The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Discussions worth keeping around later.
User avatar
vampireshark
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 738
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:02 pm
Location: Luxembourg
Contact:

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by vampireshark »

alynnidalar wrote:The shape of the cake is called a Bundt cake or a ring cake. The type of cake would appear to be marble, assuming it's partly white cake and partly chocolate cake.
Echoed here. (Though I've never heard the shape be called a ring cake; it's always been a Bundt cake to me.)

Also, in contradictory feelings, I'm feeling like I'm getting somewhere in research and should have an article sent for hopeful publication this upcoming week, but I have a thesis review committee meeting in about three weeks, and the fact that it won't be published by the time of the committee meeting is making me really nervous...
What do you see in the night?

In search of victims subjects to appear on banknotes. Inquire within.

User avatar
Risla
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 800
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:17 pm
Location: The darkest corner of your mind...

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Risla »

rotting bones wrote:
Risla wrote:I just booked another night on Mt Hiei. I spent a night there in June and it was absolutely amazing; my favorite place in the country, no question. The issue is that I'm rather broke and probably can't REALLY afford to stay there, especially since it's rather expensive...but otoh I've been feeling pretty down, and this gives me something to look foward to, which I really need right now. I hope this will encourage me to stay within my budget for other stuff, at least.
May the pestle of wisdom grind your demons into dust and all that, but don't eat hijiki if they offer you any.
Oh, hijiki. I avoid it whenever possible, but I swear they sneak it into things. They should try wild rice instead: similar texture, color, and shape, but way less arsenic!

User avatar
alynnidalar
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 491
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:35 pm
Location: Michigan, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by alynnidalar »

vampireshark wrote:(Though I've never heard the shape be called a ring cake; it's always been a Bundt cake to me.)
After writing my post I was plagued with doubts about how common the term "ring cake" is, and apparently it's not common at all?? I think that might just be an idiolect thing for me. (or... whatever you call a family dialect)
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

User avatar
Pole, the
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:50 am

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Pole, the »

alynnidalar wrote:I think that might just be an idiolect thing for me. (or... whatever you call a family dialect)
Domolect IMI.

IMI = in my idiolect
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by linguoboy »

I've seen "oikolect" in at least published linguistics paper.

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

And a pig's dialect...is an oinkolect!

User avatar
Risla
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 800
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:17 pm
Location: The darkest corner of your mind...

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Risla »

My job: I mainly work for a small IT company. They hired me in January last year to help get the English website for their main service off the ground. This has been quite a difficult task (the existing English site was written so bad as to be largely incomprehensible, and there were hundreds of pages in the control panel, all of which needed fixing) but now I'm finally just about done with that, and am transitioning into more of a customer service and marketing role. I have zero marketing experience and have been worrying about the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing. I asked for training a few months ago and was denied, so that's fun.

My anxieties are bolstered by the fact that frankly the entire system is really dated and bloated. We've had twice weekly meetings for almost two years to talk about the English website, and in every single meeting I have ended up bringing up points about "this is way more complicated than it needs to be" and "why is this basic-ish functionality not available?" and "I realize this is the norm in Japan but want to note that this is NOT the norm like anywhere else" and so on, ad infinitum. The vast majority of this has been met with "well, it's how the system is, so we can't really do anything about that," to my eternal frustration. One of the programmers has been consistently on my side about...nearly everything, but is quite overworked and can only do so much anyway. I haven't honestly been all that optimistic about the future of the English website, and that puts my own position on shaky ground.

The original CEO of the (quite small) company I work for was seriously injured in a major car accident four or five years ago (long before I joined), and was forced to leave and pass company ownership off to someone else (the guy who's been my boss, I'll call him Mr. A) so he could recover. The company had been quite successful with him as CEO, and since then it's been on a slow decline. As of Tuesday, however, he's back. Everyone's been panicking about him coming back because he's apparently pretty strict, and he's already started to kick some asses (there's a longstanding feud between two of my coworkers, which Mr A has been ignoring, and today he pulled them both into a meeting for a few hours to try to sort that out). I am 100% in favor of asses being kicked because I think it needs to happen; there's way too much "well we can't change anything, that's how it is" that goes on and I think that's behind a large part of why the company's been on the decline. I'm just worried about myself, since, as mentioned, I don't really know what I'm doing right now, and also my performance has been iffy, since I really struggle to focus when faced with "stare at this spreadsheet full of weird English for eight hours and make it into not-weird English, and I'm going through some shit that negatively affects my already extremely shoddy attention span even more. I am simultaneously more optimistic than I've been about my future at this company, and extremely apprehensive. I guess we'll see...

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so anxious about it, Risla. Good luck, though, and help yourself to a hug if you want one! :)

User avatar
Risla
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 800
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:17 pm
Location: The darkest corner of your mind...

