a week, but it was pretty intense. Over the summer I wasn't able to go as often and so the muscles faded.

Over the past year at university I will admit I have been snacking. A lot. I was more concerned about the financial burden at the time, seeing how much money I probably wasted buying those damn hershey's drops, but I think it was a small act of rebellion. My parents- my mom especially- weren't around to police my eating anymore. I could buy snacks whenever I wanted to... and no one could judge me. Mom wasn't around to say "your thighs are so beautiful, you don't want them to get lumpy and ugly" when I was snacking on saturday nights while my roommate was out at the bar. Mom wasn't around to give me judgemental looks and tell me to "be careful with the chips, dear". Mom wasn't around to say "you're growing out now, and not up, so be careful with the chocolate." I get that my mom loves me and that she always will. I get that she will always be proud of me. I get that she will always be there for me. But it just dawned on me now that my desire to lose weight is probably obviously really, really, really tied to my mother.

Because while I realize that she will always love me and support me and be proud of me, I still feel like she would be more proud of me if I was back with my BMI firmly at underweight. Like she wouldn't make these comments. Those comments imply that she thinks I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm doing something wrong, that I'm forever on the cusp of being ugly and I had better be careful, because I'm just about there, and if I don't watch myself, I will be ugly. If I don't watch myself, all I will get are judgemental looks from my mom.

Much as I don't want it to be, my issues with my weight and health are all tied up with my relationship with my mom. I don't want her to comment about this at all. I don't want her to give me looks for eating doritos or chocolate or brownies or ice cream. I don't want her to tell me to "be careful" with food. I don't want her telling me how to eat or how to treat my body. I want that to be left to me.
I want to have a good relationship with my mom, too. I want to be close to her, I want to be able to talk to her about anything, and I want to feel like she loves me and is proud of me. Perhaps I am putting too much weight on these things she says, but they're still really poisonous to me. When she says something like those things, I feel my heart rate increase, my stomach twist into knots, which is exactly the same response I have before writing a hard exam, or the response I had in middle school when I had to interact with those idiot boys who treated me like shit: I get anxious. I get nervous. And being home is hard because of that. I'm always waiting for her to say something.

I just want to feel like my mom isn't judging me for how I eat. I want to feel like she isn't judging me based on how my stomach sticks out now, because I've gained about 10-15 more pounds in the last semester alone (the freshman fifteen is apparently real... although I think it was just me snacking before dinner and then being full and then making myself eat dinner anyway because it was good for me and being way too full like if I just snacked after dinner then that wouldn't have been a problem). Yesterday I wore a purple shirt to my sister's piano recital, a sort of stretchy one that I've had for a few years that hung on my stomach awkwardly. And I was worried that my mom would say something about it. I contemplated not wearing that shirt because I was worried of what my mom would think, of whether she would say "I don't think that shirt is the most flattering shirt on you, dear." But I did wear it, and thankfully, nothing happened (beyond getting insecure at the recital again because a) I can't play piano well anymore and I hate that, b) because now my sister just loves her new piano teacher and everything we ever had to do with the old piano teacher is poisoned, and c) because there were two girls there who just won like all the awards in the universe for piano that the teacher had to tell everyone about and it's like yes that is good for them and obviously they worked hard for it but you're still a little jelly). Mom and I both ate two cupcakes at the recital (albeit, they were tiny ones), and nobody made a big fuss over it. All was well.

I'm just... I'm actually questioning my own motives for wanting to start biking regularly. Is this about weight loss? Should it not be? Does this even matter? Can't I just say I'm doing it for health? But what does that even mean? Doesn't 'doing it for health' imply that weight loss is part of it? What happens if I don't lose any weight despite biking lots over the summer? What if I don't gain a lot of muscle, either? Was it all for nothing? And part of me is starting to think that maybe I should just fucking bike and if anyone tries to say that I'm doing it to lose weight I can tell them to go fuck themselves because my weight is nobody else's business, and I am slowly trying to reclaim it from my mom.

I get it. She's my mom. She worries about me. But seriously, if she wanted to help me out here, she'd stop with the comments.

