I know facebook/internet social rights issues are fucking pointless to get into, but I follow a MRA's group on facebook, just for a Devil's Advocate type knowledge, and I don't feel scared of testing my beliefs against the bullship things they argue. It annoys me, because it makes me angry at society, but I think it makes my own beliefs stronger. However, I'm a shitty debater and although I can be good with words, I am not good under pressure and I'm not cut out for that kind of conflict so I don't often engage.

Tonight though, I couldn't resist. Slut shaming is the feminist topic I'm most comfortable arguing, and one I believe in wholeheartedly. Along with abortion/ pro-choice debates, I could argue that confidently all day long.

So it was some bullshit about slutwalks and I was like, no you're wrong, 'reasons, reasons, reasons' and the discussion is civil because I'm not letting it be any other way, I'm not letting them bring me down on stupid things like spelling and I'm not mentioning those kinds of things to them, because I want the debate to not be personal, I want it to be about the issue.

I have a lot of issues with MRA's but I don't think all of them are the scum of the earth.

I like having debates. It's like when I'm writing conversation, because it's all coming from my own head, I can only consider perspectives that my brain understands, that I've seen and that make sense to me. So I fail, especially when I'm writing conversations with people who I find enigmatic (ie you-know-who). This is the same, I can write a good argument, but they're going to come back with rebuttal I didn't consider. If I had of, I'd have covered it.

So it's good, even if I run the risk of raging and I know it's not going to really change anybodies minds.

My new soapbox

So I read this book 'Sister Wives' this week. It's also an American reality TV show, about a polygamist family of the fundamentalist Mormon church. It's so interesting, I really enjoyed the book, so I'm now watching the show.

I'm a feminist of course, but I don't have a problem per se with polygamy. The issue with the man with many wives, I can see how it could be an issue of inequality, but the fact is, these people make a choice, they choose to live that way and it makes them happy to live their faith that way. It isn't hurting anyone, it's not hurting the children, no one is being maltreated or having ideas forced upon them. In many ways, that kind of communal living, it's close to socialism and it's a positive thing. Everybody contributes, everybody plays a role and pulls their weight according to their strengths. To everyone according to their needs and all that rhetoric.

So it's actually a nice show and a lovely family and the relationships are real and realistic and I'm definitely enjoying it.

And obviously, it's not something I'd be interested in, but I know for a fact that loving one person doesn't lessen your ability or capacity to love someone else. Whether talking about you-know-who or just parents with multiple children or friends, or anything, one relationship doesn't have to affect another.

And the idea of sister wives that you have a family with, and lots of kids and people and very close, what's wrong with that?

Nothing. I'm actually against polygamy being illegal. Why the hell is it? Like, why shouldn't consenting adults be allowed to marry and bring up families as they choose? Just like gay marriage, people should be allowed to marry however they want, frigging hell. Why is that so hard?

That was awkward, went to click 'save' and accidentally hit publish on a post that totally wasn't for other people's eyes. So I'm vaguely worried that it'll still pop up for awhile and not disappear, which is vaguely awkward.

#Thisiswhywecan'thavenicethings #andbynicethingsImeansexposts #whydoIblogaboutsexagain #yolo

Under the influence

I'd like to talk about who I'm influenced by as a person, what molds my personality and choices. I mean, we all like to think that we are independent beings that act and think in a completely unaffected way but that's such bullshit (even if it does make me uncomfortable to know that my brain chemistry determines a huge amount (if not all) of how I feel and act. Damn being a psychology student). 

