Once again, I don’t have a lot to say about the new TGS page, aside from 👀

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH CONGRATULATIONS ON THE WIN FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY ON THIS WONDERFUL DAY WE LOVE TO SEE COMMUNICATION AND DEVELOPMENT!!!!!!!

Ramblings on the Atlesian Military and Remnant Warfighters in General

I swear, I was just trying to get inside Winter's head for a fic, and things got out of hand. I have no idea if RWBY's writers know or care how the various military and paramilitary organizations of Remnant are structured. But I, woe to my creative process, have to figure this out, at least in broad strokes.

I'm basing all of this in what shows up in RWBY itself, and in the World of Remnant shorts. And while we don't have tons of details on military organization specifically, militaries reflect their parent culture, and we know a good amount about Remnant culture in general, and several Kingdoms in specific. And, RWBY being a show about awesome ladies kicking tremendous amounts of butt, we have a decent idea of military and paramilitary hardware.

Unlike Terra, Remnant suffers the constant threat of the Grimm. Which has implications for military actions. First of all, since Grimm are drawn to outpourings of negative emotions, anyone who wants to win a battle has to be prepared to win two in a row - first, against the actual enemy, and the second against the Grimm. Second, any long-term battlezone is going to be swarming with Grimm. If an army lays siege, they're going to have to be able to fight off both the Grimm and the defenders.

The bandit clan solution to this is lighting raids - get in, get the loot, get out before the Grimm (or local military) arrives. I'm not convinced that Remnant military operations look much different. Which explains why the Great War took place over so much of the world, as opposed to bogging down in a trench network outside Vale.

As far as the Great War specifically - Mantle and Mistral emphasized the society, Vale and Vacuo the individual. I'm imagining Mantle and Mistral just landing huge armies under tight command, and trying to perform a grand, sweeping, brilliant strategy, and it just keeps bogging down because field commanders have to keep calling back to command to ask for orders. Meanwhile smaller Vale & Vacuo forces, under independent commanders (many of whom are probably partisan guerrillas) are just tearing their opponents to pieces... to a point. Eventually, Mantle and Mistral forces are reduced to a point where they can be effectively coordinated, and they can defeat their smaller opponents in detail. Repeat a few times, with one side having an operational advantage, and the other a strategic advantage. By the end of the war, they've learned a lot from the other side, and everyone bets everything on one last gambit - trying to eliminate Vacuo.

Unlike Terra's Great War, Remnant's Great War doesn't end in humiliation and starvation for one faction. And (so far as we know) it also isn't followed by a world-wide plague and economic downturn. For whatever reason, the conflict post-Great War isn't socio-economic (capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, conservatism, anarchism), but human/Faunus. And while there is fighting, it doesn't reignite a global conflict. Probably because every Kingdom has Faunus populations, and they try (however poorly) to resolve the issue politically with the foundation of Menagerie.

An aside: this is a history that draws a lot from the US experience. The USA came out of the WW1 fairly well, and wasn't really a participant in the interwar 'political debate via street-fights' that resulted in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. They were insulated from the actual causes of WW2, and were brought in because of an incredibly ill-conceived sneak attack (Not that the US wasn't heavily economically involved earlier, via the lend-lease act, and alliances to Entente powers. But that's complicated, and the actual flashpoint for USA entry into the war is a lot easier to teach to young children). So it's not surprising that the Faunus Rights Revolution looks a lot like the Civil Rights Movement, because that's also taught heavily in US schools. With the founding of Menagerie paralleling some of the post-Great War map redrawing  in the Middle East, or possibly one of the proposed 'carve out an African diaspora state' ideas.

And that's a lot of words on history - so what are the implications for modern Remnant? First of all, we only see the Atlesian military. Including their deployment in Vale itself. The degree to which this is, by Terran standards, utterly insane, is difficult to overstate. Sure, Ozpin expresses reservations to Ironwood, but I mean - this is like if a USMC rifle company camped out in Olympic Village. The Vytal Festival is a celebration of Remnant's unity, and the only way this is even slightly acceptable by anyone's standards is if the Atlas military is essentially, UN Peacekeepers.

