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Had a shitty fucking flu since friday evening and it's driving me bananas. Now there's a cough shown up to the party just to rub extra salt in the wound.

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Congrats Donk, Badfinger, and the disease ravaging Osmosisch!

 

I drove cross-country and now live in beautiful Santa Barbara, California.  My car broke down in the middle of the desert of New Mexico and I had to buy a new one, so I am starting this job more than $20,000 in the red.  Fun!

 

What is there to do in Southern California?  I went to the Vasquez Rocks where Kirk fought the Gorn and that's really the only reason I moved out here.

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After months of trying, I finally got approval for a meaningful examination of the hospital I work at's intake forms to try and move to a more gender affirming format than male and female checkboxes.

This is just the first hurdle, but it feels so good to see the man who was the gatekeeper go from "does that really matter?" to "this really matters" after months of wearing him down.

The Lancet's recent series on transgender health really helped me get past this first hurdle. If you have access to it, I highly recommend reading through it. (And if you don't have access, I mean, I do.... so...)

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1) Mike, outside of the New Mexico car breakdown, how was the drive?

 

2) Mangela, hey, that's awesome, it's always good when people fight for vital social change. It's slow, and the world is stubborn, but dammit, it's important. So, good work. 

 

 

I am about to go to (Garching) Germany for a conference next week. I am not the biggest fan of academic conferences, as it seems like a lot of people use them as a way of showing off. There's just a lot of swagger that makes me feel pretty dumb. I'm also a little worried that as a vegetarian I might have a rough time of it. It will get me out of the 110+ degree heat of southern Arizona. 

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I am about to go to (Garching) Germany for a conference next week. I am not the biggest fan of academic conferences, as it seems like a lot of people use them as a way of showing off. There's just a lot of swagger that makes me feel pretty dumb. I'm also a little worried that as a vegetarian I might have a rough time of it. It will get me out of the 110+ degree heat of southern Arizona. 

 

Hey, I am really anxious about my conference in Denmark this weekend! I am trying to focus on just going there, giving my paper, and then having a normal vacation in the sleepy town of Odense.

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I'm sitting here watching the EU referendum results roll in and it's tying my stomach in knots and making me feel ill.

 

I can't even imagine what it's like if you're British.

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1) Mike, outside of the New Mexico car breakdown, how was the drive?

 

It was decent!  I drove along I-40.  I thought Nashville and Memphis were cool cities; Tennessee overall is a really nice state.

 

The drive got kind of monotonous after that, but once I hit Albuquerque and the mountains there, everything became gorgeous and stayed that way all the way here to Santa Barbara.  California comes across as too narrow and crowded, but it's scenic, relaxed, and the people are really nice.

 

If anybody likes driving just for the fun of driving, a cross-country drive is definitely something to consider and the I-40 route might be the best way to do it.  Though maybe take a detour and go around the area I broke down!

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The drive got kind of monotonous after that, 

 

Between Nashville and New Mexico? Yeah, it's called Texas, and it sucks butts. New Mexico is such a welcome sight after the nothingness of west Texas. 

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I'm sitting here watching the EU referendum results roll in and it's tying my stomach in knots and making me feel ill.

 

I can't even imagine what it's like if you're British.

 

I probably won't go too heavy into it in this thread (we have a UK politics thread somewhere, right?) but, yeah, now that the results are in I'm honestly pretty worried. I'm starting a Medicine degree in September, and two of the institutions that will be hit hardest by this are universities and the National Health Service. I'm genuinely not sure what the future holds for us.

 

The only silver lining is that since the value of the British Pound has dropped precipitously, now might be the time to pull all my savings out of Germany while the conversion rate is so good. I might finally be able to get the laser eye surgery I've been wanting for a decade.

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It's election night in Australia and it's insanely close, but the right-wing party is in the lead. This makes me sad. I didn't even get a democracy sausage when I voted this morning, so I may as well have not voted at all.

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Wow, it's been a while since I've been here. Over a year, I think.

Guess I might as well post what's been going on in my life...
 

Back in October of last year, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. That sucked. I had finally started actually taking care of my body, working out and watching what I ate, and wham! Diabetes.

In December, two days before Christmas, my great-uncle died, that was a very sad holiday season. 

 

I had a part-time job at a research group at a university here, but that just ended and so I am unemployed again. I've been looking for more work, even before that job ended, and haven't heard a thing from anywhere I've applied. It's really been getting me down and I'm just feeling like I don't know what to do anymore. Some people in my family have been saying I should go back to school, but a)I'm not even sure what I would do, and B) I'm terrified of finishing and winding up right where I am now once again, but this time with more debt. (Also, truth be told... I'm going to be 26 soon, and so if I start school again I'm going to be a good chunk older than most of the other students, and that kind of scares me...)

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Wow I have had a remarkably similar experience: diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (I'm the only one in my entire extended family), attended several funerals of friends' parents over the last six months, finished a master's degree after returning to university and have been unemployed now for too long.

 

I was going to go for a PhD but I have some serious doubts about whether I really want a life in academia.

 

All I have really figured out is that I feel I did everything right, through school and university, and I took care of my health, and this and that. None of it really seems to have mattered though, and I'm at the mercy of random misfortunes and the whims of strangers.

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Congratulations!  I look forward to the day your child stares intently at you as you pour candy into a giant box and mail it away.

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Congratulations!  I look forward to the day your child stares intently at you as you pour candy into a giant box and mail it away.

 

 

I LOVE this.

 

Congratulations!

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Congratulations!  I look forward to the day your child stares intently at you as you pour candy into a giant box and mail it away.

 

Haha, I actually sent a candy box off a couple days before we left for the hospital.

 

Also thanks all!  I'm super tired but also ridiculously happy.

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