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kaberettFirst Charing Cross appointment survived as of Wednesday lunchtime! Barrett did an excellent job of walking the line of the non-actionable; he was determined to tell me lots of incredibly irrelevant anecdotes about his time working with youth offenders, but fundamentally I treated him like an incompetent and irritating supervisor who considered me incompetent and irritating, and this worked well. (Case in point: I successfully rendered him temporarily speechless by telling him very politely that naturally I understood that he had to take a conservative approach...)
Outcomes: I now ~understand~ that ~gender neutrality~ is like ~anarchism~ in that it is inherently unstable and will inevitably collapse into one of democracy or dictatorship (YOU'RE WELCOME); I note that "people find it too difficult to present as gender neutral in ~~~real life~~~" is not in point of fact an argument that gender-neutral identities don't exist, and you position yourself uniquely to believe that in fact they do not; "but what if in a decade's time you don't feel comfortable taking your shirt off on a beach!!!" is not in fact an argument against giving me top surgery now; etc etc. Not dreadful, nothing I couldn't cope with, and next time I possibly get to see Lorimer.
My mental health has improved markedly since starting the vitD, which is extremely pleasant. I am so, so much better; it's a great relief - I'm back down to PHQ-9 score of 8 (from 18 when we tested my bloods). (8 is operating-within-normal-parameters for me -- I am scoring quite highly on the fatigue questions because I've had a long lab stint, and have been in work every day yes-including-weekends since sometime early last week.)
Supervisor is plausibly pleased with me; MSci student has been doing well and it's been lovely to spend some more time with him. I accidentally couldn't teach Thursday afternoon (python to my freshers), so I've agreed to do one-on-one sessions for a student who missed several practicals due to illness, largely out of guilt and desire for lucre but in part because one-on-one is way the hell easier for me.
Lots of Strong Female Protagonist feels today: no glory but honour taps right into the bits of the the Vorkosigan saga that my hindbrain latch onto (I'm doing a reread at the moment because of reasons, and... yeah, I have so many feelings about loyalty and giving one's word on one's name and and and).
I am super enjoying this season of Elementary, having been a bit dubious initially; I intend to be very good and wait to watch episode 4 untilsebastienne & my housemate & my useless ex are all in one place (which will happen tomorrow!) so we can go in a pile and watch it collectively (whereupon I will probably have a bunch more feelz at sebastienne as I try to unravel how I feel about these characters and their faces).
A useful articulation established in conversation this week: my nebulous issues about describing things as "dates" and about being marked are in fact about whether the things are about doing-the-thing-with-me-specifically-as-a-person as opposed to me just... being a useful human to do the activity with, with the activity being the main point. Which, you know, also explains my issues with surgery scars rather better than I'd previously managed.
On a completely different topic, facesfriend visited yesterday and we made a pile of food and talked more & it was great! Hurrah for silly grinning. (The silly grinning is quite possibly also helping with the PHQ-9 score, ngl.) (aaaaah terrible jokes and being generally a bit dreadful it is great it is making me so happy)
Awesome things that have arrived at home recently: the Enormous Fucking Whiteboard (A1) that my housemate, bless her, carried the mile home with a partner (having been refused entry to both the Tube & taxis); and the router sent by our new ISP, who is theoretically hooking us up on Saturday at which point I might have home internet again. (On which topic: I sadly described my current sharks to facesfriend, and they went "oh that'll be dhcp then", and then today I FIXED IT and now my laptop connects to internets again!)
More excellent food: Roti King, which the Graun thoroughly Columbused but which is absolutely fantastic, seriously, if you ever need cheap amazing food near Euston get the roti (I default to roti canai, roti cheese & roti kaya; but the roti tissue is also BRILLIANT and my favourite and there is somewhere I can trivially get it that isn't Johor, where I first met it). Also Kailash Momo [warning: flash website] in Woolwich, a Tibetan place whose main courses are pretty much indistinguishable from homefood for me (it's a mountain! it has cheese and potatoes! IT IS THE BEST) apart from the angry citrus Szechuan pepper; both highly recommended.