First, my best friend Mia. She affects me a lot I think. She's one of the most central people in my life. If you discount the people I live with, she's the most important. Even including them, she may still be the most influential... hmm. But it's mostly positive. She's one of the best things in my life and I think we have a really healthy friendship. Like, I don't care if I don't see her for a few days and I act totally independent of her (as does she of me) but we both put effort into our friendship and hanging out all the time. She's aggravating to the extreme but you know with some people, you just don't mind? Sure she's always going to be nosy and pushy, but I think what I like most about being with her is the lack of pretense. I am me and she is her and we say what we are thinking, not what sounds best or most interesting or what would keep the conversation going just for the sake of it. I think I know what she's thinking mostly and that's comforting. She speaks her mind and yeah, it's blunt and rude but it's honest and that takes so much stress out of relationships, when you don't have to fight through layers of doubletalk and half truths and 'did she mean that?' If she thinks something I do is weird, I'll know about it but that gives me the ability to defend it. And I'm secure enough that her raised eyebrow doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. Like, she calls me a hooker half the time if I wear a short skirt or red lipstick. And just this week she told me my black lipstick not only made me look like a hooker but like I had frostbite. Which is probably true but I like it and that makes me confident enough to keep doing it. I think healthy friendship requires a base level of self esteem from both participants, otherwise you have to be too careful about what you say. Not that we aren't considerate of each others triggers I suppose, but I have a lot more leeway with her than I do with friends that'll get upset at everything, or judge-y.

Maybe I was wrong that she influences me a lot... she does I suppose in that I'm more a follower than a leader, and I'm happy to let her take the lead a lot of the time-- which I am learning to be okay with. What's important is that I am totally comfortable asserting myself when I want to, mostly I just don't want to. I prefer to look to her to do the talking. Not that sometimes she won't totally do the 'shove the baby bird out the nest to make it fly' thing to me, because she has a habit of dropping me in it when she thinks I'm lacking assertiveness.

But generally, for an incredibly judge-y person, I'm quite unconcerned about her judgement of me. I care, but I don't feel anxious most of the time that she's thinking negative things. Like, what I wear or how I do my hair or what decisions I make or relationships or choices, she has opinions but doesn't make me second guess or feel bad for being me. I guess that's friendship. And she is my bffl. Today she came over, I wasn't really in the mood but she was just like 'you should come over, or I'll come over, and we'll watch AVPSY (which came out today [!!!!]) and study stats' and I was in my PJ's and wanted to stay in bed and eat junk but I was like 'idk' and she was just like 'fine, be a loner' and I changed my mind and she came over and we spent 4 hours watching it and we had lunch and raised our eyebrows at how each of us made wraps and the contents of my fridge and then she went home to get changed for work and then we both went to work, because we now work together and had the same shift.

Mia is good for me. I'm secure with her because she holds the same place in my life that I hold in hers. Bar the fact that she has a boyfriend which obviously means I'm 2nd, it doesn't mean I'm much less of a priority and I appreciate my role in her life. Same with my friend Megan, I know really well how to be 'best friend' to girls. And guys actually, I do best friend well. Probably because I chose people without many other friends....

And actually, some of those people who consider/ed me their best friend are moving on. Some got into relationships, like my ex, so I'm no longer holding a quarter of the influence I did, but that isn't something that makes me unhappy. It's not that I think I'm a bad person, I'm not, I'm awesome, but I'm not awesome for him, and if I ever was, it was a long time ago. He's not been a priority in my life for a long time so he never got the best of me really...

I think that's what's important about influence, it has to be relatively even or it isn't good for you.

Like, You-Know-Who isn't good for me, because a text in the middle of the night that literally just says 'beep :)' is enough to rattle me. And just as a side note, who texts people randomly after midnight? Inconsiderate people. But let's not dwell.

He influences me because I just straight up care what he thinks and it hurts my feelings if he doesn't like me or anything I do, think or say. A negative passing comment from him tends to rattle around in my brain years later. But it's also just that I think I may do something on the off chance that he'll see, or hear about it, or so I can tell him, even if odds are 100 to 1. I want to impress him as a general rule because to me, what he thinks matters.

That influence is irritating.

Other influences are just everyone. I care too much about what people think of me, even the ones I don't know. I look away when I'm driving and I pull up next to a car with guys in it. I am trying to work on it, because seriously, what is the worst thing that a teenage guy can do to my self esteem from the car next to me, in a 30 second frame of time? It really can't be that bad.

The other type of 'under the influence' I wanted to talk about is the substance kind. Drugs and alcohol.

I'm actually finding myself becoming way more liberal towards to idea of marijuana, which was unexpected. It's not the 'it's natural!' argument that got to me, it's the 'it really isn't that bad for you, not compared to alcohol and smoking and it doesn't kill people and you could always just try it once?' argument. I would need to research it a lot further but yeah. I'm not going to try (at least not in the near future), but I'm just going to stop being so judgmental. Even if people that smoke weed are freaking idiots half the time, because it does fuck up your brain chemistry and make you weird.