As for why I can't comment on this to her and ask her to change, one time I said it really sucked being late all the time for school and I mentioned that I blamed mom for it (because seriously, she would say "be in the car by 7:30" and then casually not be in the car until 7:45, making me embarrassed and late all the fucking time) and I was a little rude about it and my mom's response was to act like I was being totally mean and ridiculous and deliberately hurtful and the next morning my dad drove me to school because my mom wouldn't (or at least, that's the impression I got from asking why he was driving me). I felt horrible, tore myself up about it, cried a lot, and then apologized to my mom. She was completely cool about it when I came in, teary eyed and hating myself. She said she wasn't mad about it, and kept a neutral face the whole time. That unsettled me. She was like the popular girl, acting like I was the one making a scene and getting emotional over nothing when she refused to drive me to school. My point is, if I try and confront her about this, she will get defensive, I will get blamed, and my dad will be no help at all because he tends to agree with her. Like a lot. I will feel horrible, apologize, and be made to feel like it wasn't a big deal at all, and nothing will change. It's just not worth it.


I love my mom. I do. We have our moments, there are times when I love spending time with her and feel that she is a source of wisdom and strength. But as I get older I find those moments becoming more and more rare. I hate it. I'm probably exaggerating the story above. Of course my mom is supposed to be perfect and hardworking and admirable, and she is hardworking and admirable and I just want to feel close to her. Maybe this is some kind of delayed teenage rebellion thing. I don't know. It just makes me sick, and I want it to end.

yer pal,
swegan

Everyone is travelling

I am beginning to experience the phenomenon of feeling like your life is sub-par via facebook. Usually this is true for people in their 20s, watching friends get married and start having kids. I just graduated high school last year, so we're not quite at that stage yet, but I do have a couple of friends (3 on facebook, to be exact) who keep travelling places all the time.

Okay seriously I need a nickname for one of these people, as I have been seeing her more and more. TIME TO USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO FIND A WORD AND THEN ALTER IT SO IT SOUNDS GOOD ENOUGH TO USE.

Hmm, it seems I can actually use the name "clara" which is close to one that I think kind of fits. It is odd to think of calling this person clara, but hey, I have a friend on here whom I refer to as "vince" and I have gotten used to that.

So there's a girl whom I knew very well in ninth grade who's spent a whole year in Europe. I think she already had some friends over there to visit, though, which does make travelling easier. But she's been there for the whole entire year and now she's there for the summer with another girl from high school and they look like they are having such a blast and I AM SO JELLY. But swegan! you cry. You just went to Ireland! That's true, I did, and it was awesome, just like it was last year, plus this time we knew what we were doing. I'd go back to Ireland again any day, as conflicted as I am about their stance on abortion and as confused as I am by how the separation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland works. All I know is that my parents told me to not wear orange while we were there, and I can't remember why, so I just didn't bring any orange clothing. Better to play it safe, I suppose, even if I might be totally wrong about this whole orange thing.

Anyway, there's another girl I sort of knew (well, I'm facebook friends with her, so I knew her well enough to add her) who's spent her entire year on a student exchange in Brazil. She hasn't posted quite as many photos, but she seems to be having the time of her life as well, and again, JELLY. SO JELLY. (Gah, I sound like ptarckas when I type WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME MAKE IT STOP).

And then there's Clara, who went on a trip I think in high school with a tour company, and I think she's been on one or two more since then. They're very short trips but she got to go to Switzerland and JUST I WANT TO GO TO SWITZERLAND SO BADLY OH MY GOD, so yes, JELLY.

I feel like it is almost expected of me at this age that at some point I will travel to find myself. Or just travel to see the world. I think I already have a pretty good idea of who I am, and I've already been lots of places (something for which I consider myself insanely lucky). I do actually have a trip I'd like to do, and it's one my parents took us on before to visit old friends in Oregon they'd gone to school with. We stopped somewhere in BC for a wedding on our way over to Vancouver, then Victoria Island where we visited some friends (that is where I first learned the magic of guacamole on a sandwich). Then we took a ferry down into the states and drove through I think Olympia on our way down the coast. I can't remember where we stopped and stayed once we got into the states, just that we went down the Oregon coast and oh my stars, it was gorgeous. Somewhere along there, I learned how good clam chowder was, too, and then we got to Portland, which actually seems like a really cool city (and now that I hear more about it, very hipster-y, which I'm not sure is entirely good or bad). On the way back up we didn't go by the coast again, but we went through Spokane and did back-to-school shopping, since, as always, there are stores in the US with way better selection and jeans that actually fit me at the time, and I think it was cheaper because we didn't pay taxes (and it wasn't a pain like not paying taxes in Europe, where you have to fill out forms and stick receipts in envelopes and show your purchases at customs which is a pain since then you can't pack them in your suitcase like srsly Europe what the butt).

