novelplanes

[novelplanes]

No, it absofuckinlutely isn’t.

Being selfish about my own happiness is both the start and the end of honestly being happy.

“It is impossible to be both selfish and happy.”

— Joyce Meyer (via quotemadness)

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“The best gift you are ever going to give someone - the permission to feel safe in their own skin. To feel worthy. To feel like they are enough.”

— Hannah Brechner (via purplebuddhaquotes)

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“Loneliness does not come from having no people around, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.”

— Carl Jung (via purplebuddhaquotes)

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8 Tips for Having a Low Stress Life 1. Simplify – your time, your stuff, your social life. 2. Live in the moment. 3. Practice gratitude. 4. Take control of the thoughts that pull you back into the past. 5. Stop the anxious thoughts about “what next”, and of your future. 6. Practice getting comfortable with saying “no”. 7. Don’t worry about others, and what they think of you. 8. Do your best, then relax, and avoid perfectionism.

(via purplebuddhaquotes)

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if you see someone being interrupted in a conversation, acknowledge them, don’t let them be pushed to the side. if you see someone lagging behind, walk beside them. if someone is being ignored, take the step to include them. always remind people of their worth. it hurts when it feels like you’re being forgotten. that small gesture can mean a lot.

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I’m feeling a little bit impotent at the moment. I hate even writing that, but it’s honest at the very least. I’m having a frustrating time with some of my students at the moment because they’re too comfortable and resenting that I’m being harder on them the more they act out and are rude during class. I used to have a good relationship with some of the students, so it’s more than a little disappointing.  Others I’ve never had a good relationship with - some with malice, some without - I know at least one looks down on me for not being Korean.  I’ve tried to meet students in the middle and speak Korean with them, but a few of them assume that because I can sound like an idiot when I speak my second language and make mistakes means that I am stupid, full-stop, which is SO frustrating.  And it’s my fault, I’ll admit, because I’ve tried a teaching approach that doesn’t suit me or my abilities.  I can’t give detailed explanations of English grammar in rapid-fire Korean like a Korean instructor could (despite making half-decent attempts) and I dislike giving translation homework, actually, because it leaves out a lot of naunces to English and it’s constantly forcing students back to thinking in Korean rather than moving away from it so students can learn and think in English.  So these are methods that are obviously not working for me..... but the alternative? The alternative is something new and untried and a lot of additional work that I’m not sure I have the fortitude, time, nor good health to conquer.  Nor something that I’m completely convinced will work on a limited schedule and within the constraints of how Koreans approach education. Korean students are used to “tiger teachers” and anything less they tend not to take seriously.  And THAT could cause a lot of problems.  

But.... It’s a confidence thing as well. In order to feel good about myself it’s something that I think I’ll have to push forward and do.  A fully English classroom (starting from Level 03, I think) that requires students to think, speak, read, and write in only English.  I’ll have to keep researching as I do so because I actually have a dream for students to progress under the common european framework for language and succeed. But, like I said, it’s very limited and not all our students are destined for English-focused careers. Most of them just need it until high school graduation. So, a happy balance will have to found there as well.  

So I’ll have to change as well.  Perhaps I need to dredge out my old professional wear (or a happy hybrid of it) or a decent wardrobe update of chiffon and curls to put myself in a more professional mindset as well.  There has to a certain degree of closeness and trust with a teacher for a classroom to function well, but I think most of my classes would benefit with some distance and a more sedate, structured atmosphere.  

Because while I can understand why our standards have gone lax over the past ten months or so (because I’m bloody, bone-deep exhausted and constantly sick and overwhelmed with all the stuff I must do work or otherwise), I don’t think I can let it continue without feeling badly about myself and my capabilities. 

