contraversy in my work place!

apparently there is such a thing as 'international womens day' (in march). now i've not heard of it before, but it is apparently big in europe and the usa. what struck me though was how unfair it was, and so i said so: why isn't there an international mens day?

ostensibly this day is celebrated (so i was immediately told off) because in the 1920s some women died in a factory in america. well yes. but 18 chinese cockle pickers died last week in morecambe bay, and over 100 submariners died on a russian sub last year. shouldn't we be having special days for them too?

this is v unpopular at the moment and i am being seen as v backward and unfeminist. but without bringing the christian side of things into it all (that we are all equal before the Lord etc) i still don't see the argument. i think of things like a special day as a kind of pacifying sop (ie 'we don't really think you are equal, but to make you feel better and stop you complaining we'll give you a special day to prove how equal you are). if you truely are equal surely it doesn't need to be remarked upon. now i know that in this country there is still an enormous pay gap and there is still often a glass ceiling (you only have to see my workplace to know that) but i really can't see how a womens day is gonna solve any of that.

rant over. (for now anyway, i can see many facets to this, and i fear the discussion will continue in my office for some time!)

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having spent part of my walk home from work pondering if i was sinning greatly by making a sweeping frustrated and grumpy statement about students on my blog (and having concluded that it wasn't a great thing to do) i suddenly realised that the ankle length skirt i was wearing was not ankle length at the back of my body. in fact it was barely bum length. i was therefore adjusting it and begining to wonder how long it might have been like (conclusion, probably at least an hour, during which time i had crossed the well populated uni campus several times), when, as i was still fiddling in what can only be presumed to be a dodgy looking way one of the senior academics in my faculty cycled past me, with a bemused grin and said hello.

mortified is not the word.

well they don't call me knickers nomes for nothing!
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nomes is a little bleary eyed today. ( i know that is pretty standard, but there is a reason for it today). the Boy had what will almost definately have been his last day at work yesterday and last night we had dinner with the other people (and their partners) who have also been made redundant. it was actually an ok evening, not too depressing, though it was a bit too late for me on a school night (1:30 am, follwoed by a drive back from the country wilds that are flax bourton). we took settlers, which was duely played of course, but one of the other guests brought a cool but slightly bizarre kids game with them; it involved a ghost and people having to run into rooms to escape it, just about everyone (except of course the Boy) ended up with a minus score.

the real thrill of the evening was that we were lent the 2 player settlers card game, a new thrill for the Boy. the downside of this is that it is all in german (the inventor of the games is german), not just the instructions but the cards too. this, i am afraid is going to tax my translation skills to the limit, particularly due to the rather specific language. ahhh well i love a challenge.

random update:
students are a peculiar breed of human. after spending many years with them, there are some things that still flummox me. for example: we have a reception area with a swing door (it has a counter that shuts down on top of it to create a beautiful(!) desk space). the swing door has a bolt on the back of it - to stop it swinging! a student has in the last couple of hours removed the sliding part of the bolt - not the whole bolt or even half of it, they have just taken the moving part. they haven't broken it and left it lying around, no, someone spotted this person fiddling with it, and they have now half inched it. why would anyone do this? what possible conceiveable use could this small piece of metal have? answer on a postcard please as we are all scratching our heads!
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how exciting! one of my friends from the community i used to belong to in sheffield has done something v exciting. for the last year or so she has been going out with a chap called phil in australia (going out in the loosest sense as the don't see each other too often). well, last week mary posted phil a plastic ring (with an m on) and he got it yesterday. (you have no idea how excited i am!) so the official announcement: mary-ellen thornyloe (aka thornypants, scary mary) is engaged to marry phil barrett, sometime soon :)

~nomes dances around the room making whooping noises~
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first came

settlers of catan

but it didn't end there, oh no. now the obsession has grown, now we are playing

cities and knight of catan

can there be any escape?
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now i'm not a natural The Times reader (i'm a guardian girl) but this article interested me in today's online version. Its an interview with jack dee (yeah, the comedian and celeb big bro winner), he talks about his career and struggles with alcohol a little, and then there is this:

"The other quest in his life harks back to his early thoughts about ordination. He is a serious and intellectual Christian, a fan of the highbrow faith of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and a reader of theology. He mentions the American scholar Marcus Borg, the author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

“He talks about being no longer interested in (religion or salvation, so much as about transformation within your life and the sense that transformation is taking place and the acceptance that perhaps you can’t be in control of the pace of that transformation.

“I find that a very comfortable thing to live with because as soon as you start forcing yourself to behave in a certain way that is contrary to what you instinctively want to, then you’re putting your faith on the table and gambling it against this sort of monster.” Does he believe that he has a personal relationship with God?

“Well, it’s like all these things. It’s something you have to work at, and I’m guilty constantly of just ignoring it. It’s a bit like realising that you haven’t rung your mum for a couple of weeks. I feel like that about it all the time.” "

i've not read borg's book, but i think i might now. yes i am interested in my salvation etc, but i believe it to be intrinsically linked to the transformation that has taken (and is taking) place. can we be in control of the pace? well yes and no. i'd say that by taking part in spiritual disciplines and so forth we can indicate our willingness to be moving along in this transformation, but in the end surrendering 'our' control over our lives is part of this transformation process.

however the second thing that dee says (about forcing yourself to behave in a certain way) i do think is a bit off base - i never want to or feel naturally inclined to fast or whatever, but if i make myself a few times i begin to appreciate the benefits and then may feel more naturally inclined. but i've gotta go against my natural inclination at the start. otherwise i'd just sit in bed reading all day, occasionally crawling out to order a new book from amazon or to make a cup of tea and eat chocolate!

the thing that got to me is that i really would never have expected jack dee to come out with something like that. confounded again! ;)

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so i've not written 4 a while. i guess so much had been going on i've not really had a chance to process it enough even to go blurghhhhh here.

so some of the events of the last week (ish). the Boy lost his job. the Boy got a new job. the Boy and I decided we needed to work out a way to find more time for each other, which will involve working less. (pretty good for one week i reckon). i chose not to go for promotion at work. the politics in my work grew uncomfortable beyond proportion. for some unknown reason i attempted to teach at homegroup. i've been volcano-like (a word of knowledge someone gave me in our homegroup that made the Boy laugh a great deal as it extremely accurately protrayed my behaviour early that day.) i worked late. we went on a weekend away (to glenfall house) with some of the people from our community that made me think. the Boy was v romantic (particularly on current form, when we've just been tired and stressed) and brought me flowers and a cuppa in bed on valentines day. i began to get excited again about something that God might have put on my heart. the Boy got excited about organising and refing a footy tournament. i cried because of something God said and didn't say. i learnt how frustrating it can be when your Boy has chest pains at night because of what will be a stressful last week at work and nothing makes them go away.

well. i'm not sure if thats a brain dump, a weeks dump or what. i certainly didn't mean to write most of it, but its what came out. i certainly won't mean to hit the post button if i do. maybe later, after some space i'll be a bit more logical.
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