My metaphorical homelessness

Whoops! After suggesting this topic and reminding myself all week to write about it, I totally spaced yesterday. Here's my make up post :)


I've generally had a very strong feeling of "home" throughout my life - it's either been at my parents' house, or at the commune I lived in throughout college. Particularly at the latter, it always felt like home was comfortable, a place to come back to after the busy-ness of the day and relax, be myself, and rest up.

It's a little weird now, because it feels like I don't have much of a home. My hometown is now devoid of my friends, since they've graduated and moved on and the place is left with just lots of memories.

My boyfriend's parents' house is quite nice and comfortable, but since there's a constant internal pressure to make sure I'm looking good in front of his family, I'm always a bit drained there.

And at the place that I actually live, it's someone else's house, so I don't have any agency over it. If it was a roommate situation, I would have some say in things, but even though I'm paying rent here my name is not the name on the lease. It's a situation that's mutually beneficial - I get a little cheaper rent, and they would need someone to be renting anyway - but even though I loaned them the down payment and pay rent, it is distinctly not home. I don't feel entitled to complain (more than a "could you turn that down?") when they have a group of people over and music blaring at midnight on a work night, or tell, rather than ask, that their pet's litter box will be in my room, or take my food, or any number of those small little things that add up to shout "THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME".

I'm a little metaphorically homeless right now. The only place that feels mostly like home is my own small room. Even though it can be altered without my permission, it's that small little space that I have some control over and can basically do what I want within it. It's nice... but I'm looking forward to having a little more say over my living environment when I move out. I know it makes me sound like a control freak, but so much of day-to-day life is uncontrollable and unexpected, that having a steady and stable living environment really helps me relax.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I had a weird experience with placing my "home" throughout my university years. When I was really young we lived in a few different houses that I barely remember, but from the ages of four to seventeen I lived in the same house. Then, two weeks before I moved away to university, my family moved. It wasn't across the country or anything, just to a different community on the south shore of Nova Scotia, but I didn't exactly have much time to settle in.

So through my first two years, when I lived in residence, there was this weird dichotomy where living on campus felt more like home because I had been there longer than in my parents' house. But it still seemed weird to call Halifax home, because it was this big crazy city, and all of the thing that I was from, that I felt like made me me, were back in the rural areas and small towns where I spent my childhood.

Then I moved out of residence into my first apartment with some of my best friends, and that was when I really started to feel comfortable in the city and come to accept that this was where I was going to be living for a while, and that that was okay.

These days I consider both places home. I've realized that home isn't just where you come from or where you live now. It's anywhere that makes you feel safe and loved and happy. And since it's possible for that to happen in more than one place, it's possible to have your home in more than one place.

Home is Movement and Pins in a Hijab

Time to talk about home.

I don't really consider home to be a specific place. I mean, I can't be a citizen of where I'm from but I never really feel like I'm from America even though it's my passport country. And you know, even when you just move around, to the next country or county, home changes. I consider home to be more of a feeling. Of peace and comfort, a kind of peace and comfort that you can't get anywhere else.

So when I think of home I think of traveling, home to me is being at piece an on the move. Car rides, sitting in the back of a truck in the pouring rain, new scenery, flying in a plane, hotel rooms. That all feels like home to me. Especially when it's with people I love.

Actually If I had to put home in a place, the best I could do is that I'd probably place home in the middle east or at least culture-wise, the food, the dress, I always feel nostalgic when I see a woman wearing a hijab, and for a while I've been considering beginning to where one myself because I absolutely love them, they're beautiful and just comfortable to me. And their origins are more in practicality for the weather and climate rather than any religion.

I'm going to start taking Arabic this coming semester, I'm really excited for it. It's already starting to make me feel like I'm closer to home and I haven't even started it yet.

So yeah, I don't have much to say, that's the best I could say about home. Can't wait to read what you all have to say!

- Sarah

The Themeless Week Became Themed

So I missed my post on Tuesday AND THEN I also missed our new make-up day on Saturday, but I figured I'd just be totally crazy and write my post on Sunday instead (and I promise I'll write another one this Tuesday!).

Just like the rest of you, I too am looking for work. I've had some interviews, some of them for jobs I really wanted, but unfortunately, nothing's panned out for me. I know a few other people around here who are still looking, so I know it's the job market that's bad, but that doesn't really make me feel a whole lot better. I have a degree and I can't even get someone to hire me for the summer! It's so frustrating.

