In and out time

The weekend didn't have the best of starts because at a music site I frequent a seemingly throw away comment by one followed by a quotation from an interview lead to a situation where one person appeared to question the use of the phrase "To dabble" and then having explained that phrases meaning without making any kind of comment on the subject, I am subject to a personal attack supported by two others.
It was a text book situation where rather than discussing the subject, the person just goes for a personal attack.
I just decided to type back a short response to clarify I only posted explain the terms, no comment made on the subject and that was it. I could easily of said a whole lot more but thought better of it.
I woke up the Sunday morning to see a Alert tag on the site that usually says of someone has responded with a like or a reply to some post or other and when clicking on it found it was a note to say my post had gone due to this attack being reported with it plus all the discourse deleted.
I have been this week out for walks where it has been cooler than at the start of the month  but fresher which wakes it more enjoyable and the temperature at around 14 degrees C pleasant enough to be out just a thin waterproof walking jacket over a t shirt as I'm fairly warm blooded and soon get start generating heat when exercising.
I notice three sheep in the smallholding looking quite contempt grazing on the grass too which after everything else was a pleasant sight.
Sometimes I think the outdoors is better.

Back in time

A warm start to the week on the other blog after the usual discourse around different groups on Tumblr saying "If you're a friend of theirs, you can't be a friend of mine" and "if you don't join us you're a nobody who won't be allowed to go nowhere" that can get tiring.
In dealing with that and blogs listed as disrepecting others wishes blocking them, I spotted something that was rather good.

Sadly lacking original artist credits, this illustration is charming in its child-like state suggesting to me they were clearly in a regressed state of mind at the time as the writing is very much of the 'child within' lacking any adult sophistication.
That to me is very much what this thing is about whatever props we may use and however we may present-getting back to that childhood state, enjoying the moment without an adult care in the world.
In her world the teddy bears are going for a walk hand in hand caring and looking out for each other, her response to them will be that of a child.
That is why protecting littles is a very important thing because when we are in that state our adult guard isn't around so we don't do 'adult' things  and any Caregiver shouldn't push them on you.
Boundaries DO matter.

Read and in uniform

The weather is a bit better than it had been from the start of this week so I start with saying the last few entries that have been a little different from the the norm on this blog have been fairly well received.
I have been continuing with refreshing some items of my uniform although in certain  others areas I'm well stocked adding a  few replacement blouses and a green jumper to it.

 As most people know I usually look very much like her never happier to be wearing our school dresses although I dare say if I were to accidentally cause the netball to land though Miss Green's window I may well know it for a while!
Seeing it is early September I have been working my though some past stuff connected with roles and courses I've had that were very much paperwork heavy  tidying things up as there comes a point where most of that is no longer needed it just takes up unnecessary space with notes, bulky folders and so on.

As well, I also got around to reading Little Women although I'd had it for a while which is a timeless coming of age story of the four March sisters set in the post Civil War period in the States as though through childhood to adulthood, helped by their mother learning to navigate what it means to be a young woman from sibling rivalry to love, loss and marriage.

Domestic skills and the girl

It has been a damp start to the week here back at the Dorm which if you're about and on foot as I was bringing bread and that back from the stores  you'd soon notice and in a way that connects to this post and a previous one Gender Spaces. on the other blog.
Sometimes it seems to me, a good few decades of life on earth on somehow we get ourselves lost for all the very best reasons conflicting two things.
Whatever we may feel people should be able to decide fits into their own idea of gender roles, there is much to be said for spending time with the parent of the same gender because it enables them to share with you their own experiences, such as what being a girl is about because actually they've lived it and so have valuable lessons.
No amount of equality training can replace that.

It is the most natural instinct in any society for you as a child to emulate the parent of the same gender as yourself and to spend time with them and for girls that can mean making or buying similar outfits. Most of us actually enjoyed this before the gender studies people came along and said we shouldn't do this. 
Strangely enough at six or seven we do want to be a gender!

We get things wrong when we start to object to the idea a girl shouldn't be expected to learn about cooking and instead elevate the physical and academic over it not because she shouldn't learn these things too but because we fail to ensure boys are also taught and expected to help out in the home too.
Because we don't, we try to protect her by ensuring she can't be taken advantage of by saying it's not her role. The problem is we all need to this for ourselves and that includes her as well as her male siblings and so teaching nobody doesn't help. Cooking is a skill boys need too.

