Feminist Pub 14: The Bluestocking, a place for feminist chat and feminists to chat

What's up Frau?

Time out and some concentrating on mum and me and less kink in my life I think.

Yonic thank you.

Ok so how do I move from being the way I am to being normal. I don't think I can do normal.

I want to post a whiney woe is me post. Shake some sense into me

Buffy ...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That is all

I'll have a pint of cherry beer in the beer garden please. We do have a beer garden, right?

Pops in to stroke the goat, pops out again....

I always just buy fancy dress. cba with making it, but I love Halloween.

For Halloween one teacher wore a shirt which was white with horizontal blue stripes, and a couple of 'black holes' on the left as you looked at him. He was loose leaf paper. No-one got it. We were all standing around talking about it, and he was saying how over 50 people had asked him and he'd had to explain. Then ONE woman walked past in a rush, and said, "oh, loose leaf, very clever" as she breezed past.

Thanks for the support - I knew you were the people to talk it in the early hours.

I've tried to raise a complaint and wrote to my adviser. I keep being told that yes, I should be on this course, there's been nothing wrong with my advice. I'm paying $$$ for this MA, and if they admit they screwed up, I could potentially start asking for a refund, so they won't want to do that. The actual class I'm taking now is meaningless and stressful. Everyone else is complaining, other people have walked out of lessons, cried, refused to attend etc. so it is pretty dire, but the professor is a long standing tenured ex-administrator. No-one is going to stand up against her. My general complaints about poor advice keep being brushed aside, although I am now meeting with my adviser in early Dec (I can't do this week, then it's Thanksgiving, and guess what? My adviser is only available one day a week!)

For the medical stuff I have reservations. I don't want my legitimate (I believe) complaints to be brushed aside under the guise of 'she's stressed, can't help it' because of medical things. Also, I'm being tested for stuff right now (and yes, it could all be because of my crappy thyroid) so don't have an 'illness' to claim for.

Last year I had an emergency appendectomy after being ill for a month. I had a doctor's note, but received no leniency or special consideration beyond being allowed to miss one class and it being recorded as medical rather than just absent. My grades had slipped slightly while I was sick, but there was no retro-active leniency, even though I'd been running a fever and unwell for a full month. I was back at work and college, at full pace, less than 6 days after the op.

My subject? Women's and Gender Studies. Absolutely NO support for students returning to education after a long gap, or any help for part timers like me. Which is, I believe, a case of indirect discrimination against women. If anyone ever admits to the mistakes, then I could raise a shit storm under that banner, but really I just want to get decent grades and feel like they've listened to me. I am very aware of the irony here.

Anyway, enough about me. Hi to new people. Pictures of fluffy kittens help, as did my real life cats, who sat with me last night.

Oh I bloody hate fancy dress. It seems to be a constant thing in schools here!

Hey Yonic, thanks.
What's new with you?

Thanks Jeanne. He is definitely making an effort but it's hard to come back from years of problems.

I don't recognise your name - what's going on in your life at the moment?

How did you get interested in feminism?

cailin - I remember your thread! I'm so glad your DH is at least making an effort, even if ultimately things may not work out.

kickass - sorry to read that, you sound really frightened and overwhelmed. Agree with the others that the extenuating circs should be on record. And maybe a complaint?! There must be someone you can talk to to check if this low level of support is normal (it surely shouldn't be).

I forget what your subject is, which means it's probably not mine, but I wonder if anyone on MN would know enough to be able to help out? Only mentioning because people have for me in the past.

I've only dipped into these threads but hoping to be more of a feature on this one - listening mainly.

Hi Novida.

Kickass - sounds like a shit situation. As others have said, go to the college for help. Sounds like American college- university level - is that right?

What's going on with me at the moment is that DH and I trying to repair our marriage and he has delved into feminism in a big way. It's a strange, difficult but interesting process. I am still very unsure if we will come out the other end as a couple.

Hello- Newcomer to the Bluestocking here! Never noticed this place before and thought I'd drop in for a pint of Proseco. My reason for passing - Oddly woke up this morning with a fire in my belly about this hideous bloke Julien Blanc who wants to come to the UK to spout his sexist beyond belief 'dating tips'. Anyway, I was just looking for somewhere to vent and thought I'd drop in here before signing Teresa May's petition. Wasn't sure I would be welcome as an 'outsider' but one mention of fluffy kittens and I was in. Nice to meet you .
Kikass, you need to go and talk to the head of department about your lack of advisor too. No offence to librarians, but at this stage you need subject specialist help as well as as extension date.

Kickassangel - are 2 and 3 not related? I thought I had thyroid nodules recently but it all calmed down.

Kickass - I second what Buffy says - get your extenuating circs recorded - there's usually a form to fill in - and that should get you extra time or even just consideration on the marks, if you don't want the extra time.

Hi,

I know I've been MIA for a while - life got busy. Suddenly everything seems to be turning to crap and it's 1:30 am, I'm sleep deprived and in floods of tears.

First of all - my college course has just gone to crap. The last piece of work I got back was a shit grade, I hate the class, and I have been saying since week 1 that I was given the wrong advice when told I should take it. Now my grade is fucked, I believe that the teacher didn't even read the last piece all the way through, and I'm supposed to write 1/2 of my final thesis in the next 5 days as 'an exercise' even though I don't know what my final thesis will be on, and I have no books, adviser or anything set up. This seems like a shit load of work for no purpose. I've tried raising this with my adviser (a new one, actually a librarian, not a professor, because the last one quit suddenly) but keep being brushed off. So do I make a big old stink or just suck it up? Only it is suddenly all more complicated because:

Second - there's some kind of swelling/lump in my neck/throat area. I'm having a CT scan on Thurs and I'm scared about that. I hate CT scans. I'm scared about my throat/neck and what it could mean - potentially an operation to remove some glands, IF I'm lucky. Possibly significantly worse, although that is unlikely.

Third - my thyroid is fucked up again. This means that I'm exhausted but can't sleep, have out of control depression and anxiety, keep putting on weight and I'm struggling to remember things (words like 'table' can be elusive at times). There are people who never really manage to get their thyroid under control and they just don't live long. I've had this for 3 years and it still isn't stable.

So - I have 2 fairly significant (although only possible) health issues. I really should sleep, but I'm so upset about my fucking shitty college course that I can't stop crying. DH will help me with the college thing - he's v. good at these things. TBH I'm so pissed off with the whole course that I'd rather have a crap grade than write one word extra. I'm not going to go for an incomplete though as that would piss me off even more. I have 2 more classes to attend, one discussion, 2 papers and a presentation. Even if I do have some fatal illness, I'm fucking finishing this course first.