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  • I have just realised how many things I haven't done or potentially won't do because they scare me.

    With uni, sometimes I'm scared to try because I'm worried I'll fail, and at least if I fail without trying, I'd have some control over it. I'm scared of losing my relationship so I haven't advocated for my wants as much as I should be doing, and considered ending it. I will only do cardio at the gym if it's busy because I don't want to be around other people when I'm probably fucking up movements. I've always wanted to teach but I'm bloody scared to.

    Today I'm saying fuck it. I'm going to try, even if that means I fail.

    • You've probably heard all the motivational shit that gets peddled in such situations. One thing that has stuck with me over the years, is that the best songs are about failures. Very few decent songs about successes. Seems to me that failure is nothing to be afraid of - it's liberating and creative. And puts an end to that particular fear. You have already found out how crippling fear can be. Failure is nothing compared to that. Go forth and give whatever it is a reasonable shot.

    • How do you know if you're good at something or enjoy doing something if you never give it a go? I say to you fuck it. Do it. You might like it.

    • I believe there is nothing more liberating than saying "fuck it" before doing something. Like you touched on, it's accepting what happens next, rather than not bothering because of the potential of failure. You've got this, man.

    • "Feel the fear and do it anyway" I think that is in some movie but it's what I tell myself.

      One thing I've learned from transitioning is that as self concious as we are, most people are too busy with their own stuff and thoughts to even notice I'm wearing a wig and less then average make-up or indeed read my pronoun badge. It's fun when I'm definitely passing and someone apologises for assuming I'm female when they hear my voice. It's a bag of emotional stuff I carry around and there's fear associated with it, but I can't actually fail at being trans as much as other trans people try and make me feel like I am at times. I'd think I'd like to be able to pass effortlessly sometimes, but most of the time, I just make sure I'm being authentic to myself. What other people think of me is not really any of my business anyway.

      Everything takes practise and we should aim for progress not perfection.

  • Apologies for last night, using this place as a vent for some of my trauma. I would hate to have triggered anyone, and I am sincerely sorry if I have.

    The woes of waiting for a therapy appt, and being very, very friendless. I appreciate you who put up with my trauma-dumping, and I would not fault a single one of you who may block me.

    I have spoken at length with mein liebe, he knows everything. But he not my caretaker, nor therapist, and neither is this place.

    I will treat you better than I have.

    • Venting is part of therapy. I appreciated it. We are somewhat acquaintances and somewhat strangers which is quite similar to the therapist / patient relationship.

      I overshare here and while its a journal it's also because the people close to me have not been good to share with for the most part. They're supportive, but most of them think I should have sucked it up and moved on by now. That's not how dealing with trauma works. Not how the journey of being transgender works. Not how trying to come to terms with having neurodivergences works. Not how being in addiction recovery works. This stuff takes years and we all need people in our lives who have patience to hear us talk about things a lot over and over again. You're welcome to vent and share as much as you feel like in my dms hun. I'm a good ear and I've been to dark places a lot in the past as well. Lots and lots of love.

    • Waiting for an appointment is torturous. In the meantime keep busy. Have a look on r/miniatures for inspiration.

    • You have nothing to apologise for. You're human and humans reach out to other humans. hugs

    • It’s ok. You sometimes need to do it and it also must be hard not having a proper outlet of times. Even I’m guilty of it I have to admit because I bottle it up too much.

      You are a wonderful person who also cares about people too and you deserve to be cared about as well.

      If you need to talk or vent you can reach out to us.

    • Hey it's cool to vent on here if you need to. The pitiful amount of therapy covered by Medicare is really some bullshit. One of my kids needed some therapy, has used all his appointments and now we're paying full price until the end of the year. Really needs it, it's not optional, and mental health is priceless, but at the same time there is a price on it that some people can't pay. Constructive venting is therapeutic. Vent away, friend!

  • This is going to be my last vape. Vaping is a hangover from my last bender, which lasted about 5 weeks. Easier to quit booze than nicotine, the craving for booze comes after the first drink but doesn't persist after I stop for long at all. Nicotine however is a different story. I have those lozenges to defeat the cravings and a plan to wean myself off them over a couple of weeks if I need to. 50 days sober today, so the end of vaping is how I'll celebrate this milestone.

