#mostly because if you actually looked at the behaviour and positions of so called 'sjws'

[honestlyvan]

This feels exactly equivalent to my experience during the height of GamerGate. I got away from my social circles that aggressively went for GG for perceived slights and tried to find new circles to hang out in, only for those spaces to target me for being the wrong kind of queer and wrong kind of mentally ill. Being “anti-GamerGate” was not a coherent position, partially because GamerGate did not have coherent positions to be anti against, but a big part of it was people who were spiteful and angry realising that there was now a socially acceptable group for them to target all of that spite at. And in a mindset like that, when you’re not winning, everyone is miserable.

Being against one obviously reactionary position doesn’t mean someone isn’t also a different kind of reactionary.

Man, not to keep beating a dead horse but that whole "proship also means anti-harassment!!" thing really does feel like a slap to the face for proshippers who have been horribly harassed by other people in this community, especially for talking about things like bigotry.

Like I get the idea but the simple fact of the matter is that there's a lot of proshippers who are terrible people, who are transmeds and terfs and white supremacists and just generally assholes in a lot of ways and who DO harass people, and denying that isn't making our communities safer, it's just burying our heads in the sand.

[londemsadventures-blog]

June 1st -17th, 2018: Almost up to date!

So the first few days of June fell towards the end of the mid term break. It was in this time that I saw another show in Richmond. It was the second in a row that was set in a kitchen. This one was not as good, mostly because we were definitely not the target audience. It was for the middle (to recently retired) age upper class. It took Hannah telling me at interval that it was meant to comedy for me to realise it wasn’t just straight drama. It was then that I noticed that I didn’t find any of the jokes funny because they were at the expense of the outrageous, gay, SJW milenial character or the character who was dealing with mental health issues and acted ‘crazy’. But it was great being in Richmond, on the way back to train station I saw a bread shop that sold loaves that looked delicious and similar to ones I’d bought before. Funnily enough, after buying some spelt pumpkin seed bread (*drools*) I saw the back and realised that it was the same chain bakery. I went home that afternoon and then got to smash at the ice in our freezer as we were defrosting it. It was a nice productive weekend.

Then on the 4th it was back to school (for the last 7 weeks of the academic year). I went into my trial day with confidence and delivered my lesson with enthusiasm (we read the book that was super descriptive and then I had students come up with their own adjectives and adverbs for a character of their own creation, which they then got to draw). I had one class for the whole day as the teacher was absent. I even got to go with them when they went swimming in the afternoon (with many other TAs, but still not a lot of supply teachers get to actually take students outside of the school). I didn’t have people observe me for long, Two people were in while I read the book but I was later talking to one of them and he assured me that he was actually there observing the students (but had told me how wonderful I had been with the students and passed on the compliments to the Tom, person in charge of hiring). Tom also came into my class during the lesson, but he just asked what the lesson plan was, walked around looking at the student’s books and then left. I felt pretty confident with the day, even having to leave a note at the office saying that I suspected one of the girls in the class had chickenpox, and hoped for the best. Which I found out that Wednesday the 6th, had come up all ways Emma. I had been offered a position in year 4 teaching the same children I had taken during my trials, and would start the 3rd of September! So everything kind of improved knowing that I would only have to have 7 more weeks of supply. It got even better when I was told that a close school to me which I liked, despite working in Early Years, had requested me to work with them every Thursday until the end of term. As it stand now, there are only 20 more days left of supply where I do not know where I’m going!

I attended another Aussie’s in London drinks night, this one not being as successful as the first, with Hannah, Gavin and I calling it a night by 10pm. But the drinks were cheap and inventive. I tried a popcorn flavoured daquiri. It tasted very strongly of rum, but the popcorn syrup was nice. It was nice to go out, but hopefully the next social will be a bit more social than this one was.

The last greatest thing to happen was that Kat and her family came to visit! Not me specifically, but after having flying out to LA to see Kat graduate, the 3 decided to visit Kat’s brother in Manchester and spend a weekend down in London. And I just have to say, that seeing them (for I hadn’t seen Kat in 2 years) was so wonderful and unreal that I was close to tears many times over the weekend. The familiarity of these people (who I view as my surrogate family), and playing board games before going out was spectacular. We spent the Saturday afternoon and evening at Camden Markets, and had a delicious turkish banquet back at their rented digs. The next day they invited me to join them on a discover london scavenger hunt (which I will be doing many of their other ones) where I had an absolute ball. We said goodbye to her parents who had to leave earlier than Kat and Lolly as they were driving back to Manchester, and I stuck around with the 2 girls until they had to board their train. I had my first London sushi (which pales in comparison to Aussie sushi) and we chatted about all manner of things. It was difficult to watch them go, made worse by my anxiety returning because I had been out all weekend and had not done any of my usual weekend routine which involves prepping the week’s lunches and getting all my laundry completed. But I’d do it all again just to see Kat.

This last week has been pretty uneventful. I was asked to go to a local school I had never been to before. I made a comment upon arrival that I would love to come back whenever possible just because of the school’s proximity. I was then asked to come back the next 2 days as the teacher was still absent and they wanted continuity. The classes I took weren’t the best, but being able to sleep in and leave at 8am makes dealing with them worth it. Due to being so close to home, I have also been able to start exercising again (not just relying on walking everywhere as my daily exercise) and play Harvey for an hour or so a couple of afternoons this week. I was also super lucky that on Friday, my 5 month anniversary in London, I was asked to go a new school that’s pretty far away. I had originally been booked at one of my regular schools (but with a class that is very behaviourally disruptive and extremely exhausting) and because this school was further away I was offered more pay to go as I am the closest person to this school. And boy am I gad that I went. First off, the school is newly built, so it is one level and really modern, but big classrooms. Secondly, I had year 6s who were absolutely lovely and very engaging to speak with. Lastly, the day was super cruisy and enjoyable. The students were studying The Hunger Games, so my first 30mins was to read the book with them. Then the next 30mins was to go through a slide and give them time to prepare for their big write. This would occur over 2 hours of the day (giving me nothing to do except continue to read on in the book, as I was not meant to help/guide the students during their writing time). Then after lunch the students had to come up with a skit to perform at their school’s leaver’s assembly and then I had to help them write the script. The last 40 mins of the day was watching them play dodgeball, as the sports coach had been asked to plan a P.E lesson so that I didn’t have to. And on top of all of this, the only work to have been completed was the Big Write, which I had been told not to mark. So as soon as the students had left and I had left a note telling the teacher how the day had gone, I was off home. And when I got home I ended up continuing to read The Hunger Games on my Kobo for a couple of hours (finishing it and then starting from the start). Once I had read and rested I was able to get up enough energy to do that day’s work out. And then I had a lazy berry smoothie for dinner while chatting with Emma for a few hours as well. It was a nice was to spend my 5 months in London, not doing anything spectacular, just having a nice night.

And then this weekend had been a do nothing weekend while I rest up from starting up working out, which has left me still and sore and hardly able to move haha. Now that I am caught up, I will try to keep updating this blog every week or fortnight, depending on what’s happening in my life. I don’t have many plans for the rest of the month at the moment, so it may be a while before I have something blog-worthy.

But there you go people, the last 5 months of my life in London. Enjoy :)