13.1.26

as i've touched on previously, even though a lot of my peers talk about how their transition is when they 'start living', i feel as if only very recently i've had that sentiment. it's been weird and hard to place, and perhaps even created more mental dissonance than i had before- like what has changed if anything, and what part of myself is the 'real one'. brace yourselves for a brief rant about social villianisation of children, parenting, and how i started to wear a propeller hat with a lollipop going lalalala!

inconvenient little ones

studying education, i've grown to really get a new insight on adolesence and 'growing up' as a whole, and kind of become a bit of an education radical. atleast in the sense that i believe that as society has gone further and further, children and adolescents are continually being forced out of their spaces and not afforded the power to defend them. young people inherently in my mind serve a kind of chaotic role in society in that young people are often the first to highlight issues in institutions and rigorously question the state of things if given the tools and power to do so, and like- when's the last time you saw a new kids arcade built? a new third space for kids after school? kids feel like they're being seen as inconveniences to larger society and that they are simply conduits for creating complicit adults. now, this is not the new thought that i was alluding to, but just background and something i've been pretty vocal to for friends who foolishly poke me about my thoughts on education and youth.

stupid parenting culture

directly off of that rant, i'm going into another and it's about parenting attitudes. brace yourself. working in retail, and training to be a teacher, i see so many parents with their kids and good lord at what point in society did we decide that yes- we should make a child the responsibility of ONE SINGULAR UNIT and we will applaud you for it!! like i feel genuinely insane at times for even suggesting that we should have social pressure for parents to have their children be exposed to different responsible adults in their life outside of themselves and teachers?? but sincerely time and time again it's always the kids that have uncles, aunts, and extended family that they can go to (not even just in times of crisis, but just as a change of scenery) and just learn about the world through new eyes to become their own person rather than a copy of their parents or a retaliation against them. kids are fucking awesome dude, in my opinion people are just traumatised from this parenting approach that just creates breeding grounds for bad parenting to go unchecked, and like not even at the fault of the parent, parenting is hard- and i think evolutionarily we were never meant to do it as an individual or pair.

growing up

img credit: @kibokey

i was in such a rush to grow up as a kid, and i think part of that was being a gender that i didn't realise i was not. i was online in spaces with primarily 20-30 year olds, i spent time with my older (by 5 years) brother's friends as my peers, and i just had a weird relationship with children's media as i got older. being 18-23 has kind of blurred over me, i've been trying to cosplay an adult without having any reason to or even interest in it, which to me meant saving up for a house and developing a professional career for the most part (among other less significant social changes). in meeting this new group of local queer people and getting close with them, i've felt this relief of seeing peers my age forego this collective concept of a socially-constructed adulthood in favour of a more personalised life teeming to the brim with their personal eccentricities and personal values. just being around them really made me wonder what have the past few years been for? and that thought alone really gave me pause to deconstruct and reconstruct the life i've been pawned off by Big Society (tm) alongside all of those expectations and dismissal of 'childish' things. 'what's wrong with being a kid?' is what i had to ask myself, and really it is so stupidly simple and something i never ended up asking myself. 'not a whole lot', is the answer (by the way).

growing down

in the past year, i've spent a lot of time gravitating back towards some more stereotypically 'childish things'- i've been getting back into adolescent writing off the suggestion of one of my tutors, watching japanese adolescent superhero shows, and just letting myself enjoy stupid videogames again, and most importantly learning to ride a bike. this bike is so poetic to me you do not even begin to fathom dear reader, but anyways. it's not like i've just age regressed, there are definitely non-childish things that i still hold dear to me but it's more a conversation of why was i programmed to be so averse to these things and being perceived as anything but the paragon of cool, smoking a hundred cigarettes like that one uwoslab video. i did not need to write heartwrenching literary works to be a writer, i did not have to know what i was doing, to do something. i know damn well most people reading this are like 'well, duh.' but i think the intersectionality with other parts of my identity/upbringing (immigrating, and gender fuckery) have kind of taken the forefront of my thoughts and i let 20-odd years slip past me and now i get to deal with all of this baggage that caught up to me in my pursuit of injecting sesame oil in my stomach and chasing a humble bag.

i'm excited. unfortunately for me as a teacher, social media is in a fucked spot right now and the education system is crumbling at the foundations to really do a whole lot, but i think there's going to be some fun challenges along the way. i'm excited to potentially one day have my own kid(s) and raise someone kindly. and firstly, and most importantly, i'm excited to live out this new faux-childhood in a way that kid-me thought adulthood was going to be like but never was.

authors note

thanks for reading this nonsense, i didn't want to write an actual essay with any structure (laziness) so a lot of thoughts are half-baked and sort of just primers for myself to know where i'm at with certain things. if you're one of my irl friends and anything here sounds like something you'd love to chat about- in all honesty hit me up, i absolutely love talking about this stuff! i just bought a little memo pad as well so hopefully when riding around i can jot down some ideas to extrapolate into proper blog posts since i be forgettin'...

unfortunately uni sounds like it's going to be a rough slog with this 5-week intensive but i'll try stay on top of things to find time for fun things and atleast deliver a post a month :) have a lovely january everyone, and stay slutty for all my melting australian friends (with sunscreen on please)!

also i have been thinking about what my fursona would be... for so long i've thought fox but recently... maybe it's goat?? i feel like a goat would make sense... but i hate the idea of calling myself the goat... hm.. maybe it has a ring to it.......... yeah... the goat...