The second part, of course, is that while I love my husband... he’s been pissing me off lately, too. He’s been both doting and caring and then selfish and dismissive and I really can’t keep up with him.  Take this week for example: He spent all day Wednesday looking irritable, sighing, and telling me “later” when I would come up to ask him something about work or just to give him a quick hug.  Then he went out drinking with his friends after work. He was hungover the next day even though we had to go to his parents house the next morning.  He then went to bed there (but didn’t actually sleep, just did stuff on his phone) and left me to fend for myself with his family and the language barrier.  When I went to bed, he got up.  When he came back to bed, I got up. Vice versa. We hardly talked and it was constantly met with “later” and “I don’t want to talk right now” and “not now”. The same thing happened today. And he was sweet for a quick second, but as soon as we got home he was dismissive again when I tried talking to him about a problem with one of our students, sighing, and trying to avoid the conversation, only looking at the television screen and then turning on his PS4.  (And now he’s upset that I’m in the other room and don’t want to watch tv with him now that he’s done playing games and wants company. Too bad, I say. And I don’t plan on sticking around tomorrow either.)  We’re been so excited about starting a family this year, but he didn’t even bother with a valentine’s day present or card, he’s ignored me for the better part of three days, and on top of this I’m sick with a cold... but guess who still had to get by without help? So.... 

That feeling of impotence again. 

[novelplanes]

I did something super nerdy, and it’s made my nerdy little heart happy.  I spent about a week during NaNo 2017 writing fanfic because I got so annoyed with my original project that I needed a brain break. Weeeellll I decided to delete most of it (shudder), but there was a particular scene that I liked that seemed like a waste not to post.... So two months later, here I am.  

And it’s gone over surprisingly really well??

Like, maybe I’ll have to keep this up and actually write a multi-chapter story? 

I’m being so gleeful about this it’s making me laugh. 

[novelplanes]

[novelplanes]

Montmartre | jacquicole

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[novelplanes]

“Trying to be a superhero“▪ Caity Lotz

[novelplanes]

A middle schooler asked us for a book recommendation, and my husband - who equated small with easy - picked the thinnest novel from my bookshelf and gave it to him to read. 

... And it just so happened to be a short story by the name of “The Grownup” by Gillian Flynn..... which is a story about an unnamed sex worker who is trying to ‘break in to the psychic business’ after developing severe carpal tunnel in her wrist from giving so many hand jobs. Literally the entire first page is about giving hand jobs and comparing it to a golf swing and how good she was at it.  

Now imagine...... This boy starts reading it, gets confused, and tentatively asks my husband what some of these words mean.  Cue my husband getting the book back and looking it over. 

This situation is already hilarious/embarrassing, but there’s more.

I didn’t know this was going on.  

Not until my husband burst through the door with this book in his hand and goes “what kind of books are you reading!?” not accusingly, but more as though his entire world has just shifted on his axis and he doesn’t know up from down anymore. 

My husband thinks reading novels is boring and he also thinks I’m incredibly sweet.  I guess he assumed I was reading innocent, dull books throughout our entire marriage. You can’t imagine how funny I find this. Not when I have writers like Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Agatha Christie, and Poe lining more than half of my shelves.  

I laughed so hard I cried. My poor husband. 

Unfortunately, my husband still thinks it’s just a book about sex (it’s not) and unfortunately so does said middle-school student.  I’m honestly not sure what’s better: if he thinks I read sexy romance novels, or finding out I like reading twisty and/or gory whodunnits in my free time. 

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JH: Do we have any more pepsi?

Me: (without thinking, so it’s all slurred together) Nah, this's all we got.

JH: ...

Me: ... (covers mouth in surprise) ... !

Me: ... Oh, man. That was really American sounding, wasn't it? 

* My accent has really changed a lot since moving abroad, but sometimes it sneaks back in and surprises me. haha 

* * After this, my husband admitted that he sometimes forgets I’m American until something like this happens and then he goes, “yup, there it is. The American™ surfaces once again.” 

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Don’t let tumblr make you think it’s okay to

Lose the newborn antichrist 

Spend 11 years mentoring the wrong child with your supposed enemy 

Hypnotize a Satanic Nun

Turn fake guns into real guns

Sit moping about organizing your Soul music CDs while you wait for Hell to come beat your ass

Drop a bucket of holy water on a Satanic Duke

Drive across the M25 while your car is on fire

Stand around being useless while the antichrist saves the world

[novelplanes]

Lovely.

[novelplanes]

We went to the bank today, and while we were wrapping everything up, the clerk hesitantly asked my husband if I'd understood everything because I hadn't said anything. And I, an almost 30 year old professional, complete in professional clothes, curls, and heels, had to sheepishly reply in Korean, "er, no I could understand you. I was just.. er, I'm just really sleepy." SLEEPY. I said that with my own mouth. "OTL. 

