linden_jay

If you can't afford to hold the Olympics without slashing the fuck out of education, financially crippling teachers and support staff and fucking up the opportunities of students? DON'T HOLD THE FUCKING OLYMPICS!

Why is this not obvious? Why is this not utterly and completely fucking obvious? Imagine if private citizens decided to hold a giant party in their backyard, redecorate their house, add a few rooms, change the bathrooms and the kitchen, do landscaping, and then when the bill game due went 'oh, shit... guess I didn't have enough money for that. No worries--I'll just cut back the amount of money I pay in taxes per month... I'm sure that the government can get the money from somewhere else. Plenty of other sources out there for them to get money from!'

Yeah. Okay. Probably not the most fluid of all analogies, but come on, here. We don't get to pay for things we can't afford without being the ones to suffer the consequences. But when they do it... we suffer the consequences.

I'm a fan of sport. I see the value in it, and I see the value in athletics, and athletic competition. I also see the value in building infrastructure that holding an event like the Olympics requires, and the benefit to the city and province that comes from having that infrastructure built. I see that it creates jobs.

But you can't sell me on the benefit of the Olympics and how it creates jobs when you turn around and gut the education system. When you cut the jobs from thousands of people, either entirely, or down to part-time, or even casual and substitute work. People who have held jobs for years now are going to be back on the substitute and casual lists in BC because all of a sudden, just coincidentally a few months after the Olympics have been held, the schools budgets have been drastically, devastatingly cut.

And you can't sell me on the concept that we don't have money enough to pay for education when not only did you just hold a giant party in our backyard, but it turns out that millions of dollars were spent on free tickets and complimentary this and that for VIPs.

Because wow. I'm so glad that I'll be working two jobs this fall just to break even, if we're lucky. I'm so glad that I'll be working twelve hour days, at least three days of the week to pay for daycare because the only job I could work that has benefits is smack in the middle of the day--meaning that I have to pay for a full day and not just a half day of daycare--but doesn't pay enough to cover daycare because it's only part time hours. I'm so glad that my husband's going to be substitute teaching for his eighth year running, because, you've raised class sizes, cut programs, and removed actual teaching positions. Again.

No, really. All of this was completely worth it, so long as we managed to impress and wine and dine and entertain the VIPs. And if teachers and support staff are affected by the cuts to education, if children are affected, well. All part of the cost of doing business.

A lot of thoughts. And because I don't like cryptic, even when I think everyone knows what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the posts made by thenyxie, and the resulting, well. Everything, really, that's come from it. Because it's not just wank anymore. There's been wank, and more wank, and People Not Getting It. There's been people sharing their stories, people gaining strength from each other, people being touched, inspired, disillusioned, disappointed. To draw an odd parallel, just like Wincon is no longer just about Supernatural... this isn't just about what it started being about. It's become pan-something. Panfandom, pan a lot of things.

( And since I'm gonna keep talking about it, and linking to it, and talking about other things, I'm gonna jump under a cut now, just to be safe. Back here there will be discussion and links that may be triggering. )

( For the past few days, I've read. And I've read, and I've read, and I've read some more... )

( Stakes, and why it matters when they don't matter. )

( And then there are the people who restore my faith in humanity... )

( Wincon again, the scary people who kidnap you from the swingset, and thank yous, to ethrosdemon and coiledsoul in particular... )

I'm tired. I've read a lot over the past few days, and I feel wrung out by it... and that's just from reading people's accounts, people's stories. Seeing people's pain and frustration and rage and wisdom poured out. I feel older, smarter, and I feel dumber. I feel sadder because of the things I've read. I feel hope because of the things I've read. And because of that hope, I want to end positive here. Thank you. Thank you for the people who have shared their stories. Thank you for the people who've stood up and said that things that are not okay are NOT okay. Thank you for the people who step up to back up the people who aren't in a place yet to be able to be the one who stands up. Thank you.

Just thank you.

If you forward me an email, and it's a joke, I'll read it and laugh, especially if it's funny, and not sexist, racist, or homophobic.

If you forward me an email, and it tells me I have to send it to X number of people in order to incurr good fortune/save the spotted owls/earn money/not bring on the apocalypse? I will delete it. Unless it's meant as a joke, in which case I'll probably still read it, but then delete it, and I wouldn't expect me to forward it to anyone else. Just saying.

