Battle Kitten: Ascension

[Owlet]

Yay for self-lovin! Boo to ankle! Yay to voting! (boo to the candidates but I shouldn't get into that... happy thoughts!) But seriously, good on you for trying to go for a run, and even more good on you for knowing when to stop and not fuck up your ankle. You must've sprained it reeeallly well huh, can't believe it's still playing up. Fingers crossed for you it feels better next week. 

[Sylvaa]

3 hours ago, Owlet said:

Yay for self-lovin! 

This will never stop being funny to me. I am that person.

 

So the internet ate my last post about how we keep answering questions again, and I'm sure it'll turn up as soon as I post this. But I just wanted to say that you are awesome and even though you don't realize it, the fact that you keep trying and overcoming, is amazing! And I am proud of you. 

 

Also, I love your tattoo. And @Severine is really pretty (did I say that already?).

 

[fleaball]

2 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

This will never stop being funny to me. I am that person.

 

So the internet ate my last post about how we keep answering questions again, and I'm sure it'll turn up as soon as I post this. But I just wanted to say that you are awesome and even though you don't realize it, the fact that you keep trying and overcoming, is amazing! And I am proud of you. 

 

Also, I love your tattoo. And @Severine is really pretty (did I say that already?).

 

I'm pretty sure my thread is populated by 10-year-old boys in disguise. Myself included. 

 

Awww, thanks. Keep saying things like that and I might actually have to believe them, =P And thanks about the tattoo as well

 

I'm not sure if you did, but I realized I did not and totally meant to! So ditto @Severine

 

3 hours ago, Owlet said:

Yay for self-lovin! Boo to ankle! Yay to voting! (boo to the candidates but I shouldn't get into that... happy thoughts!) But seriously, good on you for trying to go for a run, and even more good on you for knowing when to stop and not fuck up your ankle. You must've sprained it reeeallly well huh, can't believe it's still playing up. Fingers crossed for you it feels better next week. 

I think it's more that I haven't been doing the rehab as much as I should have. I've been really inconsistent.

[Severine]

Did you actually just apologize for doing the smart thing and being careful with your recovering ankle? I think you did. I'm going to have to summon the nopetopus:

 

 

 

[fleaball]

3 minutes ago, Severine said:

Did you actually just apologize for doing the smart thing and being careful with your recovering ankle? I think you did. I'm going to have to summon the nopetopus:

 

 

 

This is mildly terrifying. It's less about the not running and more about the not doing it with you? Which are two different things in my head but I guess not in reality. That happens fairly often.

[Severine]

4 minutes ago, fleaball said:

It's less about the not running and more about the not doing it with you? Which are two different things in my head but I guess not in reality. That happens fairly often.

 

Maybe it'll make you feel better to know that it's kind of a relief, because this means that I can do 2 sessions per week this week (which seems likely) and not fall behind.

 

Oh, and I think your tattoo is wonderful, not only because the Arabic script is beautiful but also because your explanation makes it clear that it's really representative/meaningful for you and I really love it when people decide to make their body their own (through tattoos or clothing or dance or whatever) while totally disregarding the foolish judgment of narrow-minded onlookers.

 

Also, thanks to both you and @Sylvaa but it always feels very weird to me when people say nice things about pictures of me because I'm incredibly unphotogenic and also have a hard time seeing past the flaws I know are there (my mouth is asymmetrical! My skin is blotchy! I have bags under my eyes! etc) but I am working really hard to change that so I am trying to experience the compliment as a nice thing and not as gateway to self-criticism. We'll see how that goes  >.>

 

I know you're not doing this challenge, but if you're going to try to force yourself to stick to a schedule for something, the rehab exercises for your ankle seem like a good cause to me.

 

[fleaball]

14 minutes ago, Severine said:

 

Maybe it'll make you feel better to know that it's kind of a relief, because this means that I can do 2 sessions per week this week (which seems likely) and not fall behind.

 

Oh, and I think your tattoo is wonderful, not only because the Arabic script is beautiful but also because your explanation makes it clear that it's really representative/meaningful for you and I really love it when people decide to make their body their own (through tattoos or clothing or dance or whatever) while totally disregarding the foolish judgment of narrow-minded onlookers.

