It’s interesting that I’ve reached a point where I find the sexism in my classroom annoying but nothing worth addressing in any kind of serious way. It’s a study in comparative bigotry: The struggle to be respected as a queer has worn me down enough that I just don’t have energy for taking on the sexist crap.
However.
It’s quite tedious.
When I was in high school, I took part in an applied physics program. The courses were taught by a teacher named Vorvis, who was a stickler for details. Among other demands, he insisted that all assignments be accompanied by a neat drawing of the relevant apparatus, with labels written in perfect capital letters. If this was not done to his satisfaction, then the entire assignment was considered incomplete. Needless to say, this was an effective training tool that very quickly had me making all of my handwriting an imitation of Vorvis’.
Fast forward 14 years or so, and guess what? I still tend to write in all capital letters, evenly and neatly. BECAUSE I WAS TRAINED TO DO SO.
And yet! Almost every single fucking day, some idiot classmate looks at my schoolwork and makes some comment about my girl handwriting.
Sometimes they listen as I explain that actually, my gender isn’t nearly as relevant as my history as a physics nerd.
Usually, they don’t listen at all, and just go along their merry little thoughtless way.
TEDIOUS.
I realize such comments can sometimes be intended as compliments. Really though, if you want to compliment me, you should stick to my actual achievements: I worked damn hard in that physics program, whereas my gender is a more conflicted sort of ongoing negotiation that I don’t consider to be particularly praiseworthy. Otherwise, it’s just another one of the many ways in my intelligence and skills are undermined and negated, as a woman in this male-dominated trade.
Having said that, today has been a pretty good day, and I know that I’m here because it’s where I ought to be.
Filed under: Student
Today I got my hands covered in grease, which pleased me immensely. I love the school assignments for which I need to make something, even if it’s something that I’ll never use in the real word. Case in point: A piece of sheet metal with different size holes in it, corresponding to common sizes of wire conduit. It’s near useless, particularly because the edges are sharp, but I had a good time making it. I had to use a manual knock out punch for the four corner holes, and a hydraulic KO punch for the ones in between. It felt like arts and crafts, albeit with slimy cutting oil and spirals of razor sharp steel.
For another assignment this morning, I took a handful of different sized wires, slipped a section of shrinkable plastic around them, and used a heatgun to secure the bundle into a neat cable.
These are the days when I love school.
It began to rain as I biked to school this morning. When I turned onto the road that takes me out of the city towards the rural-urban fringe where the trades campus is located, the sunlight that had shone earlier in the morning gave one last hurrah: A rainbow appeared across the sky ahead of me, with one end seeming to point to the college. Ha! I thought to myself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these past months, it’s that rainbows are not particularly welcome around here, at least not the kind that celebrate sexual and gender diversity.
Of course, I’m more likely to wave a black flag than a rainbow one, but still. The point remains.
Then I was thinking of the other meaning of the rainbow: There’s a pot of gold at the end, right? Which I suppose is really a more accurate reading of this sign, if I want to take it as one.
For the first time in my life, I’m developing a career. When I was younger, jobs were only for the purpose of paying rent and careers were for sell-outs bowing down to the man. When I was a university student, and then afterwards when I worked at a research institute, concepts and critical analysis were what mattered, and jobs depended on who I could impress and what grants they could secure. All of my previous ideas for my financial future were either unsustainable or impractical: Silkscreening instructor, website manager, stained glass artisan, bike mechanic, graphic designer, radio show host…
I don’t mean that these aren’t great possibilities for some folks, but given my skills and my personality, none of them were logical choices unless I was going to simultaneously invest a whole lot of energy into expanding my knowledge. Which I wasn’t: I wanted them to just happen.
Even the idea of becoming a university professor: I think I’d be a rad prof, but you know what? I hate writing academic papers. Loathe it, in fact. Producing my honours thesis was a horrid experience, one that I’d question repeating. So really, while a return to academia is on my to-do list, it’s waaaaaaaay down at the bottom, after “have kids” and “bike across canada” and even “learn to speak Irish”. Why on earth was I considering making a living as an academic?!!!