We know that everyone uses Atlesian robots. Not just the Schnee Dust Company, but Atlas hosts what is either an advertisement or a meet-and-greet for their newest model of robots. Which means that Atlas robots, are, effectively, the 7.62x51mm NATO rifle round. Atlas tech, from their robots to CCTS, is a result and perpetrator of Kingdom unity. I suspect that everyone's military forces are based on Atlas patterns, if only because they're probably reliant on Atlas tech.

But first, the weird thing about Atlas. Their Huntress Academy feeds directly into their military. No one else does this. ...At least, not directly. See, Huntresses are licensed by governments. They're not government employees, but they are absolutely state sanctioned to fight the existential war against Grimm. And hunting contracts/bounty boards are almost certainly government-run. Private citizens can absolutely issue contracts (see Jaune's crossing-guard duties), but like a post office, there's no one other than the state that could effectively run a national bounty board. Which is why Lionheart was able to send so many of Mistral's Huntresses to their deaths - he had access, as a Mistral Council member.

Ultimately, Huntresses exist within a government frame-work, but so long as they're hunting Grimm, oversight seems minimal. But, of course, there are dangers other than Grimm. The governments are probably mostly willing to look the other way if a Huntress accepts a contract to deal with some bandits. But someone like Raven, or Ilia, or Tock? Folks with an active Aura who aren't fighting Grimm? Those are a problem. And Atlas' answer to them seems to be the Ace-Ops.

So what does Atlas do with all their military Huntresses? I suspect that they're being used much like Cordovin - anchor points defending Atlesian interests. Which probably includes SDC assets. That's the less idealistic reason for the CCTS - it allows Atlas to co-ordinate their far-flung forces. That it also acts as a show of goodwill is just gravy. Atlas' widely scattered forces also mean that they can reinforce any of the other Kingdoms in the event of a disaster.

Aside - look, all of the Kingdoms are the US in some aspect. Atlas is 'the World's Policeman,' and an exploration of national corruption, fears of a surveillance state, and economic stratification. Vale is how the US wants to be seen, 'the Nation that Won the War,' containing both metropolises and tiny towns, fiercely individualistic. Mistral may be wearing a silk robe, but it's still the US in character. More economic stratification, and a giant sweep of frontier. And mercy, does the US still want to think of itself in frontier terms. Vacuo, I don't think we have enough information to really comment on, but I'd suggest that it's an aspirational combination of more frontier and actual equality.

Getting to the actual military. We kind of have to go off of Atlas' alone here, because we haven't seen anyone else. In accordance with the 'lightning raid' idea, it seems to be heavily vehicular. And honestly? Without an active Aura, I'd want a foot of armor between me and the Grimm. We've seen gunships, armed transports, and mecha. The non-robotic infantry seem to be limited to pairs of guards, with no actual presence of true Huntresses within the ranks.

My theory is that Atlesians who don't qualify for Atlas Academy still serve in the military, but as rank-and-file members - which very likely includes the Air Corps. Their combat academies, unlike Signal, don't have students make their own weapon but instead provide something a lot more recognizable to us as a military academy - sure, there's range time, and plenty of unarmed combat, but also a lot more actual schooling. But fairly early on, the teachers put students on a particular track - so this person will graduate as a combat engineer, that one as a commander, this one as a logistics officer, and that one will actually attend Atlas Academy and receive personalized combat training, but in the meantime, they're going to be studying small unit tactics and intensified general combat training.

Ultimately, Atlas Academy just produces special operatives for the Atlesian military. Very, very useful special operatives, but no more vital than the Air Corps, ultimately. Huntresses are specialists, not an entire military.

I can theorize about the militaries of the other Kingdoms, but we've never seen them, so it probably wouldn't be very effective theorizing. But we do see some other state-controlled violent actors: Mistral and Vale police, and the Menagerie Militia.

