I get annoyed when people use "I want to understand" to mean "I want your explanation to compel me to possess your perspective". An intellectual understanding should be sufficient.

Frex: "People dislike 'it' used as a pronoun often because that word is typically used as a term for inanimate objects or non-humans and people find it dehumanising, which they find unpleasant" should be sufficient. The explanation doesn't need to convince you to agree with other people, only to know what their perspective is - else it will never be 'sufficient' in your view.

At least in cases where it is a matter of differing personal preference, or of respecting another person's difference. One needn't convert eir perspective to that of the other party, only accept that the other party is accurately representing emself.

Last night I applied in the employ of the state government, which meant the application process included a page of optional diversity information to submit (gender, race, language and disability).

I felt very conflicted about that. On the one hand, I believe accurate information is important for providing support and shaping policy. On the other, despite those questions being marked as optional and not taken into consideration for assessing my application, so far as I could see answering honestly would only either hurt or not help my chances.

After hesitation I left the disability and gender questions unanswered. Hopefully I will get the opportunity to establish myself as a competent candidate before anything comes up, altthough I doubt it.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Published 1994, copyright 1993

Recommended Rating: R18+[NDVLH]

Nudity

Drug Use (cigarettes, alcohol [underage])

Strong Violence

Language

Religious References

Restricted to persons aged 18 and over

Representations:

Although there are sections with female characters, their concerns all seem to revolve around men in or absent from their lives.

So far as could tell, everyone in the story is white English, French or German. There were some Jewish characters cameoing to connect this story with The Girl at the Lion D'or.

No noticed representations of queer sexuality.

Disability seemed present only to evoke pity or horror; while reading I also wondered if Jack Firebrace's young son might have been intended as having a developmental disability, based on descriptive commonalities.

On personal note, the part of the story I found most affecting was the Battle of the Somne. Apart from that, I felt disinclined to read the third in Faulks' French Trilogy and glad I managed to avoid it. Not only did I not enjoy much of the reading, and not I think in the way one might expect not to enjoy a war novel, but I also felt affronted by the abrupt convenience of the ending. But I suppose Faulks can be considered to have succeeded, since I left with an interest in reading more contemporary war accounts.

This was all written some months after the reading; may no longer accurately reflect contents.

Perhaps I should apologise for the recent silence. Just came off eight days of reading tvtropes. Seems to happen about once a year.

Anyway, still alive, still managing this self-care thing. Am finding this somewhat encouraging - if I had my own little place I feel a bit more confident I would be able to survive and look after myself, fed and clean and such, assuming I had the financial resources to cover the cost of living. Don't know how well I'd do with work added. Still room to hope I would manage that too.

It is very amusing seeing how excited Monroe gets when I feed her each night, running in circles and jumping up and down as I bring the bowl to her.

Last week I actually had a job interview in response to an application I put out, for the first time in the 11 months I have been applying. Still waiting to find out if I will get a second interview, should find out in a few days.

I still feel very behind on everything and worry I will never catch up. Feels like it should be possible to do so, yet I keep not managing it.

Some weeks ago the British series Misfits started airing here. It seems to be another in a line of attempts to show 'how superheroes would be in the real world', like the series No Heroics. The characters in this one are certainly convincing enough; I've been meeting people like them all my life. But, I don't like them and in the two episodes I watched there wasn't either any plot or drama that made me want to keep watching in spite of the characters.

For me, perhaps the problem is these interpretations starting with the idea 'realistic superheroes' and going from there to 'superheroes are petty, vain, selfish, and often bullies or bullied losers of some sort', and there's nothing left in it to hold my attention. Without the SF elements it would be a comedy or drama I wouldn't be interested in, and despite my interest being as biased toward SF as it is, nothing is done with those elements that might overcome my disinterest with the rest of the show. And the obsession with rape does not exactly help my interest (Timebomb on No Heroics, being gay and 'dark', sometimes threatens to rape people; one of the characters in Misfits has the uncontrolled power that sometimes skin contact with men compels them to try and rape her [no indication in the two episodes I saw if that works on women too]).

Hm. I was going to use My Hero as a comparative example where I like both the comedy and the superhero aspects, but I can't really imagine it without the superhero component, while I can imagine No Heroics without that, despite us seeing more direct heroing in the latter.

I don't think I opposed to the idea of 'dark' television treatments of superheroes, but I am annoyed that the concept of people being idealistic and heroic seems increasingly to get treated as an obstacle to putting superheroes on television.

Well, most of my annoyance is directed at No Heroics; Misfits I mainly don't like the characters and aren't interested to see more of them. It could be that I am reading them both wrong and they aren't superhero shows, but rather the former is a sitcom whose cast happens to be superheroes and the latter a youth drama featuring a cast who suddenly gained powers and has to deal with that. In which cases, I'm still not enjoying them enough to keep watching.