Which is a long way of saying that even when trade school hasn’t been welcoming and I’ve felt frustrated by the way things are organized around here, I’m very happy to be on my way to being an electrician. Being qualified in a trade excites me, because I’ll be useful for both my problem-solving ability and my dexterity, and for the most part will be able to depend on making a steady living wage based upon those skills.
Also, I’m rather good at it: I am proud to report that I just scored 98% on an exam regarding calculating ampacities for different conductor applications.
I sat down with the calender last night, and spent some time figuring out my upcoming time lines. I began school at the start of August, which means that my 25 weeks to complete the pre-apprenticeship program are up on January 22. That’s 12 weeks from now. However, I’d really like to be done by Solstice, if only because Oats and I have committed to spending the holidays painting our apartment, and really, do I want to have my school work competing with a project such as that?
That puts my goal of finishing at Friday, December 18th: Seven weeks. I’m on module 24 of 36 modules in total, though I still need to do the exams for 21 and 23. So, about 14 modules left, which makes it two per week.
Is that feasible? I think it might be, if I actually spend evenings and weekends studying. I’m struggling with making that sort of commitment, not because I don’t want to do well at school, but because I feel like I need to compensate for being unemployed and living off of Oats… Which is a sentiment that I know drives her nuts, because she is supportive as all get out, and tells me over and over that my training is an investment in our shared future.
I need to meditate on the phrase “School is my job, school is my job…” until it’s burned into my skull and has chased away lingering notions that my education in a random indulgence.
Two classmates just favourably compared me to Kaylee from the (canceled) television show Firefly. For those of you not in the know, Kaylee is the ace mechanic on the good (space) ship Serenity and is known for her adeptness with machines as well as her cheerful demeanor. I pointed out to my classmates that Kaylee doesn’t swear as much as I do, and is certainly much nicer to her fellow crew, but still… I’m pretty pleased. Kaylee’s shipmate Zoe is obviously much cooler, with her calm critical eye and dead aim, not to mention the leather belts/boots/vests, but let’s face it: I’ve always been better at fixing things than shooting them, and am more likely to be wearing grease than armour.
i woke up feeling like shit, and decided that going to school would not improve things. it turns out that staying home hasn’t been much better, but at least i can control my surroundings somewhat. also, it’s much nicer here, because oats and i spent saturday cleaning and organizing the house: i actually have a desk now, the bathroom isn’t icky, and the kitchen table is no longer covered in junk.
unfortunately, we’re dog-sitting again, and though i love dogs in general and have nothing personal against our latest visiting friend, he’s big and young and carries himself like a fucking mack truck. in fact, let’s make his blog name mack, because he’s moving in down the street and will no doubt become a regular fixture in our lives. anyway, mo’s about 1/6th of mack’s size, but that doesn’t stop them from wrestling and playing like a couple of… well, puppies. they are so engrossed in each other that most of mo’s discipline goes out the window, and mack’s not much better. the barking is driving me bonkers, and they won’t quit on their own. for my own sanity, i just forced a time-out, by shutting mo in his room and mack in the kitchen. now i’m going to take some drugs, and drink some tea, and possibly some gin as well.
boring blogger gets dog and becomes even more boring, by blogging only about said dog and posting boring photos of the circles under her eyes. once i get some sleep, i might consider how to not be boring.
(want more on casual homophobia at trade school? see part 1 and part 2)
so yeah, last week i reached a breaking point with school, which unhappily coincided with having two puppies demanding attention and 4 am pee-trips to the great outdoors.
not enough sleep + 10 weeks of constant homophobic submersion = one fucking mad fg
the coursework itself is still great: i’m not racing ahead anymore but still keeping pace, and mostly enjoying the assignments. on a personal level, i also enjoy most of my classmates: i crack jokes, they laugh, i am redeemed for years of social exclusion in elementary school, we all win.
HOWEVER. every single fucking day, these classmates have declared things they hate to be “gay”, and insulted one another with “fag” or “homo” or even “fudgepacker”. WTF, PEOPLE???
i was going to write here all about my amazing success with calling classmates on their bullshit, but i couldn’t keep up. after the initial good interactions (of which i am happy to report there were several), i started getting a helluva lot of the following responses:
“i didn’t know you were gay.”
“it’s just that i always hear that sort of talk around me.”
“some of my best friends are gay and they don’t mind when i say that.”
