lokifan

I have my online ADHD assessment so soon

The fear was so powerful for like weeks before (what if they laugh and say you don't have ADHD, you're just crap) and then last night I basically tried to take notes on stuff to remember and had a little cry. Now I'm calmer but in a repressed way, like my heart's still beating fast

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

1. Classically, I reached the end of the second week of term and got a nasty cold. I managed the first three days but was off today and will probably be off tomorrow; shame, when I’m paid hourly, but ugh I can’t. Have been comfort-reading A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones and playing some more Persona 5; we’ve all made friends with Futaba, so I’d guess I’m a bit more than halfway through? Overall the game’s cute but doesn’t massively compel me, so it’s just what I play when I want to do something low-brain.

2. Due to cold-induced fuzzy brain, I haven’t started Mary Beard’s new book Emperor of Rome, but I’m looking forward to it. I went to an interview with her at the Barbican the other week; she was interviewed by David Olusoga, and it was v interesting. It was the week of “how often do men think about the Roman Empire”, and she was asked about it; her answer for why that happens (with apologies to the men in her audience, to whom this didn't apply) was that it's a way of thinking about macho conquest in a distanced way.

3. Yaaaay October! Our spooky decorations are up in the living room. This month an American friend who I haven't seen since 2019 is coming back to London, and will staying with me & my BFF K for at least a week. And then it's London Comic-Con, and an annual Hallowe'en trip with friends. This year we're going to Whitby, for max Goth vibes.

I had my first covid jab yesterday! And I’ve joined

rydra_wong’s vaccination trial pyramid scheme, haha. I was actually booked for Saturday anyway (I’m 31 so my number just came up) but we like to contribute to medical science and they pay for travel.

It’s a new vaccine, Valneva, on its third stage. A pretty traditional deactivated-virus-particle vaccine, so it’s probably slightly less effective than mRNA, but that’s still REALLY effective. Control group gets AZ.

I’m getting the second jab in four weeks, too, so I’ll be fully vaccinated for most of the summer!!!!!!

I was so pleased last night because my arm didn’t even hurt, I thought I’d fully avoided side-effects, but between 2am and 6am I kept waking up with new symptoms (chills, malaise, tiredness, headache and muscle pains, fever). I was SO SWEATY from the fever, it was gross. Had a cool bath at like 7am which helped. Am now lying in bed feeling smushed.

I guess it means my immune system’s pretty strong, though! And apparently it’s usually over fast, so I’m hoping/expecting to be fine tomorrow. Anyway even on the three trains home from the clinic, I was sitting there like ‘hello person whose nose has escaped, hello person in next carriage who’s talking with no mask, soon I’ll care about you SO MUCH LESS.’ Like, obviously public health etc, but I’m not gonna lie, def less stressful when my personal risk’s almost zero.

Still, feel properly ill :((((

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/395169.html

It’s my thirty-first birthday in ten minutes. I genuinely don’t know how I’m going to feel? Right now, honestly, I feel really sad.

No birthday wishes on this post please, I’ll post something else so we can do that and it won’t be weird :D

My thirtieth, I was broke and exhausted but it was still good. And I’m so, so grateful for the timing of it, because I saw a lot of my friends then, and I haven’t seen them since. Plenty of them I don’t see that often, and even though it wasn’t one of my best parties (not awful, just, the house was too small and it kinda messed with the vibes) having seen everyone pretty recently helped get me through spring and summer 2020.

So my birthday is looming really large as an anniversary. And you know, 30 was the start of a new decade, a big birthday, all that, and it’s been a lost year, and one where we’ve lost so much, so many.

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/393557.html

My friends are so great. Here's a small sampling of excellent things friends of mine have done recently (and please feel free to share stuff about you and/or your friends in comments!):

( seriously so great )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/391806.html

That’s it, then.

I feel sick.

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/390982.html

Okay so I wrote an enormous version of this post, which was rambling and long because I was trying to process, and also to be fair and use quotes where I could remember them/had them via WhatsApp.

But here's the 1500-word version.

CN: anti-Semitism

So my middle sister is going out with a HOLOCAUST DENIER.

Yep.

He also believes some version of the reptilian thing.

Under the cut for more deets about how this has gone down.

( well, he thinks it's been ~exaggerated )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/389251.html

Last night I went to see Holly Bourne (British YA author -- her themes seem to be feminism and mental health, and the new one involves the internet) interview Hank Green (Vlogbrother, CrashCourse and Vidcon creator) about An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. Which is a very good book.

( book and interview stuff )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/387642.html

Mostly a very dull post haha, but this is what's going on with me right now...

