#something similar is happening to our healthcare system too

[awkward-teabag]

Love (cannot emphasis how much sarcasm there is in that word) that an official Canadian government response to high cellphone rates is to switch carriers.

Switch it to what? We basically have three companies since one was allowed to eat the forth (with the government saying it wasn't anti-competition and the company eating the other pinky promising they wouldn't jack rates up). Even the smaller companies have to rent infrastructure from the Big Three so there's only so much they can do if that rent costs an arm and a leg.

And that's not touching on how many "small companies" are actually just subsidiaries of the Big Three. You may save $5 but you're still with Telus/Rogers/Bell.

Or that the actual small companies tend to have shit coverage because they don't have the infrastructure available to them and are prevented from getting it. Or their traffic is throttled in favour of the Big Three's customers. Or both.

Or that they're extremely regional thus aren't an option for a huge chunk of Canada's population.

We have no true options and the government has shown time and again that they're fine with monopolies, in multiple industries, and don't care when said monopolies jack up prices to make shareholders and the c-suite more money at the expense of everyone else. At most there will be a verbal slap on the wrist and a giftcard for $25 that people have to register for, for a decade and a half of price gouging.

It's not talked a whole lot about outside the country from what I've seen and heard but Canada is a country of monopolies. A handful of companies own nearly everything, every province has a family or two that owns a hell of a lot (Nova Scotia is basically owned by one family at this point), and our government ignores it. Even the branch that is supposed to be against monopolies is fine with mergers and takeovers in most cases.

Because, you know, the company said it totally wouldn't use consumers' lack of options to increase prices.

[ehh-is-the-name]

Time for hfjone society rant again

Now this has been brewing in my mind since early ii s2 eps, but this post specifically is directed more towards ONE.

Object prejudice is probably a thing, right? Object racism- ableism, whatever you wanna call it, I feel like it's gotta be real.

I could totally see someone being like "Well you can't do that, you're too fragile" or "Glass objects are always so sensitive" or even straight up having signs for specific objects to not be allowed places (and it's not for their safety).

Especially if ONE is a lot like Earth. I mean, they've got the Golden Gate Bridge, California, the US as a whole, and France- if they have different countries then they probably follow at least a similar history. And if they follow a similar history... Well, that'd mean object slavery was a thing, right??? We already know they've got capitalism, with Bryce stuck in a fast food place living unfulfilled, Liam being a telemarketer of all things, Charlotte having to deal with the healthcare system, and Oscar is literally in a homeless shelter. And we gotta be honest with ourselves, capitalism is the reason people bought slaves--it's cheap labour for more profit. So if capitalism exists to this degree, and countries too, and we know that the earth our main protags come from is supposed to be a reflection of our earth, then it's not completely outta line to think that there would be object prejudice.

But if object prejudice is a thing, what objects are being marginalised? Fragile objects? Limbless objects? Organic objects?? Damaged objects???? I like to think that all types of objects would've been around for long enough for systemic prejudices to not be a problem, but all of this does suggest there's something going on there. Then more questions are raised if all of this is lining up, like Was there an object holocaust? Object eugenics? Object 9/11???

What kind of objects were oppressed because of that? Would it be based more on language because every object could be found everywhere? Would a prejudice object just be like: "All objects from ____ are evil and they should not be allowed into my country!" But to know about objects from ____ they would have to hear them speak, or see their passport or something.

I think these questions are getting out of hand... But it feels sorta wrong to say nothing happened in NYC on September 11th, 2001 in the hfjone universe. It feels like erasure? Like I'm doing a disservice to those who would've been affected by object 9/11. Yeah, I'll take a step back, I'm probably thinking too hard about this one.

Maybe there are object sociologists who know what the fuck is going on 'cause I don't.

[seeminglyseph]

listening to a podcast discuss The Orphanage and it keeps bringing up like. "It's sad enough that they're dead orphans, why are they also disabled??"

And I keep feeling like. I get. technically. that the film being a weird tragic horror film where like everyone dies basically and there's a bunch of like. dead disabled orphan children. which is really like both sad and off-putting in multiple ways in the film like. it prompts the question of 'why?'

but like. part of the point is like 'who are the most vulnerable people in society?' as well as 'who is most frequently villainized in horror movies?' because like. initially in the movie it impression of the disfigured and disabled ghost children is 'these ghosts are evil' because on top of being ghosts, one of them wears a mask to hide a disfigurement. And then the rest of them were murdered because they were very vulnerable and left in the care of someone who actively hated them and wanted to do them harm, and could because of how little disabled orphans like. matter? that sounds callous but like. it's not my perspective I very much mean it in the like. "Less Dead" kind of way. Like how much investigation and stuff gets prioritized. At some point people start feeling like 'they didn't have *that much* of a future anyway, so it's not like the murder is *that much* of a tragedy' and ultimately if you don't have a family to fight on your behalf then like... sucks to suck.

Something that's really terrifying about being disabled is like. if you don't have a community or no one really knows or likes you? like. you're kind of fucked. it's kinda been exemplified by the GoFundMe Healthcare Situation, but like. if you're not popular enough, if you don't have a family to advocate for you or support you, if you don't have people to give you advice, sometimes you just don't get help and you don't get acceptance and you don't get treatment and you don't get safety. But being disabled can also be extremely isolating because people really quickly lose patience for your limitations and for the idea of making accommodations.

I'm not gonna pretend it's always easy to be friends with someone, disabilities are as varied as the days are long and I can only speak from my perspective and I have more comorbidities than I technically even know currently. It makes things difficult for me, let alone people trying to work around me, and not everyone is willing to do that. Some of them suck eggs and some of them just have their own lives they have to prioritize. It's complicated, but it does leave me (and I will assume many other people in similar situations) in a complicated situation where our support network is very small but our need for support is very large.

And many people, through ignorance rather than malice, assume that there are already systems in place that care for people. The argument against larger social care networks aren't necessarily that they think people like me shouldn't have our needs met, they just have always assumed that these systems already exist. They think their taxes already pay for it and everyone is already being cared for and expanding the system is about a desire for overindulgence because they simply do not know what the reality is. They have been taught that if you work hard enough you can stay healthy, and if something happens you will be taken care of because there is some sort of social safety net that will catch you, and only the very few fall through because they failed in some way. That's why advocacy is so important, it's important to know that many disabilities can affect *anyone* at *any time* and the holes in the safety net are much larger than people have been led to believe, and are much easier to fall through. You can do *everything right* and still fall through. Your body can destroy you no matter how "healthy" you are. You can follow every piece of advice your doctor gives you, and be failed because you 'looked too healthy' to get sent in for scans on time. Sometimes working too hard will literally destroy your whole future and there's no one there to help when that happens. But it's important not to treat ignorance like malice because people will shut their ears to hard truth delivered with anger. So sometimes a message has to be tailored to an audience.

This has gotten away from me a bit.. but like. I think what I mean to say is like. sometimes I feel very frustrated. and this is my blog so often this is a place of venting and anger and ranting and stuff. But I do understand like. a majority of people are speaking out of ignorance rather than malice, and have their own troubles they feel overwhelmed by. I often try to tailor conversations personally to where people are at, rather than where I'm at because like. I can't expect everyone to prioritize my problems over theirs, especially if I don't even bother to learn what theirs are. And that's been a problem with some of modern political debate as far as I've seen it, a lot of 'your problems don't matter as much as mine' and everyone immediately gets angry if they're told that. like. universally. No one wants to be told their problems don't matter...

anyway. idk. the point of The Orphanage is that disabled kids without people to protect them are especially vulnerable and often the people who are supposed to protect them fail, and the people who need the most support have the least. And people assume those supports are in place and normal and far more sufficient than they are, and will lash out when that failure is pointed out to them. It's a difficult dance and exhausting, and so many people are lost to it because they don't do it well enough or fit in or fake the dance to a sufficient degree. and it's important to try and become aware of that with grace.

[pierayanna]

watching smallville is helping me unpack the ethos of white America.

They completely misrepresented human nature in order to perpetuate capitalism and colonialism.

