#Provincial Normal School

[collapsedsquid]

In my wife’s hometown (not as big as ours, but much more industrial), one man came home with three million rubles, which he and his friends spent in 10 days. Three hundred thousand a day for the guys – limitless alcohol and prostitutes. That is life! Those who have families, meanwhile, come home and go to the sea, buy apartments, upgrade their cars. Secondly, they get to feel like they are part of something great. Just as our grandfathers defeated fascism, we are defeating Nazism in Ukraine (or whatever is there now). At the same time, we are beating the gays, the Jews, the entire collective West, Freemasons, everyone. Those who are older rejoice at the revival of the pioneers, military training in schools, school uniforms and generally all the fixtures of their youth. It’s about time, or else today’s youth would completely let themselves go! And all these gains without any effort at all, usually without even getting up from the couch. And what can be offered to the people who, thanks to the war, got rich and feel great, like kings? Clips about the palaces of corrupt officials? The people have known for a long time, since the 90s, that they were robbed, that is not news. Discussions about how the people (who remained) are to blame for the crimes of the regime? Interviews about democracy and human rights? The tragic stories of the imprisoned Berkovich or Melkonyants? Who even are those people – they did not say anything about them on the TV or internet (for example, on the Komsomol’skaya pravda website). The cash handouts – which the people would not make in years and years from their normal jobs – coupled with the feeling of being part of something great, is an explosive mixture. If you do not take this into account, you might endlessly wonder why in the last elections it was mainly the villages (and not large cities) that voted for the governors appointed by the Kremlin and the “ruling party” – even though it was precisely the village that suffered the most from the mobilization. It is this explosive mixture that pushes grandmas, who come to the polling stations in dresses they bought 20 years ago, to vote for the regime. They sincerely are for the regime, which they believe will soon build a great country – to spite our enemies, of course.

[silentmagi]

Rising Star

Hello friends, I’m hoping that you’re still enjoying this story as it develops. Had another tie this week. Let’s see..

What is next for Star?

1  A restless night’s sleep of overthinking 4. A nighttime visitor

It would seem that her nature of overthinking everything was not sharing the stage with sleep tonight, which had happened a few times back at school. Sadly her usual option of reading herself into oblivion was not an option due to the others in the room. So instead she stared at the darkened ceiling, positioning the stars in their positions with her mind to avoid thinking about…

Luna, by Manna, she would believe magic was still here if only someone presented her as evidence. There was something about her that kept distracting her. She knew that their time together was coming to an end, and yet she had the wild hope of being able to hold the interest of the bard for a while longer.

Seeing a shadow outside the window, she turned to see two bright eyes staring in from outside, this would normally be alarming, if she didn’t recognize the outline of a cat. Smiling she settled in to watch the silhouetted animal prowling at the window idly. Huh. if she didn’t know better, she would almost think that it was staring at her through the window.

Studying the cat, she smiled sleepily as she noted that it seemed to have a reflective coat, as the moon’s light was shining at the edges, looking almost like a shimmering starlight field more than a coat of fur.

Heh, perhaps there was a bit of the bard in her as well… or she was overtired and her brain was seeing things.

Watching the twin gleaming dots in the darkened main body, she couldn’t help but feel her body relaxing. She had always wanted a familiar, and probably would have gotten a cat. It would be the cutest, most adorable little kitty that she would spoil and treat to fish all it wants

She could almost see it now, nestled in a pile of pillows, napping with its black head resting on top of its white booted feet while she lounged next to it reading a book and petting it between pages. Playing with a ball of yarn, and subsequently getting tangled up and stuck.

Being able to tell it secrets and share late nights like this when she couldn’t sleep. There was so many wonderful things about kitty cats, and she wanted to share them with one. She would definitely find one after magic comes back.

Closing her eyes, she didn’t see the unnaturally bright smile spread on the cat’s face as the sun rose behind it, scattering it like mist, the final remaining element the two gleams of light that had been watching her.

We can hope that she sleeps on the wagon ride, or some other time.

[sgiandubh]

Fanfic galore

S is spotted on a boat in London by a French fan. Crazy comments ensue in Mordor:

AHAHAHAHA, out of all nations on this planet, they just had to come up with a Brazilian suspect!

And the host (that petty racist I refuse to name) immediately and somewhat gleefully gets on the choo-choo train.

The woman who posted that London pic is not Brazilian. She is desperately (and even provincially) French, but then it does not seem to suit your agenda (for what reason? I wonder 🙄) and then you just couldn't help yourself, could you?

Let's unpack. Yesterday, the X user Véesse, aka Drfolledamour, posted this innocent pic:

In the process, she gives us plenty of info on her real identity, because she is a normal human being with an average number of social media followers and being middle-aged, she does not give a crap about silly, sick hiding games on the Internet.

First, her initials, V.S (Véesse), with a rather cool & clever pun on the French word déesse/goddess. I like her and would definitely have coffee with her: my type of happy go lucky character.

Then, a very important clue, the X handle - @Drfolledamour. Anon and the vast majority of the non French or Francophile users would be excused not to know that is the French translation of one of my favorite Stanley Kubrick movies, Dr. Strangelove:

Then, the short bio, in her X profile. We are informed her grandfather was born in Lviv and her grandmother in Krakow. Lviv is in this country:

This country, if you don't mind reading, is called the Ukraine.

Krakow is to be placed here:

The country is called Poland. It is bordering Ukraine.

Until Brusilov's army got there, in 1914, Lviv was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and Krakow was under Russian control until 1794. Both cities featured sizeable Jewish communities, out of which a hefty chunk emigrated to the more tolerant France, especially in the Interwar period.

V.S. is a French woman proud of her Jewish roots, that's all. She also teaches economics in a French high school near Paris, in Chaville. But that's too complicated for you, I suppose.

However, her spelling sucks: 'j'ai dit que ma fille le kiffais' should be correctly written ' j'ai dit que ma fille le kiffait'. I told him my daughter liked him (a lot).

You see, 'kiffer' means 'to like/enjoy something a lot'. It comes from the Arabic Algerian colloquialism kif (كَيفْ), which means pleasure or amusement, and it went on into the French colonial slang, back in the day Algeria was a French colony. And onwards to the mild, mainstream jargon of today, keeping its meaning intact.

I am sorry, Brazilian friends. No woman of your country and few foreigners would spontaneously kif something or someone, nor make the sort of puns only a French native speaker would. Ask *urv, she just said she speaks French (proficient in buying a metro ticket using Duolinguo, I suppose).

Yes, these people are that stupid. And racist.

This is pathetic and the blogger should excuse herself, at a minimum. Which she won't. Of course.

[milkboydotnet]

A collection of activists and researchers from Filipino and Filipino-American organizations released the findings of a peace mission that concluded last month. The Philippines hosts the United States military in nine joint military facilities across the country through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The groups claim that the American forces are both violating the terms of their stay and operating without transparency to local communities and even to Philippine authorities.

