Questions.

Should I try again?  Or should I find another job? Or should I find something better like a career?

Since the last posts regarding my personal life, the boyfriend is gone, the job is great but not the right one for me, and I'm training my replacements.  And it's just a job, it's not the right industry for me and although I like a lot of the people I work with, the company culture is not right for me.  If I'm going to be expected to do this much overtime it needs to be for something I can be more passionate about.

This time I would have to bring my Fuzzy (cat) with me.  She would have to live in the truck with me, can she handle it?  She is getting to be a old kitty, she has been my kitty for almost 10 years and I think she was 4 or 5 when I got her.  Will the heat/cold be too much for her?  She would also limit my options as some places have no pet policies, especially if I want to do SCA again. but that brings me to, will I do SCA again?

My brain is racing around in circles and it's one of those decisions I need to make myself.

Under the assumption that I might do this I'm working on a Facebook page do do in tandem with the blog.  https://www.facebook.com/WanderingCostumer/ it is not yet to the point of being live, but I'm working on it.

Lorccan

The saga of my pilgrimage for the vigil.
I have had some health, financial and just emotional reasons to not go play SCA over the last little bit, highland war is the first non tiny local event I've been to since the last highland.  So I had a lot of personal stuff to get over to do the pilgrimage.  I've decided to not go into all the details, I'm glad I went but am annoyed at my self because once there I totally failed to say what I needed to say from shear terror related to my own insecurities and the format that is a vigil and the too many people.  So this is closer to what I wanted to say (still not perfect but better):

"Lorccan you have always been a knight to me.  You possess all the knightly virtues.  I would say you make it look easy but that would mean there is something intrinsically hard about courtesy honor and all.  So instead I have to say, you make it look comfortable, these virtues are just a part of you like breathing.  Similarly it's not that you make it look easy out on the field, it shouldn't be easy, you make it look real.  I always enjoy watching your fights on the tourney field.
I'm glad that someone is finally recognizing the knight that you have always been.  And I'm honored to know you and count you a friend."

June

So that month of June went by very quickly and my plans changed so quickly.  My three weeks in Santa Barbara started off nice.  And they finished off amazing.  I got none of the sewing I needed doing done because instead I went and got a job.  I am still taking my road trip but now I have an amazing job back in California to go back to after.  With the interview and actually starting work I ended up not having a lot of free time in SB.

So I'm off again.

I suck at the updating thing.  I have been nicely settled down for almost a year now in Las Vegas.  I have a boyfriend and I am happy.  I tried really settling down and buying a house, and the gods (which ever ones you believe in) were against me.  I have that nesting need but I also have that need to be out and about, that feeling I left something undone.  So this time I'm dragging (not really) the boyfriend along and off I go.  It will be different and an interesting experience.  He works the school schedule so has the summer off, and the retail job I have is ending.

My "plan" so far, Caid Coronation/QC, back to Santa Barbara for the month of June, West/An tir war, slow journey across country to DC (boyfriend has never been), Pensic (I've never been), and then back to Vegas.

This time I will be doing sewing for other people, at least people I know.  My SB time will be spent finishing projects for people that I have promised and not yet finished, plus projects for myself since I currently have very little garb that actually fits and I did spend this year working in a fabric store I have a ton of projects and haven't had time to do them.  My DC time will be spent making curtains and other fabric items for my sister.  More beyond that, maybe?

Now that there are two people going to be sleeping in my baby camper, I'm also going to make a fun tent to hang off the open door in the back, thus giving us a bit more space for those nights when we have the space to have it open.

On being a woman...

I have had this post partially written for awhile, and I have not had the energy to complete it because it has not been a priority in my life.  I know I have not updated in a long bit, I have been back in California and in Santa Barbara a good chunk of this time, I was not in town for the recent big news story, but as I had this mostly already written (back in March, it is a hard post to write) and with the recent events making me think on it more I do want to finish and share it.

