It's been a hot minute since I looked at Canada's National Occupation Classification system. I learned about it when studying career counselling in grad school, and it's pretty useful in terms of job-hunting and getting information on what different types of jobs require and pay.

A friend asked me for advice about becoming a therapist so I went and looked. They redid it since I last visited, and oh man there are some chef's kiss decisions.

There are 9 top-level categories, with 1 being legislative and senior management, 5 being arts, culture, and sport, and 9 being manufacture and utilities. So I was looking for my old job's classification, which used to be 4153 - Family, marriage and other related counsellors. Knowing that made searching the government job bank really easy back in the day, because instead of searching "counsellor" "counselor" "psychotherapist" "mental health therapist" "clinical counsellor" etc etc etc to find them all, I just typed "4153" and hit enter.

Anyway, they redid the system and now that job is parked at 41301 - Therapists in counselling and related specialized therapies. Here's the tree to get there:

Cool cool cool. It's tidier, even if the occupations are still a bit messy. (When I dropped out of the field, the different counselling subdivisions were tapping their toes impatiently waiting for the provincial government to let them form their own professional regulatory college. Which still has not happened. Last week my shrink said he'd got an email from the College of Psychologists announcing that it would be gathering all the smaller counselling fields into its own downy breast instead. I have no idea what's happening anymore.)

Anyway. I scrolled down to another job I once worked and HAHA WHAT

Yes. There are only three sub-units of category 44:

Nannies:

In-home caregivers:

And,

Combat specialists

I find this grouping of professions hilarious, appropriate, and deeply validating. No notes. 🧑‍🍳👌💋

Dr Jack Seward: So I mean like do you think it was the size of the asylum, the playing with the knife or the sitting on the hat that put her off in the end?

Renfield, who just wants to eat spiders and do his own thing:

I need a therapist who I can argue with and who will give me jewish advice ....a rabbi. I need a rabbi

sad that Harvey didn’t seek therapy or free himself from his toxic masculinity-related issues (holding in emotions/releasing anger in an unhealthy way, staying the longest w/women who just agreed w/him, making homophobic jokes bc “gay is girly”, being closeted if you can see above canon) until after Mike left.

deanna's initial reaction to losing her powers being to laugh it off and insist it'll probably fix itself, then to flatten any concern expressed for her and bury herself in work... she really has no patience with her own emotions! they can't be allowed to get in the way

parents who talk about finances in front of their kids and/or use it to shame their kids for needing basic things walk into traffic challenge

Always raise an eyebrow when people say they hate the totk Zora story like it's one of three reasons:

1. They genuinely think the characters were underdeveloped and needed more time to get the messages of the storyline across for it to work (this is my reason except I don't hate the story I just wish there was more.)

2. They were one of the people who wanted Sidon to have more depth as a character and then got mad when he had more depth as a character by showing his weaknesses and how he is in fact not perfect (this destroys the Tumblr sexy man version of Sidon they made up in their head.)

3. They hate women. Elaborating, they're pissy because Yona came out of nowhere and ruined their ship even though there's a billion other characters that came out of nowhere yet they're only mad about Yona (she gets in the way of the Temu yaoi which is a massive crime.)

It's usually the 2nd and 3rd.

Applicants for the Editorial Assistant position: I love reading and literature! I spend a lot of time on BookTok! I'm passionate about exciting narratives!

Me, alternating between assessing candidates and scrutinizing a manuscript to make sure there are no nasty permission surprises: Oh, you are applying to the wrong department, my friend.

Adults who unload their trauma onto minors are weird.

That a child, they do not need to worry about their adult friend's mental state. That fucks them up!

I cannot tell you how many times I have had to deal with adults online unloading their baggage on me as a teen. It sucks!

Let go of the version of yourself you are comparing yourself to

I think most people have at least one sliding doors moment: a poor financial decision, an encounter with the police, a career choice that didn't work out, an academic fuck-up, a relationship you should have left sooner. I certainly do. And you think: if only I'd made a different choice, that one time, my life would be so much better.

It's easy to blame yourself for doing the wrong thing or making the wrong choice, and I think most of us who feel that kind of guilt do eventually find a way of forgiving ourselves. We had good reasons for the choice we made at the time, even if they look foolish in hindsight. We can reason that things might have turned out the same, or worse, if we'd done what we now wish we had.

Even having forgiven myself and my youthful mistakes, though, I've only recently realised this: I have been living in the shadow of an imaginary version of myself for more than half my life. The version of me who didn't fuck up an important exam, who got the grades for her first-choice university, who therefore was able to get a better job and build on it, and is now working for the EU as some kind of fancy human rights lawyer. She's so much better than the real me, an underemployed freelance translator who has bumbled from admin job to admin job and is looking to change careers yet again.

But here's the thing: that perfect version of me is imaginary. I never think about lawyer me sitting in interminable meetings and not getting anything done! I never think of diplomat me losing her job because of Brexit! I never think about how that version of me doesn't have time for hobbies or deep friendships because her job takes up all her time and energy. She's fake! She's scamming me out of appreciating what I do have, and what I do love about my current life, and who I am.

Comparison is the thief of joy, and I have created an imaginary version of myself that I have been torturing my real self with for the past two decades.

