Day 10: Top 10 non-fiction books

The prompt for Day 10 was to write something different, and I quite fancied doing an outfit post, but then The Boy went away for the weekend so I have no-one to take photographs of me.  I still want to try and do something different later in the week, but for today here's something very much NOT different: books!

 

I've written another guest post for Daire's Non Fic November: my top ten non-fiction books.  It was SO hard to narrow it down to just ten, and I'm already thinking of books I missed off: Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation, Dreams Of My Father by Barack Obama, many wonderful books about South Africa (I think my favourites are Ways Of Staying by Kevin Bloom and Rian Malan's My Traitors Heart), and also all of the books about books that I love (Howard's End Is On The Landing by Susan Hill and Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman are my top picks). 

Day 9: My blogging story

A while ago Saskia (who I 'met' through #BEDM) tagged me for a Liebster award.  I never did anything with it, because life got in the way, but I really liked some of the questions she had been asked and that she asked in turn.  They got me thinking about my blogging story, and so here it is.  I'd love to hear about yours too.

How and when did you decide to start blogging?
I think it was summer 2010.  I was pretty late to the party with regard to discovering blogs, but after reading an article in The Guardian about fatshion bloggers I discovered a whole exciting world.  As an ex-fanzine writer, the self-published, independent, potentially radical ethos of blogging really appealed to me.  It took me ages to actually get any further than just setting up a Blogger account, though, and my first post didn't go live until March 3rd 2011.  In it, I wrote about my memories of writing zines, and about how I hoped blogging would be as much fun.  It has been, and then some...

What's the story behind your blog's name?
"Writing words which can only be your own," is a line from The Smiths' Cemetery Gates.  An admission: I didn't actually come up with the name myself.  Almost a year before I actually began writing here, I put out a plea on Facebook for blog name ideas and a guy I used to date suggested it.  It was very much a "well, duh..." moment.  I love The Smiths; I knew my blog was likely to be wordy... how had I not thought of it before?!  I ended up changing the "which" to "that" (by mistake I think), and I'm now of the opinion that it's a slightly unwieldy name for a blog, but I still think it suits me.

What's the best post you've ever written?
That's a tough one!  I'm proud of quite a few posts actually.  I acknowledge that, when it comes to blogging, I'm a mediocre photographer and pretty lazy about making and doing, but what I can do is write, so most of my favourite posts are quite wordy (see, that's why my blog's name is perfect!)

My granny died in January and the post I wrote that afternoon, In Memoriam, is one of the most from-the-heart and quick to write posts I've ever done.  I still love it, and hope the rest of the family agree that it's a fitting memorial to her.

I really enjoyed writing Misadventures In Internet Dating and every word of it is true (yes, even the Hitler guy).  Thank goodness my story has a happy ending!

My travel posts from backpacking across America in 2011 and South Africa in 2012 are probably only of interest to me, but I love having a record of those trips.  My final post from South Africa, Last Days, is a favourite.  Of more use to my general readership, Paris On A Budget is a lovely way for me to remember one of the best weekends of my life, but contains lots of handy hints too.

And finally, I am really proud of Thursday's post, Ten Steps To Feeling Body Positive, which has already had more views than most anything else I've posted in a while.

What are your favourite and least favourite things about blogging?
I'll start with the negative: my least favourite thing by a mile is the commercialisation of blogging.  I've seen such a move recently from genuinely interesting, unique blogs to ones that only seem to exist to flog stuff.  It seems like some bloggers are keen to become part of mainstream media, but the whole appeal to me is that blogging existed outside the mainstream.  I went on rather a rant about the whole thing here, which caused a lot of debate on Twitter.  What makes me sad is that, as it gets more commercialised, some great bloggers are becoming disenchanted and giving up.  But I prefer to continue plowing my own little furrow of poor photography, wordy rambles, makes, music and books rather than reject the whole process.

As for favourite things, that's EASY!  It's all about the people for me: I love the connections that can be made through a screen.  I'm not the most sociable or outgoing of people, so making friends via a page or a screen has always worked well for me.  When I wrote a fanzine in the mid-90s, I made some fantastic friends after they wrote to me for a copy (sellotaping their 50 pence piece to the letter, of course) and blogging has turned out to be similar.  Although I have yet to properly meet any of my fellow bloggers, plans are in the pipeline and I'm determined to put faces to some of the names that crop up in my comments section and my Bloglovin' feed.