After a three-week fact-finding mission, the Peace Mission International Delegation finds that “the heightening of US militarism and ramping up of EDCA sites is a threat to Philippine independence and sovereignty and the dignity and safety of Filipino communities,” said Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) USA. Meanwhile, Renato Reyes Jr, of BAYAN Philippines explained that the “increased deployment of American weapons and soldiers to the Philippines is meant to provoke a heightened military confrontation with China.”

Secret War

The mission went to two EDCA sites and to one province where American military operations had recently taken place.

In Basa Air Base of Pampanga province, even the Philippine military was barred from certain perimeters.

Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan province is one EDCA site and researchers found that even the provincial government was only made aware of its use by foreigners when it was announced in the news.

None of the locals know what kind of armaments are now stored at the site. Moreover, US personnel are tapping the wider community to store military items and supplies. The mission pointed out that it goes beyond the bounds of EDCA as it does not fall under any of the “Agreed Locations.”

Last month, the Balikatan (shoulder to shoulder) joint military exercises between the US and the Philippines concluded. The war games drew in over 16,000 soldiers and for the first time made armed excursions outside Philippine territories, around a hundred kilometers from Taiwan.

The town of Santa Ana in Cagayan, northeast of the Philippines is just 400 kilometers from Taiwan.

The mission alleges that the residents of Santa Ana, were kept in the dark about using their town as a site for military exercises throughout Balikatan.

The mission also documented US marines visiting local high schools in civic-military operations. Additionally “We documented reports of locals saying that the loud noise from US military jets scares them and their children. Not only did this directly disturb the fish supply that these people survive on, but it is aimed at normalizing foreign military occupation in their country,” said *Alex of the mission, using a pseudonym for security.

Not unlike in Cagayan, residents of Ilocos Norte province to the northwest of the country, only learned of Balikatan coming to their neighborhoods through news on Facebook. Live fire drills were carried out and some allege that explosions were heard just 30 kilometers from their homes.

The mission also criticized the five-day “no sail policy” enforced by the military, dealing a large blow to the livelihood of local fisherfolk.

Around 1,000 fishing families were affected by the fishing ban, with estimated losses at Php10,000 per family, a staggering amount that will take them months to recover from. Local government allotted aid worth Php1500 to just over a hundred families.

“The people of Ilocos deserve much more than to be treated as pawns in a US war game,” said *Glaiza of the group Gabriela.

Invitation for war

Balikatan is just one of over 500 planned exercises slated for this year alone. It comes alongside moves in Washington to significantly boost military aid to the Philippines to contain China and pursue its strategic interests in the Pacific region.

Last April, at the Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue in Washington, D.C., both countries held talks to expand the number of EDCA sites, investing US$128 million for infrastructure around these areas and stockpiling a greater volume of supplies.

This year, Marcos announced intentions to upgrade the country’s defense with a US$35 billion boost over the next 10 years.

His plans dovetail with a proposal in the US Senate dubbed the Philippine Enhanced Resilience Act, or PERA bill, which would allot US$2.5 billion over the next five years to Philippine military advancement.

Reyes criticized Marcos Jr’s inclination to plunge the Philippines into war at the behest of America. On June 12, Philippine Independence Day, Filipinos rallied at the US Embassy in Manila against using the country as a stooge in their agenda.

On the same day, Marcos delivered a speech with much bravado saying “We see it in the tenacity of our soldiers as they protect every inch of our territory, adamant as they are in the certainty that Filipinos do not, and shall never, succumb to oppression.”

However, after seeing how the American interests with the complicity of the Marcos regime is fuelling the escalation of the conflict with China, the mission asks “is the Philippines truly free? And what of the Filipino people who are sure to be caught in the crossfire if war were to break out?”

[uglygirlstatus]

You played soccer!!!! Cool! What position? How was your team??

I did! For like ten years. I was a goalkeeper and I chose that when I was 11 so that I wouldn’t have to run but turned out I had to do excessive agility drills and throw my body at the ground on command instead. But I do love the glory and the drama of being a keeper at the end of the day and find myself missing it sometimes.

My league team was so much fun and I loved playing on it and we were sort of bad until our final year in gr 12 where halfway through the season we suddenly started winning a lot and for a long time I thought it was the power of friendship until a year later I stumbled across an article on an online local newspaper about our win at the regional semi finals that stated we were actually demoted a division at the same point in the year that we started winning and the coaches just didn’t tell us.

My high school soccer team was an actually good team but one of my least favourite things I’ve ever participated in in my life. I was pressured to play by my dad because he was the coach and everyone liked him better than me. Also one time two girls tried to pants me before warm up at Provincials but I was wearing a full length pair of soccer shorts underneath my goalie pants for some reason and somehow that was more embarrassing than if I just had my normal underwear exposed

[lennonhead]

I decided to walk from Sendai Station to home. that's about 4 km. along the way many things happened

I saw a shop promising knife-cut noodles. they were alright, I got supposedly mala noodles but they were not spicy enough to be mala. I saw they have a Chinese menu though, and it was not terribly disappointing so I will keep the place in mind. it's in a weird/fun location in an underground alleyway

I went to the market and found a pomelo for 350 yen!! it's only a little guy, but pomelo are normally at least 800 yen. this is incredible. also saw super beautiful salmon but I didn't have the necessary money

I stopped at an arcade. I got a full combo on Night of Nights in Jubeat, hell yeah! I also played Guitarfreaks (Guitar Hero but it was created before Guitar Hero) for the first time in years and sucked so bad

I wondered if Sendai arcade staff ever got tired of hearing Jisei Template, but then I realised that the song is about 15 years old. then I thought about the Pop'n Music character the song is for, Masamune, so hard that I had to stop and tweet about it. when I learnt enough Japanese to translate Jisei Template my head exploded. my poor boy is suicidal in canon!!! this is a rhythm game series!!!

I went to yet another government office and there I got the answer that I am indeed eligible for the 70000 yen. hell yes. hell yes!!! forget what I was thinking about earlier about how the culture of Sendai probably would be very harmful to someone particularly impressionable like Pop'n Music Masamune presumably was in childhood, Sendai truly is the best city on the planet

by the way our provincial representative is named Masamune too. the true joke is that he's from Tokyo

I went into a grocery store on a whim and found a RARE YAMAZAKI PAN. it wasn't even on the list of this month's new products, and you know I read that list like it's the newspaper! it's 4 types of curry! exciting

no joke, I passed by a group of elementary school kids singing together while walking home. so. adorable. omg

a train passed overhead as I was walking into my neighbourhood. that one only goes every 20 minutes so it was a lucky occurrence

I arrived to find that a package from Aomori has come. I want to finish this first practice linen before I even think about opening it though

yep... very eventful

[randomidiocyncrazies]

having more time to think about Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Gwitch), here are some of my very loose and disorganized thoughts:

as people have pointed out, Gwitch ep 1 shares a lot of similarities with Utena, and i’m really hoping it goes hard on dissecting the systemic oppression like Utena—it’s a very capitalistic society, and Miorine’s dad is playing that system like a pro and using it to crush the people in his way... sometimes literally. (and i gotta say: even though he’s only a product of the corrupt system, someone needs to take Miorine’s father down a peg. hope he rots in hell!)