Instead of the reality of humans being and existing as animals within nature and noting that our evolution and beginning of society was because of our innate sense of empathy and drive for community, our first sign of civilization being that of a healed bone showing that someone protected, fed, cared for, etc. someone else while they healed, we developed sciences, math, art, healing practices not simply for ourselves but to connect and enjoy one another, we have a manufactured reality that we are “born in sin,” innately greedy, selfish, yearning for power. This manufactured misrepresentation is because we are only “allowed” to study white men. Value and humanity is only allotted to white men who now represent human nature. We ignore and devalue indigenous teachings and practices. This makes us accepts the ideas and implications of capitalism and colonialism. We accept the idea that we need to be policed and governed despite the fact that crime diminishes without poverty (why aren’t white neighborhoods as policed and still safe and functioning??) and our accountability to community is what kept society safe and functioning. We accept imperialism and European paternalism. We accept individualism over collective. It endangers us. We accept racism: “there’s always going to be an in group and out group. An us vs them.” Something I’ve heard from peers in “anti-racist” classrooms. We accept this murder of the earth.

We accept the idea that we have to do things. I just realized how powerful the joke, “all I have to do is be Black and die,” is: all we have to do is be and then stop being. We most definitely don’t have to live this uniform, crappy, traumatizing life. We now believe our deserving of love and rest is depending on our productivity. We accept uniform lifestyles despite how unique we all are. We accept unlivable wages, no access to healthcare, inflation, having to pay to exist (food, shelter, water, etc.), horribly lacking miseducation systems, the majority of our lives dedicated to bringing wealth to 1% who spend it on sick shit. We accept wage slavery. We accept chattel slavery (mass incarceration). We accept the fact that children must be enslaved and maimed to give us phones and clothing. We blindly accept propaganda. We accept the fact that America can not fund any of these things for community but can fund wars and ethnic cleansing. But if they were to do anything remotely similar here, we would meddle in their continent for years!! We claim the existence of first world countries and this world countries when our “first world country” is surviving on the land, labor and people of “third world countries.” We accept food apartheid that prevents a lot of people from boycotting heinous companies. We accept the alienation and are lonely with no sense of community.

We accept the idea of anarchy as unbridled chaos, raping, pillaging, murder. No. That’s what’s happening now under this policing institution. Under capitalism and colonialism. Smallville ended an episode about a child veteran who lost his life in combat with the line that he sacrificed his life [in the US military] “saving the world.” Nevermind the fact that he enlisted because he was too poor to pursue college and football like he wanted, but to equate, unequivocally, the US military with saving the world was a powerful statement. How unchecked our propaganda media is. To end an episode with this assertion, left no room for it to be questioned: no thought into why the boy was in this foreign country or what he was doing there and how was it “saving the world.” No room for knowledge. I recall photos and accounts that resurface much later detailing what Americans really do in these foreign countries. What they do to the people. “Winners write history.” For the first time, I am able to see just how one-sided mainstream news outlets are. They show, and now force Americans to live in, a false reality. Journalists are supposed to be protected. But apparently only the ‘winner’s’ journalists are.

People like to claim tv shows, social media, etc. isn’t important and shouldn’t be taken serious. To focus of politics in government. This is art. This is what people are spending most of the free time allotted them consuming. This is an institution. Just as government. Just as religion.

Even in their falsehoods, we can still see the truth. Speaking of this institution that has been weaponized by those in power, didn’t Jesus save us? By your own logic, did he not free us from this so called evil human nature? As someone who has descended from people who were enslaved during chattel slavery, my lens for Christianity has always been different. I never identified with the whitewashed, white supremacist, policing, institutional state force misrepresentation of Jesus and questioned the attempts of the Black church to make him so. Why would he subscribe to the made up idealogy of gender that only exist to reinforce white supremacy? Why would he want me silenced? Why do I have to wear a dress? Why is being ladylike important as a Christian? Why would homosexuality be considered wrong while murdering and spreading hatred was not (mistranslation closer to pedophilia and mostly mentioned in the Old Testament)? I learned to contextualize and understand the history during the Bible and its translations over time. I identified with the wooly haired and “burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace” Jesus that was yelling and flipping tables. I identified with the Jesus that was about listening to sex workers and against policing. I identified with Jesus that ate with people deemed unsavory by the white regime and others of his own people that were hypocrites. I identified with the Jesus that sacrificed for his community, died young, and was about love for oneself and one’s neighbors. Religious trauma has pushed many Black spiritualists away, but I urge people to learn from the theology and not from what it has been weaponized to propose. God is in us. We are made in their image. We are reflections of one another. I feel this when I observe nature. When I experience humanity. I see the patterns throughout other religions as well that seem to reinforce this same premise. I recall indigenous cultures that “worship,” another westernized concept, or express gratitude to things in nature by name. Why not if you see these living things just as valuable as you are? Christians express gratitude for these specific things in nature to One being.

I implore people to alchemize their anger and frustration and guilt. Allow these things to radicalize you. What other purpose right now besides liberation?

[nutterzebutters]

Someone just blocked me for saying minors shouldn't be having surgery for transitioning and I cannot believe this has to be said

Not every statement is strictly right wing propaganda because of the twisted narrative we are used to. Especially if you hear something from a left winger. There is a high chance that it's because the statement itself isn't problematic, but the people we associate it with.

There are plenty of reasons that are not transphobic on why minors shouldn't be having transition surgeries, and the first concern of mine is the fact that it can be risky for them. Especially if done preemptively.

For one, the small percentage of Detransitioners, some regret it, some don't, their experiences differentiate. Whatever the matter is there is a reason that there is about a mountain of paperwork to have hormones, even if you are CIS and you have a deficiency or too much of a hormone that you should not have. Just because this percentage is small does not mean it does not matter.

Two, going back on the preemptive thing, it's a very good idea to at least let puberty finish first and have your brain settle on the idea over the course of your teenage years as you socially transition, there is a massive difference between social transitioning and physical transitioning when you are a minor. You can wear binders, you can cut your hair, you can do voice training, and a lot of it really does matter on the environment you have and the support systems in place. Doing the surgery before anything has settled can come with risks of things growing back, having to go back and redo the surgery since it is expensive, you can experience complications and as a minor that would suck that you'd run that risk early in life. Remember that the surgery is a privilege for a lot of trans people as well. Not everybody can afford it and could probably only dream of it, and might be a thing we should also be attacking in terms of how our healthcare is handled by the system.

Hormone blockers are fine, that's no issue and that can be stopped at any time, If you are the type for dysphoria hormone blockers are another option before heading into it right away and to help you really sit on your decision! Never have I heard of a case that a child was adversely affected by hormone blockers. I don't think such cases exist in that specific area. The brain isn't done developing, it's just a better decision to wait out your teenage years to make sure it's absolute and as an adult you can do it! At that point in time it will be very clear that you're confident in knowing who you are, it's just too important to forget those who had a different experience when it came to self-actualization. Especially people who may have encountered complexes within themselves or other social standards that may have been pressed on them that they had to dismantle.

If you hear a left-winger of any kind rattle off that minors should not be transitioning by surgical means, chances are they are not transphobic and you are hearing what you want to hear, not what they are saying. Their reasons for that statement are completely different from the twisted narrative that conservatives and Republicans will try to throw out there about how it's grooming children and brainwashing them. I'm sure many of us can agree that that is absurd, many of us recognizing that the people who dog whistle this claim are from the church itself and are pinnacles of irony. This is no secret. But it should not be controversial to say that surgeries for transitioning should not be happening to minors.

With the exception ofc being if it's life-threatening (in a physical manner, support systems are very important for the mental side of this), or something similar. Hell yeah there are cases of tumors or things that have just simply gone wrong down there and sometimes a surgery is needed to fix that, there are tons of interpersonal dilemmas that I'm sure I can find a way to be the exception

But what do you do if you don't have a support system? What happens when you are trying to socially transition but you don't have support by the people who it would matter most by? Here's the thing, at 14 I was surprised I was even alive. Depression can start very early in a lot of children, and so can anxiety so I don't doubt that gender dysphoria can. Gender dysphoria IS a diagnosis for the mental state of how one views their body according to gender. Therapy is expensive, it is a privilege unfortunately, so is getting that diagnosis itself. This does back a lot of trans minors up into a corner, especially because a lot of minors will tend to believe that there really isn't anything for them after the age of 18, and who can blame them? There are millions of reasons why. But that's just it, it's not the end of the world if it's not immediate surgery, even if our rights are constantly under siege. Your feelings are valid, but you also have a responsibility to get a grip on yourself in more ways than one.