The police, by and large, seem to either be your standard law enforcement (supplemented by the standard Atlesian robots), or something more like search-and-rescue, as per the Volume 4 finale. Their ability to wield force is theoretical, not something we've actually seen on screen (apart from some RWBY Chibi gags, which I'm comfortable calling non-canonical). Given the Grimm attraction to negative emotions, focusing law enforcement on de-escalation makes sense. I don't know if there would actually be a paramilitary branch of the police (a la SWAT) or whether that would just fall under military jurisdiction. It probably varies from Kingdom to Kingdom.

The Menagerie Militia is really interesting. Largely because Kali does liaise with Mistral Police, and turns the stand-off with the White Fang into, not a clash between two rival non-state actors (Taurus' White Fang and the Belladonnas' White Fang), but a multi-national anti-terrorist police action. The Mistral Police provide dramatic spotlights, implicit fire support, and, probably most importantly, legitimacy, and the Menagerie Militia operates as a unit against the individual White Fang members. I don't think we can really take the Militia as an example of anything but itself, though. It's in Mistral to deal a morale hit to the White Fang, and, if that doesn't prompt flight or surrender, to use minimal force to disarm their fellow Faunus. Despite the name, they're not really a militia, so much as a posse. They're engaged in police action, they're drawn from the common citizenry, and RWBY deals pretty heavily in Western tropes.

Actually, that's another side note. Standard fantasy settings owe a good bit to the influence of D&D nowadays - mostly indirectly, via various video game franchises. But the medievalism of D&D doesn't look much like actual medieval times, despite the kings. It does look a lot like Westerns, with weak governments relying on parties of roving miscreants to beat back the hordes of savages from the frontiers. I'm well aware of how problematic the last part is. RWBY tries to avoid those particular racist bits by making the threat to civilization be literal hate-seeking monsters. And then, try to show that Remnant culture is full of all kinds of people, with different material cultures and appearances, all more or less co-operating. And then they use the Faunus to try to talk about racism - not always well, but making a better attempt to engage with the material than most fantasy. I mean, Blake has passing privilege - she can pretend to be human, and struggles with that idea. A lot of fantasy is still stuck on Lovecraft and Howard, in terms of race.

To summarize - Atlas is our only model for a modern Remnant army, but we can make some pretty good guessing about them. They're heavily invested in vehicle combat and robotic infantry, because Huntresses are rare, and no one else wants to get into melee with a Grimm. Atlas is heavily invested in a top-down organization, but since the Great War, has been allowing local commanders more initiative. Atlesian military Huntresses are specialists, not necessarily commanders in their own right. Until recently, the Atlesian military has been serving as a sort of global reserve, deploying units to hot spots to assist local forces against the Grimm.

And Salem's finally deployed an army of her own.

Matt Mullenweg Addresses Controversies Surrounding Gutenberg at WordCamp Portland Q&A

Matt Mullenweg joined attendees at WordCamp Portland, OR, for a Q&A session last weekend and the recording is now available on WordPress.tv.

The first question came from a user who tried Gutenberg and turned it off because of a plugin conflict. She asked if users will have to use Gutenberg when 5.0 is released. Mullenweg said one of the reasons Gutenberg has been tested so early is to give plugin developers time to get their products compatible. He also said that it has been the fastest growing plugin in WordPress’ history, with more than 600,000 installations since it was first made available.

In response to her question he said users will have the option to use the Classic Editor and that the team is considering updating it to include per-user controls and the possibility to turn it on/off for different post types.

Subsequent questions went deeper into recent controversies surrounding Gutenberg, which Mullenweg addressed more in depth.

“The tough part of any open source project – there’s kind of a crucible of open source development which can sometimes be more adversarial and sometimes even acrimonious,” he said. “Working within the same company, you can kind of assume everyone is rowing in the same direction. In a wide open source ecosystem, some people might actually want the opposite of what you’re doing, because it might be in their own economic self-interest, or for any number of reasons.

“I liken it much more to being a mayor of a city than being a CEO of a company. I’ve done WordPress now for 15 years so I’m pretty used to it. It might seem kind of controversial if you’re just coming in, but this is not the most controversial thing we have ever brought into WordPress. The last time we had a big fork of WordPress was actually when we brought in WYSIWYG the first time. Maybe there’s something about messing with the editor that sets people off.”