 

Also, thanks to both you and @Sylvaa but it always feels very weird to me when people say nice things about pictures of me because I'm incredibly unphotogenic and also have a hard time seeing past the flaws I know are there (my mouth is asymmetrical! My skin is blotchy! I have bags under my eyes! etc) but I am working really hard to change that so I am trying to experience the compliment as a nice thing and not as gateway to self-criticism. We'll see how that goes  >.>

 

I know you're not doing this challenge, but if you're going to try to force yourself to stick to a schedule for something, the rehab exercises for your ankle seem like a good cause to me.

 

Yeah, that helps.  

 

Thank you! I also have one on my ankle that says "traduire c'est trahir" ('to translate is to betray' or 'translation is betrayal' in French). It's a proverb or something and was in the introduction to one of my French lit books in college. As soon as I saw it I was like "I love this quote." Idk, it just jumped at me. I have a hard time explaining that one to people too because it just doesn't make sense? I think it sounds terrible in English. But the point of this long-ass story is that when I was in the hospital last fall one of the nurses was like "oh, so you're a translator?" out of nowhere when she saw it, and when I said no she made this really angry face? I have no idea what the fuck her problem was or how I managed to offend her. She could clearly read it but she's not a translator either, so there?

 

Dude I hear you. Just smile and nod. We'll get there eventually.

 

Yeah. Definitely going to be doing that every day now. Le sigh.

[RES]

21 minutes ago, Severine said:

because I'm incredibly unphotogenic

We are obviously looking at different pictures....cause you're HOT!!

 

 

[fleaball]

RES never lies.

[Severine]

10 minutes ago, fleaball said:

Thank you! I also have one on my ankle that says "traduire c'est trahir" ('to translate is to betray' or 'translation is betrayal' in French). It's a proverb or something and was in the introduction to one of my French lit books in college. As soon as I saw it I was like "I love this quote." Idk, it just jumped at me. I have a hard time explaining that one to people too because it just doesn't make sense? I think it sounds terrible in English.

Oh, man. So I have more opinions about translation as a concept than reasonable people should probably have. And they boil down to the idea that translation doesn't actually exist in the sense of taking an idea expressed in one language and fully conveying it in another. There's just too much that cannot be transferred, too many implications and assumptions and references to larger cultural concepts etc. etc. In the practical sense, of course, sure, translation is useful and important and can be highly effective at making communication happen. But I'm a strong believer in the idea that if you really want to fully experience a book or a movie or a song or whatever, you need to learn enough of the language and culture to see all the things that can't be translated. 

 

Bonus embarrassing story: Once when I was in Scotland two people I didn't know were arguing at the adjacent table in a pub about the exact meaning of a certain word in some bible quote they seemed really concerned about. Which was kind of weird to hear in a pub, but whatever. I was pretty tipsy and decided to helpfully inform them that their entire conversation was irrelevant because they were talking about an English translation of words written in Greek. I told them where in the Classics library they could find a copy of the New Testament and a Greek lexicon but they did not appreciate my comments. At least I got them to agree on something: that I was an asshole.

 

I think I mentioned this in passing, but I am a bit of a language dork. My undergrad degree was in Latin and Ancient Greek language and literature (my Greek I don't use much anymore but I still read in Latin all the time), and I learned French twice - once (poorly) because Canadians have to and then (much better) because I decided I liked it. I can read some German but not speak it (had to learn for Latin scholarship reasons) and have a working knowledge of conversational Russian because (a) I like the literature and (b) my partner D is Russian and half the relatives don't speak English. I know enough Italian to travel pleasantly and seduce people with low standards for conversational sophistication. My next plan is Spanish, which is beautiful and highly useful.

[fleaball]

10 minutes ago, Severine said:

Oh, man. So I have more opinions about translation as a concept than reasonable people should probably have. And they boil down to the idea that translation doesn't actually exist in the sense of taking an idea expressed in one language and fully conveying it in another. There's just too much that cannot be transferred, too many implications and assumptions and references to larger cultural concepts etc. etc. In the practical sense, of course, sure, translation is useful and important and can be highly effective at making communication happen. But I'm a strong believer in the idea that if you really want to fully experience a book or a movie or a song or whatever, you need to learn enough of the language and culture to see all the things that can't be translated. 