There are many differences between being a female math teacher and a male math teacher, that I have realized many people do not see or understand.  And I do know it is not just in this one subject but as this is my field, it is where I have the most experience and friends that I have discussed their experiences with.

Women will get comments about their appearance from students, when student evaluations happen. The male instructors I have talked to usually get none at all.  I have gotten many different comments over the years from being told to lose weight, to cut my hair, to grow my hair, to wear makeup, to wear more stylish clothing, to lose the glasses and many other variations.  These comments can usually be found in the section that is for how do you think your instructor can improve this class.

I realize that in society today, both men and women are judged on their appearances.  But to me it looks much easier for the man, he showers, maybe puts some product in his hair and puts on a nice suit and looks good.  For a women, she has to shower, shave, put on a name brand dress, makeup, do her hair, try to smush everthing she might need for the evening into a name brand hand bag designed to hold a tube of lipstick because we can not put pockets into women clothing and even if we did you wouldn't want to put anything into them because that would make her look heavier.  And don't forget the name brand shoes that are not comfortable, require serious coordination to not fall on your face in but she wears them because they do make the calves look good (and on me they make my three littlest toes fall asleep and then not wake up for two or three weeks).  Now suppose these people plan to go out again, he puts on the same suit with a different tie and is good, she needs to have a different dress with it's own matching shoes and handbag.

I get this same thing in the classroom.  As a women I am expected to look good, I need to show some skin but not too much because that would be inappropriate.  A male math teacher shows up to class regularly wearing shorts, t-shirt and sandals and no one notices or would ever comment on it, whereas if I showed up in the same outfit, I would get told that I ought to dress more professionally (yes, I have been told this by my department head back when I was a graduate student teaching associate and my usual outfit was jeans and nice shirt, and one of the male grad TA's wore the previously described outfit and didn't get any comment.)  I'm tired of it, I'm tired of living in a culture that is so image obsessed that I get judged on my ability based on the way I look.

I work in the math tutoring lab and I listen to the comments that students make and when talking to fellow students about who to take as a math teacher the following year.  When discussing a female math teacher about half the comments were about her appearance.  Whereas for a male math teacher, it was a lot less and there was only one male instructor that I ever heard comments about his appearance.

The recent event here in Santa Barbara, and reading some of what the perpetrator said, really got me thinking.  While I was out on the road the comment I got the most was, "Aren't you afraid?" and I would jokenly reply with something along the lines of, "I feel safer locked in the back of my truck asleep than I ever felt in the classroom." And every joke does have a grain of truth to it.  I didn't feel safe in the classroom, I had too many students that felt the world owed them something and that I was to blaim for all their problems.  Every time I had to assign a student the F that they had earned in my class I would wonder is this the student that will come back and be physically violent toward me because of it.  I luckily didn't have any physical violence against me.  Although, I did get verbal abuse in email, in person and with the online professor evaluation tools (which is when I stopped reading them.)  And this crime does show that I did have something to be afraid of, the perpetrator was a (fake, in that he registered for classes and rarely finished them) student at the school I taught at, he was the angry, world owes me something young adult that made me afraid to go to work.  He might have lashed out at the sorority, but it is not that much of a leap to lash out at other aspects of life, like the teachers that have failed you.  As a single women traveling alone I was much less afraid.  And truthfully, on the road, I was not afraid, and one of the reasons for that, is that I am not what Hollywood says is beautiful.  I am not the kind of women that gets hit on in a bar because of the way I look.  I wear jeans and a t-shirt, so I am not the kind of women people look at and think that I'm asking for it.  Why wasn't I afraid, because I am not a beautiful women.  I am not the type of women the young perpetrator of these crimes wanted for a girlfriend.  And for that there is a part of me that does feel safer, and unfortunately there is a part of me that does not fully understand the full extent of what is being referred to as rape culture, because I have not experienced it, as much.