Mullenweg commented on how polarizing Twitter can be as a medium and how that can impact conversations in negatives ways. He said people tend to read the worst into things that have been said and that has been a new challenge during this particular time in WordPress’ history. WordPress tweets are sprinkled into timelines along with politics and current events in a way that can cause people to react differently than if the discussion was held in a trac ticket, for example.

One attendee asked, “With Gutenberg there’s a lot of uncertainty. Where do you see the tipping point where you see people become more favorable to Gutenberg than the Classic Editor?”

“Part of getting these two plugins, Gutenberg and Classic Editor, out early, was that it could remove uncertainty for people,” Mullenweg said. “Months before they were released you could kind of choose your path. The hope is that the 5.0 release day is the most anti-climactic thing ever. Because we have over a million sites that have either chosen to not use Gutenberg, which is totally ok, or have already opted in and have been getting these sometimes weekly updates. We have hosts that have been actually been pre-installing, pre-activating Gutenberg with all of their sites.”

Mullenweg said hosts that have pre-installed Gutenberg have not reported a higher than normal support load and that it has basically been “a non-event.” It’s the users who are updating to 5.0 after many years of using WordPress who will have the most to learn.

“Gutenberg does by some measures five or ten measures more than what you could really accomplish in the classic editor,” Mullenweg said. “That also means there’s more buttons, there’s more blocks. That is part of the idea – to open up people’s flexibility and creativity to do things they would either need code or a crazy theme to do in the past. And now we’re going to open that up to do WordPress’ mission, which is to democratize publishing and make it accessible to everyone.”

Gutenberg’s current state of accessibility has been a hot topic lately and one attendee asked for his thoughts about the recent discussions. Mullenweg said there is room for improvement in how this aspect of the project was handled and that WordPress can work better across teams in the future:

Accessibility has been core to WordPress from the very beginning. It’s part of why we started – adoption of web standards and accessibility things. We’ve been a member of the web standards project for many many years. We did kind of have some project management fails in this process where we had a team of volunteers that felt like they were disconnected from the rapid development that was happening with Gutenberg. Definitely there were some things we could do better there. In the future I think that we need – I don’t know if it makes sense to have separate accessibility as a separate kind of process from the core development. It really needs to be integrated at every single stage. We did do a lot, as Matias did a big long post on it. We’ve done a ton of keyboard accessibility stuff, there’s ARIA elements on everything. One of their feedbacks was that we did it wrong, but we did it the best that we knew how to and it’s been in there for awhile. There’s been over 200 closed issues from really the very beginning. We also took the opportunity to fix some things that had been poorly accessible in WordPress from the beginning. It’s not that WordPress is perfectly accessible and all WCAG AA and it’s reverting. It’s actually that huge swaths of WP are inaccessible – they just might not be considered core paths from the current accessibility team but I consider them core.

In response to a question about the future of React in WordPress, Mullenweg went more in depth on the vision he had when he urged the WordPress community to learn JavaScript deeply in 2015. At that time he said “it is the future of the web.” He described how each block can be a launching point for something else – via a modal, such as updating settings, doing advanced things with an e-commerce store, zooming in and out of those screens from the editor. This was perhaps the most inspirational part of the Q&A where the potential of Gutenberg shines as bright as it did in the early demos.

“The other beautiful thing is that because Gutenberg essentially allows for translation into many different formats,” Mullenweg said. “It can publish to your web page, your RSS feed, AMP, blocks can be translated into email for newsletters, there’s so much that the structured nature of Gutenberg and the semantic HTML it creates and the grammar that’s used to parse it, can enable for other applications. It becomes a little bit like a lingua franca that perhaps even crosses CMS’s. There’s now these new cross-CMS Gutenberg blocks will be possible. It’s not just WordPress anymore. It may be a JavaScript block that was written for Drupal that you install on your WordPress site. I mean, hot diggity! How would that have ever happened before? That’s why we took two years off; it’s why we’ve had everyone in the world working on this thing.”