Since my summer is nearly half over, I think that if I don't find anything in the next couple of weeks I'm just going to give up. I can find somewhere to volunteer instead so that at least I have something on my resume. I guess the good thing about still being in school is that I can always get more student loans. I'm already going to be in debt for the rest of my life, so a bit more isn't going to hurt, right?


Sigh.

Good luck to all of you in your job searches!

Not unemployed, but looking for work

I feel a little bad posting about this, since I already have a job. But it is the accidental theme...

So I have a job. I quite like it, for the most part I like the company, and the pay is great - $19 an hour! Except it's only for about 17 hours a week, and I drive an hour each way without reimbursement to do it. So that part's not great.

I picked up an extra job at Target, thinking they needed people, but they also only give me 9 hours a week at minimum wage. I like getting to be around people my own age and socializing since I've been in this city for 6 months and have only made 1 new friend (it's hard making new friends without school, work, or other friends in common!). I'm not so happy with the inconsistency in management; some days my performance is "horrible" and I'm dinged for rules I was never told, other days the exact same work by others is fine and we just get the hell out of there after closing.

So far I have two solutions: 1) my cousin recommended the company that she works with, and I've applied with her as a reference. It cuts my commute in half, and while it would also be very part time, if I'm willing to sub for other tutors (I totally am!) I could get moved up to full time within a month. Even better, it's based in a school so instead of driving back and forth all over, unless I was assigned to work in kids' houses, I would be able to go to one place and stay there for the whole day. I don't know if I can overstate how awesome that is to me; having a freezer/microwave for my lunch, not having to worry about my purse getting stolen out of my car, oh it would be fantastic.

If that doesn't work out, I'm going to get more serious about doing microtasks. I really like Amazon Mechanical Turk, since some of the similar services I've tried feel really... ick. I can't quite put my finger on it. It feels weird to get paid to show someone else using the same service messed up and removing their $.10-$.15. I may also be being arrogant because in one of those places I applied to be an editor, had to sort through a horribly translated Chinese-to-English business "about me" page where it often wasn't even clear what they were trying to saying, and I had my account suspended and payment revoked by a snarky worker who pointed out that I let a spelling error slip through (outilize instead of utilize). Annnyway, rant aside, Mechanical Turk is pretty cool, and I like that they often have lots and lots of the same kind of tasks so I can get into a groove. It's not a living, but I'd be happy if it paid for one of my many tanks of gas each month.

I don't mean to sound whiny here, I know there are lots of people that don't have any job at all, but I'm tired of working 7 days a week between the two jobs to have under 30 hours and be entirely unable to move out of my sister's house while still paying several hundred dollars in rent and utilities. Oh, and stressing out about my car breaking down because of all the miles I've put on it and it being required to earn an income. Since I have nowhere near enough savings to buy a solid used car or enough monthly income to pay a monthly payment, every little sound (even my water bottle hitting the seat) worries me like crazy.

Ok, breathe... breathe. Sometimes I need to not think about these things.

Will you pay me to this?

Looks like we may of stumbled onto an accidental theme this week as I'm also going to talk about my difficulty in finding a job.

Now that I've finished college there is no more money flowing into my account each month. Because I had a bursary I put off getting job during term time but now with about £50 in bank account I've had to start franticly looking. At the moment I'm willing to take just about anything including call centres.

Thus far I've unsuccessful. I realise the whole world is trying to get a job and if there is vacancy it's not around for long. There's also the problem of most jobs require previous experience but I can't get experience if can't get a job. It's a vicious circle. As well as that it also helps if you know someone who already works at the place you're applying to but even then it's not guaranteed to the job.

It's not totally hopeless I know. I've only been unemployed for two weeks or something. I just don't want to be a burden to my parents. I want to be able to go out and do fun stuff during the summer rather than sit inside all day.

Like Sarah I want to sell my art to make some money but then it will cost me some to do it which is rather annoying. I want to make some little artzines to sell online and in a cool little independent comic shop in the city.  But I'll need to see, it might not happen.

On a totally different note I'm still having trouble getting use to the blogger layout despite it being around for a while now.

If you want to do stuff, you need a job

Well, we kind of forgot to pick a theme this week so here I am writing about stuff.