 

Bonus embarrassing story: Once when I was in Scotland two people I didn't know were arguing at the adjacent table in a pub about the exact meaning of a certain word in some bible quote they seemed really concerned about. Which was kind of weird to hear in a pub, but whatever. I was pretty tipsy and decided to helpfully inform them that their entire conversation was irrelevant because they were talking about an English translation of words written in Greek. I told them where in the Classics library they could find a copy of the New Testament and a Greek lexicon but they did not appreciate my comments. At least I got them to agree on something: that I was an asshole.

 

I think I mentioned this in passing, but I am a bit of a language dork. My undergrad degree was in Latin and Ancient Greek language and literature (my Greek I don't use much anymore but I still read in Latin all the time), and I learned French twice - once (poorly) because Canadians have to and then (much better) because I decided I liked it. I can read some German but not speak it (had to learn for Latin scholarship reasons) and have a working knowledge of conversational Russian because (a) I like the literature and (b) my partner D is Russian and half the relatives don't speak English. I know enough Italian to travel pleasantly and seduce people with low standards for conversational sophistication. My next plan is Spanish, which is beautiful and highly useful.

DUUUUUUDE I totally left this out of my explanation but yesss. Like one of the reasons I like it so much is that I want to learn as many languages as possible so I can figure out the meanings by myself instead of trying to infer something from other people's interpretations. Like the 'betrayal' is changing the meaning and such when you translate it.  A+ to culture as well because yeah, words are fucking meaningless without the larger context. (Have I mentioned I'm studying intercultural communication? Because yeah.) (When I was in high school I translated an entire musical for a friend who didn't speak French and half the time I sat staring at my computer going "I know exactly what this guy is saying but how the fuck do you say it in English?!") 

 

Dude I would totally do that. Not because I know Greek or anything but because I'm bitter and had to sit through theology classes in high school and omg yes, how many people translated the damn bible you're arguing about?! Islam is totally onto something with the Quran not being translated. (Hi NSA. Nothing to see here.) 

 

Uggggh I wanted to take Latin but had no room for it in either high school or college D: I'm jealous. I majored in French but haven't used it in five and a half years beyond changing the audio tracks on Netflix when I get bored. I can understand written or very slowly spoken Spanish but lack the vocabularly to have a conversation. (I tested into 3rd semester Spanish, only missed 4th semester by like 10 points, but on day 1 of class I couldn't answer a damn question despite seemingly being the only one in the room who knew what she was asking.) I was at mid-intermediate level in Arabic but haven't used that either. And I know random bits of other languages, like Japanese vocab from years of watching anime. I need to strengthen my French and Arabic because it's embarassing to have gotten to the levels I did and not use them anymore, and I need to buckle down on Spanish because it's too useful not to learn when I can already half-ass it pretty well. Beyond that I've started German, Irish, Welsh, Turkish, and Norwegian on Duolingo and am signed up for alerts on several others. I may have a problem.

[Severine]

I'm jealous about the Arabic. Really want to learn it but I know it's difficult and I feel like I don't currently have the time it'd take to commit to learning it properly. Someday, though.

 

I don't know much about Turkish except that it has a very useful gender neutral pronoun - my partner L worked with a woman who spoke fluent Turkish and I talked with the coworker about the language for quite a while but that was my main takeaway. Would make life so much easier for English speakers! So that's enough to endear me to Turkish. 

 

Mandarin has some cool stuff going on with verbs and is in general almost entirely without inflection, which I think would be interesting (and probably immensely confusing) and I think tonal languages are cool so that is also on my hopefully-someday list.

 

Also Icelandic is very cool even though it'd be a stupid language to learn because the country is so tiny and they all speak English anyway. But man, I really loved Iceland when I was there.

[fleaball]

I didn't find Arabic nearly as hard as everyone says it's supposed to be. I don't know if I didn't get far enough into it or what. The problem I have is that each country's dialect is different and while most of them are mutually intelligible, the textbook version is definitely not close to the dialects. So part of me wonders what the point is in continuing if I don't have my sights set on a particular country or a definite career in the region. 

 

My roommate spent a year in Turkey. There are a lot of words similar to Arabic but I'm not sure what the grammar is like, considering the language only came about in the early 1900s. That is super awesome though. More languages need gender neutral pronouns. 

 

I have no desire to learn any variety of Chinese and I don't know why. Not because it's "too hard" or anything. They just don't interest me. Although the tonal aspect is very cool and if I had to learn it for some reason I would probably geek out.