But wait one minute, let's get back to the question itself, "Aren't you afraid?" A man would not have gotten this question.  Why have we as a society taught women to be afraid and men to be fearless?  Why should I be afraid, as this question implies?  I have lived too much of my life being afraid, scared to show the real me.  I refuse to continue living in fear, and that was one of the things the road trip was for to help me show myself that I am not afraid, I can do anything I want. Women should not need to be afraid.  Every person that asked this question is unfortunately buying into rape culture. By asking this question people are saying that I as a single female ought to be afraid and I am not ok with that.  I will admit that at first I didn't realize this, it was the first time someone asked me, "Aren't you afraid being a single women on the road?" that I finally figured out why I was suppose to be afraid.  I refuse to be afraid.

So here is the newest double edged sword for women, don't worry as much about your appearance and get treated like shit because you don't buy into the society norms of beauty or worry about your appearance and get treated like nothing more than an object for a man to posses?  Personally I have chosen the first, mostly because the other is just too much work.

Anyway thank you for reading my little rant.  Hopefully soon I will get the post about why I came back to Santa Barbara and what I have been doing since coming back written.

Mississippi Back woods

Pretty little lake

Monday was spent on the internet, looking at things trying to decide what I wanted to do, where to go, all that kind of thing and a bit of the annoying pay bills, get annoyed by Verizon again, fix my internet on the go box (working again, unfortunately Mississippi has almost no coverage unless I’m within about ten feet of a major freeway).  I had made no decision by the time Starbucks closed so I meandered down to the nearest rest area.  Tuesday morning I got up and looked at the information available to me and a decision was had.  The light bulb flashed on again and I decided to go spend some time in the woods with myself, finish a couple unfinished projects and just relax.  There was a free campground (small, but with running water) not too far and some cheap ones not far from there (one even had a shower).  I decided to stock up on some supplies and headed to the free one first.  There were only a couple other people at it and it is a pretty little place next to a lake (fisherman, mostly safe, don’t need to worry as much about hunters), so I found myself a flat spot to park and I was set up (have I mentioned how great it is to have set up be so easy.) Then WAR PLAGUE hit.  Every war has one, it goes around, people go home sick and this war was no different but this war plague was worse than most.  I thought I had gotten clear but no, just when I thought I was safe, boom.  It was all I could do to crawl into bed and sleep.  I slept for the next 28 hours, only waking long enough to drag myself to the restroom, make sure I still had water and go back to sleep.  I was definitely running a fever.   Wednesday afternoon I awoke to feeling slightly better and my temperature had gone back to normal and I wanted a shower.  So I decided to go try the campground nearby with a shower.  Everything about the place creeped me out, from the completely deserted campground to the controlled burn happening just across the main road (at the only road in or out).  Reading the signage it appeared no fee for day use, so I took a shower and got out of there again.  I went back to my cute little lake that was free.  Wednesday night had me running a temperature again so I went to bed early.

By Thursday I was mentally ready to be up and about but my body laughed at me.  So I sat by the lake and read a book.  It was quiet, the only invasion being by the ducks.  But I relaxed and basically now only felt like I had a really bad head cold.  Thursday night I slept ok, but my body was really not happy with the distinct lack of movement that I had had since leaving war, and my internal thermometer could not decide what it wanted to be at.  Friday, I awoke a bit after the sun, and really wanting a shower again, but I was not going to go back to the creepy campground, so I had a wonderful COLD sponge bath in the bathroom sink (there was a drain in the floor)  and even succeeded in washing my hair in a sink that is smaller than most.  Once I was feeling like one of the living again, I did go into town to get a few more supplies (really for ice), and then returned to the lake to read a book.  I had heard a rumor that on weekends the camp gets inundated with boy scouts, and it is true.  My little flat spot at the top of the hill is fairly far from them so I can just sit back and watch and laugh.  If there is anyone that can rival us SCAdians with shear amount of stuff being brought to a weekend event than it is the boy scouts.  If my left over war plague (now just a head cold) didn’t make me so short of breath I probably would have fallen out of my chair giggling as they unloaded the trailer.  Less than a dozen people most of them half sized, and yet 8 large tents, 2 large day shades, 3 large things of propane, 4 extra tables and all your usually accruements including fishing poles and a boat (the lake, if I can call it that, is small, it took me 15 minutes to walk around only because I was going slowly because dude sick), and then the flag, yes they too brought a flag this one being a US flag but it made me want to pull mine out and put it back up.  I didn't but mostly because I didn't have the energy.  Then a family showed up, who believes that to use the car powered air mattress pump you need to get the car next to the tent, and not that you take the mattress to the car fill it up and then take it back.  I’m too much a people watcher. Another group of adult boys showed up Saturday morning, and since they camped much nearer to me I could listen to them make fun of the boy scout group all day.  I spent it wondering and how are you guys any better.  Saturday also had a couple backpackers head down the trail and some just day hikers.  A car of Californians that give us such a bad name also came in; they had dreadlocks even, asking people for food as soon as they arrived.  Only about half the normal weekday fisherman stopped by.

