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Uh, so the depression is still here, weighing me down.
You guys missed a lot of drama in my life because I was too wrapped up in my depression to ass myself to write, but we almost went on strike. There were two straight weeks of intensity in this area, with our union voting 82% in favor of a strike (and 2/3 of our 3,200 teachers voted), and the district and union duking it out over funds. They had all-day mediation sessions for 10 days straight, including over this weekend. It was very stressful not knowing whether we were walking or not. A lot more stressful than I expected, being in limbo. They finally reached a tentative deal at 2am this morning:
I'll update you guys when hopefully tomorrow I get to see what kind of deal was reached that apparently doesn't add to the deficit, because the whole problem was that the district said they were willing to shell out $2 million and the union was asking for $159 million over two years (lol). How they narrowed that gap while getting what we wanted has got to be some sort of magic. I'd typically be more suspicious because LAST TIME we had a contract up, we ended up getting offered more pay and literally nothing else that mattered, when that's not even what we were fighting for in the first place (that time we authorized a strike vote but never voted). This time we have a new union president and a new superintendent and I trust Nick more and that he fought tooth and nail to make this happen - hell, we almost had the first strike in our district since 1946 (which happens to have been the first organized teacher strike in the US, btw) and we have the largest district in the state.
On the work note, I can feel the crushing weight of me not doing well at my job - that is, the paperwork. I'm TIRED. ....Okay, yeah it's the depression. Struggling pretty hard over here to breathe. All I do is sleep basically. My social media consumption - particularly Facebook - increased a hundred fold since Christmas, as scrolling is definitely an escape mechanism, a way to be awake without having thoughts, etc. I finally acknowledged that this weekend, and now I'm not allowing myself to scroll anymore. Cold turkey.
One interesting thing I did was watch The Red Pill, a men's rights activist (MRA) propaganda film that my dad asked me to view and report back with my opinions. I went into it with a really defensive posture, super anxious and tight-chested. I didn't read anything about it beforehand because I wanted to keep an open mind - it was a 50/50 shot that my dad was being genuine vs trying to piss me off. Because it's a propaganda film, it was actually presented with a strong sympathetic overlay for the MRA leaders in the film, which helped ease me into the insanity. They want to take the edge off their hatred and reputation, so they were depicted as reasonable and honest-to-god misunderstood - no one can deny the fact that men do face real issues with regards to alimony, child custody, child support, homelessness and domestic violence! Those are legitimate men's issues.
There are plenty of articles about the film that you can read online - almost all of them angry or mocking, which, ironically, plays into the film's narrative that feminism is a frothing, brainwashing, extremist movement that devalues men - so I won't summarize it any further here. However, I did have to explain to my dad that the primary problem with the film is that the leaders and general followers of MRA are actually just woman-haters. And they don't want to bring men UP, they want to bring women DOWN. They present themselves in the movie as normal humans just trying to bring about equity, when in fact their day-to-day proseletyzing is in strong favor of actively abusing women.
My dad is just ignorant and misinformed. He means well, but he's been the unfortunate recipient of a lot of situations that make him completely not understand the plight of actual minorities. For example, he doesn't understand profiling because he considers himself Mexican and because he's Data from Star Trek and doesn't comprehend racial bias. He IS half-Mexican.. but he LOOKS white. NO ONE would see him and think Mexican. Sorry. When he's filling out a race/ethnicity card, he should do like me - ethncity: Hispanic, race: white. It's the truth. He also has experienced child support issues (though I'd argue his was more annoyance that my mom got the funds and not me and my sister directly), and his ex-wife Pam abused him. So he's experienced some of the things that are reasonably discussed in the movie. I did tell him I'd like to know more about his experiences with these issues, since I've only really ever heard my mom's side of anything. My dad was always very good at not letting his relationship with my mom impact our time together and never made it my problem.
I think it's a lot like when the Tea Party first became a Thing. He thought, Oh my god, fellow Americans who believe like me! He of course is the physical embodiment of the character of Ron Swanson (albeit with less humor and mustache), and the Tea Party proved to be too radical for him. Because he is staunchly anti-liberal, he has likely never seen the horror that is the general MRA. If he spent some time on those MRA forums, I can guarantee he'd be sickened and say they were a bunch of wackadoos. But it's encouraging that he's trying to find SOME group to be a part of and learn more, even if it's down the wrong path for now. The good news about my dad is that he is not one to be bought over with tricks and lies. If he continues down the MRA road he'll realize the error and move on.
