Oh, Friends.
The time since I wrote last has been a...it's been a time.
Conditions at work are very...shall I say, odd; there have been a lot of Conversations that basically have boiled down to "if you really want to fight for this, go right ahead", in that sort of "if you want to start a fight with all the other foreign people here and make them hate you for calling them out on their being (at the very least) lazy, go ahead and do that" (but you won't want to do that because you'll still have to work with them and be ~friends~). I don't think they expect that I'm going to stick to my guns, and that I really don't give a shit if we're friends or not because what I'm talking about is professionalism, and not friendship; it's the moral pride to not be able to take money from people for what is not your best work (hell, I don't even give out less than my best work for free).
So, my life has basically been a constant blame-game now--if I'm not happy with something that someone does because they have no professional courtesy, it's my fault for not communicating and not the fault of the people who refuse to listen to me when they give me a window to communicate in the first place.
It all came to a head when I was caught rewriting scripts that my co-worker "checked". Not only did they miss a TON of references to previous stories because they didn't bother to talk to me, they also did things like confuse "wear" for "where" and think that you can start a chapter with "As for one day..."
Yeah, when there's serious grammar issues and typos ON THE FIRST PAGE, of course I'm going to go in there and correct everything. Of course, my team leader (who you may remember is the one who enjoys gaslighting me) got pissed because I am "making that person's work useless, and if you have time to do it you need to tell us--and what are you going to do if there's a script error?!". Yeah, well, I did it on my OWN time, so it's not relevant because I didn't have time. Obviously. And she honestly thinks that I'm as lazy as they are and would go to ALL THAT WORK knowing that it'll piss them off just to upload it unchecked to give them more ammunition against me? Fucking PLEASE.
So, after that, it became this huge deal where I took one of the chapters and highlighted everything I changed, explaining WHY, taking hours of my time; just to be told that it's my fault not because my co-workers are incapable of doing their jobs, but because I was lax in "teaching" the shitty translators they hire how to translate even though I keep telling them that it's not a translation issue at this point so much as it is a creative writing issue, and I'm not their fucking professor. They're not taking a class from me, they are getting PAID. And, since they do not give me the time or authority to send material back until it's right, that leaves me to basically do massive rewrites. We have been OVER this. But, apparently we're going over it again at the translation meeting or whatever. I'm really not looking forward to the claws coming out, but at the same time it might be better for me if they decide I can't be worked with if it means they just leave my shit alone.
Like so many other people, I really want to abstain from saying anything about the election this week, since, selfishly, I was at an extremely low point before any of that even happened (When you're suicidal to the point where your man is begging you not to go anywhere he can't follow, Trump is not really on the radar, tbqh).
But, what I will say is that not only am I disappointed in those who were so willing to vote for the personification of hate to lead my country, I am also disappointed in the DNC for their corruption, for everyone who thought that they could beat Trump at his own game; instead of courting celebrity endorsements and trying to win over the people who are never going to care as long as things are comfortable for them and their families, they should have tried to win over the disenchanted, the HALF of the American people who didn't feel as if it was worth it to vote at all. All those people who bought into the "eh, four evil people, until there's a perfect candidate don't bother" rhetoric. I'm disappointed in the fact that they didn't go hard because they assumed that the very people they were supposed to be fighting against were right--they believed them when they said institutionalized racism ended with the election of Obama, and the fact that Clinton was even allowed to run in the first place meant that sexism is dead. They promised nothing other than "not Trump" and then were surprised when the people looking for change voted for the man who had constant free press, whose every word talked about shaking up the system, giving people what is deserved (in addition to courting the scum of our society).
However, of course I am intensely sickened because the country who would elect this person was always there; but thanks to these views being championed rather than the subject of indie films and thinkpieces only consumed by those who do not wish to discuss anything with anyone except those whom they already agree with, now my country is a place where people have to be afraid to commute to and from work. My Asian-American, Filipina-American friends tweet about how they have family members and friends who have been harassed, how they have to find alternate routes to where they are going to avoid where they saw Nazi symbolism or "go home chink" spraypainted on the wall the day before...and I always wanted to believe, despite growing up in Montana (a vast majority of my relatives are Trump supporters; why wouldn't they be when they grew up deriding everything female as their parents did and have never met anyone non-white outside of a Law and Order episode?) that this wasn't my culture.
As a woman who has been touched inappropriately in public several times...several times enough that I've just given up saying or doing anything about it because every time I have, it was blamed on my skirt length or my breast size or my foreignness; I don't want another woman to be left with "just grab her by the pussy" as the overlying view about women in the United States. I don't want my country to take an example from Japan in regard to how it treats women (drunk come-ons are romantic and desireable, it shows that you're just too sexy to keep his hands to himself! If he treats you like shit 23 hours of the day, as long as he spends that last hour with you, that makes it all worth it!) on top of the slut-shaming of the Christian fundies that assume that unwanted pregnancies only happen to those who can't keep their legs closed, every unwanted pregnancy belongs to a teenager, and the only reason why you wouldn't want a child is because you're not willing to take off those shoes and get into that kitchen where you belong--and that birth control and reproductive services are only for godless Jezebels who want a pass to have free, irresponsible sex with every boy she sees, exploring your sexuality is the worst thing that anyone, but especially a woman, can do. Hell, going outside is the worst thing a woman can do, because if a man finds you too sexy and forces himself on you, whatever happens is your fault. Hell, maybe you WANT it to happen because getting saved by a man from a sexual assault is a one way trip to the sanctity of marriage!
