![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/userinfo_v8.png?v=17080&v=915\")
<\/a>guingel<\/b><\/a><\/span> update and I've also seen <\/a>aatash<\/b><\/a><\/span> update (hey you two, sorry for not having answered your posts yet, I've got them open in other tabs, I promise!), but I fear that most of my friendslist has moved on to greener fields (=tumblr and stuff). For those who're still on LJ, I'd love to hear how you're doing!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:kegom:49804","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/49804.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=49804"}}],"title":"Thinky Post about fanfiction and homophobia. (Also: Students being weird.)","published":"2012-11-03T23:46:14Z","updated":"2012-11-03T23:46:14Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"failing philosophers"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"rambling"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"my students are awesome"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"meta"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"sherlock holmes"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"internet"}}],"content":"Huh. Apparently being stressed out about exams is good for my posting schedule, considering it's not been a year since I did my last post. I could still do without the exam looming before me, though. T minus 27 days, folks! >.<\"A few days ago one of my students unleashed some kind of pandemonium on us, when he took offense to ...something (which was just the tip of the ice-berg, he'd been antsy and moody for more than a week) and completely exploded<\/i>, attacking other students, throwing chairs, shoes, pencils, scissors, demolishing doors, bathrooms... you name it, he probably did it that day. There was a point during it all when I had to abandon trying to teach the other students and had to block the door, because he was outside and trying to throw building blocks at the other students.
And the other students? Well, obviously they were a little bit bored, with all of our energy focused on that student, so they started to literally bounce around the classroom.
And say the word \"bounce\" as they bounced.
And then they started bouncing in a circle.
So there I was, standing at the door, with the sound of building-blocks-mortar and enraged howls of a furious student at my back, watching my other students going \"Bounce! - Bounce! - Bounce!\" while bouncing around in a circle.
...Welcome to my life.
Speaking of ...well, not exactly my life? But more stuff I've been thinking about (to distract myself from my exam): I recently read this meta-discussion post<\/a> on homophobia in slash fandom, which I found very interesting, especially the stuff in the comments. The post argues that at least some of us slash fans (it's geared towards hockey fandom, but I think it's easily appliable to every other fandom as well) tend to think of ourselves as gay allies, because<\/i> we read slash fanfiction, which can somewhat blind us to our own privilege and occasionally homophobic assumptions.
The best example of that kind of thing I ever encountered was back in 2004 at a German yaoi (anime\/manga) site, when one other fan wrote that she loved imagining\/reading about two beautiful anime\/manga boys getting it on, but thought the idea of two middle aged \"real-life\" gay guys being intimate (or even slow dancing together in public!) was \"disgusting\" - and there were other fans on that site who agreed with her, all the while proclaiming that they weren't homophobic.
This is a blindingly obvious example of homophobia in slash fandom, but I've seen other, much more subtle, examples in various fandoms ever since. The comments to that post mention the whole \"Derek\/Stiles\" thing on Teen Wolf, and while I'm not in the fandom itself, I've seen the show (I like werewolves! They're cool!) and I've read some fics - and even I noticed that there was a surprising dearth of the one canonically gay character on the show in a lot of those fics, even though there's also canonical evidence that Stiles has asked this character questions about \"gay stuff\" before and would almost certainly do the same if he were to engage in a gay relationship.
Granted, Danny (the character) is woefully under-developed - but really, a character not being fleshed-out has never really stopped fans from including them. But in a lot of fanfiction, Danny keeps being absent, because... well, why? Is it because he's not white, as one person on the other post suggested? While that might be a contributing factor, I think it might also be because he doesn't fit any of the \"supporting roles\" in a Derek\/Stiles story (best friend, confidante, ex-lover, parent...) and because he isn't \"sexy\" to slash fans, not like Derek, Stiles and even Isaac and Jackson are. (Which, now that I think about it, might actually be a pretty strong indicator of the whole non-white thing, because all of those written characters are white...) Omitting him doesn't tell us readers that an author is homophobic - but I do think that it might indicate that, perhaps, the author hasn't given all that much thought to the issue of homosexuality and its erasure throughout a lot of history.