Day 8: The truth about teaching

Back in May, when I was blogging every day, one of the posts that attracted most interest was the one about a day in the life of a teacher.  The thing about teaching is, almost everyone has been to school, so everyone thinks they know what the job entails.  It's all about a 9am start, sitting at the front of a classroom for five hours ticking some books, before going home at 3pm.  Right?

The people who don't think teaching is one big blag seem to go to the opposite extreme.  "Ooh, I couldn't do that," they wince, when I tell them my occupation.  "Working with teenagers, do you get danger money thrown in?  I bet they're a nightmare."

Media coverage runs roughly along these lines, too.  Teachers are either lazy layabouts who need to get off their arses and work more than five hours a day (and stop bloody striking while they're at it); or alternatively, we must have the combined skills of a bouncer working the 3am shift and a soldier fighting on the frontline.

And the truth about teaching? The truth is, there are lots of truths.  

The Pupils
Hopefully shows like Educating Yorkshire have demonstrated that, rather than the horde of thugs the media seems keen to portray them as, most school kids are pretty wonderful.  Likewise, that programme has gone a long way to prove just how vituperatively fake and vile most of Gove's claims about teachers are, showing the lengths we go to to ensure good outcomes for our pupils.
 

Truth 1
Far from being a feral host of immoral yobs, most young people - yes, even the teenagers - are keen and eager to learn and essentially enjoy school.  They're engaged and interested in the world around them, interested in justice and ideas of right and wrong.  They are fabulous company, and come out with the most wonderful comments.  However...

Truth 2
... Some pupils are everything you read about it the tabloids: angry, violent, disruptive and destructive.  They are in the minority but they do exist in every school.  Of those kids, most of them behave like this for very good reasons.  Often they have complex needs and learning disabilities which cause them to be disruptive. Sometimes they have gone through horrendous experiences at home in their short lives that you and I can barely comprehend. Occasionally, they really are just being dicks and there's no reason or excuse for their behaviour.  Regardless, when they are causing chaos in your classroom, it's hard to remember that there may be an explanation for their acting out.

The Hours
I think the thing that winds teachers up more than anything is the assumption that we work short hours.  The number of people I know who say, "Oh I might become a teacher so I can drop the kids off at school and then be home at 3."  Well... I get to work just after 7am, so if your child starts school at 6.50am then you're in luck!  From then on, I'm tutoring, teaching, marking and planning right through until the school day ends.  When you're in the building, there is no such thing as 'free' time: you are always on call and in demand.  Breaktime and lunchtime? Usually spent talking to kids and supervising work, or marking and planning in my classroom.  If I'm lucky then my day ends like this....

Truth 3
Some days, you can walk out of the classroom at 3pm and get home quickly.  Now, this doesn't mean the work is done - teaching very much being a job where the work is never done - but rather that you've reached your limit and need to reclaim some me-time after eight solid hours of work.  Doing this, though, just means that the pile of marking or planning will be bigger the next day, so most people either take it home with them.

Truth 4
But other days, you'll be at school until 5 or 6pm, in seemingly endless meetings or grappling with a pile of marking that threatens to create an avalanche on your desk.  And, quite a few times a term, you'll only get home at 8 or 9pm after a parents evening, concert, open evening or other event.  Teaching is not a job with great work/life balance.

The Job
But what do teachers actually do?  This post, and this one, go some way to explaining some of my duties and responsibilities.

Truth 5
There are very few teachers who do only that.  Most of us have a whole host of other responsibilities within school, for which we (if we're lucky) get a small amount of extra money.  For example, as well as teaching English for an average of nineteen classroom hours a week, I also look after provision for Gifted & Talented pupils within the school, and mentor PGCE students and organise everything to do with Initial Teacher Training.  In other words, once the actual teaching is over, my other duties kick in.  Meetings, emails, phone calls, organising trips, endless paperwork... in the unlikely event that I've finished all the marking and planning for my classes, there is always plenty of other work to keep me busy.

