dr_ghost, posts by tag: nus - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

There's always that moment where you remember not that you have a livejournal, but that you can actually use it to write in.

As I've said in the past, I feel like the purpose of LJ has changed, and not just for me. It's been almost four months since I last updated, but I don't feel like I've been inactive.

Skyler and I moved a few weeks ago from Poplar to Blackheath. I love our new place so much, but since we're in an older building now and not on the third floor the potential for spiders has grown greatly. I'd gotten so used to living in a place without big fuck-off garden spiders for two years that I'm now all kinds of twitchy. But I do love the place and can't wait to start stealing people over to see.

As ever, my social life fails something terrible during term time, so apologies for that much.

Since I last posted in March, I completed my first year of university, after three attempts to do so. It feels a bit surreal going into the second year in October, but I'm also really happy, really proud. I worked hard this year--with space to work harder still definitely--but I'm pretty pleased with all I've learnt so far and all the work I produced. Maybe not so pleased with the exams I did, but I have time to improve.

Next year is looking to be quite fabulous too, if I get to do all the classes I've signed up for: Body, Gender, Culture class, and the Sexuality class for Sociology, An(other) Japan politics class, Making of Modernity and the Media & Communications class Culture, Society and the Individual. I'm just really excited for this coming academic year.

Class stuff aside, I lost my job in March but at the time was feeling a bit too raw to talk about it. Not just me, mind, but our whole store and three or four others were shut down. It was really sad, and still is, because it was the best store I'd worked at with the best group of people. I know we're all still really feeling the loss of it, especially since some of us had been with the company close to ten years, but such is. It meant we had a kind of flail about grabbing games and consoles we'd all been putting off for a while, so now I finally have a PS3 and a Wii. I also got a Wii and Wii and WiiFit for my mom, who so far hasn't played it much.

This does mean I've been chewing through a few more games, especially now uni is out for the summer. I finished Persona 3 and at some point I should make a start on Persona 4, a million years after everyone else, but until then I've been nibbling my way through Eternal Sonata. It's pretty fun, but I guess when I saw it being played by others before I didn't realise how very straight it is. Not that I should be shocked exactly, but I guess it's been so long since I played something that shoved the hetero into every corner possible in a bid to block out any potential queer reading. But such is the mass media, and I'm not too invested in it so far and I can just roll my eyes at everyone crushing on everyone else. Perhaps it wouldn't make me :| so much if it felt like there was any chemistry between these pairings but I guess I find all the love interest kinds of stuff very forced and bland. Idk.

Series-wise there hasn't been a whole lot of time for watching stuff. We picked up the X-Files boxset and have been steadily gnawing our way through that. I have learnt that Maulder and Scully are amazingly dim sometimes for top-ranking FBI agents, but it's still pretty good to watch over breakfast or dinner. We very recently started watch Primeval too, which is utterly absurd but kind of fun and each series seems pretty short. House season 7 has been and gone, and I still miss the feel of the show from season 4. It's more about moments for me now than being invested in the show itself, but the finale was pretty fun.

Saw X-men: First Class not long ago too and it wasn't bad at all. Avoiding spoilers here as much as possible, but I will say that I'm not bricking myself over Charles and Erik's 'ghey' like most of the world seem to be. I do think Patrick Stewart!Charles and Ian McKellen!Magneto had far more chemistry between them :')

In animanga land, we also watched Madoka Magica, which is a truly fabulous and messed up series and should definitely be watched by all. D.Gray-man and DOGS are still chugging along, as they do. I am especially irritated by a corner of recent DGM fandom, but I'm saving that for a longer discussion which needs more care than me just ranting it out here.

I also watched Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son) after I saw it recommended by perfectdays and while I did enjoy it, I did like it, and it was nice to see a portrayal of trans issues in anime that wasn't along the lines of "IT'S A TRAP!!" there was also something that felt a little off to me that I can't easily put my finger on. I did very much enjoy it though and I did get fairly misty-eyed a few times. It was a beautiful show, whichever way you slice it, I just may need to watch it again to truly decide what I think of it.

I was also voted LGBTQ Officer of my uni next year. That's a bit terrifying, not for the position itself, per se, but because I want to do a really good job which means a lot of planning. It's also exciting though and I know you get out what you put in, so I'm aiming to put a lot in this year and already started scribbling ideas down generally, but I need to figure out some possible events for Freshers week. Hmm.

In May I went along to NUS's LGBT conference and that was...an experience. I want to say I went and had a great time, and in some ways I did, but in others ways I was incredibly frustrated and felt pretty upset and angry at some of the time that was spent quibbling over particular terms and phrases and ideas. It's not that I don't think the right words and ideas are important, I do, but I think what stuck with me was the degree to which 'direct action' now equates, to some people, as 'violence'. I'm not interested in getting into a discussion of what constitutes 'violence', but I will say I was shocked at how few people at conference were willing to acknowledge their own history as a community. I was quite sickened by the number of people who, effectively, wanted changed and progress but only if they didn't have to fight (metaphorically or otherwise) for it. I get very angry when I see prissy kids blissfully ignoring the people who were injured and killed in the fight for the rights we have as LGBTQ people today. We live in very fortunate times, but I am not content to uncritically accept that this is where we are today without questioning how we got here and respecting the people who thought it was important enough to potentially give their lives for. It makes me very angry and very disappointed, and if I took anything back with my from conference it is that LGBTQ history is something I really want to get out there at my university this year.

Sticking on the activist trail, the public sector cuts fightback is on-going and new strike dates are approaching.

Anti-cuts movement is still going with strike action planned by four unions on June 30th. As ever, support your teachers, lecturers and workers if they're going on strict next week. Over 750,000 workers are taking part in this and they need as much support as they can get, encourage them that they're doing the right thing--because they _are_--and check out what is going on in your area. In London a demo is being called in central in Lincoln Field (Holborn Station) at 11:30.

In addition to national strike action on June 30th, on June 22nd London Met University is going on strike.

Join London Met students and staff in our fight against massive job cuts and course closures. There are currently plans to cut 70% of courses – including Performing Arts, History, Caribbean Studies and Philosophy – and we already have 200 proposed compulsory redundancies in motion.

What is happening at London Met is a sign of what is going on in all our public services: mass privatisation.

And these cuts are the tip of the iceberg at London Met: if we accept these we will see them coming back for more and more.

Say ‘no’ to job cuts, course cuts and massively reduced and restricted provision of services to students.

Say ‘Yes’ to Education, work and widening participation.

This is a direct attack on the students, staff and the whole London Met community, and furthermore an attack on the ethos and principles that we hold dear: of widening participation and the value of educational opportunities and the pursuit of critical thinking that universities should provide for all.

We believe that arts and humanities subjects should be for all, not just for those who can afford £18,000 a year at privatised. The fight to save humanities starts at London Met and does not end at the elitist New College of Humanities.

Assemble at 2-3pm in Highbury Fields, march to London Met Tower Building, Holloway Road for a rally at 4pm-6pm (nearest tube Holloway Road)

[The Guardian: School walkouts planned to coincide with public sector strikes]