For every right wing argument, I do believe that there is a left-wing version. Not a left-wing counterpoint, a left-wing version and I believe that is what this is and what someone chappell was trying to say (as an example) , the statement itself isn't bizarre, it's the people and THEIR statements we associate with it bc they are just louder so people will have a tendency to hear what they want to hear, but not what is said. Remember that. Too many of us are too quick to act in anger without thinking about what other possibilities there are.

[awkward-teabag]

This is the end result of kicking the can down the road because no one wants to spend the money to fix public healthcare and wanting to privatize healthcare, and I absolutely believe this was a needless death.

I'm lucky in that I have a nurse practitioner (after being years without anyone after my previous GP retired and no one could/would take her patients) but it still took nearly a week for an emergency appointment less than a month ago.

If not, though... walk-ins don't take people unless you show up at 6am and are lucky or can spend all day refreshing a telehealth app to snag a cancelled appointment (which only works if it's something telehealth can actually do something about).

The ER is always an option but I can see why someone in their early 20s doesn't do that. It also relies on hoping you'll be taken seriously instead of being told you're young and healthy so can manage and having to advocate/fight to be taken seriously.

Dix has been horrible as health minister for years and needs to be replaced. Horgan also thought the care he got as premier was similar to what everyone got. Eby has yet to say anything as far as I know but Dix still has a job and nothing will change while he's in it.

Over a fifth of the province doesn't have a family doctor, walk-ins have become something you need to make an appointment for weeks later, and the ER is where you go if you need to be seen ASAP. Urgent care centres was just a political distraction to make it seem like Dix was doing something—many shut down within a couple years due to a lack of staff.

Because that's really what it comes down to, a lack of healthcare providers and a government that doesn't think it needs to change how it does things or increase pay so people can afford to stay/move to the province. 'cause in BC, family doctors get the least pay and also have to pay their own rent/leases and more so after all the deductions they walk away making not too much more than minimum wage while also having medical student debt and being a small business owner.

So of course people leave when they could make more money elsewhere and not have to learn another major skill set on the fly.

Urgent care centres were, supposedly, supposed to cut out the whole being a small business owner that family doctors also have to be but it doesn't solve the lack of compensation in a high cost of living province.

And just in the last year or two, the current government fought against the nurses union to not increase wages as much as the union wanted and refused to tie wages to inflation.

Sadly cases like Sophia have been happening for years and will continue to happen until our healthcare system gets an overhaul that's been needed for decades.

Family and friends of a young shelter worker in Nanaimo are speaking out about her death from an undiagnosed serious infection. They told Global News they believe she could have been saved if she had access to a family doctor. Sophia was only 23 years old when she died on Nov. 27 after repeatedly being misdiagnosed by doctors. “She was full of life, super funny, had a great sense of humour,” Sophia’s mom, Melonie, told Global News.

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada

[cprindianapolis]

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[shinesurge]

I like complaining about America's fucked up medical system whenever I get the chance, so y'all might remember that I was hospitalized last year (2020(not covid-related)) and had to have emergency surgery. It was fine tho, it all went down okay and we have pretty good insurance through my partner's job at Cumberland University so we weren't hurting too much once the projectile vomiting stopped.

A bunch of shit happened between then and now and I decided I wanted to get top surgery, the reasoning split about 50/50 between gender reasons and the fact that my mother was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at 32, which eventually killed her. Every birthday's a little spookier for me, so I figured it was time to see about fixing that instead of waiting around for the bombs strapped to my chest to destroy me lmao. It turns out our insurance has a pretty extensive policy about trans health and I fit the criteria perfectly! So we went about getting this done as quickly as possible, which naturally turned into six months of waiting for a consult, then another month waiting for my therapist to write me a letter, then once we'd jumped through all the hoops there was another month and a half of waiting for that insurance to clear. 

Which it didn't! After some confusion about why the system was refusing to cover a perfectly valid case, we dug around enough to figure out Cumberland University has manually set up exclusions in its insurance for gender affirming surgery and procedures. We went around with them for another month, they asked me to prove that trans healthcare is medically necessary and I did so to the best of my ability (mostly with excellent resources other trans folks in similar situations had compiled). In the end they offered us thoughts and prayers and the assurance that "the denial remains - for now." So perhaps something will change their minds some day, but I am not that thing today.

Essentially, the cost of the surgery would have been our deductible and that would have been unpleasant but perfectly managable for us. Now, since we aren't being allowed to use the insurance we pay for, we have to pay over twice as much entirely out of pocket which is. Frustrating. 

I know we're luckier than most in this situation in that this doesn't take the surgery completely off the table, but to be honest the thought of having to pay this money while our insurance wants to cover the procedure is eating at me. We don't have the money or the resources to pursue legal action, and frankly I don't want to wait another number of legal-system-years for the surgery or sink mine and my partner's time into fighting with this institution, so as much as it sucks we're going to have to just let it go and pay the money and continue to pay for this insurance because it's functioning well for us otherwise. We would also like for my partner not to lose their job, which supports us both right now and allows me to keep making comics and us two queers to sleep safely at night. Causing a fuss and geting them fired over this would just give this university even more sway in our lives than it's already got. My therapist is proud of my radical acceptance skills but I'm not sure what amount of therapy I'd need to be cool with all of this lol

I hate that I was in a perfect position to advocate for myself and other trans people who might come through here after me and I wasn't convincing enough to get this fixed for any of us. I know it's not my job to fix everything, and I feel good about what positive queerness I manage with my comic most of the time but this seemed like some amount of tangible change I could help with in my own community. It's disappointing that wasn't the case. There's nothing else substantial for me to do, but I CAN complain on the internet and let people know this happened instead of this whole thing existing behind closed doors, and that's going to have to be enough. Aside from my jokey Read My Comic posts I try really hard not to ask people to share things because we're all tired of sharing things, but this one time I'd really appreciate it if you could.

I wasn't going to crowdfund for this surgery because I thought insurance would cover it and others need it more but, well. I know if I don't do it myself people will ask, so if you feel so inclined, the GoFundMe is over here. I wrote this post out for tumblr first and basically edited it to look more friendly to real life folks who might look at the crowdfunding page so you're pretty much already caught up if you decide to go that route lol

Thank you very much for reading this. 

[zone-seven]

I hc that the city government generally prefers mind games/manipulation to physical force (though they’re not above that when the manipulation doesn't work). They're in it for the long term, and they're perfectly content to keep people in reeducation for months or even years as long as they feel the person is making progress. If not... well, they've got harsher, much more secretive stuff for those people. In my hc reeducation is merely step one, the thing regular people know exists. It sucks to go through and it's super immoral to normal people in our world, but in the context of the city I think it's just kinda something that happens to people sometimes, and there's not that much stigma around it for those who "successfully" complete the program.

In my hc the primary goal of BLI's reeducation is to make people come to the correct (government-approved) conclusions themselves about what’s true and what behaviour is appropriate, because they feel like that gets better and longer lasting results. They don’t want to have to force people into it, they want to exert so much influence and control over the narrative that they can get people to agree they were wrong.

BLI is big on euphemisms even when they don’t fool anyone: it’s not reeducation it’s involuntary treatment, it’s not part of the penal system it’s healthcare, it’s not trying to force people to believe in the City’s moral code it’s just helping people who are heading down a bad path get their lives back on track. People sent for "treatment" aren't inmates, they patients. Even though it's definitely closer to prison than healthcare and 100% definitely part of the penal system, it's just about appearances and manipulation. Them maintaining these euphemisms regardless of if the 'patients' believe them is the first step of the city controlling their reality.

I think reeducation is heavily conformity based in a way that goes well beyond the typical conformity expected of citizens of Battery City. They keep very tight control over every element of the day; what people are allowed to wear, what they're allowed to talk about, where they're allowed to go, what they're allowed to do, when they’re allowed to do it. There is very little opportunity for any sort of choice or self expression, no matter how minor. Every man gets the same haircut, and every woman gets the same haircut. Everyone wears the same clothes, to the point where if you wear glasses, they make you a pair of their uniform glasses in your prescription. They calculate your portions for meals and they expect you to eat exactly that, no modifying it in any way (no salt shakers, no condiments beyond what they give you, no picking out something you don't like, not even deciding what order to eat things in).