But, selfishly, all of that aside; I can't deny that I spent longer than I have in recent memory seriously considering suicide.
(Before anyone says anything, I'm in a better place now after a really rough few days.) I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for my feelings, but a big one has to be that this time of year in Japan is just absolute misery. Not only is it needlessly cold, which I hate, the emotional distance of this culture is never more stark than at Christmas; they basically made it into a couples' holiday because the idea of kindness without obligation is foreign to Japan as a culture, and the only legit form of love is that between couples. As a foreign, single woman, I usually get to field the questions every single year about what a "real foreign Christmas" is like now that people seem to have figured out that the idea of eating chicken on Christmas was a fabrication of the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation just for Japan and that we don't eat cake...and honestly, it hurts to remember what a real Christmas is knowing that I will never have one again (even if I went home, my dad is notoriously Scroogish, the only person in my family to really keep the holiday died when I was 16, and I have always been the only really emotional/sentimental person in my family).
I can see the next three months being very hard for me. Maybe harder than any holiday season before, because the honeymoon period with Japan, with my job, with my life, is gone. I'll always be the person in the address book who people talk to when everyone else is busy, or when it's convenient for them, or when they need to feel like they've done a good thing today by showing the poor pathetic girl some compassion before they go back to their more fun friends, their boyfriends, their husbands.
At the same time, though, I know I am not only a bore, I too am a toxic person. I complain, I let things get me down. Misery loves company should be written on my shirt at all times. Even though I try not to be that person, I try not to discuss work or the things that are bothering me, it's such a big part of my life that if I don't talk about it I have nothing to say. Besides which, I never related well with many people anyhow, so it's a little late in the game to expect that to change now. No one watches the shows I watch, no one reads the books I read or likes the movies I like (even though I need to catch up on so much).
I have a feeling that hot showers (that apparently simulate emotional intimacy with Real Humans) will become my best friend.
The more I think of it, on weekends I'm all right with giving myself time if I don't take work home--finally getting around to listening to CDs I literally bought months ago at the minute--it's just during the work week that everything builds up to the point where it makes it hard to focus on things and then I just collapse for at least a day of the weekend and sleep.
There's a lot that I just feel like I don't know how to approach anymore. But, I guess that's life.
Conditions at work are very...shall I say, odd; there have been a lot of Conversations that basically have boiled down to "if you really want to fight for this, go right ahead", in that sort of "if you want to start a fight with all the other foreign people here and make them hate you for calling them out on their being (at the very least) lazy, go ahead and do that" (but you won't want to do that because you'll still have to work with them and be ~friends~). I don't think they expect that I'm going to stick to my guns, and that I really don't give a shit if we're friends or not because what I'm talking about is professionalism, and not friendship; it's the moral pride to not be able to take money from people for what is not your best work (hell, I don't even give out less than my best work for free).
So, my life has basically been a constant blame-game now--if I'm not happy with something that someone does because they have no professional courtesy, it's my fault for not communicating and not the fault of the people who refuse to listen to me when they give me a window to communicate in the first place.
It all came to a head when I was caught rewriting scripts that my co-worker "checked". Not only did they miss a TON of references to previous stories because they didn't bother to talk to me, they also did things like confuse "wear" for "where" and think that you can start a chapter with "As for one day..."
Yeah, when there's serious grammar issues and typos ON THE FIRST PAGE, of course I'm going to go in there and correct everything. Of course, my team leader (who you may remember is the one who enjoys gaslighting me) got pissed because I am "making that person's work useless, and if you have time to do it you need to tell us--and what are you going to do if there's a script error?!". Yeah, well, I did it on my OWN time, so it's not relevant because I didn't have time. Obviously. And she honestly thinks that I'm as lazy as they are and would go to ALL THAT WORK knowing that it'll piss them off just to upload it unchecked to give them more ammunition against me? Fucking PLEASE.
So, after that, it became this huge deal where I took one of the chapters and highlighted everything I changed, explaining WHY, taking hours of my time; just to be told that it's my fault not because my co-workers are incapable of doing their jobs, but because I was lax in "teaching" the shitty translators they hire how to translate even though I keep telling them that it's not a translation issue at this point so much as it is a creative writing issue, and I'm not their fucking professor. They're not taking a class from me, they are getting PAID. And, since they do not give me the time or authority to send material back until it's right, that leaves me to basically do massive rewrites. We have been OVER this. But, apparently we're going over it again at the translation meeting or whatever. I'm really not looking forward to the claws coming out, but at the same time it might be better for me if they decide I can't be worked with if it means they just leave my shit alone.
Like so many other people, I really want to abstain from saying anything about the election this week, since, selfishly, I was at an extremely low point before any of that even happened (When you're suicidal to the point where your man is begging you not to go anywhere he can't follow, Trump is not really on the radar, tbqh).