“i didn’t know you’d hear me.”
double-yew tee eff. yeah, i realize that you’re uncomfortable cuz i’ve just pointed out that you’re behaving like a bigot, but please don’t try to foist responsibility for that bullshit onto somebody else.
like i said, i couldn’t keep up, and it was very very very wearing. especially since no one else ever says anything: they will chat with me during breaks, they will ask for my help on assignments, they will share jokes with me, but not a single one will tell another student to lay off the anti-gay comments.
so last thursday i talked to one of the supervisors, and basically had a mini-meltdown in her office. her focus was on making sure that i’d be able to succeed in the program, and so she offered to arrange a study space for me in the library: thanks, but no thanks. i *like* being in the classroom, i just don’t like being subjected to hate speech. besides, i told her, that wouldn’t change anything: these people need to know that queers are EVERYWHERE (whether you recognize us or not!) and they be told that it is unacceptable to talk the way they do, and they need to hear it from someone with authority.
on friday i was absent, because i was en route to the mainland, to rock out at the photovoltaics course.
the supervisor said that she’d talk to the whole program at morning roll-call that day, and make it clear that using homophobic language is grounds for dismissal.
not sure how it went, but today was a good day at school: people didn’t treat me any different, and i also didn’t hear any of the usual ear-pollution. if this keeps up, if these people learn that homophobia is unacceptable AND that queers are everyday classmates/coworkers/neighbours/etc. WHO WILL NOT SIMPLY SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR, well then… i think we might just stand a fighting chance.
a crappy day, due to the wearing effects of spending my daylight hours with immature people whose overly-brandished opinions offend me.
actually, it’s not their opinions: it’s their casual bigotry, which is too fucking thoughtless to be granted the status of “opinion”.
many of the older students have graduated from our program in these past few days, including the ones with whom i had the most in common, leaving me surrounded by (young, white, able-bodied, privileged, male) offensive loudmouths.
i don’t really want to talk about it; i just want to cook.
with that in mind, i’m going to tell you how i make bread.
*****
last winter, i had a bread machine with which i produced delicious wholewheat molasses bread. it was pretty damn good, but required too many ingredients for daily baking. after hunting around for something simpler, i got really into making no-knead bread, which i’d previously discounted as another odd foodie obsession of my father’s. once i started making it myself, i too was hooked, because the bread is just so tasty. it reminds me of the loaves from the greek bakery i went to as a kid, that was on the danforth around the corner from my dad’s place.
the original recipe that i used came from the new y0rk t!mes; this is my wholewheat version. it’s long, but only cuz there’s more technique than ingredients.
please note that part of that technique is loooooooooooong rising periods. so, it’s less work, but it still takes awhile. plan ahead for good bread!
to make this bread, you need a cast iron pot, with a lid. i bought mine new for $100 (as one of the first pieces of mine and oats’ shared property – the other was a crockpot! yes, we are *so* homo), but you can find them cheaper and also secondhand. cast iron is awesome for all sorts of cooking, and i highly recommend investing in a good pot.
fg’s wholewheat and flax seed no-knead bread
makes 2 loaves
4 cups wholewheat flour (plus more for dusting)
2 cups white flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon yeast
3 cups warm water
1/4 cup flax seeds
(PART 1 – i usually do this part at bedtime)
turn the oven on to low. let it warm for a minute, then turn it off. whenever i refer to a “warm oven”, this is what i mean. it’s not hot; you should still be able to touch inside walls quite comfortably.
in a big bowl (or saucepan!), combine all the ingredients except the flax seeds.
you’ll get a shaggy, sticky dough. cover the bowl with a plate or plastic bag (i use my big saucepan cuz it has a lid), and place the whole thing in the warm oven for ~8 hours.
(PART 2 – i usually do this part at breakfast)
remove your dough from the oven; it should look a bit wet, have smoothed out in the bowl, and have some small holes on the surface.
warm the oven again, re-cover the dough, and put it back in the oven for another ~8 hours.