They keep VERY tight control over what media is allowed in the facility — staff don't even get to bring in their personal phones and stuff. There's a lot of media consumption in the reeducation facility, it's just all propaganda, much of it specially made for the purposes of reeducation. Loooooots of city history and stuff about how shitty the zones are. They do "citizenship classes" too, which are similarly propaganda-y.

I think they also do really fucked up therapy where they're continuously building psychological profiles of their 'patients' and work to figure out their soft spots and how they can exploit those, and from there they’ll tell people basically whatever they think they'll find persuasive. Then they do incredibly manipulative group therapy where they strategically pit people against each other, or target the discussion to intentionally single out one person as having particularly "crazy" beliefs. They are very careful to not let people mix with others who are there for similar reasons (so they don’t share ideas, and to maintain the sense of “You’re literally the ONLY person who thinks this, don't you think other people would feel the same if it were true?”) but they do it in this really sneaky proactive way where nobody even realizes they’re being kept away from certain people.

The staff are always watching, always observing, always taking notes... and they don't really try to hide it. Visible cameras and two-way mirrors everywhere, high ratios of staff, a real panopticon sort of deal. People knowing they're being watched is the point.

Basically I think it's a lot of isolating people and gaslighting them to the point that they no longer trust themselves and are willing to submit to BLI voluntarily.

I think day-to-day life in the reeducation facility is probably (intentionally) pretty boring. Three mandatory bland meals a day, a schedule packed full of mandatory bland activities, day after day in the most blandly decorated building you can imagine... boring af. Their version of "recreation" is mainly facility-approved media (meaning propaganda tv, documentaries, and books).

I think they’re also pretty open and upfront with certain things, namely that failing the "treatment" program will mean going to the next level of "care", where they basically drop the medical facade and treat it like the highly specialized prison it is (their justice system is all sorts of corrupt, this is one of several ways you can get tortured/imprisoned indefinitely without actually being sentenced to it). That's as close as they get to force in what they call reeducation — reminding you that force is on the table but only if you ~make them~ do it.

what are your guys hcs for what re-education is like

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

For Addison sibling au the group caring for a sick spamton (i like sickfics...)

"NO! DON'T TAKE ME BACK [To-Back Savings All Weekend Long!]"

"You're sick Spamton, and I know who can help you. Just try to relax." You huffed as you carried the short puppet Darkner on your back, which proved to be quite difficult with all his squirming. "I told you living in that dumpster was gonna get you sick."

"I'LL GO TO ANY0N3 ELS3! HELL, TAKE ME TO THAT AMBYU-LANCE FOR ALL I [[Care]]!"

"And get slapped with a medical bill you can't pay off? No way. You just have a cold that can be easily taken care of with tea."

As much as he tried to whine in protest, his voice kept breaking with glitches and advertisements, so it was utterly useless. You can only imagine those damn Virovirokuns threw something into his dumpster to make his systems go this haywire. But you could see he was having symptoms similar to a common cold in Lightners, so you hoped that tea would help a Darkner as much as it would a Lightner.

Eventually you arrived at Pink's tea store, where they greeted you with their usual smile. Spamton just groaned and nuzzled into your neck, hiding his face from their view.

Thank the stars you couldn't catch his sickness.

"Long time no see! You dying for some hot, hot tea?"

"What's best for when you have a cold? Or..a virus that's similar to a cold?" You asked.

"Oh our Anteaviral tea is the perfect remedy for any sickness! Though you seem like a perfectly healthy fell...ow?" Pink blinked in bewilderment when they noticed the familiar person on your back, his pink and yellow glasses barely hanging onto the bridge of his nose. "S-Spamton? What the...?"

"Look, I know this is awkward," you told them. "And I know you and your siblings are still mad at him but please..he caught something from a Viroviro and he needs help. I'll buy your entire stock if-"

"No, don't worry. We're not mad at him." The Addison uttered with genuine concern as they opened the door to their shop, dropping the whole upbeat salesperson act. "Come inside. We have a lounge where patrons can relax and try tea, but it's empty now."

Although you were surprised by the invitation, you thanked them, entering the shop and carrying Spamton to the lounge area. You set him down gently on the sofa.

"Am I bAck[-to-back-savings] at the dump?" He sniffled.

"No, we're at Pink's shop and getting you some tea." You knelt down and stroked his hair. "You'll be okay."

Soon Pink appeared with a cup of antiviral tea, though Spamton just looked at them, feeling betrayed. "Y0u o NLY care when I'm at my L0west [prices ever] don't you..?" He grumbled, only to sneeze into his coat. "Stupid [[Free Virus Check Click Nownownownownow]]." His head started to glitch as he held it in pain.

"We still care." They gently argued. "We just..had no idea where you went after getting evicted." Seeing as he was in no condition to properly talk, they looked to you for an explanation.

You told them about how he's lived in a dumpster for a while until you brought him home with you. But today he went back to retrieve something and caught this virus as a result.

Pink decided to get their siblings and tell them what happened, and they arrived to the tea lounge after dealing with their last customers for the day. All of them were shocked to see their brother alive and...not necessarily well. You were helping him sit up and drink the tea, which thankfully began working its magic right away. Even so, Spamton was much too tired to acknowledge all of them and why they bothered showing up.

"Jeez..how long's he been like this for?" Orange asked as they draped a blanket from their clothing store over his shoulders.

"Not too long, but he was very delirious. Looks like it'll pass soon." You smiled hopefully.

"You were smart to come to Pink for this," Blue remarked. "Those Ambyu-Lances would've racked up all sorts of ridiculous fees."

"THE [Free Healthcare] SYSTEM DOWN HERE IS [[$4.99]]." Spamton set down the cup and curled up in your lap as soon as you sat down next to him. "A LOAD OF CR@P."

"Yeah, sounds about right." You sighed, knowing you were gonna be here for a while. But at least his siblings cared enough to check up on him. "Thanks for this, by the way. I know you and him have had...tensions."

"It's no trouble," Yellow reassured. "We're over it. But.." They trailed off as they stared at Spamton, realizing now wasn't the time to pester him with questions. About why and how you two got so close. That'll be for another day.

"..nevermind." They shook their head. "We're very terrified of Virovirokuns because they make our kind especially sick..so we were worried."

Nodding, you looked down at the salesman and saw he was slowly dozing off, so you gently rubbed his side. "He'll be alright, he was sleeping in garbage for a while so he might've built up some immunity."

You missed the looks of guilt that were plastered onto each Addison's face. But just as you glanced up, Pink smiled and got you some tea that was, oddly enough, named after you. It tasted like plain old water, though you didn't mind. You couldn't complain about a free drink.

You just appreciated their hospitality and the fact they didn't freak out upon seeing Spamton.

Maybe this would help him realize...they never truly hated him and missed him dearly.

[pharmdup]

so, alright, ive followed your blog for a while because it's really interesting! i'm two years into a general biology degree, and ive been trying to figure out what i want to do with it. turns out that almost all of my classes thus far would transfer to a degree in medicinal chemistry, and ive recently been really really eyeing pharmacy as an endgoal (Pharm.D, i always intended to get a phd or doctorate eventually so it's not that much different of an expectation). is there anything you'd want to tell someone before they get into pharmacy as a career path? i enjoy working in a lab but i also think that i could do a lot of good somewhere like a hospital or clinic, or something similar. sorry for the unsolicited request for advice, feel free to ignore it!

Thank you for the follow!

I’ve gotta say, I do love being a pharmacist, and I do a lot of good in my hospital and clinic, even though the powers that be and the system in general try to prevent me from doing that good a lot of the time.

I’m a bit tired just now, and tumblr feels casual, so I’m going to give you a bullet point list of advice to see if any of this helps. I might add more later, and encourage other pharmacists to chime in.

There are too many pharmacists. The pharmacy schools are graduating many many more pharmacists than the market can bear. Wages are dropping, and pharmacists are getting laid off since it’s cheaper to hire new grads.

