| Life is Crazy |
[Jan. 26th, 2012|03:41 am] |
Life is a bit crazy at the moment. I went to my therapist's and told him about how I had lain awake at night with many thoughts racing through my head as it felt like everything was clamouring for attention. The net result is that my sleeping pattern is destroyed and I feel exhausted since I have no idea when I should be sleeping or waking. It's a nightmare.
I started off the session saying there were about four or five main things on my mind and I tried listing them all. By the time I got onto number ten, it was more than plain that I need to slow down quite a bit.
One of the things that I did was to sign on at the job centre. I've signed a pledge that I will look for work twice a week and visit the jobcentre at least once a week to use their search for jobs. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what I can and can't do at the moment, and I haven't found anything that I feel comfortable doing. I'm sure I did see one job that I could have done at some point in the last six months float past my inbox, and I'd like to see one like that float past again. It's a lot to think about and I thought I was ready, but now I'm feeling more than a little overwhelmed.
I also took a trip to the local charity shop looking for clothes. The prices were pretty amazing, and I tried on a lot of things that might fit me. I didn't walk out with anything because I couldn't quite figure out what does look good on me. It still hasn't quite sunk into my brain yet that I can now go to any store and buy all the female clothing I want (and can afford). Better yet, though, would be buying all the female clothing I need, and I really need some more skirts and trousers. Fortunately, I did manage to order two extra pairs of all-purpose tights over the internet. Expensive, yes, but so worth it. Getting clothing is quite heavily on my mind, and I would desperately like to have just enough so that I could focus on other things without having to worry about the fact that I need to do washing more than once a week.
Also heavily on my mind are hormonal changes. Just the GIC's promise to send hormones seems to have kicked off a further change in my hormonal balance. I've shifted even further towards being female and the effects are proving... interesting. It's really hammered my male sex drive, and it's started to push my female one further than I've ever experienced it, which is making my life suddenly very complicated and very different from what it was before. However, it feels amazing and I wouldn't want to change it for the world. |
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| Tai Chi and Dancing |
[Jan. 20th, 2012|11:30 pm] |
The day after the GIC appointment, I managed to complete the first flow of Tai Chi postures from end to end, linking them together into a graceful flow of movement rather than doing each one separately. It's only taken me two years of consistent practise. Anyway, I was pretty pleased with that, although doing it also made me realise I really need to practise the last series of postures. After Single Whip, everything gets a bit hazy and although I know each posture, I find myself thinking about them too much, and past those, I forget which one comes next, although once I'm in a posture, my body remembers. They're not as instinctive as the start postures, but that's because I keep trying to do the postures in order, so I practise the earlier ones more and I'm fresher doing them. I am thinking that I should probably start the instruction DVD from just after Single Whip for a week or so.
I've also done quite a lot of Zumba, which my parents had given me as a game on the Wii. I seem to take to it very well, and the routines are quite easy, most probably because I've had lots of practise at Just Dance 2 and Wii Fit before that, so I have lots of transferable gaming skills at moving when a thing on the screen tells me to. But I was shocked to discover that the Salsa I'd learnt when ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.8) kht dragged me to learn some is still in there somewhere in my head, and that makes certain bits easier, since much of Zumba is based on the general Latin pattern that is in Salsa, Rumba and Meringue (one, two, three, pause). I'm noticing that Salsa seems to be stepping to the front and back (much like a Waltz, but sexy), Meringue is side to side in the same pattern. What Rumba is, I have no idea, but the game tells me I've definitely done a few of those.
All those dancing games are making me better at dancing. It's strange, but I remember when I started learning Salsa that the instructor said you knew you had it right when you could dance in front of the mirror naked and not feel stupid. I never managed it and never thought I would. But sorting out the sex and gender problems has helped a lot, and now I can look at myself in the mirror and think that there is a person who might, one day, not look completely silly doing a sexy Salsa in the mirror. This is a big improvement.
At the moment, my favourite dance routine is to Poison by Nicole Scherzinger. It's got an awesome pumping melodic line and the choreography is simple but energetic, making it an awesome opening track. |
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| Website stuff |
[Jan. 12th, 2012|06:07 pm] |
Before Christmas I ran into numerous small issues with the Sea Cadet website that left me feeling like I was drowning in small bugs. So shortly after the New Year, I went at them and managed to fix all of them in a short space of time.