Truth 6
Finally, what isn't really recognised is that teaching can be a fabulous job.  Not for the holidays (although those are nice, not least because after six or seven weeks at school the average child is exhausted and incapable of learning anything more), but for the kids.  They really are the most difficult, wonderful, unpredictable, funny, silly, intelligent people to work alongside.  Day after day of little adult contact can send you somewhat doolally, but my gosh it's worth it.  If you like a tidy desk, always knowing what will come next, and to switch off from work when you go home then trust me, teaching is not the job for you.  But - the endless derision and constant attacks we face from politicians and the media aside - I really wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

Day 7: Ten steps to feeling body positive

Image via Autostraddle

I read something the other day that said the average British woman worries about her size and shape every fifteen minutes. Every fifteen fucking minutes! Now, to be fair this was a Grazia magazine survey and, as I will discuss later, women's magazines are a special kind of nutso about weight, leading to their readers probably being a self-selecting group.  But still. 

Despite pretty much always being on the larger side - I'm a size 14/16 now - I've never been particularly negative about my body.  And by making a really concerted effort over the past few years I have got to a place where I can honestly say that I worry about my size and shape pretty much never. 

So what is being body positive?  Simply put, it's about not only not hating your body, but trying to actively like it.  It's about not participating in common discourses around womens bodies, but instead recognising how they are used to oppress us.  It's about using your mental energy for something more useful than worrying about the size of your hips.  Body positivism is linked to radical fat activisim and being fat positive, but you don't have to identify as fat to be body positive. 

1. Surround yourself with the right people
That is, people who won't talk about diets or pinch their thighs while moaning about how fat they are. It's amazing the difference that hanging out with truly body positive people will make. If your friends tend towards self-hate when you're together, then simply choose to not participate. Conversations shut down pretty quickly when one person doesn't take part.

2. Search out images of real women
By which I emphatically don't mean all that bullshit about 'real women have curves'. Rather, I mean make sure you are regularly seeing non-airbrushed images of women who aren't models or actressess: women of all shapes and sizes, from the smallest to the largest. Search out fashion bloggers who have diverse bodies (an enormous step towards me feeling totally body positive was discovering bloggers like Lilli, Claire and Carla, whose bodies reflected my own). Read websites such as xojane.com, which show women of all sizes and shapes. Read radfat zines and books, the content of which can be extremely helpful in your journey to become body positive, no matter what your size.

3. Put down that copy of Closer magazine

Seriously, womens magazines - and especially gossip mags - are the devil. Feeling positive about your own body is not going to happen easily if you're reading articles about how to get a 'beach body' (whatever that may be) or about stars 'flaunting' their curves (for 'flaunting' read: leaving the house while over a size 10). There are some great alternatives to mainstream womens media (I wrote about some of them here) which won't make you feel like your body is something flawed that needs to be fixed. And whatever you do, DO NOT look at Mail Online!

4. Ignore the size of clothes when shopping

I discussed in a post here why the size on the label means less than nothing.  When trying on something that doesn't fit, it is tempting to believe that the problem is you, that the issue is your body, and that if only your boobs were smaller, or your legs longer, or your hips narrower, then all would be well. We almost never blame what is obviously at fault: the garment itself. Designed for a narrow range of shapes (almost certainly none of which match your own unique and wonderful one), the clothes on the high street are the problem, not you. 

5. Know what suits you 
To feel positive about your body, you need to feel positive about what you're wearing, and this is one of two approaches to take when shopping (and the one that works for me).  I know exactly what suits me and have what my friends would agree is an almost slavish devotion to tea dresses, which nip me in at the waist and suit my short stature, or skinny jeans and Breton tops.  I know what looks good on me and - more importantly - what I feel comfortable wearing, so to a large extent I ignore what the latest fashions are and just wear what I've been wearing for years.  Or alternatively...

6. Embrace the maxim: Fuck Flattering
Not something I've managed for myself yet, but one I admire greatly.  There are some fabulous fatshion bloggers out there who embrace their bellies and wear what the hell they like, regardless of whether society deems it 'flattering'.  I suppose my love of striped Breton tops could fall into this category too; how many magazine articles must I have read as a teenager, telling me chubby girls can't wear horizontal stripes?!

7. Focus on what your body is rather than what it isn't
The thing that finally got rid of any remaining dislike of my own body was when I started to hike and ride a bike.  It's really hard to vilify thighs that are capable of hauling you up a mountain, or cycling 20 miles.  The human body is an incredible thing and it seems almost insulting to waste time focusing on your flabby arms when those arms sew or bake or draw beautifully.