Alcohol on the other hand, I really have no problems with. I don't care about people getting messed up from that, in the way of getting smashed and being super hungover, if people want to, why the fuck not? I don't, but it's generally because I'm a heavyweight and alcohol is gross to taste so it involves too much discomfort to get to the nice stage of drunkenness where everything is funnier and you have a nice buzz. I wish I was a lightweight, but what can you do? It doesn't matter, I don't drink socially.

Certainly I've never felt any peer pressure towards drinking or not. When I don't want to drink, I don't. When I do, I do. My friends are a judgmental bunch as a whole, but generally I don't give a fuck what they think about me drinking. Honestly I think they just over exaggerate it. They make it into this devil when it's honestly just... not. It's not a big deal at all. It's a social lubricant, it makes things easier. I'm shy and it makes me less self conscious and it gives me an excuse to be more outgoing (placebo effect anyone?) but it doesn't make me do anything I couldn't do sober.

My family doesn't care how much I drink, they maybe thinks it's weird I don't, but when I have two parents who are pretty liberal with alcohol that is to be expected, and they certainly don't push me either way. To an extent, I'm just comfortable with it because I think it's normal at gathering for everyone to be drinking lots of wine and beers. I raise my eyebrow at families that aren't like that.


Anyways, I just really wanted to finish an entry. Lately I just start a post, then get bored after a few pages and that means my post log is full to the brim with drafts which is frigging annoying. I'll try to finish some of em.

The only thing worse than being wide awake int he middle of the night with anxiety is being awake in the middle of the night, tired, but unable to sleep due to said anxiety.

I don't really fret in general. I'm pretty laid back so when I'm anxious, I really feel it. 

I feel this pressure on me, because of my commitments, to my job/s (since now I have two, plus tutoring twice a week, plus umpiring...), to uni, to my fitness classes, to my friends, to netball, to coaching, to studying... I feel like I don't have time to relax.

And then I dropped the ball on my Youth Allowance, and the $1000 that I should be recieving tomorrow, I'm not going to get because I've just found out in an email (dated the 22nd of Feb, though I'm sure it wasn't there a week ago) that my Youth Alowance was cancelled because I didn't hand in some documentation. They wouldn't be so generous to tell me what documentation of course. That'd be too easy.

So now I have to find some time during work hours to go to Centrelink. Wait in line. Timetable in an hour to be safe. Not knowing what the document I'm missing is, the trip will be a waste of time because I won't have the document on me and I'll have to come back. Then I'll probably be informed that they don't backdate payments and I'll miss out on that big one that I need because I need to buy my textbooks tomorrow and that'll be 300 at least. My entire paycheck almost.

And I don't have the time to be in the city spending hours at Centrelink. I work and I tutor after work or I have uni after work and the only possible day I could do it is Monday but that's 6 days away and I don't want to wait that long.

I could go after work tomorrow and skip my uni lecture, on the fucking second day of class.

When did everything get so damn complicated?

My heart is buzzing like it's attached to a damn electrical wire and it's not at all a pleasant feeling. The only other times I get like this apart from pressure due to commitments, is when I fuck things up with you know who and it's the same damn anxiety. It stems from the fact that it's all out of my control and I just have to do it, even if I don't want to, even if I can't, I can't change anything.

I hoped that it'd be worth it to blog about it, if I got this rant out I'd have figured out a game plan and that would have calmed me down because I'd know what I'm doing. Jesus fuck. It hasn't really helped.

I just need to breathe and accept things as they are. If things are going to suck, so be it. Suck it up, fix the problems, focus on what I can control. Okay.

Goodnight.

----

I am calmer now.

It's been a day so I've had some progress in the things that drive my anxiety up the wall.

a) my centrelink issues. I spent ages on hold this morning before work, but was told that I needed to get my birth cetificate, as well as 100 points of ID so I can sort that, now that Mum knows what I need, she can find it in the filing (I don't know Mum's filing system for documents). This was further resolved when my boss said that he doesn't need me to tutor his son this week, which suits me down to the ground. I can go to centrelink Friday afternoon after work and before tutoring. Fingers crossed that I can get it all sorted.

b) Netball coaching. I cancelled training this month, not starting until April. I just texted everyone and that is that. And almost everyone texted me back saying that was fine.

c) I went to work today, and to Uni. I got my textbooks ($210 more dollars) but I got paid $360 today for my week so it's okay, I'll live. Still, I am happy that I went and got it all done.

d) I took out my contacts.