Guel Jeturk is very much an expy of Saionji in Utena, and seeing him get what he deserves is so goddamn satisfying. imo, what made Saionji compelling even taking his nightmarish behavior into account is that he’s obviously a laughing stock to the characters with power (this man eats shit constantly, and you love to see it!) He also has moments of clarity about the effects of the system he’s operating under—it’s a little tragic as he comes to the realization that participating in the duels (the patriarchy) is folly, but can’t help himself from being goaded into doing it all over again.

Now, Guel similarly is treated as a laughingstock—even his fangirls laughed when Suletta sassed him—but it remains to be seen if he gains enough self-awareness to recognize how the system he’s participating in harms him and the people around him. (that said, i don’t think a ‘redemption arc’ is necessary; it’s fine if he remains a jerkass who gets what’s coming to him, as long as he’s a complicated jerkass.)

We see two other guys and one other girl on the dueling committee, and i’m assuming they’re Miorine’s other ‘official’ suitors—though given that anyone with a MS could enter a duel with the current Engaged (and maybe even with other students), maybe there’s no concept of ‘official’ suitors, and committee members are paper-pushers who deal with dueling logistics. it’s interesting that the dueling system obviously favors pilots to inherit the company (via engagement to Miorine); Miorine’s dad is ex-military, so it makes sense that he’s biased towards having a fighter as his heir (instead of his own non-combatant child).

(this does make me wonder what it’d be like if Miorine was his son instead of his daughter—would he have sold his son to the best MS duelist the same way he’s doing to his daughter, or would he have pushed his son to become someone who could wield a MS?)

given that gay marriage and queer relationships are commonplace in the setting outside of “provincial” Mercury, I hope that there are other queer characters too—Suletta and Miorine are cute, but we should see evidence of other same-sex couples if it’s as normalized as it’s stated to be. (I also hope other queer identities are normalized in the setting as well).

as for our leads, i like them! i don’t necessarily need Miorine to become a badass elite pilot, but i wouldn’t complain if she does become one (as long as the journey is convincing). I’d prefer it if she was able to take the reins of her own destiny without becoming one though, because i think it’s more powerful to show that there are multiple ways to take down an abusive system. I really hope it’s not going to come off as “manipulative woman gets people to fight for her”—but judging from the materials released so far, I don’t think we’re in danger of that kind of framing.

on a related topic: it’s clear that Miorine’s male suitors are mostly in it to inherit the company, and there’s no indication that they—along with most of the school’s population—have any respect for Miorine as a person. it’s an interesting dynamic in that she’s technically the princess of the school, given who her father is, but is treated like dirt by most of the student population due to her father's dehumanizing treatment of her. i hope the other students start respecting her later in the show, and not just because of how strong her fiancee is.

[thatonespriteobsessedbitch]

there's something so weird about knowing immediately that something is wrong with a part of your body

idk if it's cause I'm an athlete and that I know my body so well that I'm able to tell the moment something is off or what but it's very strange to me

my shoulder felt off on Saturday

and by this morning I had a doctor's appointment booked because this was not normal and, from what I know, it sounds like swimmer's shoulder and I don't want to wait 3, 4 months before doing something about it

because I have a limited number of years left when it comes to swimming

because let's be honest, I'm not going to be able to continue swimming competitively in university, they're not going to take me on

they want the fastest swimmers they can and not the ones who go 40.1 on a 50 free at 15, the provincial time for my part of Canada is like 30 something

I'm going to have to start phasing out fly from my events because my back won't be able to handle it for much longer

before long I don't think I'll even be swimming anymore

I'll have too shitty joints and a back that is too broken to be able to do it

and it makes me so fuckin sad because this is my life

I do it cause I love it so fucking much

but before long it will be no more meets

no more early morning practices

no more chlorine burns on my wrists and shoulders

no more bringing two bags to school cause I'm going straight to practice after

no more swimming

and I think it might destroy me

[harrison-abbott]

Robbie was yelling at the printer because it was stuttering again. Polly had the flu and was all glued up on paracetamol; and Eric was mucked up on eight cups of instant coffee and couldn’t concentrate on his Excell digits. There was rain and wind outside and the smatter and howl of both rattled the building, the sky darkling between purple and grey. It was 4 pm and it was tricky to consider whether the last ever hour was the best or worst. Whether it was redemptive or agonising. I needed a pee. So I upped from my desk and went along the corridor and sat on the cubicle and when I finished I washed my hands in the sink and there was a big bright mirror in front of me and below the cuffs of my shirt one could see the ends of the scars on my wrists. I’d seen a few of the colleagues look at them before. Notice the scars; Polly did definitely, a few years back when I’d first started, and she’d frowned and touched my arm and, she’d just been about to ask “What happened there?” and then she looked up at me and I couldn’t look back and then she dropped it and said “Oh I didn’t mean to pry,” and never mentioned it again. Yes. Dark history, but so long ago. I was too old for that type of destructive force these days. When I got back to my desk, Polly and the others were laughing about Robbie’s rant against the printer from earlier. Like the time and time before that. I laughed as well. Mostly because it was a relief to see them all smiling. And it made the 5 o clock bell come faster and following that I was out in the dark winter air within minutes. The workplace was near the docks and thus the roads were rough and dirty and traffic intense and the rainwater zipped and snarled and the wind kept yanking my hood down. I liked it. Made me feel free. As I walked I didn’t feel like a boy or young man; all I experienced was the worth of present time. That the most important thing to avoid in the moment was getting mashed by one of these nearby zooming trucks. I made it, out of the bypass zone and through the park and up to the main street. Which was filled with about 500 people all going home, within a square mile radius. As I waited for the bus I thought about mean things kids had said to me in high school; and how they connected with the family bullying I’d experienced growing up; and the failure as a musician when I was a student; and the old girlfriend who I hadn’t seen in nearly six years. Hmm. They weren’t as bad in this cold wild weather. Thinking about those things used to be worse. I wasn’t too ashamed about finding things like violence in movies disturbing. Or taunting and pisstaking hurtful; being irate about this did not make me a loser. There were so many examples I could point out to the family, comparison-wise. But somehow I didn’t feel the point in being abused by them anymore. And, those tots in high school? They were probably still living in those sallow provincial towns, doing nothing. That’s what high school is for – it’s designed to hurt you. My bus came. It was warm and packed to the brim with faces and wet coats. The windows were steamy and I made a little clear patch on the window by me and watched the streets change to the older parts of the city where there were ethnic shops and all of these stories whirling about. There were some kids running with grins on their faces at one point. At another bit these policeman had stopped a woman by her motorbike, and she was holding her helmet in her hands. There was a disused church which somebody had tried to burn down earlier in the year … not out of hate but merely for plain arson. And the police had put tape around the building and cordoned it off; and none knew what to do with it because it was a holy building rather than any normal one. All kids of tales. My imagination wound through them.