JavaScript is what makes this cross-platform collaboration possible and it’s already evident in the work the Drupal Gutenberg contributors are doing, as well as the platform-agnostic Gutenberg Cloud project. When Gutenberg is released in 5.0, it will enable more for WordPress and the web than we can predict right now.

“This is not the finish line,” Mullenweg said. “5.0 is almost like the starting point. Expect just as much time invested into Gutenberg after the 5.0 release as before – to get it to that place where we don’t think it’s just better than what we have today but it’s actually like a world-class web-defining experience, which is what we want to create and what you all deserve.”

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐WPTavern

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Filling into myself

There’s a fear I’ve had since I started traveling in August, one that I think I’ve always had but rarely been vulnerable enough to acknowledge head-on. A fear that I’m not good enough, that I’m not doing enough, but mostly that I’m letting myself down by not taking care of myself. And this tends to manifest itself in negative self talk and hatred of my body. I’m very good at exuding confidence and convincing myself that I truly love myself. My body is a fricken temple. As an athlete I have learned to measure my body in terms of physical capability (and it is so so capable of strength) so over time I have worked to get rid of whatever societal standards told me to hate my body fat. I have so many muscles and I have done way more physically since I ever could have imagined since I began rowing. Thank you body.

I go through definite waves of body positivity. One day I’m on top of the world, loving myself and wondering how I could ever doubt myself. I am beautiful and I am loved and what’s on the inside is what counts. I preach this all the time, to my friends and family and my instagram community. It’s so easy to say in these positive states of mind. But then there are other days. Ones where I can’t even look at myself and I hate my stomach rolls and I feel large beyond measure and critique my every choice of food and super and movement. These days leave me feeling gross and hypocritical. I’ve been having many more of these days since I began traveling.

It’s such a shame that amidst all of the joy and luck I feel getting to travel with my friends and learn about the world and think critically about large scale human issues and small scale solutions I have these lingering doubts about my very being. The very body I am existing in. My go-to solution for when my head gets into these negative spaces is to remind myself that I have always been loved and that my physical appearance has never been a factor of this. I have always managed to make the most incredible friends and have wonderful and complicated conversations, and this has never depended on my physical appearance. This reminder always soothes me, and it continues to soothe me now, especially as I meet new people in my travels–– my program group, my homestay families, as well as others I meet through these people–– and continue to expose myself to new experiences which inevitably come with an internal fear of judgement.

It’s pretty common to fall into the “Eat, Pray, Love” complex of indulging in other cultures by eating your heart out only to find that you’ve filled out and barely fit into your clothes. It’s been especially weird for me, given that the cultures we’ve been exposed to have very carb-heavy diets and I’m relatively out of control of the food I am consuming, given that my host families like to fill me up with their home-cooked meals. In Vietnam I was being stuffed to the brim at every breakfast and dinner and eating banh mi and pho for lunch with a feq coconut coffees and boba teas in between. In Morocco now I’ve learned that between tea-times full of sugary mint tea and bread, we eat bread-heavy meals with various little salads and a big plate of something heavy like meats or lentils or soup. It’s delicious, don’t get me wrong. And wow I love food so much and feel so lucky to be in these cultures that highly encourage the sharing of love through large and relaxed meals. At school I get to eat whatever I want! I’m working out for four hours a day and need food for fuel! But here, I feel this pang of guilt every time I eat a huge meal and laze around and focus on either academics or exploration of a new place instead of getting up early to work out or taking the time in my afternoon to go on a run or go to the gym. I’ve definitely tried to keep up with doing lifts, but it’s nothing like my life at home or at school where I have control over my portions and my movement.

I know I deserve a time to just relax and eat and travel and do all of the things i’m supposed to do during my study abroad semester. I really do hate to feel ashamed that my body is changing with this massive intake of calories and relatively little exercise that comes with limited free time and a desire to just enjoy life and take it easy. I know that no matter what happens with my body while i’m here, I weigh waaaay more than a number on a scale could ever measure. That’s the mindset I’ve really been trying to honor and buy into recently. It’s not fair to my wellbeing that in the midst of a lot of things I’ve been wrestling with in my head, body negativity is winning out and I’m feel uncomfortable in my skin. Above all I wish I could have a little more bodily autonomy, but I know that’s just a result of living in homestays. We’re only here in Rabat for another week and then I get to move on to more hotels and a little more freedom, so hopefully the amount of energy that my brain is spending thinking about this will decrease. I do go through waves where I feel free in my mind and find the clarity to embrace myself, and I’ve definitely been feeling more comfortable with how I look now that my hair has grown out to a length I’m comfortable with (that was a big issue for me a month an an inch ago).