And the things I haven't done:

a) I didn't go to fitness class today. I could have but didn't. I hadn't had lunch, it was past 5pm, I was in pain from my contacts, I just wanted to get home.

b) I haven't done all my study for tomorrow, but I'm listening to the lecture I missed today (that I'll miss every week due to work) so I'm getting it done.

So yeah, I'm doing well, everything is going better. I'm feeling better.

I just need to keep on going. I'm working tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day... but that's okay.

-----

Work went fine, uni went fine, did boxing and basketball. Ate badly, as I do every night after 9 pm. fuck that.

Okay so I saw you-know-who today at uni. Unusually, he saw me and came over, rather than me seeing him first and strategically placing myself in an attractive position.

He was with his girlfriend and another guy, so while not awkward as it's not like they came with him to chat.

I do want to set up some hour for us to hang out at uni. I'd like to have a set time because I do miss him and I'd like to be closer.

As for his gf now being at uni, I will remind myself that I am not a significant part of his life so this doesn't affect me at all but times like today when I was reading by myself and he was two tables over with her... well, that sucks.

Too bad she's doing arts and not commerce, otherwise I would totally be in her lectures and sit with her and make friends. Why you ask, would I want to hang out with the one girl who probably dislikes me the most?

Well, that's probably the reason really. I'm not used to being disliked or people having reason to dislike me.... I don't do bad things to other people often, at least when it's not my brother. Even if you know who says she doesn't care, I feel bad and totally ignoring her feelings on the matter (which I'm allowed to do because this is hypothetical) it would make me feel better.

Plus it would mean I could hang out with him and it would be less weird.

I don't know, that's just a thought I had. It's one of those crazy 'if life worked out that way' things that isn't real, I just liked the idea of it so I shared it I suppose.

In some ways, I'm tentatively glad that my feelings for you know who are still kind of around, even if they aren't as they were (obviously). As guilty as I am for what I did, I know I did it because of real things. Selfish, but it was a genuine need I had for him.

I don't even. This is what I get for playing Taylor Swift all night at work. My mid-fifties male boss is way too nice about letting me play my music.

Last semester, I started writing this zombie apocalypse story starring my friends. I do this a lot, whenever I watch a new show or read a new book (ie Walking Dead or Lost) I get itching to write my own, using the same premise. It's not original, but it's what I like to write so I don't mind. Sometimes I use fanfic, other times I use characters form other series, the ones I know the best, the ones I can write anywhere, like Ellie and Homer from the Tomorrow Series. I use them a majority of the time, I realised a while back, because the way I write them, is the same dynamic I use when I write about you-know-who and I. The general 'I hate you but you're my best friend and I love you too even if you drive me insane and I'll do anything to protect you even if I'm stubborn as hell and refuse to admit it'. That's my favourite dynamic in any story. I was slightly shocked when I recognised the general idea from my real life romantic drama. Not that I didn't know that was what I approve of and like, but I hadn't realised the similarities until I thought about how I wrote it.

Anyway, for this zombie apocalypse story, I found a fun exercise that would help me with relationship dynamics. I wanted to think about my priorities, but also I wanted to consider each of the other characters and their relationships with each other. I considered a practical problem- how we would divide into two groups.

This was the situation. Two cars, 10 people. 5 per car. 5 girls, 5 boys.

Firstly, I considered it myself. I considered my own wants, which friends I wanted to stay close too, who I chose over whom. I weighed up my loyalties towards best friends, boyfriends, who I needed and who needed me.

Then I considered practicalities. Sure, it made sense that I would want to surround myself with the strong, capable guys and my best friend, but would it ever work out like that? Surely the other group would protest? What would they ask for? What was I willing to give up? What about other skills like driving ability? Who were the drivers? Could they all be in the same car?

Finally, after a lot of thought, I realised there was no way I could be in a car with both my best friend and you know who. So for my story, I separated us. Though that was frustrating, I wanted it to be logically rationed out.