A decade or two ago, there was a shortage of pharmacists, so a lot of people went into pharmacy thinking that in six years they’d get a doctorate and start earning six figures. These pharmacists often really don’t care that much about pharmacy, don’t care to remain clinically adept, and they’re your peers. It can drag you down.

I really hope the students who are entering school now are doing so because they love pharmacy, just like me.

Fewer people are applying to pharmacy school, which means that you should absolutely apply to top schools, no matter how bad you think your chances are. Expect good scholarships.

Go to a public university with a long, prestigious history, and don’t even apply to a school whose NAPLEX pass rates are less than 90%.

Avoid for-profit and/or three year programs. Avoid programs that expect the student to arrange their own rotations like the plague.

How easily you understand your biochemistry class will predict how well you do in pharmacy school.

In general, there’s a culture among healthcare professionals to bully pharmacists. Prescribers are often not inclined to welcome your help. Nurses think we’re idiots and will make fun of us to our faces as if we’re not human beings. You’ll be faced with a lot of ethical quandaries about protecting a patient when their doctor hangs up the phone on you. You’ll have to decide if you can be emotionally resilient in the face of that. I happen to enjoy subtly manipulating prescribers (many of whom are my friends now), and I like imagining I’m the underdog hero, saving the day for my patients despite the slings and arrows from the other health professions, so it works out.

Do everything that you can to avoid working in a retail chain pharmacy. Intern at a hospital. Work for an independent pharmacy. Do a residency. Pharmacy can shatter all of our souls, but retail chains do it quickly while putting patients at risk.

If you want to work in a hospital or clinic, or maybe even something unusual like a drug info service, poison control, etc, consider making board certification a goal, to maintain your competency and to show what you’ve worked toward. Residency is the easiest way to get this, but you don’t have to.

Right now, see if you can shadow pharmacists in different practice settings to make sure it’s something you really want to do.

Nobody in the healthcare team can dispense drugs as safely and accurately as the pharmacist (though, confusingly, other healthcare professionals act as though this is a useless skill). Don’t go into pharmacy if you see yourself as only a clinical pharmacist and don’t want to take the drug dispensing bit very, very seriously. Someday, after many years of training, you may have the privilege of signing your initials on a label. You should strive to have your initials mean absolute accuracy every single time. It should mean something to you every single time, no matter how many outside pressures will try to whisper that it’s easier if you let it slide just once.

You will be the very last line of defense for the patient, and you must remain aware of that, and not allow yourself to be intimidated by how the physicians will always know the patient better than you, and will often know the science better than you. You still have to speak up, even knowing that you may sound foolish every time.

If you read all of this and still want to do it, then I hope you do. We need more pharmacists who love it, who love and have pride in our humble role, who are willing to spend their evenings looking up a few more scientific articles in the evening to help that one patient’s difficult health problems the next day.

My final thought: patients make decisions about their healthcare that often aren’t what you would choose to do, or aren’t what science would encourage them to do. The ultimate authority on what is best for a patient is always that patient. Working in healthcare places you in a role of enormous power and privilege. Patients have the right to direct choices about their own bodies and you will need to always respect that. The very best of us never disrespect the sacred trust that our patients place in us, not even when they’re not around to see it.

[arcticfox007]

Suptober Day 1: Harvest

This is my first time doing Suptober and I probably won’t do every day (and am already a day late) but I thought it would be a good creativity boost and looking through all the other work it seemed like a lot of fun! Thanks to @winchester-reload for organizing this :)

Check it out on AO3!

Castiel hadn’t meant to overhear the conversation. He was supposed to be on break, but had volunteered to reset room 5 for the next patient because he knew his friend Alex had been in dire need of a break. Cas was only a volunteer, spending his junior year of college shadowing various medical professionals to get a better idea of what a career in medicine would really be like. When Alex had suggested shadowing one of the doctors she worked with, he’d readily agreed, knowing that his friend spoke highly of both Dr. Barnes and Dr. Fitzgerald.

He’d already spent the past few hours shadowing Dr. Fitzgerald (or Garth as he insisted on being called) and had seen enough to realize that Family Medicine was understaffed and struggling to do the best they could for their patients given the absurd constraints on their time. Garth was currently seeing a patient who didn’t want a stranger in the room, so the doctor had told Cas to grab some lunch. Cas had intended to do just that when he saw Alex making frantic phone calls at the front desk. When she’d hung up, she’d looked at the end of her rope, explaining to Can that one of the other nurses called out and she couldn’t find anyone to cover for them.

Which is how Cas ended up in room 5 wiping down the surfaces and pulling a new paper cover over the bed. Cas knew all about patient privacy, but really, the conversation easily carried into the room when the man who must be one of Dr. Barnes patients had decided to continue talking to her out in the hallway. The man had a compelling voice and by the time Cas realized he was eavesdropping it was too late to avoid it as leaving room 5 now would have only made the unsuspecting patient realize he’d been overheard.

“Um, and, I’m really sorry about this doc, but I probably can’t afford the bill for today’s services right away.”

“Dean, just call Meg like I told you. Our pharmacy here is amazing at finding co-pay cards for these types of medications.”

“I will talk to her, I swear. It’s just when we had to switch insurance plans the new one says the co-pay for that grade of medicine is $100 a dose. I’m honestly not sure I can make that work Dr. Barnes.”

“I understand, but you need this medicine Dean. Your RA will flare right back up without it. If that happens you eventually won’t be able to work at all. Even skipping doses is ill-advised, letting the inflammation persist could eventually cause permanent damage to your joints.”

“I get it doc, I do, but $400 a month? It’s basically choosing between eating and my ability to move without pain.”

“Dean, just talk to Meg. We will figure something out. At least promise me you’ll take the Humira every other week. I know it didn’t manage your symptoms well at the lower dose before, but it was still better than letting the RA go untreated.”

Dean must have responded to Dr. Barnes in some way Castiel couldn’t hear, because after a few moments the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, fading as they moved towards the front desk. Cas hurried out of room 5, the trash bag hanging unnoticed from his wrist. His heartbeat sped up as he worried that he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of “Dean” before he left the office. Cas didn’t really know what he was planning on doing, just that he couldn’t stand the thought of this man resigning himself to pain all because the healthcare industry was such an awful mess that it would burden someone with choosing food over medicine. Something about the way Dean had sounded reminded him so much of his sister, Anna, right before she had left Castiel forever. That feeling drew Cas forward to meet a man he didn’t know. Cas couldn’t solve Dean’s money problems, Cas couldn’t force the government to change how healthcare was run in the country, Cas couldn’t even make Dean’s medical issues any better – but he could meet this man and maybe make him smile for a moment. Maybe, if he was brave enough, he could offer him some sort of friendship so maybe he would have one more person to help him through his struggles. Cas had been too young to understand how alone Anna must have felt but he knew more about it now. Helping people like Anna was what had drawn Cas to medicine in the first place.

Turning the corner Cas was startled to see what could only be a 6-foot flannel-wearing freckled god. The man was Hollywood beautiful and for a moment Cas forgot what had brought him rushing around the corner in the first place. The sound of Alex pointedly snapping her fingers brought Castiel back to reality as he broke of his inappropriate staring. He felt his skin heat up rapidly as he blushed.

“Did you finish room 5, Castiel?” Alex stared at him expectantly. Silently, Cas handed over the trash bag and muttered something about taking his lunch break outside. Too embarrassed by his very obvious admiration of the man that must have been Dean, Cas didn’t think he could talk to him in front of Alex. He rushed out the front door in the hopes that the autumn air would help him pull himself together. He didn’t know why he’d felt so compelled to talk to a man who’s private and very personal conversation he’d overheard. He was almost glad that his humiliating gawking had saved him from speaking to the guy. After all, what would he have said anyway? The air alone wasn’t helping Castiel’s composure, so he began pacing in front of the building.

“I mean how do you go up to a stranger and tell them they aren’t alone and that good things do happen? It’s not like it wouldn’t embarrass the guy to know I overheard him talking about his money problems…” Cas froze as he heard someone clear their throat behind him.