[shlvss]

Father, it’s your 10th death anniversary

Father, it’s your 10th death anniversary.

And I started to accept that my grief will forever be a part of me. Like the moles I have on the side of my eyes. Like my writings and readings. Like my wavy hair I wanted to get rid of it when I was child, but I couldn’t. Because it was so much part of me. (And I swear this is the hardest writing I’ve ever done in my entire life).

I miss you.

And I will always miss you.

And now the movie is always running in my head. Of how you would smile proudly when I achieve the highest score in school. Your proud eyes when I got to the provincial olympiad. You never really hugged me tight — you just a normal Asian father that never shows their affection to their children very much.

But you were always ready to pick me up at school, you were always willing to take me anywhere I wanted: the subdistrict’s library near the public health center, my karate extracurricular, the shop near the crossroads that sells the comic books I like.

Your presence is as much as your hugs that I never receive.

.

When we lose someone, there’s so many words we owe them.

From apologizing when I was locked myself in my room crying because you couldn’t take me to my grandfather’s house at holiday — but have I ever been grateful that you take me anywhere I wanted before?

But the things I’ve always wanted to say weren’t my childish story from the past. They are the awakenings in me, from my life since his death.

I love you.

I am grateful to be your children.

I know that you weren’t perfect, but I love you, and I am grateful to have you as my parents.

Now that I just have memories to be remembered, I decided to write.

Write and write and write, so that his presence still lives not only inside my memories, but also alive through my words.

Write and write and write, so that his stories do not slip from my memories.

.

Father, it’s your 10th death anniversary.

And I started to embrace my grief,

for grief only exists where love lived first.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Hey, did I ever tell you people about the night a whole building full of people who had a thousand reasons to hate each other came together for about ten seconds? Here’s a story. It’s not about comedy. Well, it’s sort of slightly about one comedy movie, but it’s not a British one, and that’s not the point.

It was at the Olympic Trials, which took place at the end of 2019, since they were supposed to be for Tokyo 2020. Didn’t end up working out that way, but we didn’t know that in December 2019. In December 2019, we thought this mattered so much.

Three athletes from my team competed, though only one had any hope of winning. Only one coach from my team had the credentials required to sit in corners at that high-level a tournament, so there wasn’t really a need for anyone but him and the competing athletes to go. But we were lucky that the tournament was only about five hours from where I live, and it didn’t cost extra money to put more people in the truck and in the Air B&B. So I went down as a spectator, along with a friend/co-coach of mine who also wasn’t certified to coach, but wanted to watch.

This was one of the only times I’ve ever been at a tournament where I wasn’t a competing athlete or an active coach. For once, I was able to just sit back and enjoy watching my sport, performed at the highest level our country has to offer. All those top-level people whom I normally watched a few at a time, on YouTube and in smaller tournaments – they were all there together, in hotly contested high-stakes matchups.

As I sat in the stands and enjoyed the spectacle, I realized one of the only other times I’d done this was at the first big tournament I’d ever attended. The first time I ever travelled and stayed overnight for my sport, the first time I attended a tournament in an arena instead of a gymnasium. It was in 2005, when I was fourteen years old and qualified for the high school provincial championships.

That was so many years ago now, but I remember it well as the week I really decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I’d been doing the sport for almost six months, I liked it, but I’d only seen it on the local scale before. That tournament was so much bigger than I’d imagined it could be. It had athletes who were so much better than any I’d seen before. It had higher stakes.

I wasn’t ready to compete at that level; I sort of lucked into winning my first match and then quickly lost my next two. That meant my job was over within the first few hours of a three-day tournament, so I had many more hours to just sit in the stands and watch. That was the first time I learned that I can watch this sport for hours and hours and hours, with nothing else to do, and not get bored. I watched the people who were good enough to finish in the top six, or even win, and couldn’t imagine ever being that good. But I wanted to try more than I’d ever wanted anything. I pretty much decided that week that I never wanted to do anything except this, I wanted to dedicate every second of my waking life to getting as good as those people who competed in the finals of that tournament, and I stuck to that. Three years later, I did win that tournament. I became the first female athlete from my city to ever win the high school provincials championships in that sport. Which... I realize it doesn’t sound like much, when written down like that. But it was everything to me, at 17, after I’d worked so hard for it for three years. And I remember the moment I decided to work for it, when I was fourteen and sitting in those bleachers.

Sitting there all day at the Olympic Trials made me think of all the hours I’d spent, fifteen years earlier, sitting in the stands of that arena, watching the matches, and falling completely in love with the sport for the first time. The Olympic Trials were on a different level, of course. What impressed me to the point of being mesmerized at age fourteen were high school championships – not the same league as adults competing for spots on the Olympic team, which I watched at age 29. But it was a similar feeling, of getting to just sit and watch this sport that I’d never stopped loving.

I didn’t spend the whole weekend in the stands. I wasn’t certified to a high enough level to get into corners, but I did get a training partner’s pass, so I was allowed into the warm-up room to help the athletes get ready for their matches. It was a room with mats in the middle for training, and along the walls, they’d cordoned off little sections for each team, to be used as mini-change rooms. Which I realize, now that I write this, doesn’t sound impressive. But at the time, that was a sign that we were at an amazingly cool and high-level event, that our team was good enough to have a little section with our name on it at the Olympic Trials, next to the names of all the best teams in the country. I went in there and worked with all three athletes from my team before their matches, letting them practise whatever they wanted with me.

The one athlete we had with a chance of winning is my current roommate. As of when those trials happened, I’d been living with him for almost a year. I’ve now known him for nearly twenty years – I actually first met him at those provincial championships in 2005, when I was fourteen and first fell in love with the sport, and he was eighteen and won a gold medal. I still remember how incredibly fucking exciting it was to watch this guy from my own city win that impossibly huge tournament. He was the only person from my city to win a gold medal there that year. I joined my local club, as soon as I got home, and he became my teammate, and I thought that was so fucking cool.