[novelplanes]

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read through my incredibly long post and, while I know it was quite silly at times, you know, the kind of fluffy and unimportant drivel us women love to read and write about, it was incredibly therapeutic for me. I wrote it for my sake, but I left it public on the off chance it might help someone else out and because it actually felt damn good to get it out. I didn’t actually think a troll (multiple trolls, even!) would take the time to actually emerge from under their bridges to reblog and add their dissenting voices to my post. How very, very (un)surprising.

Now.

Before I get started, there’s a few things I would like say.

I noticed that some of you don't have your comments turned on and that seemed a bit off to me considering you like to dish out a lot of criticism about a tag you are so obviously trolling, but it doesn't seem like you're quite up to task when it comes to getting back replies and actually having to face the people you insult. Bit shady, that.  To the troll that actually does have his comments turned on, thank you at the least for the courtesy if absolutely nothing else.

As for your comment about being too simple to comprehend the paradox that would occur if I somehow miraculously could travel back in time to warn my mother off my father (?) - and all women against all men and somehow either create an asexual reproducing matriarchy(??) or potentially cause the universe to invert and even possibility collapse because I find catcalling and street harassment offensive(???) - Well, first off I would like to point out that an ontological paradox is workable if you know you’re way I around it (and I do).  However, if it’s the grandfather paradox that you’re suggesting, I wouldn’t do a half-ass job of it by starting with my parents - Oh no, it would have to be completely reworked from primordial times. But then  women wouldn’t even be able to appreciate how good they have it because men never would have existed in the first place. So, yes, I’m sure whichever universe did manage to score a self-reproducing matriarchy probably would thank me (and then probably obliterate me from existence but hey- win win, if you ask me). So I may be a powerful, almost-but-not-paradox-creating-parallel-universe-contaminating feminist, but that would make you.... a incompetent troll who couldn’t even stammer through a logical and rather simple comparison discerning two vastly different and unrelated topics?

Secondly, if I had both the ability to time travel and destablize universes to suit my needs, paradoxes be damned, I would be much more interested in capitalizing on that and gaming the system in my favor than interfering with - of all the silly things! - the love lives of other people. That’s remarkable small-minded. Besides, I rather like my parents. I also wouldn’t have to deal with people like you if I could control the universe and... well,  on a lesser note, now that I think about, delayed public transportation. But that’s another story all together. Let’s deal with one little annoyance at a time, shall we?

Besides, I wouldn't want to get rid of men. How strange! There's quite a few I like after all, male friends and co-workers and gasp! love even, such as my husband and my brothers, uncles, and dad - Just shitty humans (like yourself) who like to make fun of rape survivors and make silly arguments about paradoxes and point out their own stupidity by asking “what? There’s a way to approach woman *without* making them wonder if this is a potential creep and/or killer? Gee jolly! What news!”  You seemed to miss that in my post the first time around (I’m assuming because you were so eager to get to the next paragraph and because feminism is such a complicated concept to get through), that I didn’t say “all men” were terrible. It’s convenient, however, and very efficient of you, actually, to have sorting yourself in that group of undesirables within the male category.  Real time saver, that.

Maybe it’s just because I have the privilege of knowing several exceptional men that it leaves me bitterly disappointed when so many find it absolutely difficult to scrounge up the smallest human decency, respect, and awareness of self when dealing with people who have - historically and statistically speaking - remain in position of vulnerability and oppression and might have a reason to fear you. It’s also, partially, because I have known so many fabulous women who have been assaulted or demeaned by others (usually men) who honestly were much less qualified than them and also absolutely the last people on earth who should be judging others’ appearances or personalities for not being up to par.

And since you were so eager to explain the concept of paradoxes to me, I would like to repay the favor my explaining “How To Ask a Woman On A Date Without Making Her Check Her Purse For Mace” to you since this is a baffling, important concept to trolls everywhere.  