Cute man made lake in the woods, with ducks

If I knew what was next for me, I would have vacated myself on Saturday.  But I didn’t have the energy for it (the vacating is easy, the where to go instead not so).  Really all I had the energy for was reading my book (I finished all the light pleasure reading I brought with me and I don’t have my sister’s library to read, whatever should I do?)  My symptoms are down to nose cold, annoying but my box of Kleenex and I have become frienemies.  Plus I came out to the woods to enjoy some alone time and hopefully learn to smock.  The first has definitely happened but the second is still in the just theory state, maybe Sunday?  It’s not like I have to go to church.

Sunday I awoke to a sprinkle, and most the other campers trying to vacate quickly, So I opened up the back and started making coffee under the overhang.  Over hang is not water tight when the rain turned into a downpour, but coffee was had and everything put back in before the lightning started, I enjoyed it inside and stayed mostly dry.  Only lasted maybe 30 minutes and then it was gone as quick as it had come.  I dried off the little bit of wet, did dishes and started learning to smock.  I am currently taking a break from the smocking to go into town and buy a few supplies (bread and ice, always the freaking ice, I need to figure out a better way of having a fridge).  Anyway, I'm feeling better and am now looking forward to some more quiet time in the woods.

Gulf Wars

Sunrise, Sunday morning, heading to war.

I have found a flag pole

War was awesome.   Arrival on Sunday went without a problem, and I found the non-hook-up RV area.  I parked myself on what I thought was the side, only to find that it wasn’t.  I was also the only one actually camping out there and where I was ended up became a parking lot, not as nice as I would have liked.  Still, I had a wonderful time.  Gulf wars has a permanent site and some actual permanent buildings, which I find very cool.  And so many classes, I took 2 or 3 each day.  It is interesting to see how other people have interpreted the same information.  It is always fun to take two similar classes from two different people and get conflicting information.  I took many costuming classes, including one on Central Asian coats that explained the weird armpit gusset and exactly how it is supposed to fit, now if I can find some fabric I might have to make one (or I’ll just make a mockup in the plaid I have with me and then start with the under layer in the white linen. At this rate I’m going to come home with more garb than I left.  I think I’m ok with this.)  I need to work on my Italian dress and fix some issues it is having after I wore it 3 days of war (new chemise is perfect).  Walked all over the place, and as normal with war a lot of people got sick, and I was not one of them. 

My encampment, trees do not make good tripods

Unfortunately the threatening thunderstorms Saturday night scared everyone away, and I was slightly concerned about being stuck in the mud, so I also vacated, helped transport a whole lot of gear to a friend that lives nearby and then Sunday went on a mini New Orleans adventure (in someone else’s car), dropped one friend off at airport, then went into the French quarter for food (yummy, but my skin will hate me this week), and then dropped the other off at the airport before heading back to Mississippi.  We stopped at site for the last of the gear, and now I get to figure out what I want to do now. 

I went to an awesome class that helped me make pretty hair.

Still not sure what I want to do but kind of at the point where I must figure it out.  First is figure out the internet issues I have been having.

Then I don’t know, but I'm going to figure it out right now.