To be honest, once the initial shine of star-struckness wore off, this guy and I didn’t get along great. We didn’t dislike each other. We were just very different people. We didn’t interact much in our many years of being teammates, and when we did, it was often awkward. You know that Catsdown bit when Huge Davies says him and his dad just have no chemistry so every conversation between them is vaguely uncomfortable? That makes me think of my roommate and I. No chemistry. Different interests, different approaches to life, somewhat clashing personalities. However, in early 2019, he happened to be looking for a roommate, in a two-bedroom place with a good location and cheap rent, at the same time as I was looking for a new place to live. So I moved in, and several years later, here I still am. It works fine. He takes over the house and I almost never leave my bedroom when he’s home.

Our other two athletes at those Olympic trials were a boy and girl, aged 18 and 19, who were dating each other and were our two top athletes at their age group. We knew it would be a long shot for them to win even one match at the Olympic Trials, but we hoped they’d be on the Olympic track by 2024, and we thought it would be valuable experience for them to see what competing at that level was like when they were young.

Our two teenage athletes, as we expected, lost pretty quickly. But my roommate had a hell of a day. He beat several very good opponents, and got into the gold medal match. His finals were against a guy he’d beaten at the national championships in the previous year, but it had been close. So this could go either way.

There was a break before the finals, when we went back to the Air B&B to shower and drop off some stuff. I remember driving back to the venue with my friend, feeling really excited. We’d both been in the sport a long time, had competed and coached at relatively high levels, but had never seen this level in person before. It felt like a big deal, even though we’d only be spectators.

When we got there, one of the first things that happened is a guy from a nearby city was hitting on our female athlete. Luckily we were already late for a planned team meeting, so I had a good excuse to shoo him away by saying she was needed with our team. He asked me to just give him one more minute, just because she was about to give him her number. My answer was:

“No, you fucking idiot. The part where you get her number is exactly the part I don’t want to let you finish doing. Her boyfriend is one of our best athletes, and they’ve already cheated on each other once, and that caused more than enough drama on the team. You beat her boyfriend in a close match earlier this year, so if she cheats on him with you, the ensuing drama might cause our entire team to implode. Also, you compete for a university team run by the coach who’s known for being a terrifying figure and will kick people off his team if they’re caught dating anyone. Not just dating a teammate, but dating anyone. I think it’s fucked up that he’s allowed to control his athletes’ lives to that extent, but he does, and my team currently has an uneasily peaceful relationship with him that we occasionally exploit to train our better athletes in his room, and I am not about to jeopardize that by having this be the reason he kicks out one of his best up-and-coming athletes. You should know better than to risk your spot on the team as well, just because you apparently want to steal your rival’s girlfriend. Now go away.”

Obviously I didn’t say any of that. I said we have a meeting to get to, and then we fucked off. We went into the warm-up room to meet with the rest of the team, and on the way, I almost walked into my former university coach.

That was quite an awkward moment, because he and I had not been on speaking terms for several years, due to some shit that happened after I left the team. Basically, I sent my best athlete, a guy I was very close with, down to that team, and it went quite badly. I didn’t like the way they treated him. They didn’t like the way I did things like still refer to him as “my athlete” when he was on their team.

But he didn’t want to be their athlete. He was calling me all the time to tell me how much he hated being there, and I knew he was right, because I’d seen them treat people badly when I’d been on that team too. It cumulated in one time when I drove him home from a tournament without his coaches’ permission, which is a huge thing you’re never supposed to do. He transferred universities and moved back home, and my former coaches hadn’t spoken to me since. Which made me feel quite sad, even though I fucking hated them by then. Because I’d once been their athlete and craved their approval. Also, I only really hated one of them. The other I still sort of liked despite it all, he’d helped me through a few really tough matches during my time there, and I’d hated burning my bridge with him.

That guy, the coach I didn’t hate, was the guy I walked into at the Olympic Trials. I apologized without even noticing who it was, and then I looked up, saw it was a guy who wasn’t on speaking terms with me, and stopped talking. We had an awkward moment of eye contact before going on our way. But he didn’t spare too much thought for me, because he was busy. He was preparing to coach one of his athletes – my former teammate – who’d competed at the 2016 Olympics, had made it to the finals in the 2020 Olympic Trials, and was about to defend his spot.

There was a huge amount of controversy around that. His opponent in the finals was a guy who lived in the States, trained in the States, and just registered with a Canadian team so he could compete at the Canadian trials. My former coaches had spent the last two years in legal disputes, trying to claim that he did not spend enough time in Canada to be eligible for the Canadian Olympic trials. They paid lawyers to claim this repeatedly, sometimes in actual courts, because when the Olympics are at stake it matters enough to do that. My personal opinion is I’m pretty sure they’re right, but also, that former teammate of mine liked to sexually harass female athletes on my team, and on other teams, while I was there. So I don’t really care about him enough to want his side to win anything, even if they’re right. And they didn’t win – the other guy was legally declared eligible, and now, as expected, they would meet in the finals of the Olympic trials.

Anyway. I got past my coach. Got through the team meeting. Did a bit to help my roommate warm up for his finals, and then I went into the stands with my friend who was also spectating. Our teenage athletes went off to sit with some of their friends from other teams, which is good, because that meant my friend and I didn’t have to pretend to not have the flask that I had hidden in the inside pocket of my leather jacket, like a character in a movie.

Drinking was prohibited in the stands, but obviously everyone who didn’t have to coach, ref, or compete got at least a bit drunk. I put whiskey in a flask I’d brought from home, which is actually a piece of Welcome to Night Vale merchandise that says: “If you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget”. I could probably have got away with taking it out and drinking from it in the stands, but I worried about getting in trouble, so throughout the evening, my friend and I kept taking turns to take the flask to the bathroom during breaks between matches, and having a drink from it in there (don’t worry, our other friend who was actually able to coach in corners, and therefore wasn’t drinking, drove back to the Air B&B that night).

The second time I did that, I went into the bathroom at the same time as a woman who coached the biggest, most successful team in the country. This woman was a huge figure in our sport, largely due to the fact that she’d won three Olympic medals, in three different years, back when she was still competing. I didn’t want to take the drink in front of her, so I went into a stall.

When I did so, I had a brief moment of feeling like I was outside my body. I thought, not for the first time that weekend, of my fourteen-year-old self, spending all day sitting in bleachers and falling in love with a sport, so impressed by those top high school athletes from across the province. I thought… yeah, she’d find this pretty fucking cool. She’d be impressed if she knew that fifteen years later, I’d be going into a bathroom stall next to a three-time Olympic medalist, during the finals of the Olympic trials, so I could take a swig of whiskey without that Olympic medalist noticing. I mean, fourteen-year-old me wouldn’t be pleased about the whiskey, as I was pretty staunchly anti-alcohol back then and would remain that way for quite a few years. But overall, she’d be impressed.