The hosting company had disabled mod_security on Apache, which fixed all the drag and drop problems, over the Christmas period. So I managed to work with the display modes and get them to do what I wanted. This meant I could write the first enhanced page with inline images, and using the inline images module, I wrote an advert for renting the Sea Cadet premises. It seems to have worked pretty well.
I also looked for CSS debugging tools. I figured they must exist, and found one almost immediately for Firefox called Firebug. This instantly displays all the elements on-screen and maps them to the HTML source code. It's relatively easy to select something and see what CSS classes apply to it, and it's possible to see what the level of overriding is. As a tool, it's pretty awesome, and I managed to fix the drop down menus so they match the site scheme pretty quickly, as well as learn a lot more about how CSS works and what basic mistakes I was doing. For example, I worked out that I failed to get the links on the secondary menu to change colour because the secondary menu was an unordered list tag with an ID in it, not a unordered list tag in a division which has the ID, as happens in the main navigation. So I had to write ul#secondary-menu not #secondary-menu ul.
In a second session, I then braved the evils of the Views module to see if I could display all news in a list on a page called News. It turned out to be very simple, but the Views module has way too many options, and I was scared if I ticked the wrong one, Bad Things would have happened. |
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| Life After the GIC |
[Jan. 12th, 2012|05:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | transition | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Will Young - Come On | ] |
Since the GIC visit, I experienced huge euphoria and elation for a day or so and then my mood crashed down into deep despair. Fortunately, I had a therapy appointment yesterday, so I could talk out why it had and mainly it seems to come from the fact that I've been doing a lot and I'm quite tired, which is understandable. I've looked back on my recent posts and they're all transition related. No wonder I feel a bit burnt out by it all. I need to focus on something else for a while, preferably not involving me.
There's also an element that I've been punished enough times for not being a Real Transsexual (TM) because I wanted to think my way through the hormones, transition and what it all means. Now I am a Real Transsexual (TM) because I have committed to the program, I should naturally feel different and the world should feel better. Of course, I don't feel that way. I feel pretty much the same, except very, very relieved and happy to have achieved something important. Also, I know that the way I feel is the normal and right way I should be feeling because many people, who are in positions to know, have told me so. It's tiring trying to feel something that I quite frankly don't. |
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| New Year's Resolutions |
[Jan. 3rd, 2012|02:07 am] |
I don't really like New Year's resolutions, as in the past I always found that my obsessive personality wanted to keep anything I make as a resolution, no matter how obsolete or impossible it became. Failure made me feel bad, it put pressure on me and the whole system tended not to adapt very well to new events. Not to mention, I always seemed to make resolutions of all the hard things that I didn't want to do but I felt needed doing, which always seemed to be male-related activities.
However, this year, there are some things I want to achieve in the New Year anyway, and they're as close to New Year's resolutions as I'm ever going to come.
* The first one is that, next year, I want to celebrate New Year's with people, as opposed to doing it on my own. It'd be a nice change to organise something, and if I have more energy over the Christmas period next time, I most definitely will.
* The second one is that I really want to get a job and earn some money. I've set myself April as a target, and so far I'm moving nicely towards that goal. I need to get my driving license changed to match my new name, and then I can start applying for jobs. If I complete the Islington Sea Cadets website, I'll also have my first entry in a portfolio for web design.
* The third one is that, if possible, I'd like to start hormones this year. That will depend on many other factors, though, particularly on my second resolution.