So, my Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This is the high-level qualification in ELT, compared with the basic one I did at the start of my career; this is how you get senior teacher/Director of Studies type jobs or can train new teachers. It’d also be, I think/hope, a solid argument for ‘give me a job at an academy [aka a school where you don’t need the legal thing of teacher status like you do in normal schools] - I have a third of a Master’s in a teaching subject and years of experience - while I get the next qualification’. I don’t know if I’ll do that yet!

Exam's at the end of November so I probably won't be around much til then, is the big thing.

( cut for deets on what’s coming & what’s next )

And then, since you normally hear in about four-six weeks after submitting coursework, I should have an escape hatch of a high-level teaching qualification ready to go in March or April. Which is VITAL.

My school’s already teetering on the edge - there’ve been a couple of redundancies and it’s not a big place. The English-as-a-foreign-language industry in London was going downhill well before the Brexit referendum, and a few established schools have had to close. So if there’s no deal, meaning the economy maybe goes into freefall and the EFL industry definitely takes a serious hit from visa and international-reputation stuff and that finally does for my school - well, at least the Diploma would help me jump ship.

And honestly, when the time comes round again next April for getting new jobs (we’re a seasonal business with lots of work in summer, so you change jobs in June-ish and hope they keep you on) I’m quite likely gonna leave, either way. That’ll be three years here, so at least I’ll have my first solid stint, which is especially important if I end up leaving the industry - people moving around a lot & being on limited-term contracts is common, here, but without that context I’ll look like a massive job-hopper.

As for why I’m gonna leave - well, I’m not sure the school is stable. But the owners are also untrustworthy cowards, as it turns out.

( like they didn’t pay the cleaner for THREE MONTHS )

So yeah… things are messy rn. I’m just glad I’m in the classroom. Sometimes it sucks to be a teacher when your management’s shitty, cos you can’t really do a slow-down or work-to-rule or anything without hurting your students, even if we were unionised. But at least we get to avoid M and J and their part-time CEO mate!

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/386474.html

I keep meaning to post about this and not, because recently I’ve been at work 9am - 8:30pm. (But much of it isn’t paid hours. The gig economy sucks.) BUT THAT’S RIDICULOUS cos it was crazy.

Three weeks ago was Kupocon, this great little Final Fantasy con. This was my second and I was, once again, very very aware that I’d be getting a lot more out of it if I knew the franchise; it’s a tight-knit little community and I’m bad at joining it in certain ways. Didn’t dance and/or talk to strangers enough for how much fun I had when I did it. BUT still SO fun <3 I didn’t go to the actual programming; I saw some good friends and a BFF, and bought too much gorgeous art and laughed a lot and ate and drank far too much and… got kinkshamed by King Regis.

SERIOUSLY.

This was sometime between 11pm and midnight. @bestchocobro/

sodsta is legless, I’m only slightly less drunk but still trying to look after him. @bestchocobro’s girlfriend has gone to bed, so it’s just the two of us in our hapless drunken state. We see a luggage trolley on the way back to the party.

S: Me and Girlfriend wanna get one of those. It’d be great for kink - you could tie someone up and - *gestures broadly*

Me: ? Ohhh, right! Yeah!

S: You could move them really easily -

Me: Yeah! *clambers onto the luggage trolley and kneels up on it, with hands round the weird gold baton thing at the top, as if asking to be cuffed to it* OMG, why isn’t this a classic pervertible? You guys are actually geniuses!

S: Yeah, you could -

Me: *sees Jon Campling - venerable actor, epic beard-owner, daddy of Final Fantasy XV, and King Regis - coming down the corridor towards us, on the phone to someone. Our eyes meet*

Me (in tones of anguish): Oh my God.

Jon Campling: *grins*

S: *turns around, sees, makes sound like duck hacking up a swan*

Jon Campling: *continues along his merry way past us, clearly enjoying the horror he’s inflicted, while I scramble off the luggage trolley and try to look like someone who doesn’t even know what a ‘pervertible’ IS*

Me & S: *tell everyone we see for the next hour that we were KINKSHAMED BY REGIS oh my GOD*

We actually didn’t tell everyone immediately on seeing them, and I even saw people that night and never actually went for OH MY GOD THE BEST WORST TALENT-AT-CON ANECDOTE JUST HAPPENED TO ME, which I feel deserves some credit.

Worst part? S was cosplaying Prompto, whereas I was in a random clubbing dress and have pink-purple-and-blue hair. S is a fantastic Prompto and the best at the con (she says without bias :p) but also, you can’t swing a giant sword without hitting a Prompto at Kupocon. My hair is distinctly more memorable.

I might see him in October and watch him remember that time he caught me kneeling on a luggage rack, cheerfully yelling with my drunk friend about how great it’d be for kink.