So for the past couple weeks I have been busy as a bee. Why? Because I need a job and my mother won't stay out of my hair until I have been employed.

My last job as a barista was a lucky hit, they were fresh out of baristas at the Stop&Shop and I just happened the walk in the door at the right time. This fact is forever getting rubbed in my face as I wander the Cape Cod Mall filling out application after application. I have gotten one interview, which ended in unemployment and a slew of "Don't call us, we'll call you" statement variations.

For a place that is a major tourist destination, no one seems to need much extra help. But I guess that's what we have Bulgarians for. (No offense to any Bulgarians, it's just something I noticed at Stop&Shop that half the employees are from Bulgaria).

My mother doesn't really seem to care for all the psychological and social progress I've made just by looking for a job. Nor does the universe for that matter as I still am jobless. Previously I couldn't even walk up to a desk and ask for a piece of paper, other people had to order food for me or walk into a store next to me. I could barely do anything buy myself and now that I have been going to therapy and have started taking anxiety meds, I'm driving all over the place, talking to people about jobs, going to interviews and filling out applications. I talk without hesitation to people I've never met. I even fended off some guy hitting on me without breaking down. How is that for progress?

But somebody in the universe doesn't seem to care.

Heck I'm trying to find ways to attract commissions on DA, I'm practicing art like crazy on and off the computer even if I'm not uploading it. I want to start uploading some high quality original work.

I was even looking at starting an Etsy store for bracelets I know how to make. Which only reminded me of the things I want to be able to spend money on. Like corset sewing patterns because I really love steampunk and the Victorian era and conventions.

And now I'm off to go fill out more job applications! Wish me luck guys! I need it.

The one change that started the rest

A good chunk of my opinions have changed over the last few years; I grew up in a very religious and conservative family and mirrored those viewpoints until the second half of high school. I'll focus on the one where it all started.

I had never felt a disgust for LGBTQ people as it is sometimes seen in religious folk in the media, but to me it always seemed simple: it's wrong so they should just stop doing it, the way you'd encourage someone to stop stealing or stop eating McDonald's every day.

Near the end of my junior year of high school my boyfriend, R, came out as being gay. This forced me to acknowledge that here was someone I cared about and knew to be a good and reasonable person that was saying that this was what he is, he can't help it, and it's simply part of him.

It had been pretty obvious for awhile that R wasn't happy being in a relationship with me and was upset about something, it just wasn't clear what was going on. Then I imagined him suffering like that for the rest of his life: finding a wife, having to pretend in front of her, and not having someone he could confide in and be honest about his sexuality with. It was at that point that I realized I couldn't look him in the eye and tell him to simply "choose" to be straight.

Just as life changing was the aftermath from those around us, particularly the people I'd looked up to in the church. Our youth pastor, who had always been friendly to our little gaggle that went to church together, didn't even want to hear about R or how he was doing. My dad calmly asked me how many men R had sex with (which is insulting on several levels). I saw what it is like to be turned on by a church, how a group that had been so welcoming and friendly flipped and became aggressive.

Then I started noticing other things too - why were all the women relegated to either working with children or music? Why did everyone talk, dress, and act exactly the same, and anyone that was an outlier either eventually caved to fit the mold or became essentially an outcast? Why were we supposed to support laws that imposed our religious beliefs on others that might not hold the same beliefs? And I couldn't quite articulate this until Stuff Christian Culture Likes pointed it out, but why was there an emphasis on doing things rather than relationship?

This didn't all directly lead me to the beliefs I hold now, but it started the ball rolling. About a year and a half later I stood out on a busy street corner with R in our small, conservative town holding "No on Proposition 8" signs (this wanted to outlaw gay marriage in California. It passed, with lots of funding from Utah, but if I remember correctly has now been overturned and is entering the appeals process) which outed me as a political liberal to my family. Another three years later in 2011, I came out as agnostic to my friends, and eventually my family.

I am too stubborn

Okay, I've been trying to think of something all day, and I just can't come up of a good example of an opinion that I've changed, but it's soon time for bed, so I guess I'd better right something. I can be pretty stubborn, I guess (it's hereditary, honestly, everyone on my dad's side of the family is legendarily stubborn). I keep an open mind about important issues, and I guess some of my opinions on those have changed slightly over time, but mostly by becoming more nuanced as I gained a deeper understanding, nothing really that's been a complete reversal. On anything trivial, though, my opinions tend to get set in stone fairly quickly.