You guys missed a lot of drama in my life because I was too wrapped up in my depression to ass myself to write, but we almost went on strike. There were two straight weeks of intensity in this area, with our union voting 82% in favor of a strike (and 2/3 of our 3,200 teachers voted), and the district and union duking it out over funds. They had all-day mediation sessions for 10 days straight, including over this weekend. It was very stressful not knowing whether we were walking or not. A lot more stressful than I expected, being in limbo. They finally reached a tentative deal at 2am this morning:
I'll update you guys when hopefully tomorrow I get to see what kind of deal was reached that apparently doesn't add to the deficit, because the whole problem was that the district said they were willing to shell out $2 million and the union was asking for $159 million over two years (lol). How they narrowed that gap while getting what we wanted has got to be some sort of magic. I'd typically be more suspicious because LAST TIME we had a contract up, we ended up getting offered more pay and literally nothing else that mattered, when that's not even what we were fighting for in the first place (that time we authorized a strike vote but never voted). This time we have a new union president and a new superintendent and I trust Nick more and that he fought tooth and nail to make this happen - hell, we almost had the first strike in our district since 1946 (which happens to have been the first organized teacher strike in the US, btw) and we have the largest district in the state.
On the work note, I can feel the crushing weight of me not doing well at my job - that is, the paperwork. I'm TIRED. ....Okay, yeah it's the depression. Struggling pretty hard over here to breathe. All I do is sleep basically. My social media consumption - particularly Facebook - increased a hundred fold since Christmas, as scrolling is definitely an escape mechanism, a way to be awake without having thoughts, etc. I finally acknowledged that this weekend, and now I'm not allowing myself to scroll anymore. Cold turkey.
One interesting thing I did was watch The Red Pill, a men's rights activist (MRA) propaganda film that my dad asked me to view and report back with my opinions. I went into it with a really defensive posture, super anxious and tight-chested. I didn't read anything about it beforehand because I wanted to keep an open mind - it was a 50/50 shot that my dad was being genuine vs trying to piss me off. Because it's a propaganda film, it was actually presented with a strong sympathetic overlay for the MRA leaders in the film, which helped ease me into the insanity. They want to take the edge off their hatred and reputation, so they were depicted as reasonable and honest-to-god misunderstood - no one can deny the fact that men do face real issues with regards to alimony, child custody, child support, homelessness and domestic violence! Those are legitimate men's issues.
There are plenty of articles about the film that you can read online - almost all of them angry or mocking, which, ironically, plays into the film's narrative that feminism is a frothing, brainwashing, extremist movement that devalues men - so I won't summarize it any further here. However, I did have to explain to my dad that the primary problem with the film is that the leaders and general followers of MRA are actually just woman-haters. And they don't want to bring men UP, they want to bring women DOWN. They present themselves in the movie as normal humans just trying to bring about equity, when in fact their day-to-day proseletyzing is in strong favor of actively abusing women.
My dad is just ignorant and misinformed. He means well, but he's been the unfortunate recipient of a lot of situations that make him completely not understand the plight of actual minorities. For example, he doesn't understand profiling because he considers himself Mexican and because he's Data from Star Trek and doesn't comprehend racial bias. He IS half-Mexican.. but he LOOKS white. NO ONE would see him and think Mexican. Sorry. When he's filling out a race/ethnicity card, he should do like me - ethncity: Hispanic, race: white. It's the truth. He also has experienced child support issues (though I'd argue his was more annoyance that my mom got the funds and not me and my sister directly), and his ex-wife Pam abused him. So he's experienced some of the things that are reasonably discussed in the movie. I did tell him I'd like to know more about his experiences with these issues, since I've only really ever heard my mom's side of anything. My dad was always very good at not letting his relationship with my mom impact our time together and never made it my problem.
I think it's a lot like when the Tea Party first became a Thing. He thought, Oh my god, fellow Americans who believe like me! He of course is the physical embodiment of the character of Ron Swanson (albeit with less humor and mustache), and the Tea Party proved to be too radical for him. Because he is staunchly anti-liberal, he has likely never seen the horror that is the general MRA. If he spent some time on those MRA forums, I can guarantee he'd be sickened and say they were a bunch of wackadoos. But it's encouraging that he's trying to find SOME group to be a part of and learn more, even if it's down the wrong path for now. The good news about my dad is that he is not one to be bought over with tricks and lies. If he continues down the MRA road he'll realize the error and move on.