 

@zenLara is working on Icelandic! You two can be friends. That looks really cool too. 

 

I'm sort of cheating with my languages. At least, if I actually get going on it. French led me to Spanish (which covers France, Spain, a chunk of Africa, Vietnam, and Latin America), and with those two I should be able to bullshit Italian and possibly a bit of Portuguese. German will give me a base for Dutch (a few more African countries) and Norwegian, and my Norwegian friend assures me Danish and Swedish are essentially the same as her language so I'll be covered there. I'm interested in Russian but it's not quite so high on my list, though it would knock off most of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. So yeah, definitely working my way toward world domination at some point...

[Lara]

I see your battle log has derived in a language/translation discussion

I have the same trouble with translations. Every language has its own nuances and connotations so words don't necessarily mean the same when translating. So yes, for me translating also implies a "betrayal" to the original text. Specially with good writers, that deliberately choose words that express precisely what they feel. I think poetry translation is specially damaging, even between close languages.

And I also find @Severine is very beautiful!

[Owlet]

Yay languages! I only know German lol, I'm intimidated and impressed by you guys. And reminded that learning Danish was meant to be part of my challenge this time around. Obsessed with Denmark and Scandinavia in general after watching Danish TV programs lol. They make everything look cool dammit. Icelandic seems near impossible but so cool! Want to go there so bad.

[Briniel]

Can't offer much re: languages (I'm with Owlet, except that the language I'd want to work on is French), but I just wanted to throw in (albeit late) that Carpool Karaoke is the BEST. I love it!

And that tattoo is so pretty, who cares what people think

[Sylvaa]

I'd love to learn more languages, but time is so hard to find!

 

I lived in Germany as a small child and learned German as a result (moved back to the states at 5 and spoke a weird combination of German and English for a while). I understand a lot, can speak some, but can't read or write very much. I've been toying with the idea of reading a book in German to see how much I can reclaim.

 

I also learned a bit of Arabic when I was dating a guy who was Egyptian (as in his parents emigrated from there and his grandparents still lived there) and it didn't seem that bad, but I didn't get too far. 

 

I've been toying with Spanish a bit because I think it'd be useful to learn and I really like the idea of being able to spy on conversations. 

 

That freaking nopetopus is both creepy and fascinating at the same time. 

[fleaball]

Actual post to come in a bit when I get home but I'm dropping this here so I don't forget: for next week my therapist wants me to think about who I'll be/what life will look like when I'm done with therapy and "better" and have managed to deal with my anxiety. It's the kind of thing I'd wind up rambling about here anyway so you'll probably see it in the future. >_> 

[fleaball]

HOKAY. SO. Ugh, Wednesdays. Wake up, realize I could have slept much later, dick around until oh shit, I needed to be out the door half an hour ago. Not really, I was still half an hour early for my dentist appointment because this is like the first time the metro hasn't been fucked up (at least on the line I needed), but I did lose my metro card with at least $15 on it, and I didn't have enough time to do a thing I wanted to do before my appointment, which was the entire reason I set my alarm so early in the first place but totally forgot about. >>

 

Anyway. So my therapist totally approves of @Sylvaa's challenges and actually asked me to send them to her to use with other people. We talked about why my immediate reaction was "lol nope" and the conclusion is kind of hard to articulate, but basically breaking down the negative things I think about myself and realizing that I can do things (some of the later prompts are "something you're proud of," "something you've done right," "wear something that makes you feel sexy" which, ha) and essentially shattering the narrative I've been living so far means I have to face that there are possibilities for me - jobs to apply to that I'd otherwise tell myself I'm not qualified for or just can't do, closer relationships (romantic and otherwise) because I actually am worthy of love, etc. And that shit is scary. 

 

I thought about moving all this shit to a blog and just linking it here but fuck it, anxiety is just as much a battle as the rest of it. 

 

So we talked about how my first instinct is to be sarcastic and make self-deprecating jokes for all my responses. And then I mentioned the post about my grandparents and how that was good to write and then blah blah "unresolved guilt but whatever." And of course she was like "Oh? Let's talk about that." So by the end of the appointment this was me: 

 

Jesus Christ he's such an ugly crier. Which is hilarious vs Jensen. But I digress. 