This is one of the first times since I left for this program that I actually have taken the time to acknowledge the contradicting feelings I have about my body image versus the outward confidence I show to others. Sometimes it sucks to feel like I have so many expectations of myself and then I let myself down by not being 100% my best self all of the time. I feel like a fraud when I go through tough moments of mental health and lose my silliness or my overall desire to support others and be there for people regardless of my personal wellbeing. I feel like I am betraying myself when I go through tough moments of body positivity or like I’m an imposter when I am not focusing all of my energy in keeping up with current events or contributing to anything at all. I place so many expectations on myself and I’m not sure that’s something I’ve come to terms with a lot, but hopefully throughout the next few months I’ll be okay with filling in my clothes a bit more and taking it easy and focusing my energy more on regenerating my wellbeing. My friend Caroline caught me being negative the other day and said to me “You need to pretend you were just born, the world is beautiful”. That was just the reminder I needed to shed my inner conflicts of body image and self worth and take in the fact that I’m in Morocco right now and I need to keep myself open to all of the beauty that is around me and that I am capable of generating.

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 124, October 2018

On Monday afternoon, Mum and I drove down the Princes Highway and visited the Lady Lavender's Tea Room in Bunyip. It was a beautiful 22 degree Spring day and we thought we should take the opportunity to make the most of it. We’ve driven past this place a few times on our way to other destinations such as Yarragon, Warrigul and Bairnesdale but today was the first time actually going in there. The venue is located on a large acre lot featuring many rows of lavender plants, a water fountain, scrubs, flowers, a gift shop and the tea rooms.

The tea room borrows heavily the interior decoration styles of the 1930’s with gilded floral print furniture, an old fashioned record player and varnished antique bookcases. Mum and I treated ourselves to a serving of Devonshire scones with jam and cream, a club sandwich and a pot of tea. Next we visited the gift shop next door and picked up a few items including an ABBA vinyl record from 1977, lavender spray, bag and pillow case, a plastic lotus flower.

On Monday night, I attended my Men of Doveton - 2018 session at Doveton College. After my absence last week, I was really in two minds about continuing and finishing off this program. I had so many conflicting thoughts going on inside my head (Do I really belong in this group? Do the other guys really care about me? Am I getting anything out of this program? Should I bother finishing it or just drop out now?). I guess you could say that I’ve always tried to finish what I’ve started and I’ve also started some positive lifestyle habits so it hasn’t been a waste of time for me.

I think I’ve also put a lot of internal pressure on myself to quickly form friendships and contribute more during the talks when perhaps I’m just not ready for that. Maybe letting it all sink in is a better idea. The other dilemma is my attendance record. I’ve missed two sessions and now I’m on the borderline of collecting enough stamps in my passport. If I miss one more session, I might as well kiss the graduation ceremony goodbye. So it’s now or never. Two more weeks to go.

In the first half of the session, we had a basketball training session with Brent from Casey Basketball. This is one of the few sports I actually enjoyed back in primary school, even playing it at lunchtimes and after school with some friends. But that certainly doesn’t mean that I found it easy to play. We began by doing some warm-up drills which tested our hand-eye coordination and ball handling skills. Doing dribbles and figure 8’s around your legs was challenging but fun at the same time. http://www.caseybasketball.com.au/

We then participated in a few games which involved learning how to shoot a basketball into the ring, controlling the ball and defending/attacking the ball from others. Whilst my first few attempts were crap, I was amazed to see myself scoring a few points when I focused and really tried hard. And that’s the one compliment I’ll always give myself: I do try fucking hard even if I suck at it. It was admittedly a great moment when people gave me a round of applauds for getting the ball in the ring from the three-point line. https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/basics/basics.html