If you forward me an email that has seven THOUSAND forwarded lines in it above the actual message and I have to scroll for an hour to get to the message? I will yell at the top of my lungs and frighten my children and cats, before I delete it with a growl and an angry stab of my mouse finger. I will then wish bad things to happen to you. Not really bad things, because I'm not that guy, but maybe your milk will go bad before the expiration date, and you'll eat a bite of really bad eggs and it'll taste gross, and you'll run out of toilet paper and forget the next time you sit down and have to use tissues or paper towel. Something like that.

This rant inspired by some dippy twit I friended back on facebook, not anyone on any journaling system, but y'know. Sometimes you gotta rant.

This is just inhuman. It's Saturday, I couldn't sleep until almost 3 am last night, and I'm up before 8:30 am. Why? Because I have to be sworn in as a shiny brand new member of the union. What kind of union has meetings at nine am on a Saturday for the love of Pete!

They can make me go. They can't make me happy about it, and they can't make me pay attention.

Gah. I should bring my knitting or something. At least then I'd have something to keep me awake.

I'm tired, I'm cranky, it's five am and I just tried to go to sleep completely unsuccessfully, and my internet connection right now is as stable as a fifteen year old girl after a 30 Seconds to Mars concert.

This does not bode well for how my Tuesday is likely to go.

And down my connection goes again. Seriously, this is getting old so, so, so fast. I get about two minutes at a time of it working, unplug the modem, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in again, and it works for, well, two minutes. And then we start again. It's one thing to be insomniac and puttering around and watching the sun come up and all, it's another to be doing the same thing, but without being able to distract myself with porn.

Okay. So, my luck with computers? Not so great this year, apparently.

I've been having trouble with my computer on restart for awhile lately, sometimes taking over an hour to get it to start up again after it had been turned off or restarted. No idea why, although I'd tried everything I could think of and the AH could think of to get it to Stop Doing That, finally giving up and just leaving it on full-time. And then last night it decided to do a Windows Update and restarted itself, and I couldn't get it to restart properly, even though I tried for over 2 hours. I abandoned it, AH couldn't get it to work, and now, joy of joys, it's off to Future Shop to get fixed, which will take God knows how long, and no idea if the stuff I wasn't able to back up or save is going to be retrievable.

Awesome.

So I'm gonna be a little more random lately, since I'll have to be sharing the AH's computer with him. And he's got that whole silly 'doing a PHD' thing that goes and takes up time. Honestly, what kind of an excuse is that for actually needing the computer? PFFT! I have porn to write!

Not. A. Happy. Jay.

This is a post that I've been intending to make for awhile now, and a story that someone told me tonight is finally prompting me to actually post. Some of you have heard this before, most of you haven't, but it forms the basis for my opinions on the issue of domestic abuse, specifically on people who are in abusive relationships and don't "simply" just leave.

(And before I tarnish the Academic Husband's reputation, this is not a story about surviving domestic abuse. That's not something that has ever happened to me... this is just a story about something that happened to me that changed some of my thinking.)

( Read more... )

Ants. There are ants in my apartment.

ANTS! Itty bitty tiny little sugar ants all over the place.

What- the flood and the several months of near famine eating nothing but grilled cheese wasn't enough, now it's the insect invasion?

*grits teeth and keeps counting to ten over and over*

Okay- before I go into full on rant mode, I can say that my anniversary was lovely, I got Firefly and he got season one of Batman- the Animated Series, and we had a really great dinner and evening out before coming back to pack.

Now, I'm gonna scream.

The people who live in the place we're moving into were evicted for stuff to do with their dog, which was, I believe, a big old disturbance, plus messy and stuff. I don't know the details, but I do know that it was a big part of the reason they had to leave. I also knew that the dog had done some damage to the place and the carpets, but I was imagining that in the scratching them up sense. Turns out, not so much. Was more of a biological issue.

( And the carpet is destroyed. )

I dread being scheduled to work Wednesdays. Well, I dread Thursdays too... and Friday... pretty much any day that ends in a ‘Y’. But Wednesdays are particularly gruesome if you work at a Famous Players Cinema, because of one thing *cue low ominous music*

( Famous Babies. )

[Cross posted to customers_suck]