Really the only thing I can think of is food, which doesn't even really count because it's just my taste buds developing or whatever (I actually know nothing about how taste buds work or why that happens) and not an actual for real opinion, but it's the only thing I can think of at all. I used to be a really picky eater when I was a kid, but now I've learned to like a lot of the things I used to hate, including but not limited to: eggs, bananas, yogurt, cucumber, peppers, tomatoes (including any sort of tomato sauce, which made things like pasta and pizza a little difficult), grapefruit, and tofu. I think those are the major ones.

That was really short and boring, so since I missed free week last week, I'm going to use that to round this out. I haven't been up to very much lately - still looking for a summer job, unfortunately. I haven't been using the free time as well as I would like, but I have been getting in some writing and running and spending some time with friends, so it's not all bad. The only major change for me is that I've started writing and editing for an online magazine that some of my friends just launched. It's called Big Fat Future and it's pretty amazing (uh, I know how that sounds to say it about something I'm involved in, but really I haven't even done that much yet, I'm just so super proud of my friends for actually going for it and making this happen). It's about science fiction and has articles and reviews and creative pieces and sometime in the next few days the book/movie club will be launching, which is the thing I'm most excited about right now. It's kind of stressful since I don't actually know that much about science fiction, and I've never done any editing before, or this type of journalistic writing, but so far it's been pretty fun and I think I'll get used to things pretty quickly.

Anyway, I guess that's about it for me. Hope everyone has a fantastic week!

It flipped like tossed coin

It's Monday! Day of the Moon! But not the one whovians are thinking about because it's not 1969 or yeah maybe... I forget, HI!

So I'm going to talk about an opinion that has changed over time. The one I think was most significant in change was my opinion about Disney. I used to LIKE the movies occasionally as a child, but then I grew to hate them as I became more exposed to feminist ideas. I wanted to see more girls wearing pants and not ball gowns and strong woman who doesn't want a love interest and keeps not wanting love interest and a character who fights her own battles instead of waiting for prince charming to rescue her from that goddamned tower with a door that looks like it'd topple over if she nudged it.

I thought they were terrible movies and role models full of insidious subtle messages. Belle has an awful case of Stockholm syndrome even though I know her story doesn't belong to Disney and it is still my favorite. At least I recognize the issue in their relationship.

And you know what I still think they are bad role models. I still get peeved when side characters interrupt what could be a moving beautiful and serious scene with cheap comedy. For example, the gargoyles in The Hunchback of Notredame.

But now I recognize them more as fun movies. I love to sing the songs, I get a lot of the cheap comedy is for kids who won't know any better (which is still a horrible excuse for writing the cheap jokes) and there are references that only adults would get to make up for it (Frollo and that scarf).


I wouldn't have my hypothetical kids watch them until they were old enough to not be fully influenced by any gender role stereotype they may interpret from the movies. But I love them, I love watching them and singing with the characters and I would like to cosplay Belle.

I appreciate Disney for what it is when I used to boycott everything related to it. It's like a whole new world now.

Stuff Happened and I Just Graduated!

So a lot of things have been going on lately for me. Especially since my final year of secondary school has come to an end. I am about to bombard you with topics now.

Last week was prom, which was a wonderful event, far better than last year's where I got sick and had to leave. They played mostly rap music, which was not very appealing but it was made up for by the fact that I got to wear the poofiest dress ever and my best friend Toria got to go with me. As usual the food was awful and the water tasted of all the minerals and toxins you could possibly get out of a tap. But there was a chocolate fountain and I voted for Harold Saxon as Prom Queen. Despite all the things that aren't great at prom, getting to hang out with some of the best people in the world really makes up for it.

After-prom then consisted of playing Apples to Apples, making cake and sleeping in odd and painful-in-the-morning positions on the couch at my friend Emily's house. I love how tame our parties are compared to what media thinks we do at after-prom.

Thursday this week was the Senior Trip, we went out to Boston and hung out at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. I got bubble tea there, I absolutely can't stand bubble tea and the first time I ever had it I thought someone had put fish eyes in it. I still call them fish eyes and I like to get it now just because of the nostalgia of my first time having it.