Then I asked my friends for their thoughts. How would their perspectives differ from mine?

First, I asked my best friend. Similar to me, she chose my original plan. The two of us, and the three strongest guys. I was pleased, but frustrated, because I'd dismissed this structure. Just because selfishly it favours us two, doesn't mean it's would happen.

I asked my next best girl friend for her opinion. Similar to ours, only one name was changed. Where I had put her name and my best friend had put you know who's, she had put my ex. That was a fair judgement call that I hadn't considered.

My best friends boyfriend chose a similar group to his girlfriends, only switching one of the guys. I just didn't think this was reasonable. I was firmly of the opinion that the skills of the strongest members of the group would have to be equally split between the cars. No one listened to me on this.

The next four opinions totally changed, because they put me in the other group, away from my best friend and her boyfriend, who until this point, I had always been grouped with. Realistically, I thought that this was never going to happen. When I need to be, I'm much more stubborn and loudmouthed than most of my group. I can't imagine being convinced to split up from the girl I'd always felt obliged to protect.

But I did get some interesting results. While so far I've focused on how the group selected in relation to me mostly, I had some surprising responses concerning other friends that had problems with people, that I hadn't ever really realised. Some I factored in, old relationships etc, and decided whether they would lead to avoidance or an urge to protect, but others I didn't see coming.

I was a little hurt that you-know-who split he and I up in his model, but to be fair, I split us up too. Even if I know I did it with a lot of angst and he told me it was because I annoy him.

That really frustrated me, because it's not true, I know it isn't. I know he cares and I don't annoy him half as much as he says (he's told me this, I know for sure- especially at the time frame of this story) but because he answered the way he did, I have to count his vote as it is. My best friend and 4 of the 5 guys and me and the rest of the girls with one guy.

It just seemed unrealistic to me but maybe not. It's a combo that I think makes sense without the apocalypse story-- in fact I think it was close to the real way we travelled home, but with the zombie danger added, I think it is a bit weird.

I don't mean this to be sexist, of course not. Girls are tough too, obviously, but I was considered my own friends, our own strengths.

Which of my girl friends knows how to fight? Who has muscle? Who knows how to use weapons? Sadly we don't exactly measure up in those areas at this point, so I think it makes sense to split the 'skills' between cars. In my opinion, we had two especially strong players and they needed to be split, one in each car.

We also had 4 drivers, two who could drive manual and two who could drive automatic. We had one couple, we had a girl who only knew one person on the trip- they were obviously going to ride together. Once those considerations were taken, I think I came up with the rest solution, even if no one agreed with me.

I'm still glad I asked for people's input, even if it was annoying and not consistent with my own views but that's the risk you take.

I think I may end up using a few of the different combinations. It was good to have different things pointed out to me that I wouldn't have considered myself.

I was also super methodical, pulling out all the data I could. I made a table, calculated the patterns-- who was most regularly paired together, which combinations worked, what didn't. I tried to use that to see who each person scored most highly with. That kind of worked, but for example, in my case, I ended up scoring 7/8 with a male friend of mine and 5/8 with you-know-who, so logically I should be paired with both of them, but they don't like each other much so it couldn't work that way.

Sooooo complicated. Clearly I'll just have to write the story and make lots of different scenarios which break everyone up differently so I can test the dynamics. An excuse to write more haha.

Oh my gosh, discovering blog and tumblrs of people I know is the best thing ever. Even when they aren't my friends, just people I know. It's so wicked to be able to get the insight into them that a blog gives you. I'm nosy that way, I love it. This guy I'm likely never to see again but they were (are) so good looking and it's so good to remember that just because someone is good looking to that degree, doesn't mean they aren't smart (doing double degree at Sydney Uni), as well as political, as well as sporty, as well as popular and social. I think he uses too many big words but he also writes so well.

And okay, maybe I'm weak minded here but when a really hot guys says things in a really sophisticated way, it makes me weak at the knees haha.

More people should admit to blogging. And then those people should give me their blogs.

Various comings and goings of my life

So I am obsessed with this Zumba song.

It's so catchy, even if I don't know Spanish which makes singing along hard... the dance we do isn't this exact one but it's similar. It just makes me happy, I don't even know why, but I just want to smile wildly when I hear it. How weird hey.