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Risla »

Vijay wrote:I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so anxious about it, Risla. Good luck, though, and help yourself to a hug if you want one! :)
You're so nice. C:

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

Risla wrote:
Vijay wrote:I'm sorry to hear you're feeling so anxious about it, Risla. Good luck, though, and help yourself to a hug if you want one! :)
You're so nice. C:
Aww! Thanks! :) I have an anxiety-related disorder myself, so I know what that's like (even though I also know everyone's different and everything).

In fact, I guess I've been having some contradictory feelings lately myself. On the one hand, I lost my last job almost two months ago because my contract ended and I chose not to extend it because I need both a break and a more permanent job. I haven't managed to get another job, and they'll ask me in just over a month whether I want to go back. My dad bugs me about this sort of thing every now and then (he did this just this evening after probably almost a month of saying nothing. He was nice about it but still). On top of it all, my baby niece and her parents come visit us every week, but I haven't been spending much time with my niece. I guess I feel she has more energy than I can handle (and I'm not even all that old yet, and my mom somehow has no problem keeping up with her!).

On the other hand, it's gotten to the point where as long as my mom's around, she basically ignores everybody else anyway. Also, my dad suggested that I could alternatively start a blog and make money by hosting advertisements there instead of just struggling through the traditional application process, and I did start one and do work on it at least a little every few days or so. It may not be much, but it's something. I haven't given up trying to look for jobs, either. AND I signed up for Reddit last month, and I am SO glad I did that. I was wary of Reddit because...well, you might be able to guess why, but I've found that if you stick to the right subs, it can actually be really useful for language-learning. I stick to r/Kerala, r/France, r/Serbia, r/Croatia, and a whole bunch of subs specifically for learning individual languages (e.g. r/Serbian, r/German) and stick to the language most relevant to each sub as much as possible. It's worked wonders! r/Serbia in particular is surprisingly left-wing given that Serbia itself is anything but. They've been really nice to me, and I didn't use a word of English there until two days ago, and even then only because the post and most of the comments were in English.

Travis B.
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 3570
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 12:47 pm
Location: Milwaukee, US

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Travis B. »

My genetically-programmed robot fighting arena seems to be solidifying into something more stable, such that I'm not sure what to do with it at this point - with the only changes I can think of at this point being A) a basic revamping of the display, such as to show robot health, energy, etc. and B) a complete revamping of the UI and the world engine, so as to allow things such as pausing and restarting, saving mid-way through (currently it saves when you close the program, and it takes a backup at the end of every round), changing the speed of the simulation on the fly, stepping cycle by cycle, rewinding the simulation, and so on. I can do the basic display revamping, but the other thing just seems overwhelmingly large of a task that I just really do not want to do it, even though I think it would be a significant improvement upon the current program.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

I'm trying to learn about how to interview for a certain job by reading tips from former employees who hate the company.

User avatar
Pole, the
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:50 am

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Pole, the »

As they say: hate the job, love the money, overthrow the bourgeoisie.
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

Except apparently, they don't even pay much. I don't think I'll apply for the job after all. That company just has way too many negative reviews. It's a well-known company that one of my cousins works for but still sounds really shady.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by linguoboy »

A good friend at work is seeing a longstanding crush bear fruit and is being totally adorkable about it. I know I should find it amusing and just a bit touching but it's making me more annoyed than anything. Have I lost my soul?

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

Nah. I can't recall seeing that particular thing happen around me off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure I've felt similarly before. It's a bit like how I don't really respond emotionally to being told a relative died; it doesn't mean much to me personally when it's practically been routine for my entire life.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Lately I've been thinking about the Catch-22 of being recently bereaved. Like on the one hand you don't want everyone to think you're some weepy neurasthenic who has to be handled with extreme care but on the other hand you would appreciate people giving some extra thought to how they interact with you.

Like recently I had a bad role-playing experience where a GM brutally slayed my character's mother. It seemed punitive (because he was mad about something I had done out of character) but he explained it away later by saying that he'd been planning already to killed off a player character's parent for dramatic purposes. Fair enough, but then maybe not pick the character of the player who's still in their first year of mourning a lost spouse? I realised it was an extra layer of shittiness on top of an already questionable move. But I hesitate to bring this up lest it be interpreted as "Linguo is a special snowflake who can't handle anything nasty happening to his character".

I don't want to be perceived as using my widower status as an excuse for special handling, but on the other hand putting on too brave a face seems to allow people to forget the extra challenges you're dealing with. It feels very lose-lose.

User avatar
Salmoneus
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3197
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: One of the dark places of the world

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

Not to be unsympathetic, but you've kind of described the Catch-22 of being human, there.