When I came out of the stall, the Olympic medalist looked at me with eyes that said: “I can smell the whiskey and I know what you’re doing.” And I looked back at her with eyes that said: “Well, I know you’re sleeping with your co-coach, even though that’s a massive conflict of interest due to your job on the board that both oversees and funds teams across the country, so your influence allows him to get away with all the shady shit he does, including physical and psychological abuse of his athletes. A pattern of predatory behaviour that goes back to at least when he started sleeping with you, back when he was still married and you were an athlete he coached who was much younger than him. And instead of figuring out that was fucked up, you stayed with him and now you allocate him disproportionate funds and protect him when he hurts other people. So do not fucking judge me for drinking whiskey, because I know what you do with your life. Also, your team doesn’t have to drink in bathrooms because it’s run by the people in charge of enforcing the rules, which means the rules don’t apply to them, so I’m sure they’re just drinking in the stands. And also, remember when I was twenty-two and you tried to ‘talent ID’ me, but you were clearly just worried that I might be a threat to one of your athletes and you were trying to scout out the competition, and I pretty much told you to fuck off? Well that still applies. You can still fuck off.” I didn’t say any of that, or anything at all, obviously. But I tried to convey it with my eyes.

I went back to my seat, with my friend. We watched the finals. Many of the matches were really, really exciting. Near the end, my roommate was up. It was only then that my friend and I realized the problem with the fact that we’d happened to sit in the middle of a whole bunch of his opponent’s teammates. When his opponent walked out, the people around us erupted in cheers.

When my teammate/roommate walked out, it was much quieter. My team is small, is newer on the scene at that level, and we only had a few people there. So my friend and I yelled as loudly as we could for him, to try to make up for our lack of numbers. Across the room, I could hear our two high school kids yelling for him too.

The match started, and the cheers for his opponent continued. Suddenly, I didn’t care anymore than I often found my roommate kind of annoying and we didn’t get along that well. He was my annoying person, and I was pissed off at all people around me who were against him. Throughout the match, I got into it, yelling in support for him. My friend and I attracted attention, of course. People started looking at us like we were on the wrong side, and then they started deliberately trying to drown us out.

It got worse as the match progressed, because it was very close and intense. The two of them went back and forth until the last seconds. It lasted a long time, because they both started bleeding at different times, and the match had to be paused while they dealt with that. In the end, my roommate lost by a couple of points. The two men stood up, both visibly bloody, while everyone around us cheered.

Things quieted down a bit during the next match, and the one after that was my former teammate versus the guy who isn’t actually Canadian. My former teammate walked out to, unusually for that night, almost universal cheers. His opponent, due to not being an actual part of any Canadian team, had no teammates on his side. Everyone in the building knew about the court cases, everyone was upset about this outsider trying to beat our defending Olympian, and for once, everyone was on the same side.

The imposter walked out to silence at first, and then there were some scattered boos. And then, something fantastic happened. I could watch every comedy show that’s ever been recorded, and will never see anything as funny as this. As the American imposter walked out to the mat, my friend next to me yelled out: “He doesn’t even go here!”

Throughout the room, there was laughter and murmuring of agreement. There were more boos, spurred on by her outburst. And in that moment, none of the rest of it mattered. The fact that I don’t get along with my roommate. The fact that I don’t like that woman who runs that other team or her co-coach/illicit sexual partner. My two high school athletes and all their drama, and the people from other teams who hit on them. Controlling university coaches who won’t let their athletes have personal lives. My issues with my former university coaches and teammate. The fact that about ten minutes earlier, my friend and I had known everyone in our vicinity was against us, cheering loudly against my roommate. The politics, the corruption, the infighting. The hundreds of bits of drama from different coaches and athletes and refs and teams across the country, spread out across that room. For just a moment we all forgot about it, and came together to enjoy a perfectly timed Mean Girls reference. A reference like that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I’ll never forget that feeling. Sitting there and realizing I wasn’t surrounded by enemies, I was surrounded by people who had bought into the same thing I had and dedicated their lives to it, just like me. We all had this shared experience. We all cared so deeply that we were willing to fight tooth and nail, literally and figuratively, for this thing we loved. I thought of the day I’d fallen in love with this sport at the age of fourteen, and how every person in that room had had a day like that once, and they all stuck with it, just like I did. That mattered so much more than anything else. That meant we were all more like each other than we were like the vast, vast majority of people in the world.

Then the American imposter beat the shit out of my former teammate, and took the spot. That deflated us a little, but it’s probably for the best, because as I’ve said, I have good reasons to not like the guy much. That moment of feeling at one with everyone else in the room was never going to last. But I still think that moment was beautiful.

Then we all went home, and a few months later the world ended, and no one went to Tokyo in 2020, and none of this fucking mattered anymore.

There’s one more part of to this story. The day after the tournament, after I got home, I heard a song that I’d never heard before. It’s bothering me now that I can’t remember why I heard it, as it wouldn’t have been on the radio or anything. All I can think of is maybe I was clicking around on YouTube and just came across it. Maybe I was still excited from the tournament the day before, so I was playing a bunch of rousing music, and that made YouTube recommend this to me. What I do remember is hearing it and being blown away by both how good it was, and how perfectly its tone captured the way I’d been feeling for the last day. The way I’d been overwhelmed with passion this thing I loved. If I’d listened to the lyrics that closely, I’d have learned that disappointingly, like most things, it’s actually about sex. But from hearing it without knowing the details, it felt like it was about something much bigger than that.

It was a very good song, and I should have downloaded it and added it to my collection, but I didn’t. I think I was busy working when I first heard it, so I didn’t do anything with it, and then I forgot about it. I heard it on that one day, but not before or since, until this morning. This morning, when I was listening to an old Daniel Kitson radio show, and he put this song on.

…Yeah, sorry everyone, the twist at the end of this story is that it turns out this was secretly yet another post about a Daniel Kitson radio show all along. Or at least it was inspired by that, because I heard this song on the radio show, and it made me think of the other time I’d heard it, and then I decided to write this whole thing.

After it finished playing, Kitson put on a John Grant song or some shit, and then back announced them together with no mention of the fact that this song does not belong in the same sentence as John Grant. And that annoyed me. This song is so fucking good that it annoyed me to hear someone regard it with anything less than requisite awe. Even though, to be fair, I did hear it several years ago and then forgot about it. But now that I’ve heard it again it’s going into my collection for sure.

[froggybangbang]

Just to keep you updated on stuff i don't see anyone talking about:

Maybe some of you know about Quebec's Bill-21, but in case you don't: this stupid ministry that's in power suddenly did a complete reversal in 2019 from their original "This is a Catholic Province and thus wearing the niqab to access public services like the bus or the library should be illegal" stand (which thank fuck didn't pass) and decided a much more subtle "This is an Atheist Province and so wearing religious object is illegal if you work as a civil servant" (i.e. public school teacher, lawyer, etc.) It is vile and you should all hate the CAQ.