I worked today, which went fine. Then I walked home in the freezing rain which sucked, then I Zumba'd, then I had dinner, then basketball (epic fail as always, but it's over for the season now) and now I'm home.

But I think I'm going to end up both coaching and doing my own netball training on a Thursday, so I won't mind not basketballing for a while.

Mia (my best friend) texted me, asking if I wanted to work at her restaurant, because they need someone to cover the occasional shift, so that'll be great. Bit of extra money, extra experience, working with my bffl. And less nerves because she'll be training me and that'll help. Plus she can tell me what to wear/ what everyone's names are and hopefully put in a good word for me if the boss is iffy about how I go when I have my trial on Monday. It's all evening shifts which mean I won't have clashes with anything thankfully. It's a Chinese restaurant and it's not that close, it's at least 15-20 minutes away but I think I'm just spoiled after working within walking distance. Actually, two of my friends work there, another girl I'm friends with is a waitress as well. My best friends almost other best friend. Well, no, but good friend and I get jealous easily. But now I'll be there too.

I'm kind of excited to be a waitress, I haven't done that before but it'll look good on a resume and I do want to try something different. I will just make sure Mia tells me how to do everything beforehand and what is expected. I've been training girls at work for weeks so I think that might actually help. I know that asking questions is good. I just have to be focused, make sure I ask the right questions and jump in, making sure I'm working hard and making the job easier for everyone, not harder.

Honestly, after all this training of other girls I've done, I think I must have been awful when I started. I think just in general that while I'm not autism spectrum, there are many things in my past which show that I can lack initiative because I take things incredibly literally and I don't think past those instructions. When I used to play soccer, I was full back, so I was told not to go past half way and I never ever did. When the other full back once got the ball and managed to go past half way and actually score, I nearly spit the dummy because he was breaking the rules. Obviously it's not an actual rule but I was just like 'that's not okay'. I've lots of dumb mistakes like that, with misconceptions over things that last for years.

It's embarrassing really.

On another subject, probably sparked because I'm on youtube watching a video of Ricky Martin shaking his ass and objectifying him thoroughly, I still can't work out if I'm just attracted to girls or if I actually have a sexual orientation that includes them.

How can I know?

Do I want to kiss a girl? Sure, but I have since I was in Year 9 and 'I kissed a girl' was first popular. Do I have a lady love? Sure, but again, since Year 9. Do I want to do messy bodily fluid type things with members of the female persuasion? I don't know, do I want to do it with members of the male persuasion? I don't freaking know. There's obviously a difference between being hot for something and thinking that you could go through with it.

The thing is, I can't see myself dating a girl. But I can't work out if it is because I am not as gay positive as I want to be. The idea makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed when I think of it in relation to myself. Obviously I think it's fine for anyone else, but when I consider it personally, I cringe. But I don't know why. I don't want to be labelled that way even though intellectually I know there is nothing to be ashamed of.

So that's why I don't know. I can't tell if I am romantically attracted to girls because all that gets in the way and the rest of it can all be explained away as attraction, and just normal judging and appreciation of clothes and 'I wish I looked like that' appreciation. Because girls do do that. I just can't work out if it's more than that.

In other news, I had dinner with my Dad last night, which was on my to do list so that was good. We talked about lots of stuff. My Dad is such a character, even if his life choices are ridiculous. He's got women problems that I was encouraging him to tell me about, even if I kept taking the women's side, because he lies to them and they are way more into him than he is. My Dad, the player.

He is never going to want to settle down. It's kind of weird that my dad gets this kind of action. Seriously, he's broke as fuck, works a shitty job, looks way older than he is and he's over 50 already. As I told him laughing, 'at least you know these women like your personality.' My Dad does have charm though.

He was telling me I was way too opinionated though, which I think is funny. I mean, it's true. And he said that I'm probably too picky over boys, which I don't know where he got that from but also true. But I don't mind being too picky, I don't want to be unhappy. And it just takes one... once I like someone, I can overlook a lot. I just need to get there first.

What else did we talk about... him getting stoned last weekend (I just shook my head). How even.

But it was a good dinner and I feel like Dad is letting me in on a more adult level which I appreciate.