    Only walked 4ks at work, so need to do another 6 today and luckily the weather is pretty perfect for it.

    • Amazing stuff! You are doing so well becoming who you always were meant to be!! Nicotine is a removed, but you are strong! You got this!

    • I'm glad you're doing this, it's a very positive thing for your health. Kind and encouraging vibes being sent your way 🙏

  • Aircon installation in progress. Mr Woof is not happy. Miss Meow is indifferent.

    Edit: Now they're drilling loudly on the roof. Miss Meow has ugraded to somewhere between alert/alarmed.

  • Day 6 completed. New steel caps feel awesome but my goodness are they heavy! Probably a leg and bun workout in themselves.

    Im listening to the liked songs on the family playlist. My daughter's favourite song ATM is Mr Blue Sky by ELO. My son's is either Alter Bridge Metalingus (also my current listen) or Cult of Personality by Living Colour. Our playlist reads like a multi personality disorder!

    Have a great day everyone! I'm off to make a truck ton of pizzas!

    • ELO, nice. So many great songs there to find for them. My dad used to play a single ELO greatest hits record all the time growing up. When I grew up, I randomly recognised a song (Telephone line i think), and I got a huge rush of nostalgia. Now on regular plays on long trips in the car.

    • You get used to the weight of steel caps after a while.

      After using them and you got back to normal non steel caps everything feels so super light.

      Pizza? I could go for a pizza!

    • Can you eli5 the difference between a shit ton and a fuck ton?

      Congrats on sticking to the program. I only did 4k at work today and am feeling work fit, which is nice. Better hit up a decent walk this afternoon.

      • At work a shit ton is a little less than a fuck ton, which is the greatest amount.

        Work fit is a great kind of fit. Great to hear it's working out for you!

  • Pumped for Oppenheimer at IMAX today! My body is ready to by visually and aurally confronted....maybe also physically judging from the feedback about how uncomfortable the seats are supposed to be :/

  • Got tonight sorted sorta, found a bunch old movies to watch. ( yes I know I said I wasn't going to do movies mid week but these are real old oldies) then read a few pages of a book. 👍

  • Got an email from RMIT saying like "here are some alumnis things you can do" and one of them was study a postgrad degree. Decided to check it out and the graduate diploma and masters of the field I studied in both allows anyone to enter if you have had a minimum of 3 years in a related field OR completed a bach degree. I remember looking at the masters and it said you had to have a study score of something related to a HD, which I didn't have.

    Might see how I go with work, but I kind of want to do it. Has anyone experienced studying and also working before? (And not working like hospo or retail)

    • I haven’t done a post grad but I studied and worked all the way through my courses.

      Much of it’s going to come down to timetabling and seeing if it works out between work and uni.

      The other one would be the workload involved and understanding what you can take on and how much you can do and balancing everything.

    • That sounds like a real decent opportunity! It's so great to hear about unis allowing alternative entry pathways and changing up how things are done. Cheeky tangent, I love how Swinburne offers incremental qualifications to their students e.g. if you drop out after one or two years, you're rewarded with a Cert III or Diploma in whatever it is you were studying, with the option to return for the final Bachelor year at a later point. Other unis are moving towards this model. I digress.

      Over the past year I have been studying full-time postgrad and working 3-4 days each week (25-30 hours). The degree is centered around a biomedical research project and requires a lot of in-person, tedious, isolated lab work. (Oh it's worth noting that I am aiming for high marks, trying for med school). Not gonna water it down, it has been really fkn hectic doing it this way. Studying full-time and working 3 days a week was bearable...but when I picked up another shift, I didn't have a day off for nearly 2 months...would not recommend 0/10 i'm an idiot

      It would've been much easier studying a postgrad degree 'by coursework' and not 'by research.' I could def see myself working 25ish hours weekly and studying coursework full-time, no doubt. Guess it depends on the subject/material, too. Biomed...is involved. And if you're not chasing HDs then yes yes, for sure its doable. I reckon the sweet spot would be part-time study whilst working 30-35 hours each week.

      What's the field of study for this postgrad you're looking to get into, if you don't mind me asking?