As many a student can recall, next to paying for food, getting the laundry done efficiently matters if everybody isn't to be suffering from stale smelling clothes so there is nothing wrong with showing your daughter how to and even having her help as some of it is bound to be hers.
The problem here is because we're so hung up about sexism and roles we start to say she shouldn't be cos it's sexist. What is sexist is not having her brother do the same, carrying some domestic 'weight' in the household and she needs to see females insisting on it.

To me in trying to fight sexism and the notion it's a females role to run the household exclusively we seem to have devalued that which just needs doing without tackling the core issue:
Putting contributing to the smooth running of the household into core responsibility of boys and men.

Paired walking edition

As is becoming frequently an occurrence on my blogs, I'm beginning by saying this post isn't being posted either in Chrome when I use the Chromebook or Pale Moon like now when I'm using my old but trusty Dell Windows Laptop  in Firefox because the browser  Pale Moon has become so unstable I cannot work efficiently with it  and Google together with Tumblr are the most effected by its tendency to lock up and go unresponsive.
When I wrote this it had been the first time since being ill I had walked along the same route as I used to take going along country roads, passing commons, clearings and yes farms and that was just over a month ago on turned out to be a pleasant late summerish day with temperatures around 23 degrees and bright sunshine.
One could notice already the beginnings of the fall as a few groups of trees had started to move toward a reddish hue although not yet  the classic oxide orangey red colour with the crispness one sees during the fall.
It felt good to pause for several minutes reflecting on the beauty around you and indeed you are actually here to appreciate it after all that happened.
Another thing I did as I felt a bit better was to go through my sock draw.

When we buy socks, they come in  pairs like our legs which go in them but for some strange reason it doesn't take much to unpair them to the point you have several odd socks so I have been going through them all methodically checking and pairing them up.
The odd ones then can be checked by a pile of odd socks near the drier for any that do match.
It also is an opportunity to remove any worn or otherwise not fitting pairs of socks while I'm about for recycling as I have been going through some of my older clothes recently.

Gender Spaces

Another week and one update to Pale Moon and that still hasn't cured the browser of freezing over so we're still in Firefox which as much as I don't like the interface does work very well.

Spaces are a contentious issue as anyone on Tumblr knows only too well and some of that also applies into off line life too as well as what people do when we allow them into our own.
One area I think worth talking about is gender spaces where yes most of us say people should be free to mix with whoever they want, take part in activities together and not be barred from an activity just because of their gender. 
This you might think is the end product of decades of arguments won when it comes to equal opportunities and as such the very last word but today it's not.
Unlike perhaps a few of you I've been in the work place and it isn't uncommon for female employees to actually have their own social groups that they keep to just women going out together or spending time at each others places.
Even in 2018 here in Great Britain there are Universities that only accept women being founded expressly for female higher education and women have voted to keep them that way because they prefer a all female ethos and under English Law at at least a private members club can be all female only too.
Part of the argument is it is nice to have a place just to talk and share things with without men around who as nice as they are would  change the feel by just being there and maybe inhibit conversations people needed.
There is a chunk of me that goes with that, indeed in my area Secondary Education is organized on gender lines unless you go out of town because that's what people here prefer feeling it's less distracting to study and children do better academically with girls feeling more able to show an interest in things like the sciences not trying to be a 'bimbo' or letting the boys take a dominate role and boys more able to express feeling in say both English's without feeling either a 'nerd'  or a 'sissy''.
If you accept the idea that some spaces should be able to be gendered if females wish, then we have to bear in mind we cannot then object if boys and men may also prefer a few   themselves to kept that way such as men's clubs where they may socialize and talk about things that wouldn't happen if a women was there.
That's different than arguing that say a woman shouldn't be allowed to a sports club that runs competitions such as golf clubs where teams are mixed.
Perhaps more give and take on gender spaces rather than battle cries might better suit our needs?

A Mars Bar is can be claimed for anyone spotting the typo in the illustration. 😁