Well, of being British, at least. Maybe it's different elsewhere.

[concrete examples: one relative of mine has cancer at the moment, and another is a single mother. Both of them are very much doing the "don't patronise me I'm perfectly able to take care of myself (wait, what, no, aren't you going to be considerate of my problems and help me take care of myself!?)" thing. I think most people also do it with their parents in particular ("don't treat me like I'm a child, i'm and independent adult and - wait, hang on, i'm your child, why aren't you being nurturing and protective anymore!?"). But I think it's probably worse in cultures where "not imposing" (i.e. never requesting help openly, because if you do the other person is obliged to help no matter how inconvenient it is to them) is so highly valued.]
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

linguoboy wrote:Fair enough, but then maybe not pick the character of the player who's still in their first year of mourning a lost spouse?
I don't see anything wrong with putting it this way (for example).
I don't want to be perceived as using my widower status as an excuse for special handling
I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't have any experience with losing someone I was particularly close to, and I don't see any reason for perceiving you that way. I think it should at least be okay in principle for you or anyone else mourning the loss of a loved one to sit another person down (if they're not also mourning, and especially if they haven't had such an experience and/or they've said something that comes off as insensitive to you) and tell them about how you feel and how they should or shouldn't react. I'm not going to claim it's easy, and I'm not trying to say it's necessary to explain everything all at once or anything, but I think we as a society tend to stigmatize honest discussions regarding death and how it affects us emotionally, and I'm saying that at least discussions like that shouldn't be stigmatized.

tl;dr Just because you're not a special snowflake doesn't mean people get to be dicks to you (whether they realize they're being dicks or not).

I'm sorry if I've been thoughtless in interacting with you myself.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Vijay wrote:I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't have any experience with losing someone I was particularly close to, and I don't see any reason for perceiving you that way. I think it should at least be okay in principle for you or anyone else mourning the loss of a loved one to sit another person down (if they're not also mourning, and especially if they haven't had such an experience and/or they've said something that comes off as insensitive to you) and tell them about how you feel and how they should or shouldn't react. I'm not going to claim it's easy, and I'm not trying to say it's necessary to explain everything all at once or anything, but I think we as a society tend to stigmatize honest discussions regarding death and how it affects us emotionally, and I'm saying that at least discussions like that shouldn't be stigmatized.
The problem with this approach is that there's no set list of behaviours to avoid I can give anyone. I haven't done this before; I'm figuring out by trial and error what I can handle. Plus it's different from one day to the next. The day after this happened, I went to visit the site where we'd scattered my husband's ashes and I didn't shed a tear. In fact I ended up doubled over in laughter because some poor shmuck was on the beach with his dog, who grabbed a chunk of slimy garbage from the shore and then wouldn't give it up no matter how hard the guy tried. The next day, I burst into sobs while unloading the dishwasher because I idly thought, "The large casseroles never seem to get used" and then remembered all the meals he cooked for us in those.

What I really need from people who interact with me is just slack. Realise that sometimes I'll be moody or distant and you'll need to reach out to me to find out what's wrong and what you can do about it. Maybe be proactive once in a while and check in beforehand. But like Sal said, that's basically what anybody needs: good faith and some awareness of your particular challenges.

What happened next in this case was instructive: The GM finally contacted me last night to apologise for his "overreaction". This gave me the courage to make the point about his questionable plotting choice. Naturally it had never occurred to him that it could be triggering. He told me that he doesn't even think of me as bereaved, which gets to what I was saying before about the downside of too brave a face (as well as making me reflect on the traditional logic of special dress for the first year of mourning). Then he apologised again and offered to rework the scenario or switch to a different game altogether. I had to stop chatting at that point because I was sobbing again.

So maybe this is a learning moment for all of us and we can move forward together into a more positive space (where, for instance, we build in time before and after the game to talk about developments in order to make sure we aren't pushing anyone too far in pursuit of what's ultimately supposed to be an enjoyable pastime). And maybe this is confirmation that playing in this particular group with a GM who's not attuned at all to my emotional wellbeing is simply not what I need with the first anniversary of my husband's death a little over a month away. I'm just not going to know before I get there.
Vijay wrote:I'm sorry if I've been thoughtless in interacting with you myself.
You haven't.

User avatar
Frislander
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
Location: The North

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Frislander »

So last night I accepted the friend request of a guy I've known for about a month now meeting him through college chapel. He's a history student, but basically the only thing we've talked about on the couple of occasions we've actually spoken were church-related and I have definitely enjoyed my conversations with him.