Basically they were able to do so, even though our Canadian Charter of Rights says you can't, because of a "Constitutional Notwithstanding Clause" that gives provinces the right to overlook that pesky charter of rights for 5 years, BUT not if it affects gender. And so the opposition used this! And while it is true men are also affected by this law too, they made the case that muslim WOMEN were disproportionately affected by this bill, and if they are able to prove that more women than men have lost their job because of this, this fucking this can burn in hell, where it'll prepare the brazier for Legault when he dies. Problem is bigots claim it's not and since it's not an easy thing to prove, this will drag on, which really sucks for the people who lost their jobs

A few excerpts from the CBC article:

The clause gives provinces the power to override portions the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for renewable periods of five years.

A key argument of groups opposed to the law is that it discriminates on the basis of gender by disproportionately targeting Muslim women. Provincial laws that can be shown to be discriminatory on the basis of gender cannot be shielded by the notwithstanding clause.

[...]

Perri Ravon, lawyer for the English Montreal School Board, who made several points about Bill 21's disproportionate effect on Muslim women last week, was questioned about that by Justice Marie-France Bich.

"It seems the effect of Bill 21 on men and women differs depending on their religion. For Christians, it has a certain impact. If you look at Jewish persons, Sikh persons, or Muslim persons, it has another impact. From there, where do we go?" Justice Bich asked.

"If we look at who's being impacted, it's Muslim women. If we look at who's losing their jobs, it's Muslim women. If we look at who the law was designed for, it's Muslim women,"  Ravon replied. 

She noted that so far in the province, Muslim women who wear the hijab are the only people who've lost jobs or been denied employment due to Bill 21.

Justice Bich asked if it was possible those women were being discriminated against simply because of their religion and not because of their gender.

"This is a case of intersectional discrimination," Ravon replied. "Not all women or not even most women have to be affected to establish gender discrimination."

"Historically, it's more vulnerable subgroups of women that require constitutional protections," she said.

I really love this lawyer, what a queen. One lawyer i don't like is her:

Amélie Pelletier-Desrosiers, lawyer for the attorney-general of Quebec, argued there was no evidence that Bill 21 discriminates based on gender.

Pelletier-Desrosiers pointed out that most teachers are women and so it was normal, but not necessarily discriminatory, that they would be more affected by Bill 21.

Christiane Pelchat, the lawyer representing the feminist group Droits des femmes du Québec — which supports Bill 21 — picked up on this theme.

Pelchat pointed out that most police officers and judges are men, and so that it could equally be argued that the law discriminated unfairly against men.

Pelchat also took a shot at Ravon's arguments about intersectional discrimination, pointing out to the judges that intersectionality was not a recognized legal argument in Canada.

And oh yeah also? Right now there's a lack of teachers. 🤔 I wonder why and what could help...

[theportdentals]

Investigating the Typical Dental Bridge Cost

With regards to reestablishing missing teeth, dental bridges are a well known and viable arrangement. In any case, prior to choosing this dental technique, it's fundamental to comprehend the dental bridge cost and the elements that impact it. In this article, we'll investigate the typical cost of a dental bridge, factors influencing the cost, and how you can make this treatment more reasonable.

What is a Dental Bridge?

A dental bridge is a prosthetic gadget used to fill the hole made by at least one missing teeth. It regularly comprises of at least two crowns put on the teeth nearby the hole (otherwise called projection teeth) and a bogus tooth (or) in the middle between. Dental bridges assist with reestablishing your grin, further develop biting capability, and keep up with the state of your face.

The Typical Dental Bridge Cost

The cost of a dental bridge fluctuates fundamentally founded on a few elements, including the kind of bridge, materials utilized, and geographic area. By and large, a customary dental bridge can cost somewhere in the range of $1,500 to $5,000 per tooth. Here is an overall breakdown:

Conventional Dental Bridge: $1,500 to $3,000 (for a solitary pontic and two crowns)

Cantilever Bridge: $2,000 to $5,000

Maryland Reinforced Bridge: $1,000 to $2,500

Embed Upheld Bridge: $5,000 to $15,000

These are normal costs and can fluctuate relying upon the intricacy of the case and the dental specialist's ability.

Factors Influencing Dental Bridge Cost

A few elements can impact the general dental bridge cost, including:

Sort of Bridge: Conventional bridges, cantilever bridges, and embed upheld bridges all have various costs in light of the materials and techniques included.

Materials Utilized: Porcelain, metal combinations, or zirconia can influence the last cost. Porcelain and zirconia are more costly than metal-based materials because of their normal appearance and toughness.

Number of Missing Teeth: The more teeth engaged with the bridge, the higher the cost. A bigger range of missing teeth requires more materials and work.

Dental Facility Area: Costs will more often than not be higher in metropolitan regions contrasted with provincial areas, fundamentally because of higher living costs in urban communities.

Dental specialist's Insight: An exceptionally experienced dental specialist might charge something else for their mastery and the nature of care they give.

Extra Systems: Preliminary work, for example, extractions, root waterways, or gum medicines can add to the general cost of the dental bridge strategy.

Protection Inclusion for Dental Bridges

Dental protection can essentially lessen the dental bridge cost. Most protection plans conceal to half of the cost of helpful strategies like dental bridges, contingent upon the arrangement's terms. It's fundamental for check with your protection supplier to comprehend the degree of inclusion and any personal costs you might have to bear.

Ways Of making Dental Bridges More Reasonable

In the event that the cost of a dental bridge appears to be overwhelming, there are ways of making it more reasonable:

Protection Plans: Search for dental protection designs that cover helpful systems like bridges.

Dental Markdown Plans: Numerous dental workplaces offer rebate plans for patients without protection. These plans give diminished expenses to different techniques, including bridges.

Installment Plans: A few dental facilities offer installment designs that permit you to spread the cost north of a while.

Dental Schools: Dental schools frequently give treatment at a diminished cost. The methods are performed by understudies under the oversight of experienced dental specialists.

Look Around: It's really smart to counsel numerous dental workplaces to analyze costs and choices for treatment.

End

The dental bridge cost relies upon a few elements, including the sort of bridge, materials utilized, and the dental specialist's area. While the typical cost can go from $1,500 to $5,000 per tooth, it's feasible to lessen the costs through dental protection, rebate plans, and installment choices. It's consistently fitting to examine with your dental specialist to get a point by point cost breakdown and investigate choices for supporting your dental bridge.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"By the 1930s, all provincial statutes stipulated that young persons were not to be employed in work where their health was “liable to be injured.” Such an imprecise directive, however, left great scope for interpretation and especially for neglect. None of the provincial factory laws required that industrial establishments be regularly inspected by physicians or medical officers of health.

The medical profession, despite its dominant role in the period’s campaigns to regulate child health and education, and despite its growing interest in adolescence, was decidedly vague about the relationships between health, class, age, and the nature of work:

The damage done to the child from excessive work may be difficult to detect until he has been engaged at it for a period of years.