“Uh, hey man. I actually came out to ask you something else, but I think this just got awkward.” Cas took a deep breath already knowing it was Dean standing behind him. Cas’ habit of muttering to himself when anxious had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion, but never quite as badly as this felt. Sadly, his fervent wish to turn invisible on the spot was being ignored by the universe and he found himself staring into striking green eyes while wondering how he could possibly salvage this situation.

“H-hello Dean. I’m Castiel, and I can’t apologize enough for overhearing your conversation with Dr. Barnes. I swear it wasn’t intentional, I was cleaning out the room you were standing near and – “

“Whoa, hold up buddy. I’m not mad or anything. I mean, it wouldn’t be my topic of choice to start chatting up the hot new guy at my doctor’s office, but you clearly work in healthcare, I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing from lots of folks.” Cas’ brain froze a bit when Dean referred to him as hot, but then it caught up with what he was actually saying.

“Er, actually I’m just shadowing Dr. Garth for the day, but yes, I have heard stories like yours. My sister, Anna, went through something similar. That’s why I wanted to say something to you but wasn’t sure what. Then I actually saw you and, well, you saw. I’m not really good with subtlety. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.” Dean threw his head back with a barking laugh and Cas found himself staring at the beautiful man yet again.

“Having someone like you checking me out definitely doesn’t make me uncomfortable. If it makes you feel better, I came out hoping to ask if you’d be interested in going to the Harvest Festival tonight. I have to work for a bit at my store’s booth but if you were free around 7, I’d love to talk with you more. Even if it’s just whatever you wanted to talk to me about before.” Dean smiled flirtatiously at Cas, and there was no way to resist that.

“Yes, I’d love to! Where should I meet you?”

They exchanged information quickly, and parted ways with matching smiles. Cas would get his chance to tell Dean how his sister gave up her fight with cancer because she knew her treatments were bankrupting the family. He’d tell him how he’d was hoping to be a doctor himself one day to maybe help someone else like Anna win their fight despite the shitty healthcare system. He’d also tell Dean that he’d chased him down the hall because he’d desperately wanted to tell him that maybe they were strangers, but that he hoped Dean didn’t give up and that he’d be willing to be there for him if having a friend would help.

Now though, Cas thought maybe he’d already made Dean’s day a bit brighter, and he looked forward to getting to know the handsome man better. Maybe his impulse to offer his friendship to a stranger wasn’t as insane as it first seemed, and if Castiel was reading things right perhaps friendship wasn’t the only thing they had to offer one another.

[riseofthecommonwoodpile]

I’m listening to the first episode of Maintenance Phase (which is a great podcast btw, I listened to like every other ep first lol) and it’s just making me think about my experience with the first doctor i ever had who didn’t make me feel awful for being fat, so i’m going to vomit that out here to help any skinny people know a little of what it’s like to be fat in the healthcare system. Indulgent personal shit follows:

Every single doctor I’d had as an adult, every single one, would ask what I was doing to lose weight, would point to BMI and obesity charts telling me I was a.) fat and b.) going to die soon because I was so fat. It was something I just had to let happen to get healthcare, and the most frustrating part was that I fucking knew I was fat already. OBVIOUSLY I did. Every person I went on a date with, every coworker who side-eyed my lunch, even people at the supermarket looking like they were about to laugh when I grabbed carrots or broccoli to make myself. Knowing didn’t help. I’d tried constantly for over a decade, and nothing had changed my weight in the way they wanted it to.

So, when I went to find a primary care doc when I moved to Washington, I really assumed the same thing was going to happen. I specifically wore my “lightest” clothing and shoes so they wouldn’t impact my weight too badly, and getting on the scale was legit terrifying, because I didn’t own a scale for the specific reason it felt so bad to see the number come up, and the number ended up being 284, and I almost cried, and I just knew I was about to get yelled at. I’m tense the entire appointment (and my blood pressure reads worryingly high), but she doesn’t say anything about it. We just have a normal first appointment. She says she’s gonna have me get an at-home blood pressure cuff to see if maybe it’s just the office that made me nervous. 

And at the end she asked if I have any questions, and I pretty timidly ask if I should be worried about my weight, if I should be losing weight, and she just said “Nope, all your other vitals are good, we’re gonna get bloodwork done today anyways so we’ll see if there’s any issues there, but everything else looks fine to me.” and i legit started crying, and I told her how I was expecting her to tell me I need to lose 20, 50, 100 pounds, because that’s what other doctors told me, and she just listened and asked me when I was done talking if losing weight was something I wanted to do. I told her yes, and then she asked me a question I hadn’t ever been asked before by a doctor: If we ignore you not being happy with how you look at your weight, and people being rude and shitty to you, is being fat causing you any physical problems?

What a wild question to hear as a fat person! I’d literally never been asked that before. It was just *assumed* it was giving me health problems, and I just assumed that was correct, even though as a 28 year old plenty of patient people had already told me those things aren’t related that directly and concretely, that plenty of fat people are perfectly healthy, and plenty of skinny people are unhealthy. And I took a few seconds to think about it, because I never had before, and I said that my knees hurt sometimes when I bend down, and that I get winded easily. And I said that I know exercise would help those things, but I can’t exercise around other people, I feel too embarrassed, and I’ve never found any at-home stuff that I could keep up with or didn’t make me miserable. 

And she asked what kind of physical stuff I liked as a kid, and I mentioned gymnastics, and she asked if I’d tried yoga, since it has lots of similar stretching, focus on form, things like that, and it would likely help my knees if I started slow at first and worked my way up. and I hadn’t ever tried it, so we decided, together, for me to give it a shot before our follow up appointment to look at my bloodwork. and she emphasized that if I wanted to make it a habit, the most important thing was just to do a little bit each day, even if it’s just 5 minutes. If 30 minutes was too daunting (and let’s be honest, 30 minutes of exercise is daunting even on my days off, let alone after a 9 hour shift on my feet), just do a couple stretches, so that way your body gets used to the idea of doing it. trying to do 30 minutes 5 days a week would just mean i never did it at all.

And after we ended the appointment, suddenly I wasn’t afraid to go to the doctor anymore, imagine that! The next time I went, my blood pressure was perfect because I knew I wasn’t going to be insulted and made to feel awful, I wasn’t waiting to be told the thing I’d been told for years and tried to change, but just kept getting worse at. And, incidentally, I did end up losing weight- I’m at 225ish right now, in just like two years, which I don’t say as a “go me”, because it doesn’t matter, and for plenty of people, lifestyle changes wouldn’t have done that anyways, and there’s fucking nothing wrong with being 284 pounds, but just to point out that the only thing that actually *worked* to accomplish the goal of all the doctors I had before was not caring about that goal. None of their hectoring and shaming did the thing they wanted, and the thing so many people cautioned against- “glorifying obesity”, aka just not making fat people feel like dogshit all the time- was what gave me the mental energy to exercise regularly, to eat better. 

because I wasn’t weighing myself, and I knew at the doctor, no matter what the number was, it would be ok, I felt ok asking questions, bringing up problems I had getting cooking into my schedule, asking for help on health-related things instead of just a number over and over and over again. I was less stressed, I felt better about myself and my body, which also gave me more mental energy to do the things I wanted to be healthier. not skinnier, healthier. It’s almost like...when doctors care more about their patients’ health than their weight, when they don’t make them feel ashamed and awful, the patient will actually go to the fucking doctor. The patient will listen and care more, will ask questions, will bring up when they’re having problems or something seems off with their body. when i moved to Colorado and had my last appointment with that doctor, I cried and told her she was the best doctor I ever had, and I still tear up thinking of how much she changed and improved my life by just being a good fucking doctor who cared about my health.

also usually i read over my longer posts before i post them to make sure grammar and spelling are ok, but this is long so i didn’t do that, so it’s probably fucked. oh well.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Tips for not ruining your trip to Greece

Coronavirus and Medical care

First of all, if you can, it’s better to postpone your trip to Greece for another year. (For the year 2021). Sorry to start my post like this but let me explain. It’s likely you have another corona variant than the locals and if you infect them, their vaccination will be for nothing and they will have to pass more months of a super strict, borderline fascist lockdown. Also... you might be infected with another variant. If you MUST come, please wear a mask at all times and keep distances! (The same goes for Greeks who want to visit other countries).