In the second half of the session, we had a lady named Sylvia return to present information on the LIFE program which helps with the prevention of type II diabetes. She got us to fill out a questionnaire to determine our level of risk as well as have measurements like blood pressure, weight and waist circumference taken by the nurse. We also had Mo talking about the benefits of physical exercise and doing a stretch demonstration as a group as well as getting us to fill out a weekly exercise planner. https://www.lifeprogram.org.au/

I was doing the best that I could to keep a straight face on throughout all of this. I feel like they tried to pack way too many activities in tonight, which I’m sure was not intentional, but I was struggling a lot. My brain was fried by the end of tonight’ session. I think there was a number of factors at play: lack of sleep and poor quality of sleep, heightened anxiety levels, not eating enough before coming, chronic fatigue, feeling pressured to get the sheets filled out and being too much of a people-pleaser. Plus the talk of type II diabetes was a major trigger and very confronting territory for me considering my grandma had a late diagnosis of it. I pretty much refuse to have the same diagnosis.

I’m still getting to know these guys and the level of trust is just not there for me. I still have a very hard time saying no to people and I feel like within this particular group of men, having a different opinion or disagreeing with someone else will ultimately go against you. It’s probably why I was beginning to feel physically ill and uncomfortable because being a “yes” person and being pressured or manipulated by others isn’t in my true nature. It’s very much an issue of self confidence and not being able to stand up for myself.

I’m all for being encouraging, supportive, positive and helping others but not at the expense of being fake. And that’s not me being negative, that’s me being real. There is also an extreme hesitation to speak up and contribute in this group. Mo does his best to encourage it but I feel like this group is just far too large to feel comfortable enough to open up. The select few that do instant get congratulated. The majority who don’t are left on the sidelines. Like many groups I’ve been a part of in the past, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in, struggling to be noticed and included.

By the time I left tonight, I actually felt relieved to be out of the building and back in my car. I think I just had a lot of pent up energy and releasing it around those guys wouldn’t have gone down well at all. I’m still determined to finish off this program but after that, I think the gate will be shut for me. https://www.caseystadium.ymca.org.au/whats-on/upcoming-events/event/men-of-doveton-free-health-program-2/2018/07/30

On Tuesday morning, Mum and I visited IKEA Springvale. I was still feeling pretty worked up about everything that went down at my Men of Doveton session last night. Not only that, but I felt completely overloaded by so many commitments I had going on including work-related changes, getting my approved NDIS plan, preparing myself for my first appointment with Dr. Ricardo (consulting psychiatrist), wanting to participate in a sleep study for autistic adults, going to the gym and small group training classes, counselling sessions with Ruth, applying for jobs and waiting to hear back from them.

Thankfully going to IKEA was the positive distraction that I needed from everything that’s causing my stress and anxiety in my life. I only go there a couple of times a year but I always appreciate all the changes they make to the showrooms and items that they sell in the store. Of course the layout is still bewildering and sensory-overload with so many things to absorb at once. My favourite part will always be the Market Hall downstairs, particularly the kitchen, bathroom, lighting, wall art, flowers, plants and candle sections.

We spent about 2-3 hours just slowly navigating our way through each section, picking up mostly inexpensive homeware items like cushions, glasses, artificial plants and flowers, a lint roller, plastic bag sealers, Christmas ornaments, a bath mat, an apple-shaped candle holder. My energy levels and fatigue were very much being tested today so we decided to skip parts of it and we had to rest at the restaurant.

I’ve always found most of the food here to be pretty bland and average in quality, though I was really pleased to see that they’ve improved their coffee blend. By the time we got there, the cafeteria was packed with the lunchtime crowd and it got a bit much for me. Luckily we found a quiet area to sit down and have our lunch. Of course being IKEA tradition, we also bought a $1 hotdog each after going through the checkouts.

On Tuesday night, I attended a Yin yoga class with Aaron Petty at Level Up Yoga in Berwick. It’s been a month since I last attended a class here with a lot of other commitments taking up my time. There was also many excuses and lies brought on by my relentless, interfering anxiety (Do I really fit in here? I’m too tired to do yoga. I can’t be bothered driving there). It’s true that I’ve also been rather harsh with myself in some of my previous classes when I couldn’t perform a movement correctly or just wasn’t getting it.

