anonexpatinthailand

[anonexpatinthailand]

Vivaldi played by the South African elementary school Goede Hoop Marimba Band

Turn ON the sound

[anonexpatinthailand]

Hubble Telescope image vs. James Webb Telescope

[anonexpatinthailand]

source

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[[@else: I suppose it's time to tell my abortion story. Of the abortion that didn't happen, that led to me.

A lot of anti-abortion people put words & thoughts into the mouths of the unborn.

Well, I'm one that was recommended to stay unborn, who got born, and here's what I say.

My mother found our very early in her pregnancy that there was an extremely high risk to her if she continued.

Terminating the pregnancy was floated by one of the doctors. It would have been legal due to the risk to her, but heavily stigmatized.

Her family was deeply Catholic. She was deeply Catholic.

She did not terminate. The risk became a reality.

So I'm here, and she's not.

I'm glad to be here.

It is hard to put into words the gratitude you feel to a mother who sacrificed herself entirely for you, and I'm not going to try here.

Because I'm also very angry.

Without in any way taking away from the courage and selflessness with which she bore her situation and which she showed in all aspects of her life

I don't believe she ever really felt like she had a true choice.

The stigma, the religious dogma, the judgement - everything she'd ever known - told her she could not save her own life.

Her parents would have, however sadly, believed she'd go to hell. Her family and friends and community would have judged her.

Everyone she'd ever loved believed it was wrong. And so she believed it was wrong.

Needlessly.

I don't know what choice she would have made if it had been a true choice.

Maybe she would have chosen me anyway. Maybe she would have chosen to stay for her two already-existing children and for all those who loved her so deeply.

But she should have had a real, true choice.

Would I trade being here for that?

In a heartbeat. Without hesitation.

My siblings could have grown up with their mother.

My grandparents could have seen their beloved daughter live out her beautiful life, instead of mourning her every day until their deaths.

Her brothers and sisters would not still thirty years later feel the pain of losing the sistre they loved so much.

She could have continued to bring the light to the world that she had always brought, that I have heard so much about.

My father perhaps would not have descended into the grief & guilt that destroyed him, our relationship with him, the innocence of our childhoods.

Now, I think about how my young nieces & nephews will grow up without her, without the kind of grandmother I had. That pains me too.

I grew up in the devastation of her death.

I've watched the consequences of it play out for thirty years.

I can see what might have been differently if she'd had a true choice and it snatches my breath away, to see the suffering that didn't have to be for the ones I love most.

I know that it is not my family, but it is also profoundly difficult to know that it is because of me.

Or to be more exact, because the world did not allow my mother her right to a true choice, and my being here is perhaps a result of that.

It's not a burden I'd wish on anyone

I wish that I could have told her. It's okay. Stay. Live. Be happy.

I wish I could know that she knew that that was more than ok.

Don't I want to be here? Don't I want to be alive, aren't I glad to live??

Now that I'm here, sure. But had I never been, what would I have lost? Nothing.

You can't miss what you never had. Can't lose anything when you never existed.

There's no pain or loss in not existing.

I didn't exist then, to want anything. I didn't exist to hope or wish or fear anything.

I didn't exist back then. Not me. There was a possibility. An idea, a hope maybe. Some cells, a process in her body. Not me, any more than a sperm was me or an egg was me.

*I" didn't become until much later. Til I was born.

My mother wouldn't have taken anything from me or cause me any pain by living for herself, because I didn't exist to lose anything.

There was so much pain, so much loss in losing her. Loss that will ripple down generations.

So I will say to my dying breath, as the person who only lives because she didn't abort, that whatever she thought or chose or did not chose, she should have had a real choice to abort.

That she should have felt that aborting me was valid and good a choice as not.

Everyone should feel that, and have real access to enact that choice without obstruction or shame or question.

Whether it is their actual life at risk, or not. A forced pregnancy can be the death of many things, not just the end of ther person's life.

Having me took away from the world everything that my mother could have given it.

Forcing someone to have a child against their will can take away what that person could be and bring if they had their choice, whether they live through the pregnancy or not.

Most of all it takes away their right - their inalienable right - to choose how they live their life in their own body.

A non-person, a hypothetical future event, the birth of someone who doesn't exist yet, doesn't have that right.

Other people, who claim to speak for the unborn do not have that right.

We all lose so much by it. It can cause such pain and suffering, for child-bearers, for children, for everyone.

Do not pretend to speak for the unborn.

Do not pretend to speak for the children born against their mother's will.

Do not pretend that you care for them while you hide misogyny behind dogma.

My mother deserved her right to a real choice.

Everyone does. Unconditionally.

As the child who could have been aborted, I tell you - to oppose that right, let alone work to criminalize it, is unforgivable.

I'd like to emphasize because I didn't say it loud enough in the original thread:

There doesn't need to be a tragic story or a threat to life to make abortion ok.

It can be simply because you don't want to have a child. That's all. You still have the right to a choice.

I told my sad story because:

a) it is important to me to counter the rhetoric of anti-choice folks, that claims that if the unborn could speak they would be anti-choice

b) forced pregnancies can really f*ck up lives in many ways and that needs to be recognized.

But:

There shouldn't have to be a tale of woe to justify bodily autonomy.

It's a right. An absolute right. It should be protected by law.

That's it. That's all.

Last thingL I want this point to be heard, but I don't particularly want to deal with blowing up on twitter.

I will probably lock my account down at some point, but I would like this still to be shared. Maybe use an unroll app and share from there if you would like to.]]