Tourism is great but too many tourists will get the country back to square one pandemic-wise. If our healthcare system gets overloaded, a tourist won’t get sufficient healthcare either if something happens to them! I mean, our healthcare system is still overloaded due to corona patients so... I don’t know if it’s a good move to come here right now. In case of emergency, I am not sure if you will receive fast or proper care.

Generally, it’s good to know some stuff in Greek about your condition because half of Greece doesn’t speak English. Doctors are likely to understand the condition in English (because most of English health words come from Greece) but I’d say be prepared for good measure. Write your allergens and conditions in Greek on a paper in your wallet and hand it to someone if you need them to know. Learn important words such as “medicine“, “sick“, “It hurts” etc. (or have them written down somewhere. The important thing is that you can say them or show them to Greeks).

You can ask me if you can’t find the translation of some phrases and don’t how you pronounce them. Avoid the Erasmian pronunciation. It was made so foreigners can learn Greek easier, but it sounds alien to Greeks and it’s not likely it’ll help you.

Protection from the elements

I don’t understand how half the globe thinks we are a tropical place or a dessert and then they don’t prepare at all for a tropical place or a dessert when they come here in Summer xD At least being over-prepared would help! So...

Don’t come in Summer??? Yes, I know, it sounds stupid but you really don’t have to come in the peak of tourist season. Coming early May, June, September and October (where the sea is still warm) will get you a good tourist experience with less crowds and heat. If you are disabled and/or easily overwhelmed, avoiding the peak season will probably do you good. You can come any month really. We have different places for different seasons. All it takes is five minutes of googling.

If you come from a less sunny place (no matter your skin color) make sure to always wear more sunscreen than usual!! If the sun is up, always wear sunscreen when going outside - don’t forget your face and nape!!

Avoid going out at 12:00-16:00 and don’t stay under the sun too long! If you catch yourself being outside the hours 12:00-16:00 GET INSIDE no matter how alluring the sea or the pool looks. A sunstroke can rob you of 2-3 days of fun and waste your money. 

If you are light skinned, red skin indicates your skin is hurt. (You’d be surprised to learn how many people don’t get it). Cover the red part and don’t continue going out in the sun for long. The rest of your skin is going to become red and peel soon if you don’t take care. If you are out, have the red part very well covered! Moisturizing creams help red skin a lot.

Wear a hat, it only helps! (it can make a small difference when it comes to sunstroke) Also, it’s better to *cover* your skin to protect it from intense sunlight! (no matter your skin color) Don’t be fooled by the heat and start going around in your swimwear for hours!

Swimming doesn’t protect you from the sun! The water reflects the sunlight and you can get even more damage! (Usually people have half of the body out of the water and that’s where the light hits).

When the light starts getting quite low prepare for mosquitos. Mosquito repellent sprays, creams and candles, as well as mosquito nets on the doors and windows, are your friends! Avoid getting near to bodies of sweet water.

Drink lots of water frequently! Take many bottles with you in a bag, I am not joking. Observe your urine to see if it’s darker than usual - if it is, then you need to hydrate more, no matter what you feel you are doing. Don’t drink *frozen* water (just mildly cold, “δροσερό”). Frozen water is not as refreshing and helpful as you think. It can also hurt your neck and lungs if they get exposed to frozen water constantly and make them irritated and swollen. (Lungs get cold because of the water going down near them. It’s rare, but it happens)

Make sure your alcoholic drinks are safe! Ask the locals if any place is notorious for serving adulterated alcoholic drinks and better avoid getting cheap alcohol from the kiosk (unless the kiosk has a stock of a reasonably priced sealed bottles of a certain brand you trust. But then again... still be hesitant).

For your wallet health

Do all the above to avoid sunstrokes and dehydration or say goodbye to your free days and money :P

Exchange homes with a Greek for a month. There are some programs which do that. If you are that type of person, this solution might work for you. You even can stay with your Greek friends for some days, if that’s possible for them.

You don’t have to go to an island. We have plenty of places that are just as gorgeous and more merciful to your wallet. If you want to go to an island, there are some cheaper ones. And, even though each island has a unique history, lots of islands have similar environment and aesthetics.

Avoid tourist traps (trust me, you’ll be attracted to them, even Greeks get attracted there and then regret it :p)  and search the area for other restaurants before sitting somewhere. For cheap but qualitative food use the supermarkets, your local bakery and cooked meal restaurants. (Try ordering from sites like efood.gr and deliveras.gr)

For souvenirs spend money on something that you can’t get in your country. Don’t get a cactus souvenir on a plain pot and say “I got that from Greece” because it won’t show and nobody will care xD Buy something more... obvious. (Ok I don’t mean you have to buy a shirt that says “GREECE”, something more subtle, if you like :p)

You can probably find the same souvenir for cheaper in another less popular tourist area (or even in the shop ten meters down the road!).

[reading-writing-revolution]

Ron Howard

January 24 at 5:41 AM —

I'm a liberal, but that doesn't mean what a lot of you apparently think it does. Let's break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all." This is not the case. I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable. It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly. If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" -- I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don't force it on me or mine.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally). I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It's not that I want the government's hands in everything -- I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege -- white, straight, male, economic, etc. -- need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is the enforcement of present laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations. Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

Copy & paste if you want.

[everydayanth]

Academic Elitism: an institutional issue

Sorry for being so rant-y lately, but the elitism of university has been a problem for me from the exact moment I accepted my scholarship with a signature and a handshake in high school. (The scholarship was later revoked due to state up-fuckery, but that’s another story, and I was already in too deep by the time they told me).

My parent’s house was only an hour north, my younger sister had already claimed my room, but I was excited. I was in the furthest dorm building, because that’s where the scholarship kids went, it was like a poor kid diversity hall, every few doors was someone from a completely different background, but we were all poor except our Swedish RA, and there was an odd pride in that. We all had various scholarships: robotics, dance team, nerds like me, etc. (not the football or hockey athletes though, they had their own dorm next to the library for... reasons, lol).

But being the last hall, it wasn’t actually full, most of us had entire rooms to ourselves, often whole suites; our hall was co-ed, but rooms were only occupied at every-other, staggered down the corridor. Only the front two halls were used, the back two closed off for construction or codes or something. We had to hike up the hill for dining halls, which was fine until snowdays that shut the whole campus down (and I mean west Michigan ones, with 4+ feet of powder and ice underneath). I had an old computer my dad got me for graduation and I didn’t know it was old until my peers started calling it a dinosaur. I had to use the library computers to write and print papers, and most places I went, I ran into the other scholarship kids. We didn’t talk much, just a head bob here and there, awareness at our similarities and an annoyed spite at being thrown together this way. It was lonely for everyone.

I had a purple flip phone I’d gotten only that calendar year (2009) and was still learning to text with (abbreviations? instant messaging? what?). My roommate had come down from Alaska to live near her dad, we’d talked in the summer, but I never saw her. I moved my things in and her stuff was on her side, I texted her about going to turn in paperwork and when I came back, there was a note on my bed and all her things were gone, she couldn’t do it, had never been away from home for even a night. She left a few mismatched socks and a bag of junk pens that I resented for years. 

Social media was mostly a way to talk to people across campus and exchange homework and party times/locations. We posted over-edited photos of our food and still jogged with our mp3 players and ipods. But within two years, I had to trade in my computer three times and upgrade to a smartphone to keep up with the expectations of communication. Professors would cancel classes by emails an hour out, and if I was on campus, I simply didn’t get the message, running between classes with 19 credit hours and three jobs. Work would call in or cancel my appointments (tutoring) and I needed to be able to communicate at the rate of my peers, so though it wasn’t something we could easily afford, my parents let me get the smartphone and my dad helped me find computers that could keep up with writing papers and researching without having to go to the lab, which saved so much time. 

There was little understanding for my suffering. I didn’t have a car, I had to call my parents and organize a time to get home or take the train which was more expensive than waiting around on an empty campus. They were often things that even the wealthiest students had to deal with, but there were so much more of them for us, more stress, more problems, more solutions, more consequences, and in some ways, more determination.

I spent plenty of breaks holed up in my room, but when the swine flu/H1N1 outbreak happened, guess where they quarantined students?

In our hall. 

Not the back one that was closed. In the room attached to my suite. 