KINGSHAMED

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/385893.html

Went back to being quiet, obviously… it’s predictable, unfortunately, cos summer is when I work ALL THE HOURS. Life is a bit unpredictable rn. My flatmates are horrible. I’m gonna move out, but it may not be until September; I’ve already moved three times in the last twelve months, so I want to (a) have time and energy to find somewhere good to stay and (b) money for moving again, which is… questionable. Although my parents will probably lend me the money if they can, because in addition to the horrible flatmates, there’s black mould in one of the kitchen cupboards.

ANYWAY.

At the end of May, after moving and Expo, I went back up to

sodsta’s with him on Monday night. LIVERPOOL YAY <333

( a good time )

Gonna do a solo trip to see Ocean’s 8 this afternoon, I think! I want to do something fun and my focus is too scattered for writing. Especially so I can go out and show off the newly redone hair!

I missed my sister’s housewarming yesterday to go to A&E. I’m fine, thankfully, but UGH. I was gonna meet her baby-queer flatmate who is apparently desperately in need of older queer role models, lol. (I know. But I’m 28 and a teacher and overall happy, which is sooooo far away from 22-and-unemployed-and-was-recently-kicked-out-by-parents, which I know from experience.)

Let’s do my favourite I’ve-been-away meme: you ask me a question (fannish or RL) and I’ll answer, and also ask you a question that’s somehow related to what you asked me. Then we continue chatting until someone gets bored or forgets to answer :D

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/385357.html

Process & result pics under the cut :D A friend of mine did it for me! Well, friends' boyfriend, but he's definitely a friend now cos he spent hours on this on literally the second day I met him. Which was also the first day of Pride month :DDD

GUYS I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT'S SO PRETTY

( it doesn't take an intellectual )

Current Mood: pleased
Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/384987.html

HELLO. Okay, so further detail/new info on life/stress since the last post. Life has been CRAZY busy, but I got to the end and I’m on hooolidaaaaaaay yay :D Coming to you from Liverpool, more specifically from

sodsta’s sofa. I’m here til Saturday afternoon :DDD

Things I did in April and May: find and move into a new place, do a stupidly intense portion of a qualification (and pass!) then find and move into a DIFFERENT new place. Also various social things.( cut for the extremely boring detail )

Expo was fun :D Saw my faves, met a couple of lovely new people, squeed a whooooole bunch about FFXV. And now sweet relief of being off work, and physically unable to unpack more. So like - stress free! I needed a holiday SO MUCH, and now I get to spend four days hanging out with a bunch of my best beloveds :DDDDD

I might do a bit of work for school… or I might just spend four days doing fannish stuff. WHO CAN SAY.

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/384603.html

So, on Wednesday I’m going to run a professional-development workshop at my school, for my colleagues (i.e. other teachers) on how to react when students say openly bigoted stuff. So not the subtle things (although that’s also a massive issue) but like, using slurs, or ‘in Algeria we don’t have any gays because we kill them’, or ‘bisexual people are just greedy and selfish’, or ‘being gay is a birth defect’. (All RL examples from my classroom! Anti-Semitism and xenophobia also crop up semi-regularly, and racism every so often.)

It’s a tiny little forty-minute session, so I’m going to start off with what made me think about the topic and the school policy, then teachers discuss in pairs, then we discuss as a group, then I round it off with some tips and ideas. Most of the discussion will be different techniques for responding to this in the classroom, what we’ve tried and what’s worked, and also what the goal is - i.e. do we want to be ‘neutral arbiters’ (hint those don’t exist and also no), are we changing hearts and minds, do we just want the student to shut up, etc.

Keep in mind I teach at a language school, all my students are studying English as a foreign language and most are adults who are explicitly in London to learn some British culture too. I’m happy to host a wider discussion, though, and interested to hear POVs and difficulties from the various state school teachers and university lecturers I know.

Basically, I’d love to know if you have any thoughts! And not just from teachers - you're all former or even current students. I have thoughts of my own but I’ll keep those to the comment replies...

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/381572.html

You know, I do think being queer has done wonders for my confidence. Not directly, but – one big thing is that I’m fat, which puts me outside of ~traditional beauty standards. I’m rarely self-conscious about this, but it is a thing, and certainly having put on weight over Christmas it’s a thing. ( cut for nsfw, although not ~pornographic, musings on how my attraction to women has helped my personal body confidence )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/377912.html

This is probably not interesting to anyone but me! But I like reading other people’s, and I’d like to be able to compare these in years to come, so…

I’m very behind on email/messages/comment replies, but that should be fixed soon!