* The fourth one is that I'd like to meet up and keep in contact with lots of people I haven't seen for a while, make new friends and end any friendships that aren't viable. Last year saw a lot of travelling as I met up with people, mainly those from my shared house in my undergraduate days and darwinian_woman, and although it could be traumatic, it was also good, and I don't do it enough. I also talked a lot on the phone with a wonderful transperson from my Birmingham days and met lots of transpeople at TransLondon, some of whom I've seen a little of outside, and who may or may not become friends. And although I went to visit kht, it doesn't look like we'll get on, which is fine. |
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| Yey, It's a New Year! |
[Jan. 3rd, 2012|01:44 am] |
I spent the New Year at home on my own, which was a bit boring of me. But that will teach me not to arrange something beforehand. However, it's not been that bad. I've been quite exhausted after Christmas, and Christmas went really well. I've found I've excessed to excess and I'm really looking forwards to life getting back to normal. I like Christmas a lot, but I don't think I could do it all year ;) At the moment, I'd murder for a salad, or a simple hearty meal. We had curry today. It was delicious in ways that are hard to describe.
Yesterday, my parents and I watched Harry Potter Seven. We only meant to watch part one, and call it a day, but we ended up watching both parts, because it was really, really good. My parents thought it was very different from the other films, and I remember the book being extremely different too. I've sometimes thought about seven and wondered whether I liked it. It's a hard read, most of it is quite boring, interspersed with moments of complete terror, and the plot is pretty depressing. Nothing goes right for any of the characters. However, in hindsight, I think I like it because it's unsentimental and realistic (as realistic as any story about magic can be). I've heard that wars are like that, and the whole battle against Voldermort is definitely a war.
I've also been playing Supreme Commander 2. It's an OK game, but it's not brilliant, and it's certainly not a sequel to the original, in the sense that it improves or offers new ways of playing. If anything, the game is a massively stripped down version of the original. It makes the game more fun, but also massively less satisfying and complex. It's one of those games that I'll complete and then probably never play again.
The plot is alright so far, with good voice acting and interesting mission. However, the background makes me feel a little uneasy. The factions were united into the Coalition in order to fend off the invading aliens. However, they then stayed allied but didn't actually do anything to ensure their peace. Maybe I've been reading too much history, but I find myself thinking the peace treaty they should have signed is obvious. The Aeon Illuminate should have separated church and state, in return for both the UEF and the Cybran nation recognising The Way as a legitimate religion and allowing proselyting on their territories. The Cybrans should have allowed citizenship for all people in its space, including non-symbionts, while the UEF and the Aeon should have prepared formal rules and granted full citizenship to any symbionts on their territory, including those that didn't want to go to the Cybran Nation, as well as regulations covering acceptable behaviour for travelling symbionts. The UEF should have recognised the territories of the Aeon and the Cybrans and formally end the enslavement policy of the symbionts, which is implied at least, but would have been better spelt out. |
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| Friendships Begin, and So They End Too |
[Dec. 31st, 2011|03:06 am] |
Meh, I'm not too happy with the last post, and this is for a variety of reasons. When I started it, I wanted it to explain some background to some thinking which helped me work certain things out and has been responsible for me feeling calmer then I have for a long time, and more certain about what I want from the transition process.
The problem is that the thinking I've done directly contradicts a lot of the "accepted" thinking that I was exposed to among certain groups of people in Oxford. The problem is that many of these people are still on my Livejournal, and I've been putting off dealing with it for reasons that, until recently I haven't quite understood. I can just imagine them reading something like the last post and just shaking their heads, and that already makes me angry and defensive before I've begun, which is not good.
I'd meant to leave this to until after the New Year, as mass recrimination is not in the Christmas spirit, but because things are interrelated, I've already broached it and I don't really get much choice.
The main thing is that I've been talking to my therapist about this in the counselling sessions, trying to explain things to him in a way that make sense, and verbalise the kinds of feelings that lead to me feeling so angry and defensive, as well as taking in events such as the time I lost it against vampire_kitten and booted her off my LJ after threatening her, the time I booted kht and the whole mess I had with the all female group on another website.
I've been wondering if the fact that this kind of stuff keeps happening is due to something being wrong with me, and I've been interested to see how he'd react. The problem is that, well, he's been really supportive and affirmative every time I've bought stuff like this up. In fact, he's been more supportive than I've been of myself. About the vampire_kitten incident, I believe his comment was "I knew you had it in you", the it he was referring to being homicidal rage. About the kind of feminism I was exposed to back then, the word he used was "brainwashing". I wouldn't have gone quite that far, but it's a common theme in our sessions that I'm held back often by fear when my experience contradicts the perceived wisdom of the time, and I still live in fear of the Bad Stuff that I'm certain will happen when I do.