Then after I accepted the request I went and had a scroll of his profile and discovered that not only was he a Conservative Anglo- or possibly even Roman-Catholic of the Rees-Mogg inclination (even going so far as to refer to Theresa May as "that dreadful woman" in one post), and thus expressing opposition to things like Abortion and gay marriage, but that also last year he had given a talk at the annual conference of the Property and Freedom Society in Turkey, which is somehow even worse than it sounds, propounding as it does the doctrine of "paleo-libertarianism", which combines cultural conservatism and economic libertarianism and a dash of white-nationalism into one giant unholy abomination seemingly perfectly designed to drive me off. (Incidentally I'm surprised I hadn't heard the term "paleolibertarian" before this, since this appears to have been the political position of the Republican Party in the US for decades now).

But at the same time I'm perfectly OK with keeping him on my friends list. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it will be good for me to see "how the other side thinks" as it were with regards to political and social issues like this, and will help to stimulate my political faculties through meditating on stuff he posts, however I do not think my debating skills nor background knowledge is yet good enough for me to be able to win a debate with him or others like him.

Secondly, as a fellow member of the college (and more importantly the chapel) it's actually fairly important that I continue to be as friendly as possible in order to avoid unnecessary strife, which is part of what being a "broad church" as the CofE likes to describe itself is kind of all about really (and as I've said above if I did try and confront him I'm certain I would come off the worse).

Finally there is one additional factor, and that is the lack of shock I had at these revalations. The first time I saw the guy, before I even heard him speak, I could immediately tell he was unlikely to be anything other than a Tory, and thus in that sense there was no illusion to be shattered, and that I kind of knew what I was getting into by accepting his request anyway.

Thus he stays on my friends list out of pure pragmatism.
https://frislander.tumblr.com/

First known on here as Karero

Vijay
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2244
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:25 pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Vijay »

Frislander wrote:Incidentally I'm surprised I hadn't heard the term "paleolibertarian" before this, since this appears to have been the political position of the Republican Party in the US for decades now.
I am from the US, have lived here my whole life, and have family members who support Donald Chump, yet I don't recall this term, either.

User avatar
Salmoneus
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3197
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: One of the dark places of the world

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

I don't believe it's a widely-used term, in the real world.

Partly, of course, because it makes no sense. There are no neolibertarians to be contrasted with, and no old tradition of libertarianism to call back to. Plus, the "palaeo-" prefix is much more a tumblr thing than a political science thing; 'palaeoconservatives' are just called 'conservatives', 'palaeoliberals' are just called 'liberals' or 'classical liberals', and so on. And in this case, religious conservativism is antithetical to libertarianism. [in theory, at least. Some libertarians, of course, have diverged from this in practice - Ayn Rand was a horrible bigot, for instance].

Certainly nobody who supports Trump could be called 'libertarian' in any meaningful sense of the word. [Trump's professed ideology is essentially neoconservativism, in the conceptual (rather than media/geopolitical) sense, although he doesn't really seem to believe in anything other than his own strongman power]

But, there's no telling what the extremist online fringe will call themselves this time.


----

I wouldn't say this was the ideology of the Republicans, though. It might be something like the ideology of the Tea Party, perhaps? Mainstream Republicans I'd say were broadly different flavours of neoconservative, with a growing but still minority libertarian streak. Although to be honest, many of them are best explained as unabashed plutocrats.

[For example: the Republicans in Congress currently want to pass a tax bill that would raise taxes on the professional and entrepeneurial class, en route to increasing the national debt by at least $1.5 trillion (that's their own rose-tinted view; other observers say it would be more like $2.5tn. Anyone wanting to add trillions to deficit, while not even massively reducing taxes on businesses, cannot be considered either a libertarian or a conservative. The tax plan has thus been panned by the National Review, the Club for Growth, and the National Federation of Independent Business.]
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

User avatar
Pole, the
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:50 am

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by Pole, the »

I think I'm addicted to memes from /r/traa.
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: The Contradictory Feelings Thread

Post by linguoboy »

I had a nice chat last night with someone I hadn't talked to in nearly twenty years. No particular reason; he just moved away for work and there was no compelling motivation to stay in touch. He's living out in the Bay Area now and is urging me to come pay him a visit.

We were close back when I first started dating my future husband and I shared a lot with him at the time. (He made some reference to "giggling like teenagers" over "real and imagined bears".) What prompted the call was him stumbling across a Facebook post about my husband's death and remarking that it was odd "knowing the beginning and end of a story but not the middle". So I called him up to give him the middle.

Catching up was really enjoyable and I told him I'd work on planning a trip out next year. Upon hanging up, it occurred to me how wonderful it would have been to go out and visit him with my husband in tow. It's very close to where he grew up; I'm sure seeing familiar spots would have prompted him to share some stories he never had before. And, as I began to regret not getting in touch much sooner, I started slipping into melancholy. Then I reminded myself it was much better better to have gotten in touch now than not at all.

Post Reply