And... well, as the original post said, fanfiction itself is not (and doesn't have to be)<\/i> supportive of real-life homosexuality. There are some truly amazing fanfictions out there that are, there are also a lot of fanfiction authors and readers out there who are homosexual\/queer\/trans\/etc themselves, or who are true allies; but a lot of fanfiction is basically either the m\/m for straight girls variant of lesbian porn for straight men, or an equivalent to a harlequin romance novel. And honestly, normally I'm totally OK with that, because as long as fanfiction readers and authors own up to that fact, I don't think that fanfiction needs a validation beyond being written\/read for the pleasure of those things.
But, sometimes... there's stuff that's kind of noticeable and stuff that I feel strongly about and, even though fanfiction is written for pleasure and it should stay that way, I wish some authors would think about the implications of stuff, be it homophobia or other issues.
Take BBC's Sherlock, for example. Sherlock is semi-canonically portrayed as asexual. (Word-of-actor and Sherlock's in-universe explanation of being \"married to his work\" \/ \"not interested\".) He and John have a very<\/i> intense friendship, a friendship that reads very slashy - and which is actually a really good portrayal of what an asexual romantic love story would look like.
Yet 90% of Sherlock-slash completely ignores the whole asexual thing in favour of making Sherlock and John have lots and lots of sex.
And on the one hand I get it - hey, it's two near-canonically romantically linked good looking guys, and fanfiction is all about the love and the sex! And it's written for fun and for getting fantasies out there! ...But on the other hand, I can't help but feel that this is also a form of erasing asexuality, which as a sexual orientation already has problems with being erased\/not taken seriously; and I really wish that more authors were conscious of that.<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:kegom:49312","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/49312.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=49312"}}],"title":"My Life In Three Short Scenes","published":"2012-05-12T14:33:16Z","updated":"2012-05-12T14:33:16Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"rl"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"teaching"}}],"content":"[Note: I'm currently working with children with developmental and severe learning disabilities around the age of 10.]
Scene one:
Student A comes into the class.
Me: Hey, Student A!
Student A: *raises her arms in a clear sign of wanting to be hugged*
Me: Awww *bending down and hugging A*
Student A: * hugs me around the head, smashing my face into her saliva-covered shirt*
Me: Ungf. >.<\"
Student A: *starts drooling on my head in joy*
I... I kind of felt like those characters in mangas who get their heads chomped on (WITH LOVE!) by some kind of animal\/monster thingie. ^^\"
Scene two:
[a discussion about babies drinking milk has been going on]
Student B: How do birds feed their babies the milk?
Student C: Birds don't give milk.
Student B: *worried* B-but - they're babies<\/i>! They have to have milk! They'll die otherwise!
Student C: No, they just eat worms and stuff.
Student B: They can't eat worms, they're babies<\/i>!
[a short time later]:
Student B: Ms Kegom, you've got to have a lot of milk, your boobs are huge!
Me: Actually, women only produce milk when they have babies of their own, so I don't have any milk right now.
Student B: *stares at me* But you've got to have milk! What are they *points at my chest* good for, otherwise?
Scene three:
[Student D and I are carefully counting the pips on a big die together]
Student D and I together: One, two, three, four.
Me: Great! So how many dots are there?
Student D: *beaming* Five!
...Yeah, this is basically my whole life right now. ^^\" How are y'all doing?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:kegom:48763","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/48763.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=48763"}}],"title":"I REALLY AM NOT DEAD YET!!! ^______________^ (And I'm Graduated! And Have A Job!)","published":"2011-03-08T18:24:44Z","updated":"2011-03-08T18:24:44Z","content":"OMG YOU GUYS, I'VE FINISHED UNIVERSITY!!! I'M FREE!!! AND A CERTIFIED SPECIAL NEEDS TEACHER!!!
I got a rose at my graduation ceremony!<\/i><\/center>
A month ago, we had our graduation ceremony (yeah, so long ago, I know, and I still didn't come around to posting about it until now... v-v\" Life is really busy these days!)
I'm still walking on clouds whenever I think about finally having finished, though. And I had a proper graduation ceremony for once! With standing on a stage and having my name called and then accepting my diploma, a rose and a handshake! (Which were, btw, all handed out by one of the professors who I was closest to during my time at university, which made me really happy.) Which makes the whole event a far more formal affair than any graduation ceremony I've ever had.