So: if you have a sliding doors moment, and you think you've processed it, maybe take a moment to reflect on whether you are still comparing yourself to an impossible version of you or your life. Don't just forgive yourself. Put down that burden. That version of you would never have existed, even if you had done everything "right". Let yourself thrive as the person you are now.

COACH what to do if im disabled and can't run for exercise... what the fuck do I do

ONLY DO WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF, SON. IT DEPENDS ON THE REASON FOR YOUR INABILITY TO RUN. YOU MAY CHOOSE TO DO EXERCISES THAT RELY LESS ON YOUR LOWER BODY, SUCH AS SIT-UPS (WHICH CAN ALSO BE DONE STANDING BY BENDING YOUR LEGS SLIGHTLY THEN BOWING AND STRAIGHTENING AGAIN LIKE YOU WOULD REGULAR SIT-UPS IF YOU HAVE DIFFICULTIES GETTING ON THE GROUND), CHIN-UPS, PULL-UPS, DIPS, SO ON. YOU ALSO MAY CONSIDER FREE WEIGHT EXERCISES WITH SOMETHING SMALL. 1KG DUMBBELLS CAN BE BOUGHT FOR AS LOW AS 5 REÁL; THEY'RE SMALL ENOUGH TO STORE AND CAN GO A LONG WAY (BICEP CURL, ZOTTMAN CURL, FLAT DUMBBELL FLY, ARNOLD PRESS, CROSS BODY HAMMER CURL, SPIDER CURL, SCAPTION EXCERCISES, I COULD GO ON -- THESE ALL WORK EXCLUSIVELY YOUR UPPER BODY MUSCLES). MEDICINE BALLS AND KETTLEBELLS TEND TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE BUT CAN ALSO BE AN OPTION TO LOOK AT. AND FINALLY, IF THOSE AREN'T OPTIONS, STRETCHING THREE TO FOUR TIMES A WEEK FOR AT LEAST 20 MINUTES CAN HELP ALLEVIATE MUSCLE TENSION AND REDUCE PAIN AND TENSION IN THE BODY AS WELL AS INCREASE FLEXIBILITY, BALANCE BLOOD CIRCULATION AND LUCIDITY. YOU MAY WANT TO DO STRETCHES FOR YOUR LEGS REGARDLESS TO ENSURE THEY DON'T GO UNDERUTILISED

COACH... OUT❗❗💥💪💪

it's kind of frustrating that essentially all the advice on tumblr for functioning when your brain's not working properly assumes By Default that your brain's not working properly because of depression.

like. don't get me wrong, i'm glad there's advice for people with depression. and i'm totally capable of going, yeah ok this post isn't meant for me, moving on. but...when you have to do that with every advice post, when everyone around you is promising that everyone will feel better if they can put in the effort to do these things you know will make you feel worse, you start to wonder where the heck the posts that are meant for you are.

Most people really don't seem to understand that friendship is a two-way street.

They expect you to wait on them hand and foot as they rant about and constantly pour on you either their issues or their passions and when you finally have something you'd like to talk about you get a "Man that sucks :/" or a "Cool" in return.

Find somebody who doesn't do that. Then you'll have your best friend.

Finney is an engineering major. Robin is a film major. Billy is a business major. Bruce is a sports major bc he'd like to be a baseball coach. He and Finney are the only ones among the six to get scholarships, though Finney's is an academic one instead of from playing sports like Bruce. They still play together sometimes though. Also Bruce I feel like he's the most likely to get in a frat. Vance I don't think he'll be interested in more academics, instead he'd find either a trade school or a job. I have no idea what Griffin would take. Thoughts?

I agree with like a bit of this but I’ll give my thoughts :)

I do agree Finney would get into engineering *cough* nasa *cough* so thats good he would be thrilled about that

This is just part of my au I get if people don’t agree with me but I feel like Robin would major in psychology and like I have reasons for this, but long story short he becomes a therapist in the future.

I feel like Bruce would have but then things happened and he decided to major in political science so he could become a lawyer and I also have reasons for this.

I actually agree with Vance, I think he’d get a mechanical job like fixing cars or something like that. I feel like people always ask if he’s actually happy doing that and Vance doesn’t really mind.

Billy I feel like would be a journalism major, because I think he’d wanna work on writing/work on a newspaper. I know, I know, being a paperboy doesn’t mean he wants to work on a newspaper but I genuinely feel like he’d be interested in that. If not that, I feel like he’d major in animal sciences to become a veterinarian. :)

Griffin!! I talk about him all the time and highkey believe he would get a major in studio arts. I feel like he’d also earn a business degree so he could start an art studio at one point because I feel like he’d like to teach art but like, not work in a school.

I do agree Bruce and Finney would be the only two to get scholarships since they were least affected academic wise.

Bruce being in a frat is something I could see (but at the same time not) but in my AU he goes to college in NYC (wont spoil why) so idk if there are any there. It’s something I’ll look into though.

But yeah long story short, I agree with some of these headcanons but they ARE well thought out none the less :3 i think i get the vision on why you hc Robin would be a film major actually, because that stumped me at first LOL

moms getting competitive w her eating disorder again

my brain sucks lol