And -- aaaaah Vienna Teng, I am on a total kick. I want the storm inside you awoken now/I want your warm bright eyes/to never look away.
Outcomes: I now ~understand~ that ~gender neutrality~ is like ~anarchism~ in that it is inherently unstable and will inevitably collapse into one of democracy or dictatorship (YOU'RE WELCOME); I note that "people find it too difficult to present as gender neutral in ~~~real life~~~" is not in point of fact an argument that gender-neutral identities don't exist, and you position yourself uniquely to believe that in fact they do not; "but what if in a decade's time you don't feel comfortable taking your shirt off on a beach!!!" is not in fact an argument against giving me top surgery now; etc etc. Not dreadful, nothing I couldn't cope with, and next time I possibly get to see Lorimer.
My mental health has improved markedly since starting the vitD, which is extremely pleasant. I am so, so much better; it's a great relief - I'm back down to PHQ-9 score of 8 (from 18 when we tested my bloods). (8 is operating-within-normal-parameters for me -- I am scoring quite highly on the fatigue questions because I've had a long lab stint, and have been in work every day yes-including-weekends since sometime early last week.)
Supervisor is plausibly pleased with me; MSci student has been doing well and it's been lovely to spend some more time with him. I accidentally couldn't teach Thursday afternoon (python to my freshers), so I've agreed to do one-on-one sessions for a student who missed several practicals due to illness, largely out of guilt and desire for lucre but in part because one-on-one is way the hell easier for me.
Lots of Strong Female Protagonist feels today: no glory but honour taps right into the bits of the the Vorkosigan saga that my hindbrain latch onto (I'm doing a reread at the moment because of reasons, and... yeah, I have so many feelings about loyalty and giving one's word on one's name and and and).
I am super enjoying this season of Elementary, having been a bit dubious initially; I intend to be very good and wait to watch episode 4 until
sebastienne & my housemate & my useless ex are all in one place (which will happen tomorrow!) so we can go in a pile and watch it collectively (whereupon I will probably have a bunch more feelz at sebastienne as I try to unravel how I feel about these characters and their faces).A useful articulation established in conversation this week: my nebulous issues about describing things as "dates" and about being marked are in fact about whether the things are about doing-the-thing-with-me-specifically-as-a-person as opposed to me just... being a useful human to do the activity with, with the activity being the main point. Which, you know, also explains my issues with surgery scars rather better than I'd previously managed.
On a completely different topic, facesfriend visited yesterday and we made a pile of food and talked more & it was great! Hurrah for silly grinning. (The silly grinning is quite possibly also helping with the PHQ-9 score, ngl.) (aaaaah terrible jokes and being generally a bit dreadful it is great it is making me so happy)
Awesome things that have arrived at home recently: the Enormous Fucking Whiteboard (A1) that my housemate, bless her, carried the mile home with a partner (having been refused entry to both the Tube & taxis); and the router sent by our new ISP, who is theoretically hooking us up on Saturday at which point I might have home internet again. (On which topic: I sadly described my current sharks to facesfriend, and they went "oh that'll be dhcp then", and then today I FIXED IT and now my laptop connects to internets again!)
More excellent food: Roti King, which the Graun thoroughly Columbused but which is absolutely fantastic, seriously, if you ever need cheap amazing food near Euston get the roti (I default to roti canai, roti cheese & roti kaya; but the roti tissue is also BRILLIANT and my favourite and there is somewhere I can trivially get it that isn't Johor, where I first met it). Also Kailash Momo [warning: flash website] in Woolwich, a Tibetan place whose main courses are pretty much indistinguishable from homefood for me (it's a mountain! it has cheese and potatoes! IT IS THE BEST) apart from the angry citrus Szechuan pepper; both highly recommended.
And -- aaaaah Vienna Teng, I am on a total kick. I want the storm inside you awoken now/I want your warm bright eyes/to never look away.