 

Actually I've completely lost whatever point I was going for here because I've gotten distracted half a dozen times since starting this post. Moving on. 

 

Challenge Day 8: (includes NSFW pictures, but not the exciting kind) (I just keep disappointing @RES , I know it.)

Spoiler

• Share a scar
  • At first I was like "omfg what do I do here bc my only physical scars of note are cat scratches?" But then I remembered this, which I always forget about because it's not a bad thing:
  • 
  • I took several pictures and couldn't get it to come out any more visible, and also those dark spots are just shadows and not actually dark. This was like, the most awkward picture to try to take just because of placement. But anyway. In 2013 I had breast reduction surgery and it was probably the best decision I ever made in my fucking life. I'd put it off forever because for whatever damn reason I assumed insurance wouldn't cover it. But at that point I was wearing 38HH and fuck that shit. I only weighed 185 at that point, still overweight but defintely not enough to blame my boobs entirely on that. (Of course I gained a bunch of weight after that so I've never really been able to enjoy it, but shh.) So the scars basically go from my side (where that weird pointy bit is) and look like this:
  •  
  • They're wonky but I didn't realize until trying to take a damn picture that they've faded a lot. Still not very attractive but I have exactly zero fucks available. One side looks better than the other scar-wise because apparently two different people did the stitches and somebody was clearly not as good as the other, but I'll take it. I don't know if it's too late for scar cream but I might try that, only because the wonkiest bit always catches me off guard if I catch it in the mirror quickly and think something's wrong. But beyond that I am extremely happy that these scars exist. 
  • That was the longest most unnecessary explanation but I am still so happy about this that I got enthusiastic and I'm not sorry. 

 

[Sylvaa]

Holy crap, I got therapist approval? In reality, I'm super glad that this is (hopefully) helping you and might help other people. I mean, they are only off the internet, so it's not like I made them, but yay!

 

Also, yeah, your scars are very light. That's such a cool reason to have a scar too! (If it makes you feel better, I've only got cat scratches and accident scars). 

[fleaball]

11 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

Holy crap, I got therapist approval? In reality, I'm super glad that this is (hopefully) helping you and might help other people. I mean, they are only off the internet, so it's not like I made them, but yay!

 

Also, yeah, your scars are very light. That's such a cool reason to have a scar too! (If it makes you feel better, I've only got cat scratches and accident scars). 

haha yep. And you get credit for making me do it, at least. Honestly I think it is helping already. That or it's just very coincidental that this past week has been a much better week than i've had in a while. 

 

The only reason I wish I had cooler scars is because they would presumably come with cool stories. (Yours was great.) But I'm also okay with not fucking up my body by accident lol. 

[Sylvaa]

1 minute ago, fleaball said:

The only reason I wish I had cooler scars is because they would presumably come with cool stories. (Yours was great.) But I'm also okay with not fucking up my body by accident lol. 

 

Unfortunately, my best stories don't even have scars (I've had stitches in my tongue). 

 

And I hope it's helping! It's so easy to tell people you think they are awesome, but it's so much harder to think that about yourself! Here's to an even better week next week!

[fleaball]

5 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

 

Unfortunately, my best stories don't even have scars (I've had stitches in my tongue). 

 

And I hope it's helping! It's so easy to tell people you think they are awesome, but it's so much harder to think that about yourself! Here's to an even better week next week!

Ahhhhhh I am cringing that must have hurt like a bitch. (Every so often I consider piercing my tongue but I am a chicken.)

 

Someone posted on the Academy FB group earlier "make a list of things you love." and then after a few lines "I'm curious to see how long it took you to say yourself."

[RES]

3 hours ago, fleaball said:

Challenge Day 8: (includes NSFW pictures, but not the exciting kind) (I just keep disappointing @RES , I know it.)

yes ma'am you do...but I have hope so I keep returning

I couldn't even see the scar until you pointed it out...

[Lara]

6 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

I've had stitches in my tongue

 

omg! They can do that?  O_O

 

6 hours ago, fleaball said:

Someone posted on the Academy FB group earlier "make a list of things you love." and then after a few lines "I'm curious to see how long it took you to say yourself."

 

Haha! I did a course on partnership and team work many years ago in an old job and one of the exercises was to make a list of the most important people in your life. It didn't even cross my mind to put myself on it. It goes without saying it was a real eye-opener.