But, what I will say is that not only am I disappointed in those who were so willing to vote for the personification of hate to lead my country, I am also disappointed in the DNC for their corruption, for everyone who thought that they could beat Trump at his own game; instead of courting celebrity endorsements and trying to win over the people who are never going to care as long as things are comfortable for them and their families, they should have tried to win over the disenchanted, the HALF of the American people who didn't feel as if it was worth it to vote at all. All those people who bought into the "eh, four evil people, until there's a perfect candidate don't bother" rhetoric. I'm disappointed in the fact that they didn't go hard because they assumed that the very people they were supposed to be fighting against were right--they believed them when they said institutionalized racism ended with the election of Obama, and the fact that Clinton was even allowed to run in the first place meant that sexism is dead. They promised nothing other than "not Trump" and then were surprised when the people looking for change voted for the man who had constant free press, whose every word talked about shaking up the system, giving people what is deserved (in addition to courting the scum of our society).
However, of course I am intensely sickened because the country who would elect this person was always there; but thanks to these views being championed rather than the subject of indie films and thinkpieces only consumed by those who do not wish to discuss anything with anyone except those whom they already agree with, now my country is a place where people have to be afraid to commute to and from work. My Asian-American, Filipina-American friends tweet about how they have family members and friends who have been harassed, how they have to find alternate routes to where they are going to avoid where they saw Nazi symbolism or "go home chink" spraypainted on the wall the day before...and I always wanted to believe, despite growing up in Montana (a vast majority of my relatives are Trump supporters; why wouldn't they be when they grew up deriding everything female as their parents did and have never met anyone non-white outside of a Law and Order episode?) that this wasn't my culture.
As a woman who has been touched inappropriately in public several times...several times enough that I've just given up saying or doing anything about it because every time I have, it was blamed on my skirt length or my breast size or my foreignness; I don't want another woman to be left with "just grab her by the pussy" as the overlying view about women in the United States. I don't want my country to take an example from Japan in regard to how it treats women (drunk come-ons are romantic and desireable, it shows that you're just too sexy to keep his hands to himself! If he treats you like shit 23 hours of the day, as long as he spends that last hour with you, that makes it all worth it!) on top of the slut-shaming of the Christian fundies that assume that unwanted pregnancies only happen to those who can't keep their legs closed, every unwanted pregnancy belongs to a teenager, and the only reason why you wouldn't want a child is because you're not willing to take off those shoes and get into that kitchen where you belong--and that birth control and reproductive services are only for godless Jezebels who want a pass to have free, irresponsible sex with every boy she sees, exploring your sexuality is the worst thing that anyone, but especially a woman, can do. Hell, going outside is the worst thing a woman can do, because if a man finds you too sexy and forces himself on you, whatever happens is your fault. Hell, maybe you WANT it to happen because getting saved by a man from a sexual assault is a one way trip to the sanctity of marriage!
But, selfishly, all of that aside; I can't deny that I spent longer than I have in recent memory seriously considering suicide.
(Before anyone says anything, I'm in a better place now after a really rough few days.) I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for my feelings, but a big one has to be that this time of year in Japan is just absolute misery. Not only is it needlessly cold, which I hate, the emotional distance of this culture is never more stark than at Christmas; they basically made it into a couples' holiday because the idea of kindness without obligation is foreign to Japan as a culture, and the only legit form of love is that between couples. As a foreign, single woman, I usually get to field the questions every single year about what a "real foreign Christmas" is like now that people seem to have figured out that the idea of eating chicken on Christmas was a fabrication of the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation just for Japan and that we don't eat cake...and honestly, it hurts to remember what a real Christmas is knowing that I will never have one again (even if I went home, my dad is notoriously Scroogish, the only person in my family to really keep the holiday died when I was 16, and I have always been the only really emotional/sentimental person in my family).
I can see the next three months being very hard for me. Maybe harder than any holiday season before, because the honeymoon period with Japan, with my job, with my life, is gone. I'll always be the person in the address book who people talk to when everyone else is busy, or when it's convenient for them, or when they need to feel like they've done a good thing today by showing the poor pathetic girl some compassion before they go back to their more fun friends, their boyfriends, their husbands.
At the same time, though, I know I am not only a bore, I too am a toxic person. I complain, I let things get me down. Misery loves company should be written on my shirt at all times. Even though I try not to be that person, I try not to discuss work or the things that are bothering me, it's such a big part of my life that if I don't talk about it I have nothing to say. Besides which, I never related well with many people anyhow, so it's a little late in the game to expect that to change now. No one watches the shows I watch, no one reads the books I read or likes the movies I like (even though I need to catch up on so much).
I have a feeling that hot showers (that apparently simulate emotional intimacy with Real Humans) will become my best friend.
The more I think of it, on weekends I'm all right with giving myself time if I don't take work home--finally getting around to listening to CDs I literally bought months ago at the minute--it's just during the work week that everything builds up to the point where it makes it hard to focus on things and then I just collapse for at least a day of the weekend and sleep.
There's a lot that I just feel like I don't know how to approach anymore. But, I guess that's life.