( the end-of-year review meme for life )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/376571.html

Hi guys! I know I’ve been silent for MONTHS, which is crazy for me; it’s been lots of work, then lots of social stuff, then lots of erised fic-writing. But I wanted to post about this: this weekend my BFF Miss Godfrey got married. The wedding was beautiful and sparkly and full of joy, just like her. I was a bridesmaid and it was a great day :D

I spent my Friday rushing around between work and bridesmaid errands and things still didn’t really work, because I am a flail. The zip had broken on my dress, and the dry cleaner’s I got to iron it had lost the belt, and I forgot my bouquet and didn’t realise until I was at the B&B I and the bride & family were staying in - in Norwich, the city where we went to uni and the bride and groom met, two hours by train from London. ARGH. Tiny bit of a meltdown at 2a.m. that night, however much I reminded myself that it’s not possible to ruin a wedding unless you’re one of the people getting married.

But actually ( it was a really wonderful day )

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/374559.html

Hiya! Wow, it’s been so long - not counting the odd post about horrifying current events, at least. I can’t remember the last time I was quiet for so long. (Pause for people who know me IRL to be like, ‘we can’t either. We were enjoying it…’) Things are pretty good, though - a bit skint but not too bad, and there’s been lots of gorgeous autumn weather. Cool weather and turning leaves and bright blue skies <333

I did SO MANY THINGS in August, and then basically spent September recovering. August was working a lot of twelve-hour days (it’s the busy season), going away for two long weekends, and seeing twelve different flats before I found this one. Plus actually moving!

( stuff about moving & the new place )

Meme time, I think; it’d be nice to chat properly.

Give me one or more characters, and I'll tell you:

First impression
Impression now
Favorite moment
Ship them with
Idea for a story
Unpopular opinion
Favorite relationship
BROTP
NOTP
Favorite headcanon

Remember, YOU'RE TOTALLY ALLOWED TO DISAGREE WITH MY OPINIONS IN PUBLIC. Just be prepared for me to be all 'no, because...' but none of that means I like you any less :)

Fandoms: Potter, Buffy/Angel, MCU (including TV except for Agents of Shield), Steven Universe, Supergirl/Flash/Arrow, Glee, Dark Angel, AtLA/Korra, Orphan Black, Doctor Who, White Collar, Black Butler, #6, Pretty Little Liars. Also Diana Wynne Jones books. IDK I'm pretty flexible :D

Orrrr if that all seems too much like hard work, we can turn to my favourite old stand-by: you ask me a question, and I'll answer and also ask you a question that's somehow related to yours.

Crossposts: https://lokifan.livejournal.com/374492.html

1. Apparently my fic Aftershocks was one of the most popular Harry/Draco fics on AO3 in 2016! At least as far as drarry-specific-recs can tell, from hits. What??? It’s like 2k of after-sex fingering. But then I guess that would back up my theory that a lot of the most successful fic (in terms of attention/love) combines a big pairing with an offbeat kink.

2. I have a problem with my left eye which will probably not get better, but is far from a disaster. (I can’t read with the left eye alone, but my peripheral vision is fine and my right eye compensates, so I barely notice having a floater in the left eye.) Mostly I notice when I do my eye make-up. Right now I’m relieved that the attempt at making it better - two INJECTIONS INTO MY EYE, NEEDLE IN MY ACTUAL EYE OH MY GOD - is probably over.

3. I signed up for

hd_erised. I was in at nine minutes and the very last sign-up. Now the waiting for my assignment begins! I wouldn’t be surprised if this was my last fic for that fest - although not my last HP fic! - so. Yeah. I’m pleased I got in, although we’ll see how I feel once I get my match!

4. Friday I went to see ‘Queers’ with

kabal42,

magicatmungos, and

mokatiki. It was gorgeous - four monologues from queer men (I think three gay, one trans and straight) going forward in time. They were funny, heartbreaking, clever, and also really wonderfully expressed some of the ambiguity within the community about respectability, and legality, and the feeling of loss that comes with not being an “outlaw” as you become accepted. That’s not something I see talked about much, but it’s a very real tension. Also different varieties of happy endings. <3

5. I’m sorry I’m SO TERRIBLE at comment replies right now. It’s 100000% not you, it’s me.

Crossposts: http://lokifan.livejournal.com/372823.html

There has been so much DOING OF THINGS in the last few months and I’d really like to document it. In an attempt to make sure (a) I actually do that and (b) that it’s not too unwieldy, or rather totally unreadable, I’m gonna steal

copperbadge’s Three Things format: three bullet points and an extra per item.

Three Things About My Life Recently( Three Things About My Life Recently )

More to follow :)

Crossposts: http://lokifan.livejournal.com/372415.html

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lokifan

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ADHD assessment this morning

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