8. Diet is a dirty word
A smart, savvy, funny woman I work with made a comment the other day that she'd been on a diet for "the best part of thirty years".  Possibly hyperbolic, but the sentiment is one that many women will be familiar with.  However, the truth is that the diet industry - Weight Watchers, Slimming World and their ilk - just doesn't work long-term.  If it did, there wouldn't be much of an industry to speak of.  I really don't see the point of worrying about every mouthful, of counting every calorie, in a doomed attempt to shed pounds.  There is abundant medical evidence to show that you will be healthier if you are 'overweight' and active, than if you are 'underweight'* and active.  Far better to eat what you want, when you're hungry, and not feel miserable about denying yourself.

* in quotation marks because these terms are based on the much-derided BMI system.

9. Throw out the scales
Weight really means very little; muscle weighs more than fat, for example. This is something most of us know theoretically, but in practice find it harder to apply to our own bodies. But I don't think it's a coincidence that I have never really fallen prey to body negativity, and I have also never owned a pair of scales.  Simply put, I don't give a shit how much I weigh.  My body works just fine at the weight it is, so why would I want to change it?

10. Fat is a feminist issue
Susie Orbach's seminal 1970's feminist text is as true today as it was then.  Ultimately, refusing to participate in patriarchal ideals of what constitutes a 'correct' or 'attractive' female body is a feminist response.  Choosing to love yourself and your body is a massive "fuck you" to the oppressive forces that work in society. 

Day 6: Stress awareness day

I always thought that I dealt with stress well.  But I discovered recently that ,while my mind might be processing the stress ok, my body really isn't.
 
I'd been suffering with terrible headaches for months, and slowly realised that they were actually starting in my jaw and radiating to my temples.  A chat with The Boy confirmed what I already suspected: I've been grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw at night, to the point where the whole joint is in agony every morning.

It makes sense really: I work in a high-stress profession and this year I am being challenged with a new role which I love, but which is taking up a lot of extra time and energy.  Then a recent family bereavement led to all sorts of things to think about and process.  I guess my body was telling me that I need to chill out.

Long-term, there are solutions I can seek with my dentist and my GP, but this weekend I needed to find a short-term solution to the stress and pain.  And my solution?

JUST STOP.

Stop everything.  Cancel plans.  Don't set my usual goals for the weekend.  Expect to achieve nothing.

This was so hard for me.  I like to be busy at weekends, out and about in Leicester or travelling, or if I'm at home I'll make a list as long as your arm of things to bake, sew, write, read, watch...

I didn't do any of that.  I just hibernated and slept and ate and hung out with my boy.  I did do some making and baking, in the end, because I felt like it.  And I went for a walk.  But that's it.  And on Monday morning I felt a million times better.  My jaw and head still aching a bit, but a tolerable level of pain rather than "oh my gosh, I want to rip my head off".

It was a real learning experience for me, to realise that it can be ok to pause and take time out.  I just hope I remember that in future, before the stress and pain get as bad.

Day 5: Book review guest post

Not only is Daire, who blogs at Doing It The Open Way, doing #BEDN but she is also running her own month of special posts.  Non Fic November is Daire's attempt to widen her reading repertoire after she felt she was ignoring a rich seam of books in favour of reading fiction almost exclusively.  I, too, tend to rely on fiction for most of my reading, and my 'non-fiction to-read' shelf is much fuller than its novel counterpart, so I decided to get on board with Non Fic November and do a couple of guest posts for Daire.  The first one went up on Sunday and you can read it here: a review of Beth Ditto's marvellous memoir Coals To Diamonds.  If you've read it, I'd love to know what you think.

Day 4: More vegan treats

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about how being with a vegan has changed my cooking habits.  One of my favourite things to do has been to find alternative versions of recipes I would make anyway; the vegan lemon cake recipe I posted then is a big hit in this respect.

Once the nights start drawing in and it gets chilly, I like to keep warm in the kitchen baking calorific treats.  One of my favourites has always been rocky road, using this recipe of Nigella's.  But how to veganise something that includes lashings of butter, chocolate and marshmallows?  I experimented this weekend, and I have to say the finished article is - in my brother's words - scrum-diddly-umptious.