Not just that, but just the fact that, explaining it to him, my actions are not only plausible, they make a consistent sense and feel right. I'm not angry and defensive because there's something wrong with me. I have reasons. The problem has been more working them out and showing them to myself and getting the confidence to go with them, and then communicating them to other people.
One of the things that's become really clear to me is that the views of a group of people I knew in Oxford surrounding the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, as well as a large chunk of the general 1990s feminist theory I absorbed make no sense when taken with my experiences. I find there's no way I can pull together all of those things, and something has to give. I've changed and grown, and unless the people I knew then have changed and grown in the same way, we have little in common any more.
I was wondering what to do about this, and then I had the spat with kht, where both she and a few other people exhibited a complete lack of understanding of what I'm going through, and which is less than the minimum needed to maintain a viable friendship. I chucked her off my LJ as a temporary measure, or as a sacrifice to my anger and wrath, I wasn't quite sure at the time what. The problem is that, I keep expecting to feel guilty, or some measure of regret at what was clearly a moment of passion. The problem is that I don't. In fact, I've thought about it only a few times in the intervening period, and even then not very seriously. If I had to characterise how I felt about having acrimoniously argued with someone I cared about a great deal during a fluid and formative period of my life and who has tried to be supportive since I came out, I'd have to say that I felt very little. It was the biggest non-event ever, and I feel more guilt and regret about the fact that I feel so little guilt and regret. And since I do not lack the ability to feel guilt or regret, something is very clearly wrong.
The conclusion that my therapist and I have reached is that it's past time I moved on. Although I deserve a share of the blame for some of the conflict I've caused, equally lots of it are not my fault and certain readjustments to reflect that are long overdue. So in the New Year, I'm going to clear my LJ friendslist of anyone connected to the G&S society. It's not a final thing, and if anyone wants to still know me, or talk to me, then we should make some effort to reinvigorate the relationship, like actually meeting in real life. |
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| Trip To Sheffield |
[Dec. 28th, 2011|11:57 pm] |
Today I went up to Sheffield to see my other cousin, husband and their child. While there, I gave away my old wooden train set to the one and a half year old to trash play with. I feel a little nostalgic at it's loss, but it's good its bringing joy to someone. It also survived me, so I have some hopes that it will survive him.
The trip was long, and made longer by the fact we had to make a side trip to pick up my cousin (her sister) near Ely. The fact that Sheffield and Ely are both north of London is pretty much where any geographical similarity ends. My cousin is living in a house with her (long term/serious?) boyfriend while she recuperates from a busted knee, so by picking her up I got to meet him too, which made it a bumper day for significant others.
I made the trip en femme, under the traditionally shortened Polish form of my name. Everyone made an effort to call me by it, which was good. I was quite terrified by it, but it was also same old same old, in that I've come out to many people in the last few months. I never knew stark raving terror could acquire a level of familiarity.
My other cousin had decided to embrace the whole transition and bought me clothes to try on. The bad thing is that my taste and her taste just... don't match. In fact, both my cousins don't really dress like I'd like to dress. The good thing is, of course, I figured this out, and I have two pairs of leggings and one top that is not hopeless. My style seems to be more conservative dress, with long skirts and chunky jumpers.
I tried playing with the little kid and looking after him a bit. I don't think I'm made to look after kids, part of which seems to be down to the whole childhood not playing with girl's toys. It's a bit late to start training on the live ones. |
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| International Puns |
[Dec. 28th, 2011|11:52 pm] |
Given the wealth of different languages out there and the finite combinations of the types of sounds that are common in many of them, it's not inevitable that there would be really fantastic puns.
Today's post is dedicated to a wonderful example I found today in a satellite channel listing.
Behold, I bring you Dhoom News. Presumably, Dhoom News is filled with stories about apocalyptic doom and bad news so doom-laden that it deserves an extra h for emphasis. In that way, it kinda resembles current UK TV coverage of the economic crisis.
Of course, in real life, it appears to be a Pakistani news channel. |
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