Tonight I managed to let all of my unrealistic expectations and inner critic go. Accepting help from others is often a challenge for me as I used to see it as being incapable or not good enough or weak. Same with making mistakes. I had some trouble getting into the Reclining Butterfly pose with my strap getting all tangled up and not quite in the right position. But instead of beating myself up over it or getting embarrassed like I usually do, I actually laughed at myself and accepted that “Yeah, shit happens!”.

It’s good to see that the sense of community spirit is still alive within this yoga studio. I did have some reservations about coming back to Level Up Yoga but not enough to put me off entirely. A lot of it has to do with my perception of how others view me which of course leads to overthinking. This is still something I’m continuing to work on but it’s nice that other students, even ones that I’ve only just met, make the effort to include me at the studio.

That’s one of the reasons I keep coming back. Another is the fact that Aaron is passionate, committed and genuinely invested in his yoga teachings. He challenges everyone in a beneficial way and never puts anyone down. And that’s the kind of environment that I thrive in, one that is encouraging, supportive and nurturing. Where we all help one another no matter what shit we’re going through. https://www.aaronpetty.com/teaching-schedule/

On Thursday afternoon, Mum and I went out to Cranbourne Park Shopping Centre. You wouldn’t have to be a clinical psychologist to figure out that I haven’t been myself lately. After discovering that my counsellor Ruth had to cancel my appointment this afternoon, my mental health seemed to take a downward turn. Paired with my poor sleeping patterns, I was experiencing severe levels of irritability, poor concentration, lack of focus, low motivation, daytime sleepiness, low energy levels and low mood.

Mum was doing her best to manage my manic mood swings, treating me to coffees, a bacon and egg toastie and carrot cake but these didn’t seem to help me much. I was just spewing up a lot of negative crap like a volcanic eruption. I’ve literally been counting down the days until my first appointment with Dr. Ricardo Peralta and get myself a prescription for medication that will help me. I’m not the easiest person to deal with when I’m feeling depressed and worthless like a lifeless zombie. But Mum has always been on my side, even during the darkest of moments and I’m extremely thankful for that.

On Friday morning, Jen Angee, Mum and I went on a car trip to visit the suburbs of Ashwood and Ashburton. It was a beautiful Spring day with a light breeze and plenty of sunshine. Considering how rough this week has been for me, this was exactly what I needed to feel better about myself: Vitamin D and pleasant childhood memories. Jen gave us a history lesson of her old childhood memories growing up in the Ashburton area off High Street Road and Ashwood off Cleveland Street.

Whilst some building have been torn down, demolished, rebuilt or been renovated on, it was pleasing to see that some of the older commission houses and shops still remain in tact. A mixture of brick veneer, cement render and weatherboard with newly built front fences and modern features, they all have a historic charm to them, surviving for many decades and standing the test of time. http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/ashburton

We decided to have a browse at the nearby Op Shop and have lunch and coffee at the Milk Cloud Cafe. Of course the one thing that has changed is the degree of traffic driving down the main street with a few residents walking their dogs, riding their bikes and rushing across the pedestrian crossings. Meanwhile, the three of us were just taking our time, appreciating the many shops and elements in the streetscape. It really made for a great day out. https://www.weekendnotes.com/melbourne/ashburton/

“When I'm on my feet, I can take the heat. But when I get low I prefer the cold. I can be a hard light to ignite. All my nightmares feel like real life. Wait for the explosion. Only to anticipate. Running in slow motion. I can never get away. Sweet paralysation. No one here to keep me safe. Hyperventilation. I'm about to go insane. Wake me up and keep me conscious.” Broods - Conscious (2016)

“No one can make you change who you are. No one can take one beat from your heart. When you're standing tall. You're unbreakable. No one can make you bend, you won't fold. No one can take your shine, you're all gold. When you're standing tall. You're unbreakable.” Birds of Tokyo - Unbreakable (2018)