      • Hmm... interesting. Yeah I'll have a think about it. Because honestly, I miss uni, it was a lot of fun. And I wonder how things would change now that I have a script for Ritalin haha.

        It was creative writing, so you know the course that doesn't provide me a job in the end! Jokes, I actually learnt a lot in creative writing and it's helped me get opportunities I wouldn't have gotten, and I do love the job I'm in but it's very much customer servicing whereas writing copy is a "if there's nothing to do", which is fine... but I just want to do more writing.

  • It burns with the passion of one thousand stars
    \ Then stabs with hate and leaves the scars
    \ It brings us hope and shows us light
    \ Then blinds our judgement with the night
    \ It'll take us to our final hour
    \ Draining us of our power

  • Going to continue the Keeley Hawes copverse and rewatch Spooks. I am very ready for cringey cheesy outdated tech speak, and the capabilities of a government agency blown way out of proportion.

  • I was losing confidence trying to sketch on the phone but I saw a proper artist do a good way (rough sketch then make new layer to draw over it nicely). So I took that approach and modified it heavily based on what works for me.

    It really helped to rough out very thick lines with a ‘artists crayon’, make a new layer and draw a bit more accurate with a small ‘brush’, then hide the first layer and go over the refined image again on a new one with a tinier ‘brush’ as a ‘pencil’. And then use that final good sketch as a guide to paint over and use effects. (Even if you paint over part of it you can hide and unhide or switch layers to quickly see a line again)

    It also helps immensely to have streamlining turned up to 100 to get the control over the stylus similar to a real pencil.

    Layers also make it easier to erase without wiping out everything in that area (that can be an issue as the undo tap only removes actions in the reverse order you did them).

    It’s also super convenient to have the background as its own separate layer by default. That means I can set the background to bright green to easily see edges or any thin/missed spots, and at the end I can change it back to a nice colour or pattern. Rather than have to manually fill it in/paintbucket and risk messing with the details on the edges.

    One very annoying thing is I’m unable to rest my little finger/side of hand on the phone to lightly ‘glide’ to draw a smooth line as in traditional art.

    Even if I turned off touch for hands, the limited size of the screen makes it hard and the edge of the device bumps my hand. I can’t draw from my elbow as I’d prefer. This forces me to draw unsupported or rest my hand on the edge and draw from the wrist (causing wrist pain).

    I’m not doing too badly though. Digital art has been a learning curve and you need to take different approaches but it’s been like a week of simple landscapes and I’m now making a little painting of Melbcat.

  • Urgh, site supervision turned out to drag on much longer than I thought... Thank goodness I've arranged for cousincat to be fed tonight and tomorrow morning and can stay the night at mine, so I don't have to go through the hellscape that is the m1 in peak hour again dear lord. Left at 6:20am this morning and it still wasn't early enough 😭

    Also, damn. The official CFMEU posters in the site office pretty er... Full on. 100% macho tuff guy vibes and even the F word - twice - once uncensored!

  • I think the larger outdoor unit of my aircon just made it to the roof. There was much grunting involved, I presume it is pretty heavy.

  • Been furiously applying for jobs over the past 2 months. Early on, I landed two interviews that were unsuccesful. Since then, I've been getting nothing whatsoever. Starting to spiritually resonate with the cliché the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting different results by lowkey loosing it. Hence, I'm asking strangers for help, perspective, and anecdotes.

    I'm after research work (and related) in the biomed/health sector. Been diverseying the search, scouring company websites directly, using LinkedIn, the Victorian Gov careers site etc. Rn I've got decent career momentum and need to stay within this field bc once your out its unlikely to get back in without pursuing further study. Look I'm not the most qualified but certainly not the least. Hell, even got some peer-reviewed publications out last year.

    If you've been stuck in the perpetual job hunt chasing a specific line of work, how did you get yourself unstuck? And, is it worth calling hiring managers directly to make yourself more known? And do you have any tips for presenting / preparing applications?

    Note: job agencies don't offer much assistance in this sector.

    Cheers everyone!

    • I am looking for call centre work, so my advice may not be quite suited. However, I can empathise with your plight. I hope other may have more relevant advice - I believe perhaps MeanElevator

178 comments