There’s such a thing as being introduced through friends, or -heck, being friends first! - or being co-workers, or partners in class, or online dating where we can check each other’s profile first - All of which give both parties a chance to verify a person’s character before meeting up with them alone and a chance to avoid murder and rejection (take a wild guess which might be worse).  If you’re trying to tell me that that catcalling “limits your options” (which just wow) or “How else am I suppose to get a woman to notice me if I don’t harass her on the street a little?” (woooow) .... then I think that you might need to take a remedial course. Or, you know, turn your affections on to your own special breed of troll where it might be seen as more appropriate and even welcome! Since that’s apparently how relationships should work in your head. But I suppose I’m expecting a little too much from someone who searches online for recovering victims and survivors of violence (and people like me, who have triggers where I’ve had nightmares and insomnia all week trying to deal with bad memories because some piss-ant decided to impress his friends and follow and grab me when I rejected his catcalls... only to deal with your nonsensical bullshit on my blog), aren’t I?

Don’t hide behind the excuse of me being a “misandrist” because, honestly, your behavior is an insult to good men everywhere. I’ve known much better men that you, and I don’t hate you and men like you because you happen to have a dick between your legs - that’s an oversimplification that has nothing to do with the shitty behavior and attitude that truly does piss me off - I hate you because you are despicable humans.

Please, please, please don’t ever catcall. Don’t follow us. Don’t talk to us. Don’t approach us when we’re alone even if it’s in a crowded place - we don’t know you, so honestly you can’t take offense if we treat you like a potential threat. Your actions - your privilege - is already a threat. And I know some men get off on that, as messed up as that is, knowing that he is inflicting power over somebody else by getting in to their space and taking it away, knowing he can affect people who  would otherwise never interact with him.  And nothing pleases me more when someone reclaims their space against him, shoving back against his influence and reducing that man to his true size. I’m angry and hardened enough to want that, but I know that is so often not the case.

Just don’t do it. Don’t encourage it. Don’t be quiet about it. Don’t let your friends or co-workers do it.

And I’ve known enough toxic people in my life whom I know would say not to make a deal out of it. That I’m being to sensitive. That you can just ignore it. That you can tell the guy off. That I should go out at a different time of day, or a different part of town, or not be alone. That that person is just stupid and boys will be boys and that I should be better, I shouldn’t lower myself to react. But please don’t make his behavior - and behavior of men like him - my responsibility. It’s most certainly not. I was just existing in my day, walking from cafe to a pretzel stand to the train station, content and anonymous on the crowded sidewalk, and then I was ripped out of it by them. What he chooses to do is not my fault and he should be held responsible and reprimanded for his behavior, so do not redress me for it.  It wasn’t my poor choice of time, or dress, or location that caused this behavior. He is not restricted by the same limitations and restrictions your kindly suggest to put on me - Even if I tried to limit myself, I’m not safe anytime or anywhere or in any clothes because he still has freedom of mobility. And I refuse to give up my free agency - and do you realize that is what you’re asking me do with your kind suggestions?

Because this is not me just being sensitive.  You think that I’m exaggerating, and because maybe it’s the first time you’ve heard about it and you’ve never experienced being victim and a survivor in any context you could coordinate with what I’m trying to tell you. There’s a difference between ignorant and willing to learn and choosing to be ignorant, so please believe me that this is not the first punch or the first dent in my armor. I’m almost thirty, and my armor has smears of my own blood on it, it has the cum of the man who flashed me on the sidewalk, or the one that followed me home, pulled down his pants, and touched himself while I shakily with terror and fury and vulnerability pressed in my key code as fast as I could, it has holes and dents from hundreds of small conflicts - being catcalled and grabbed on the sidewalk, at the bar, at the park, on the train, at a cafe, in the - - and all the nonviolent incidents, of being overlooked, dismissed, or reprimanded for being a woman or not enough of one or too much of one, as if my shape should be a predetermined thing but really it’s a game we’re being told to play and one in which we can never win, where the winning combination is constantly changing and changing so contradictingly fast, and one where we penalized for losing - or places where the armor is completely broken through - the drunk best friend of my brother coming in to my room when I was teenager, asleep in my bed - or 21, asking him to stop because I didn’t want to go that far and him not stopping -   believe me when I say this is the hundredth moment or maybe the two hundredth or more, I can no longer keep count and I consider myself a very normal, average woman who has had a very average life that has never been too terrible or too great, and I am by no means the exception or the outlier, but I am the median and I am the norm,  that this conflict has been compounded by dozens of others. And yes, it affects me, deeply, because if this situation was reversed, it would be crazier if you remained unaffected by such prolonged violence against your gender than not.  Even if it my body doesn’t hurt, my soul is limping and scarred. This continued situation benefits not me, nor my sisters, nor anyone that I hold dear. I don’t want my future sons crippled by the idea that their masculinity is tied in to how powerless they can make others feel, how they must inflict themselves on others to have a sense of self, to be the loudest, the strongest, the toughest, and resistant to the fact that they too have a soul that can ache and hurt and soar.