Consistent with the larger “expert” discourse on adolescence, medical concerns that were explicitly tied to the life stage of these young workers referred to emotional or psychological more than to physical problems. Thus doctors worried about the “striking phenomenon” of youth’s “rebellion against authority,” a phenomenon otherwise regarded as “normal” among adolescents. For young workers, some contended,

monotony in this period of life will kill the best instincts of the future citizen, and very often leads to Bolshevistic tendencies, or some-times to the vicious characters so often encountered in city life.

Young workers might, moreover, embrace views “sufficiently warped to drag down hundreds or even thousands.” Where young women were concerned, doctors worried about the impact of fatigue and other work-related health threats on the fragile physical and nervous systems of this “delicate” group, considering that they might lead to “permanent derangement of health and difficulty in childbearing.” The “fundamental fact” determining women’s place in industry was simply that “nearly every woman is a potential mother.” Young working women were believed to be even more prone to all manner of “breakdowns” than were their more affluent sisters. Such concerns about the health of young workers and worker efficiency were closely connected, often masking anxieties about production with those about reproduction.

...much of the evidence about youth labour in the past is patchy, often anecdotal and autobiographical. A significant part of young people’s work defied easy measurement because of its marginality and even invisibility in the formal labour market. Yet there is enough evidence to sustain the notion of its persistence and its continued importance to families, and also to show that social convention and familial expectations upheld a certain filial duty in this regard, especially but not exclusively in immigrant households. One young woman who had left Naples for Montreal as a child was obliged to take on full-time factory labour at the age of thirteen:

This was hard work. I used to get up at five o’clock as it took an hour to reach work on the street car. We worked from 7 to 5 and though I was supposed to weigh macaroni in the boxes, I had to do much other work and this was very hard.

Despite the steady chorus of worries about child and youth labour, it was also the general wisdom that some sort of part-time, after-school, or weekend job would convey critical lessons in self-discipline, money management, thrift, and the importance of earning one’s keep through honest toil. Chatelaine magazine promoted sales by regularly exhorting its (largely female) readership to “help your boy or girl to help him or herself ” by “showing them” the opportunity to sell subscriptions door to door. Fathers were urged to “give your boy or girl an early start in training for business” in this manner.

A great many young adolescents held part-time jobs, a pattern that seems to have been the norm even in fairly well-off middle-class families during this period. For some families, of course, the need was entirely economic. A.W. Currie remembered the intensive labour that his part-time job—necessary support for his widowed mother in small-town Ontario in the 1920s—demanded of him:

My big break came when I was 15 for I got a job in the town’s largest grocery store after school on Saturdays and during the summer holidays. From some points of view it was hard work. . . . I had to help fill shelves from stock in the basement; put the proper weight of white or brown sugar, salt and such in bags for subsequent sale; do the same for anything from tumeric to prunes and coffee on customers’ order . . . , write out orders given by customers across the counter or over the telephone; remember the correct price of every article including what was on sale that weekend, for only a few prices were displayed within the store . . . , clean, get accustomed to wearing a long apron and “remain pleasant all day.”

Currie worked after school from four to six o’clock, Monday to Friday. On Saturdays he worked from six in the morning until eight in the evening— “at full clip” during the final four or five of these fourteen hours, in order to fill all orders before the store closed. For this he received four dollars per week and, during summer vacation, seven dollars for six full days’ work.

Opportunity for part-time work also reflected gender conventions that were often reinforced by the nature of the local economy. In the Cariboo-Chilcotin region of central interior British Columbia—the so-called hub of the Cariboo, with its important lumbering and service sectors—the nature of the local economy meant that few adolescent girls worked part-time while still in school during the 1940s and early 1950s. Boys, on the other hand, easily found “some kind of little job” in stores, garages, or with tradespeople. Parents in an affluent anglophone Montreal suburb in the 1950s agreed that their teenagers learned “proper” economic values through after-school jobs that would impress upon them the virtues of work and saving. As one mother described it,

I’ve always encouraged the boys to take any stray jobs—cutting the grass of neighbours, putting up storm windows, even baby-sitting. . . . It’s not the money. They should learn that you just don’t get money, you work for it. It develops a sense of responsibility.

Part-time work was the norm for adolescent boys in the community, and increasingly common for girls."

- Cynthia Comacchio, The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada, 1920-1950. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2006. p. 135-136.

[my2016blog]

Happy-meal & Anxiety

Today I am anxious, with no real reason to be. I'm alone at work, at my desk as I write this. the office is silent and too bright but if I sit still long enough the lights will turn off and the light from the window will be soft and peaceful.

I spent the morning reading Franny & Zooey and lounging with my cats. The drive to work was nice too, I got a happy-meal and ate it at my desk while I watched a documentary about the American secret police. Once I checked my email it was all downhill from there, three missed calls all wanting to pay overdue invoices, all upset when I needed additional information. Then a text from my boss to expect a visit from his parents at the office. All normal things, daily tasks I should be used to but that have sent my nervous system into shock.

On Friday I have tentative plans to see a new friend from work outside of the office for the first time, as much as I like her I want to cancel. I'm afraid I'll do something odd and embarrassing, ruin our friendship, and make working together awkward. As I've aged I have developed a new hideous flaw- I would rather miss out on opportunities of any kind than be uncomfortable or anxious or take a risk. I would rather drop out of school than write a bad paper, I would rather never meet anyone new than seem weird to a stranger. The very worst part is that I am too old to feel this way, I thought age would bring me confidence but I actually feel more insecure than ever and so confused about who I am. When I was younger I knew that insecurity was part of being a teenager but now that I'm in my twenties it feels humiliating and all-consuming.

I want to quit my job and school and hide cocoon myself away in my apartment until I feel better about myself. To better myself in any way that would change how I feel now would be to admit that I am unhappy in front of the world, to admit that I am inadequate and miserable and lowly and deserving of pity. I envy people who don't live inside their minds overanalyzing minute details of their appearance, and every interaction, and planning and scheduling conversations to be at just the right time about just the right things. recently I discovered that I consistently laugh at the wrong points during the conversation, my entire life I have been laughing too early, before a joke even happens because I sense that it is coming.

My mom and I just had the most horrible conversation. She did what she always does, beat a dead horse and make me sad. She is so excited to go on a trip two hours away to the most miserable college town so that she can visit the same museum she goes to four times a year. It's a provincial place with screaming kids and unwashed adults wandering around talking too loud and making fun of the art they don't understand. She will be gone for one night and even though I haven't lived at home since I was seventeen or spent a Friday evening with her in as many years she is adamant to make plans for me so I will not miss her. Go see your sister's devout baptist friend who will cook you a frozen Trader Joe's meal she says! Go watch the fireworks at the country club, I know a cute waitress your age who works there she can give you healthy eating tips! Why don't you just call up the bar your boyfriend works at and simply ask them to close for the holiday so that you can spend time with him!