Also, FINGER PUPPET TROTSKY! I walked around with him everywhere. I looked for a Stalin one so that they could have political puppet debates, but making a Stalin puppet would be worse than making a Hitler puppet, so I'm not surprised that there weren't any.

Oh, SL History, what have you done to me? I have decided that I have learned too much communist history over the past two years.

We then went on a short cruise where we stood next to the Harwich school seniors who were dressed in suits and the shortest neon color dresses I have ever seen, while we were in sweaty jeans and tees. Lovely contrast.

Something I thought was interesting happened on the cruise as well. All of us Sturgis students literally evacuated  for the upper decks because the Harwich students became very rude and loud on the dance floor. But that didn't stop me from trying to have fun. I ended up teaching another girl how to tango, at least the basic steps of it so that we could invade the rap music downstairs with something classy when some Harwich students decided to make a comment along the lines of "Ew, Sturgis is full of lesbians."

I had three reactions, first confusion, second annoyance, third trolling. Sturgis has been such an open and accepting school that I completely forgot that homophobia to any degree existed. I was confused as to why two girls dancing with each other having a good time suddenly made us lesbians. Thirdly my friend Emily decided to react by creating a polygamous lesbian relationship, to which we added multiple people throughout the cruise, and I decided to tango with as many girls as possible because they are my friends and dancing shouldn't automatically bring into question our sexualities.

Finally, yesterday was my high school graduation! It was held outside by the harbor since we have neither a gymnasium or other venue large enough, we have two hallways, we're tiny. We all wore navy blue caps and gowns. I waited forever for all the speakers to finish their hour long speeches.

Have you ever noticed how whenever there are speeches involved the listeners are always trying not to fall asleep, the people who make speeches try not to fall asleep when they are made to listen I bet too, so why not have mercy on us all and cut to the chase already?

Our executive director talked most of all, mostly about school rank, the atrocity of a new school that they are building, himself and least of all the graduating class. He made a speech before and after every speaker and lord he is the worst speaker of them all.

Finally we got to the actual diplomas, which I rejoiced at, and our names were all called alphabetically row by row. And if you want to talk about procrastination, we waited until this very moment to pull our senior prank. Sturgis has a tradition of signing into a ship's log as a freshman and signing out of the log as a senior at the end of the metaphorical voyage, our assistant director, Mr. Marble manned the book. It was a small prank but we decided to play on his name. All ninety-one of us carried a marble secretly and as we all went up to sign the book and shake his had he started getting left with marbles. Another student left him a jar as a mercy and all throughout the giving of diplomas and signing there was the constant clink of another marble falling into Mr. Marble's jar. We thought it was hilarious, everyone else was confused.

I then went out to dinner with my friend Toria and we ate cream puffs as big as your face! It was incredible and I felt quite fat afterward. She gave me this lovely silver starfish necklace that I absolutely adore.

So that's been the past two weeks. I'm done with high school now. I guess I'm officially a college student now? I'm not quite sure, but I'm happy and excited. Leaving Sturgis doesn't bother me, a lot of those people I wasn't close enough to in order to really miss them and the ones I am close to will stay in tough and hang out with me. Most of us are going to colleges that all happen to be near-ish to each other so visiting will never be a problem. I'm ready.

Snuff - Terry Pratchett

I know I've recommended Terry Pratchett's books in general before, but I thought I'd talk about one in particular this time (I'm reading another book that I also like a lot, but since I haven't finished it I don't feel ready to recommend it yet).

One of the reasons I love Terry Pratchett's Discworld universe is that you can drop in on any book and understand it; if you'd read previous ones you'll recognize the characters and know some backstory which makes it more familiar, but it's not requisite knowledge.

The City Watch books are by far my favorite of the entire series, and Snuff doesn't disappoint. It's like fantasy CSI but trade the fancy technology for biting wit. The story kept me guessing without feeling frustrating or like it was purposefully being obtuse, and the politics and innuendo are a clever addition that makes it feel more realistic - of course a head of state (or rather, benevolent tyrant) couldn't tell a police chief to go do certain things.... but if he happens to get the gist of it and do it on his own...

And of course there's his manservant Willikins, the picture of a perfect and polite servant, while also possessing Batman-like talents for psychological warfare and use of everyday tools as weapons, and none of the rules about not killing people.

Overall, the book is hilarious, dramatic, mysterious, and just great fun. I hope you enjoy it!