(PART 3 – i usually do this part after school/work)
take the dough back out of the oven, and warm the oven again. the dough should now look even wetter, and have lots of little bubbles on the surface.
dust a clean counter or large cutting board with a thick coating of flour, and sprinkle it with flax seeds.
dump your dough out into the centre of the floured area, using a spoon to get all the stringy bits if necessary.
now that your dough has worked so hard, let it rest for about 15 minutes.
working with one half of the dough at a time, shaped it into tidy round loaves by pinching the outer edge, pulling it up, and pushing it down again into the centre, as demonstrated below.
dust a clean tea towel with flour, and place the loaves on half of it, folded side down.
fold the other half of the tea towel over the loaves, tuck in the edge a little, and put back into the oven to rise.
(PART 4 – i usually do this right before dinner)
after ~1 hour, remove the loaves. they should have gotten much bigger!
cover them again, and set them aside somewhere warmish and not draftly (the counter is probably fine).
put your cast iron pot in the oven, and turn it all the way up to 450 degrees celcius. let it heat for 1/2 hour.
carefully remove your hot pot from the oven, and dump in one of the lumps of dough, with the smooth side down.
cover it with a lid, pop it back in the oven, and bake for 1/2 hour.
voila!
remove the loaf to a rack to cool, and repeat with the other lump of dough.
while that one’s baking, grab a knife and cut yourself a nice slice of that first loaf.
savour its flavour and texture, and take pride in the fact that your made it with your own hands, because you are worth it. no matter what the homophobic bastards say, your life is worth celebrating.
_classmate a, to classmate b_
what a FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG!
_me, looking up from my desk a few feet away_
that’s completely inappropriate.
_classmate a_
oh! right! hey, i’m sorry… uh… sorry… i shouldn’t have said that… i never will again, okay?
_me_
yeah, cuz it’s completely inappropriate.
_classmate a, shrugging_
i’m sorry… it’s just that i was raised with that sort of talk all around me, and i just can’t help it, you know? but i AM sorry.
_me, in my head_
i don’t care if you were raised by card-carrying members of the n@zi party or the ku k1ux kl@n:in this classroom, you have no right to disrespect ANYBODY like that, GET IT? IT’S STILL COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE!!!
_me, out loud, as i put on headphones and immerse self in textbook_
yeah. well. huh.
***
they say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, which is why i usually work hard on addressing oppressive language with proactive techniques (“wow! you just said something REALLY offensive! let’s talk about it!”).
as i’ve documented before, sometimes i’m too tired and instead just disengage and avoid my classmates so that i never have to hear their homophobic (racist, sexist, transphobic, etc etc etc) bullshit.
sometimes, though, there’s this funny alternative, in which my head is overflowing with the things i WANT to say and yet i can’t, because it seems like if i have the energy to throw THAT down, i oughta at least TRY to engage in a proactive fashion so that this dude doesn’t just walk away thinking i’m a rabid homo with an axe to grind. i get stuck between the honey and the vinegar, both of which can be pretty fucking sticky.
when i signed up for the program to assist unemployed trades students, i thought it’d be a good way to get some mentorship. to be honest, at first i was hoping they’d spring for my tuition, but i figured it was more likely that i’d get to meet some electricians and do some job shadowing. turns out that i was partly right on my initial guess: the program can’t pay for the basic course in which i’m already enrolled, but what they can do is find the money to pay for any additional training or certification that i could leverage into employment.
originally, i thought i wouldn’t take advantage of this opportunity, because my options seemed limited: once i finish this course, all i really need is an apprenticeship, and that’s pretty much where everyone starts.
but who would have thought? one of my school assignments was to research potential employers, and it turned out to be a crazily useful exercise! i ended up looking at the websites of all these local companies that do solar photovoltaic array installations, which led me to firing off a couple emails asking how an entry-level electrician can develop that specialty, which led to some great advice and more web links.
that’s when i saw the listing for the weekend-long “intro to photovoltaics” course at the college in van, coming up at the beginning of october, with no prerequisites required beyond a knowledge of electrical theory. i don’t have the $315 tuition, yet it’s not that much in the grander scheme of things. a few phonecalls/emails/signatures later, and the program’s agreed to pay for it!
i still have to get myself to the mainland, and stay with friends for the weekend, but regardless: i feel very lucky. i suddenly feel like this electrician thing could be a lot more than a way to earn a living, like i could really get into it for reasons that go beyond the general satisfaction of problem-solving and tool-wielding.