Photo via the BBC, because I forgot to take pictures yesterday.  So imagine these without marshmallows (god, I'm a crap blogger sometimes!)

Vegan rocky road squares

 

300g plain chocolate (but make sure it contains no milk powder, which lots of plain chocolate does)

100g soya or vegetable margarine

3 tbsp golden syrup

120g rich tea biscuits (again, ensure they're vegan; they almost always are)

70g raisins

50g glace cherries

50g pistachios

The last four ingredients can be messed around with to your heart's content.  Fancy dried cranberries?  Wack them in.  Want more biscuit and less nut?  Not a problem.  Just aim for about 300g of dry ingredients overall.

Melt the margarine, chocolate and golden syrup in a Pyrex bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Remove from the heat, scoop out about 125ml/4½fl oz of the melted mixture and set aside in a bowl.
Place the biscuits into a plastic freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin until some have turned to crumbs but there are still pieces of biscuit remaining.
Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, then add the pistachios, raisins and glace cherries.
Tip the mixture into a 24cm/9in square baking tin (lined with greasproof paper) and smooth the top with a wet spatula.
Pour over the reserved 125ml/4½fl oz of the melted chocolate mixture and smooth the top with a wet spatula.
Refrigerate for about two hours or overnight.
To serve, cut into squares. And try not to eat them all at once.

Day 3: Light

Sunlight on a canal, Amsterdam, October 2012

 

 Light through the trees, Denby Dale, October 2012

 



Light installation, Yorkshire Scuplture Park, September 2013

Day 2: Made: An anniversary album

The Boy and I celebrated our first anniversary earlier this week, which was a pretty big deal for me as I haven't managed a functional relationship longer than three months since I was about 18 (what can I say?  I'm pretty picky!).  If you've been around here for a while, you'll know that I'd pretty much given up on love when - wham - there he was.  So, I wanted to make something special for him and, after seeing Zoe's birthday scrapbook on Ladybird Likes a while ago, I knew I'd found my answer.

 

Because we spent eight of the past twelve months in a long distance relationship, I had plenty of photographs from our various trips and visits (although rather less photographs that actually featured us; I am something of a camera-phobe).  As I'm an inveterate hoarder, I'd stashed stacks of tickets and scribbled notes too, which all came in handy when assembling the album.  And my vintage map collection and heart-shaped hole punch were out in force, adding something extra to each section.  The photo album itself came from Paperchase and is made of lovely quality, thick paper with a sweet ribbon tie.

 

And the best thing about the album?  It's not even half full, so we can go on making memories together for a long time to come...



 

 

Day 1: Welcome to #BEDN (Or: I must be mad to be doing this again)

Awkward expression + dressing gown in background = perfect selfie, right?

Well, I must be mad.  After blogging every day in May - and nearly having a breakdown in the process - I'm not sure what has possessed me to sign up for Blog Every Day in November.  Actually, I am.  Since my boyfriend moved back to the UK in September, my time for blogging has become ever-more squeezed, and so I wanted to try something that would shift my focus back onto the blog for a while.  November is a crazy busy month at school and at home, so I think it's highly likely that I'll fail in the challenge but hey, I said that in May and surprised myself!

So, a few facts about me...

1. I'm an English teacher in a middle school in Leicestershire.
2. I'm a queer feminist, increasingly radically so.
3. I'm truly, madly, deeply (and annoyingly) in love with my boyfriend of one year, after being single for ten (yes TEN!) years.  So I think I'm allowed the annoying bit. We've also just spent eight months living in different countries.
4. I'm a reader before all else.  Music, crafts, cooking, baking... I love them all, but reading and books are an essential part of me.
5. My mum is gay, so when I talk about my step-mum on here, it's her partner not my dad's (he also has a partner, but I think she'd be pretty horrified if I referred to her as my step-mum!).
6. I like polka dots, things with birds on them, brogues, Breton tops, and all of those other hipster blogger cliches.
7. My alarm goes off at 6.20 every morning and I will never get used to it.  I'm just not a morning person.
8. I'm pretty sure I don't ever want children.
9. My goal is to clear my debts so I can take a career break and return to uni to read for a Masters in Gender Studies...
10. ... BUT my love of travel seems to foil that whole 'debt-free' plan every time I try.