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Is also musical instrument

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2021 was 5 years ago

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I hate that after you hit 21 you run out of new privileges to earn. I think at 25 I should be able to use dynamite recreationally

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"Nobody wants to work anymore!!!! >:("

So far, jobs I've applied to have lied to me about:

- where the job was. The posting listed a town a few minutes away from me, but the interviewer said I needed to commute to NYC 5 days a week, an hour plus for me.

- remote options. They promise remote work until the interview, when they tell you remote is no longer supported.

-the hours. A number have listed full time only to tell me they could only offer part time, but the worst offended told me I could only have 8hrs a week

- how much the job paid. Posting promised 20$hr, the interviewer said it was minimum wage, 12$ in NJ.

- that the job was paid at all. It listed something like 50k a year at the top, but reading the job description, revealed it was an unpaid internship

- the job itself. I applied for a graphic design position, but during the interview they told me that I had to work as a door to door salesman for their product for a year before I could be "promoted" into the job I actually applied for.

-hiding the fact that that it was a military job and that you have to enlist. Nope nope nope.

I dont know how much of it is employers just don't know how to use job posting websites properly (like the guy in South Africa who listed his location in nj) but I think if you post the pertinent information people are looking for and then contradict it later, you make it clear you don't respect the people you need to hire

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I got a laminated picture of Owen Wilson on the inside of my pencil case, as you do, and today a grade 2 kid in my class noticed it.

Who is this? The little girl asked.

Ah, well…

My usual excuse was ‘my brother’ and that was when I liked a Japanese idol, and I am Asian, so it wouldn’t quite work with old OCW.

My boyfriend I told her, praying she wouldn’t notice that even though it was an old photograph, his face was already lined and in no way young enough to date a 20 something I was.

Ah surprisingly she accepted it no question asked.

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It was the end of our first face-to-face Thai lesson. I made to stand up from the teeny-tiny plasticy chair I had folded myself into for the hour with difficulty and couldn’t hold in a groan.

‘You hurt, Miss?’ A Y3 girl asked when I had to sit back down. Those small chairs were hard for a full sized adult to get up from. Maybe I should stop sitting on them.

I smiled behind my mask, rubbing one of my shoulders ‘a little, but I’ll be alright.’

The girl swiftly moved behind me with the kind of grace only little kids or wild monkeys could. She put her hands on the nape of my neck and started massaging over the woolen jacket I had on.

‘น้อยหน่า (her name) always do this for ตาสิทธิ์ (her granddad’s name) when he hurt. He said it makes him better.’

I had to muster all my strength to stop the tears welling in my eyes from spilling. Maybe moments like this is the reason why I teach.

‘It’s making me better too.’

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Went to my neighbor's first birthday party on Sunday. Party started at 3pm, the birthday girl went to bed at 7pm, her parents and the guests stayed and partied on until 10.

The lovely E, who I ran into a couple of times, was introduced to me and we got on like houses on fire. Turned out E is my age and we had quite the same taste on things (namely wine and David Tennant.) I normally didn't warm up to people that fast, but E was incredibly friendly.

My neighbors, the BD girl's parent and their two other kids, were also lovely. The kids were quite reserved at first, but as they got more and more used to me they were back to their delightful selves. I helped them build an IKEA toy. We joked. We talked. Girls yelled. We had fun.

We put a movie on for the girls in their bedroom while we had dinner. I ordered some Thai food for them to try. E has just got his teeth whitened and had to be careful what he ate so he got his own food. We enjoyed some lovely tom-saab.and somtam.

As the night wore on, we drank beer and wine, and in the comfort of their cozy home I found myself told them about how I had been treated like a second class citizen in my own country. They were shock. The lovely E's horrified eyes burned themselves into my mind.

I wasn't expect to tell anyone about my old school on the first night, but I did. I wasn't expect Mrs N to understand but she did.

I left their flat to my own across the hall with lighter heart. The weight that has been there for the past months lifted. E flashed me a smile before disappearing behind the door to the fire escape. I still hear the baby's laugh in my ears.

And I know I was loved, I was seen, and I belonged.

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I dragged myself to see the school counselor today.

Yeah they are here for teachers too, and our counselor is this vibrant lady in her late 30s who is also new to the school like me, and whose daughter is in my Thai for foreigners class.

I told her how I was feeling so lost, living in the staff apartment alone surrounded by families, how I feel like I couldn't fit in and how hard it was for me to make friends. That I feel like in my effort to seperate work and life, I am not giving my all, not doing my best.

And she said, hey, you probably haven't got enough feedback for what you did and you probably hasn't give yourself enough credit...I feel like you are too hard on yourself.

Then she told me how her daughter loves my lesson, how she would be so excited, reciting words and numbers to her after lessons, and how she heard the lessons from another room when she worked from home and they would talk about how sweet I was being.

And how I am one of the girl's favourites.

You wouldn't believe how happy I was, how I felt like all the weight were lifted. I am still stress, yes, but for the first time in weeks I fept hope, for the first time in months I saw the light. I'm so fucking proud of myself.

What would I give to be 26 again, she mused, her eyes twinkled, you have time to do all the things you want. Keep your eyes on the price.

She ended the session with a promise to check in on me and that we would have a girls' night out soon.

[anonexpatinthailand]

not to talk about doctor who but remember being a lonely depressed teenager and hearing him say '900 years of time and space and i've never met anyone who wasn't important'

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life doesn’t end at 25. life doesn’t end at 27 or 30 either. life doesn’t end at 35 or 45. life doesn’t end at 65. it doesn’t matter how old you are, when you decide to get your high school degree or start a family. it doesn’t matter when you decide to go run a marathon or go travel the world. life is not made up by numbers, age is, and your age is not all that you are. you got time. life doesn’t end until it ends.

[anonexpatinthailand]

Jesus Christ. How NSFW can you get?