Sadly, most of my family couldn't attend because they had to work, but my father was there and he invited me to dinner afterwards, which was nice. ^-^ Unfortunately, his camera didn't work properly, so there are no photos of me, apart from the official photo, which hopefully will be uploaded to the university's website sometime soon. Ah, well, I took a photo of my rose (picture above) at least!
The reason why I'm posting this so late is that through some lucky coincidence, I started a job about three days after that ceremony. XD Which I'm really happy about as well, though it has left me with just as little time to spend on the internet as my exam period, which I'm not that happy about. :(
The school's very interesting - it's a specialized school for children with learning difficulties and difficulties in their emotional and social behaviour (yeah, Germany has specialized schools for those kids... the German school system is still very segregating for children who're different, sadly) and it's located in one of the \"worst\" parts of our city (\"worst\" in the sense that it's the \"poor\" area with a lot of unemployment, very high rate of immigrants who don't speak German, quite a lot of social problems, etc). It's very demanding - most of our students have huge problems with acceptable social behaviour, so you've got to have a thick skin and a pretty authoritarian attitude to get any kind of cooperation from them (I'm OK with the first part, but still struggling with the second), but the colleagues are great and I do enjoy teaching, as difficult as it can be.
But now spring break has begun, and like the good teacher I am, I immediately got sick, right on the last day of school, so I'll have a little more time on the internet. ^^\" (I've practically never been sick during the school year, not even as a student - I always got sick as soon as the holidays started. v-v\") Especially since I also managed to injure myself during the first week at the school: I ruptured some muscle fibers in my right leg, am currently hopping around on crutches and I'm supposed to rest my leg a bit in this week.
(Before a friend of mine moves in with us next week... but that's a tale for another post, since this one has already gotten far too long!=
I am alive and happy, though! &hearts
But that's enough about me - how are you all doing? <\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:kegom:48579","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/48579.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=48579"}}],"title":"Public Service Announcement","published":"2010-09-16T06:35:17Z","updated":"2010-09-16T06:35:17Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"public service announcement"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"rl"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"arashi"}}],"content":"I'm halfway through my exams at this point (finished the written exams, have the oral exams ahead of me, should be finished in time for Christmas, if everything goes well), but because fate (...or whatever) apparently decided that I didn't have enough to do, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer recently.
Since both she and my grandfather now need a certain amount of care, I'm going to be around even less than I was before. (...Y-yeah, I'm not sure if it's possible, but I at least had theoretical access to internet before, which I don't have at their house.) :((((
So... kind of a fair warning? I know that some people don't like having people on their friendslist who don't post at least once every (or every other) month and comment semi-regularly, and even though I want to, I can't provide that at the moment, so if you'd rather de-friend me, feel free to do so. I won't feel slighted or offended or anything, I promise!
...Ugh, what a downer post - and that on Arashi's birthday! >.<\" To end on a cheerful note, let me present you one of my favourite Arashi screencaps - enhanced with sparkles, because Arashi sparkles make everything better!
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/https_placeholder.png\")
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:kegom:48334","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/48334.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/kegom.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=48334"}}],"title":"I'm participating in the H\/C Bingo!","published":"2010-07-25T13:15:00Z","updated":"2010-07-25T13:15:00Z","content":"The first of my final exams (a five hour long written exam about the didactics of German language) is in two days time and I'm not-so-quietly going crazy with fear and nerves. And thus I thought: Yes, this is the right time to make a post about fic writing! ^^\"
So, service announcement: I'm participating in the H\/C Bingo!
See, I don't exactly have time to write fic (though, as Marion Zimmer Bradley once noted, NO ONE has time to write, you just grab what time you can get, even if it means writing on top of the washing machine while doing laundry), but writing has always calmed my nerves and I've been WANTING to write something for months now.
Only problem? Absolutely NO ideas. My muses have apparently taken a long vacation, or something.
So I thought that this H\/C Bingo (
![](\"https:\/\/l-stat.livejournal.net\/img\/community.png?v=556&v=915\")
<\/a>hc_bingo<\/b><\/a><\/span> - the idea for it has been taken from the \"Kink Bingo\" community) would be perfect, because while it's a challenge, there's no exchange, so it doesn't matter at all if I fail, and it gives me all those nice little prompts that I can write for! Oh, and it's a minimum of 500 words per fic, which is actually something I can write in a day or two! ^-^That said... well, I got my card and...