Because yesterday I was covered from head to foot, a jacket over a turtleneck, only my hands and my head bared. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon surrounded by dozens and dozens of other pedestrians. It had been, not a wonderful, but a relaxing day, of buying books and reading them at a cafe for a couple hours, and I was soft and vulnerable within myself having spent so much time in my own head, in my own space, and I was content and anonymous in the crowds, safe, I thought - until I saw a group of boys out of the corner of my eyes and the alarm that is so well-tuned and well-used that is connected to every nerve and muscle in my body was set off, back straightening and muscles tensing and heart racing, as I knew a conflict - an infringement and batterment of my space was about to happen.  A shove. A whistle. A howl, pretending to salivate, and shouting as they gained courage from the noise their friends were making, making them bolder. I felt heat in my cheeks, because there were so many people around us, and it was humiliating. My hands shook, and I was suddenly being forced to make a choice and consider how scenarios might play out and I hated that I was being forced to make a choice, that I was being forced into this situation, forced in to putting up a shield and being this person. I contemplated turning around and stomping back to them, getting in their face and telling them off. I thought about just throwing a middle finger over my shoulder. I thought about simply stopping and staring them down to make them as uncomfortable as I felt.  I only had a split second to decide - all i wanted to do was curl in to myself and hurry away, but that was not an option - and I ended up giving them the nastiest look I could manage, teeth bared in a full blown sneer, one corner pulled up further than the other, and violently turning away from them and continuing on my way. My hands were still shaking, even as I bought pretzels and managed a feeble smile at the cashier, and dreaded, because I had to go back the way I came in order to get to the train station.  I tried to call my husband, but there was no answer.  So I steeled myself and chose the opposite side of the street, hoping they were already gone or at least not willing to approach me again. But how fragile male egos are, and I had already belittled and dismissed them in front of the same crowds they had tried to humiliate me in front of (however misguided their idea of a ‘compliment’ might be).  One ducked and maneuvered through the crowded stream of people dividing the cement outer sidewalks, and I only vaguely registered him out of the corner of my eye as I struggled to put the pretzels away in my purse where they wouldn’t get wet.  He tried to grab me.  He said something I didn’t catch, and gave a hunched bowed as I flinched away from him and caught completely off guard - and I knew he was simultaneously afraid of me, afraid of what he was doing despite the fact that he was currently carrying it out, and trying to gain back some of his injured pride by taking away mine- before he turned tail and disappeared back to where his friends must be. I didn’t try to find him.  I ran away, too, hating myself because there were a million different ways I wish I would have handled being a victim (again) that I didn’t - I wish I would’ve raged, I wish I would’ve gone back and threatened to cut off their balls, I wish I would have grabbed his shirt and pulled him in close, promising him retribution and truly cementing a terror in him of ever catcalling a woman again, but my eyesight was already blurred with tears, I hated being forced in to this situation, I hated that I felt guilty for not reacting more strongly, that I felt dirty, and vulnerable, and the trauma of so many different conflicts like this and worse that had already left their scars - and I was completely leveled. I know this situation by itself seems innocuous. But the ramifications are too much. Because I have tried so hard to rebuild myself and survive the damage of previous assaults, and the fact that it came out of nowhere and I had no control over it - It kills me. I worked so hard. So, so fucking hard and these little pissants that would probably forget about it in ten minutes or laugh about it in their cups tonight fucking undid months and months of hard work.

And thank god for my husband. Who called back later and was so pissed off on my behalf and soothed me as I tried not to cry again, telling me without prompting that it wasn’t my fault and that I wasn’t responsible to act any certain way.