After half a semester alone, suddenly strangers shared my bathroom. I never saw them, I would just hear the formidable click of the bathroom lock followed by the shower. A week later I got a blue half-sheet note in my mailbox about quarantines. The other kids were as pissed off, as we watched kids escorted in with blue masks and were told to just get cleaning wipes from the front desk –they ran out in a week. 

We were the recyclable students, brought in to trade scholarships for university grade averages. Many of my friends were struggling with scholarship qualifications and gpas (which only encouraged my continual obsessive perfectionism and involvement). 

We were expendable. 

I didn’t understand the elitism then, or I did, but I’d twisted it in my head from years tossed between private and public schools. I was an invader, I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I wanted to be. I understood that I didn’t deserve it, that I had to work harder to stay. I completed Master’s coursework for my Bachelor’s degree, finishing two BA programs (anthropology and English: creative writing) and 2 minor programs in philosophy and world lit, lead several campus groups and volunteered with honor’s societies. I spent hours on campus every day, running home just to go to one job or the other. I slept about four hours a night and I still romanticize it because I loved it. And I was good at it. It was a closed system, easy to infiltrate, easy to watch and observe and follow, to feel protected from the world, but there were always ways that I came up short. 

I didn’t have leggings or Northface fleeces or Ugg boots or name brand anything (except a pair of converse I got in 8th grade from my Babcia). I had old high school sweats and soccer shirts, hand-me-down clothes from sisters and cousins that mix-matched a style I thought was unique but I now understand screamed I don’t really belong here. Example: I went to propose an independent study to a professor I really admired and I panicked about what to wear. I still cringe at the memory, gahhhhhh, but I pulled on what I thought was a decent dress because it had no rips or stains or tears and though I’d picked it up from a clearance rack, it was the newest thing and therefore the best. But in retrospect, it was definitely a “party” dress, I grabbed a sweater, hoop earrings that had always been beautiful in my neighborhood, and heels I never wore otherwise, and presented my idea. This old professor was just like “um...did you dress up for me?” Clearly spooked by red flags and I realized my mistake. Saved by quick thinking I clarified “no, I have a presentation later,” and being a familiar face in the social sciences department, I let him assume I was dressed up as something. I just went in my sweats and t-shirts after that, got a haircut that tamed the wavy frizz and learned the importance of muted tones, cardigans, and flats.

I made a lot of interesting friends in the process, people who also stuck out from the American Academic culture: exchange students, older (non-traditional) students, rebels, and other poor kids. But that also meant that we all evolved during our time there, so friendship was quick and fleeting as we adapted or dropped out or remained oblivious, lost in our studies and dreams of changing the world or our lives. 

I had no idea how to approach the dining halls because I could only afford the bronze plan that was included with my room+board scholarship. I could enter the hall ten times per week, with four included passes to the after-hours carry-out (this was an upgrade from the free high school lunch I was coming from). I met other kids on this plan and their dorm rooms had fridges and microwaves and shelves of ramen and mac’n’cheese. Mine was sparse, my fridge had jugs of water from the filtered tap in the common room, and though it had a shared kitchenette, it always smelled bad or was being used and the nearest grocery store was Meijers which was a 15-20 minute drive from campus. I used so much energy dividing up my meals and figuring out how to sneak food from the hall for later or just learn to not eat, which is another story involving malnutrition, broken bones, and the American Healthcare System.

We like to summarize the college experience with fond struggles. I went back to my old high school to watch my younger sisters’ marching band competition that first year (it’s MI, and they were good). My old art teacher (not much older than we were but she felt so much older at the time, also her maiden name was Erickson and so was her fiance’s so she didn’t “change” her name and that blows my mind to this day), anyway, she stopped me to ask how school was going, and I was not prepared to be recognized in anyway and stammered out something like “oh, yeah, stressful. Fun, cool, yeah,” like the eloquent well-educated student I was. And she said, “oh, I loved it, don’t you love it? Everything’s so charming, and being poor? Oh man, it’s hard for a while, but it’s so good to go through.” 

I was dumbfounded at her reference to poverty as a thing to go through when you’re a student. I again had to remember that I was infiltrating places where people weren’t just marginally more well-off than I was, but far beyond, in a place where they couldn’t comprehend an alternative, couldn’t conceive of surviving poverty, of not having a reliable place to fall if you mess up, parents who couldn’t support you if things went wrong, who couldn’t save you from having to drop out if scholarships were canceled because the money just wasn’t there.

Talking with my parents never worked, and I recently found this video by The Financial Diet about Boomer shame in being poor, where many Millennials were united by it and it was #relatable. But all this is to say that there are so many layers and ways we develop in higher education that are often overlooked by the romantic nostalgia of the elite expectation. What we demand from education vs. what it offers us in return is rarely equal for students coming from poverty, and it starts with that first sacrifice of looking at money and deciding it has to be worth it to do something bigger, and that education is a necessary piece of that goal.

Now I live near Brown University, I’ve been to Harvard when we lived in Boston and recently took a trip to Yale with bold expectations. I am friends with several people who work at these places and I hear the same things: so many students are in a place where their obsessions are considered more important than the larger world, an argument that Shakespeare is a woman is more important to prove than the greater issues of sexism in society as a whole, while others are trained to look at data and the world as a pocketable fact-book, going to conferences and  week-long summits and then off to D.C. to make important decisions about places they’ve never been to, for people they’ve never met, about problems they’ve never experienced.  

It’s not new. It’s not romantic. It’s not nostalgic. It’s just sick. 

I was horrified at New Haven. I have read so many social science reports and papers and experiments and academic bullshit that has come from professors at Yale with a big badge of ivy-league validation. So much of this research was focused on homelessness and culture clash and socio-economics in America, as that was my “dissertation” that got me discounted master’s classes for my BA in Anthropology. Anyway, my point was that I thought this noble, proud university that put out so much research was going to be situated in something of a utopia, where their research is put into practice. Obviously, I was wrong, but I didn’t expect how wrong. (I had also started reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, so... there’s another thing).

My observations were validated by employees of ivy-league schools, who have watched over the past 2 decades as they grow more and more reclusive, hiding away from the public except through a few, probably well-intentioned, outstretched hands that do little to contribute to the world outside the university itself. These ivory towers are built by poaching: environments, observations, resources, research, and yeah, even students.

I love academia. I will sit in a library for hours just pulling down tomes (and putting them back in their proper locations like a dork) and drawing connections just for fun. But right now, I’m a bit bitter and spiteful and angry. 

When something like Coronavirus sneaks up on us, we have a tendency to throw the most expendable people under the bus as quickly as we can, and all I can think about is my shadow of a suite-mate sneezing and coughing with swine flu for two weeks, at how I refused to use my own bathroom and listened to my hall-mates’ advice about showering at the rec center a mile away as we all collectively locked our bathroom doors and were left there by the university to get sick without insurance to help with any foreseeable costs.

It’s not the same now, they’ve rebuilt the entire section of the campus, it’s odd to see it, I wonder where they put the expendable kids. Or maybe they don’t accept them anymore. I’ve worked in college admissions since then, and it is a scary industry of politics and preference and hidden quotas and image-agendas. Not all schools are industry monsters, but when you’re expendable, they sure do feel like it, whether you graduate summa cum laude with two degrees, six awards, and five tasseled ropes around your neck or not. 

I wish I had a positive message. I wish I was in a place to help people who feel expendable or like they can’t keep up with communications because of technology or language or network or environment. But I don’t have much right now. For all its posturing and linear progression, academia needs to create profit. All I can do is yell about this existing.

If you are feeling expandable in university, I can tell you you’re not alone. I can let you rant about all the small ways your peers don’t get it, whether its an accent they shit on or ceremonies you don’t have the right clothes for or textbooks you share with a friend to cut costs but then they hoard them. I can relate to you about guilt and that sneaking panic that fills you with anxiety at night as you question yourself and wonder if it’s worth it at all, if it’s necessary, if it’s okay to be expendable to follow something that feels bigger. I can validate your doubt and tell you that you’re not actually expendable, you’re a bridge. 

I’m sorry it still works like this. I wish we figured out how to change it by now, I wish I had secret shortcuts to tell you about, that there was more accountability or hope, but I’m not seeing it lately. I hope you do. <3