I'd change a few things about this trip. Firstly, I'd like it to take more than three weeks- not that that was a short time period, but that in order to do the trip I want I would need more time. I'd go down the Oregon coast again, the same way (stopping in Okanagan valley, maybe heading over to Victoria Island, etc) but this time I would stay longer, do more hikes, take more pictures, explore more (and eat more clam chowder, for the love of god). I don't know if I would visit Portland again, maybe. Whenever I think of Portland I just think of the cupcake place and the used bookstores (where I got a couple of books I have reread many times). That is Portland to me. After Oregon, I'd head into California, because in all honesty I actually do want to visit California. I really want to see the redwoods, Big Sur and Yosemite. And San Francisco, because that actually seems like a very cool city. I don't know how much farther south I'd want to go, nor how we'd get back from such a long trip. You can't drive the same way again, that is boring, but I fear that going inwards means hitting a bunch of desert and I can barely stand driving through Saskatchewan sometimes, so I don't know how I'd handle the desert. At least Saskatchewan sometimes has hills (and even trees!) when we drive through to Regina and Saskatoon and sometimes Moose Jaw (and eventually, Indian Head- which I thought more people would know about as a kid since it was plainly obvious to me as we went through there every time we visited my grandparents). Anyway, my point is that it would probably scare me and I'd worry about the car breaking down in the middle of nowhere and just... yeah. I have no great desire to visit anywhere that is a desert (is that where the word "deserted" comes from? Or is it the other way around?).

On that note, Saskatchewan is actually really pretty, for as much as I complain about driving through it. Sometimes it just gets so desolate, and there's no civilization for hours and hours and hours and oh my god, the one time my dad let me drive in Saskatchewan was the worst. There was a grain elevator in the distance, and I could see it, but it never seemed to be getting closer, and the sun was hot and the road was hazy and painfully straight and I just kept almost dozing off... driving there is hard. Like really, really hard. But then I remember my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and standing outside the old round barn just outside of Indian Head and watching the sun set, and let me tell you, there is nothing like a sunset in Saskatchewan. You can see everything. It's really beautiful.
My dad once said to me that he finds it sort of irritating the way people go on and on about the natural beauty of mountain wilderness and how it needs to be protected. "I think that they're right to protect it," he said, "but I happen to think the prairies are very beautiful and that they also need to be protected." (I'm paraphrasing, this was a long time ago). I've never forgotten that. My heart may be in the mountains, but my soul (if I have one, which is a discussion for another time) is on the prairies. I've always thought that that was the most succinct way of describing it.

anyway. I actually have a desire to travel now, which is really something. But for now, I'm just here, waiting for my lab job to begin (it was supposed to start Wednesday but then the lady who runs the lab (who is the one hiring me) is the only one who knows where she wants me to work and who I am working with and what I will be doing and she hasn't emailed me back. I don't know when to go in to start work. She did just get back from a trip, but that was (supposedly) on Tuesday night, and I've emailed her three times since then. Nothing. I don't want to just go in and sit around all day, but I really want to do something other than sit around and watch movies this summer. I'm starting to fear that this job will never materialize, that I will never hear back, not even if I go into the lab and sit there all day waiting for her to show up (which I really don't want to do but may have to resort to soon if I don't hear back). I feel very useless just sitting at home. I think if I don't hear from her by... well, probably by Monday or Tuesday, I'm going to have to just go sit in the lab all day. Bring a book or two, settle in, and wait. She has to show up eventually, and then I can find out if I still have this job or if something has come up and I'll be working in dad's office all summer). Sigh.

yer pal,
swegan