A Day of Many Things (by sarah)

I am resting my bones today - I've had a hectic last few days and after a fall and during a bit of a flare up. This means I am doing Easter crafts with the girls and there will be a picnic in the garden.

Yesterday however was a day of many things.

It started early with getting Mary to nursery and Al to work, then me and Jeany walked from Al's office into Gloucester to the climbing wall. Jeany had her second climbing session of the holidays - this time Rock Ratz instead of Rock Mice, which is more challenging for her. Whilst she was in the session I did two hours of course work for my PGCert in Practical Science Communication.

Then once she was out and we were eating lunch, I did some art practice which is important for both the comic book and my college project. I drew eyes.

(Some of them I made up myself but most of them come from a manga drawing book.

We then went to the library where we bumped into two lots of friends 🙂 Jeany hunted easter eggs in the children's Library whilst I looked at story line, set out and drawing styles in various graphic novels - my conclusion is that I've been worrying too much about my drawings and my story lines are more coherent and less bitty (I think), than those I got through yesterday.

Jean won a wrist band and we moved on as I had a voucher for a free coffee 🙂 We sat in the coffee shop - Jean had picked up a for sale book at the library - just a bit of light reading you understand!

Apparently it is book five of a series and she wants the rest :/

I worked on my college work again and then scripted 3 pages of comic book, Jeany kept nagging me as she wants to know what happens in the rest of it and I'm not writing it fast enough apparently!

We then picked up a watering can and few other bits, I found a grumpy cat graffiti and we saw street performers though we didn't stop as Jeany wanted to go and read - she has said she wants to be a street performer and she is SOOOOO going to be a scientist. 😀

She got mistaken for being 12 a lot - that's 4 yrs older than she is.

We then walked down to Al's office again (Jean was navigating as I'm a bit out of it at the moment - couldn't find the library from the climbing wall!), all bundled in the car to go and get Mary. It was Mary's parents evening at nursery so we picked her up and had a picnic in the park. Al then went off to the kid free parent evening to get the little report and be shown her work whilst I stayed at the park with the girls. I am so proud of my little climber - she really hurtles up things 🙂

They really loved the spiny thing in the park.

I also found blossom to photograph for my 100 Flowers in 100 Days Challenge.

Then it was off to Copa in Cheltenham for a improve/acting/comedy workshop with the lovely Joy Amy - again this is actually part of what I am developing for college. I can't make a production without understanding stage craft and though the workshop was comedy a lot of the skills will be transferable and when dealing with kids being able to improvise is always important.

Whilst I was in learning how to be comedic, Alaric and the girls went off to Cranham to pick up some furniture his cousins have given us for the girls.

It was a busy day.

Identifying, Identity and stuff (by sarah)

(found amongst "drafts" and backblogged to the date last edited)

Due to stuff I have been studying, to help with inclusion and the broader reach of say Science Communication, I have been thinking. Who do I identify with?

This is interesting for me as during a debate with a poetry friend I discovered that other people have these groups they feel part of and those groups give them a sense of identity. I do not have this; there are groups I dip in and out of, that if I really tried I suppose I could become properly a part of. But often that seems to be a trade off, i.e. losing the other parts or ignoring them or pretending they don't exist.

I am a mishmash, there is no culture or identity for me, other than that that I make my own. I can pass for white middle class but, in honesty, not very well. I have the resources of the middle class and am sort of shell shocked to find myself in such a position, but attitude and behaviour can be vastly different.

When I left school I thought I'd left pettiness behind, such as people cutting your clothes with scissors as they are 'pikey' cloths, or setting your hair on fire as you've obviously stolen it from someone with darker skin, or having stones thrown at you for being a witch and a bible basher, or having your school bag nicked repeatedly so people could copy your homework and get better marks than you because they can spell and on and on. But it doesn't actually go away, as an adult I have had comments about my diction, my clothing, my hair, my childrens' hair (one incident 'do you not brush that child's hair? She looks like a ghost golliwog' (Jean's toddler curls are now gone - something she is sad about)).

I am 'white' for those who don't read the blog lots, I am in fact PALE as a pallid thing, I do however increasingly have a problem with my skin pigment trying to change and patches of skin are dark, they are mostly hidden and are the reason that I stopped wearing bikinis as a teen. It would be fine if all of me was that colour but I am not, so they look like dirty patches or like I haven't washed - I remember this being a real issue with my neck which is a slightly darker pigment, people would scrub it for me but it would never get 'clean'. Just to confuse things further I also have a skin condition/infection that acts up when I'm stressed that leaves red/brown/white brown patches on my skin and some of them are more visible especially on my arms - the difference is marked as they go scaly and itchy.

Of course if I had the figure I had as a teenager I so would wear a bikini, I don't now as I am Miss Mummy Tummy and that is a whole new identity crisis for me (or not that new as it's pretty much been the case since I had Jeany at the age of 24 and am now 33).

Interestingly I realised the reason I wasn't getting the anger over micro-aggression and stuff was because I myself had filtered it out. It just is the way things are... I still think that the correction/adaption/change is being gone about in the wrong way and being aggressive back rather than leading by example or reasonable debate and talking (What I call opening the dialogue) - obviously open aggression is another issue. There is also the thing of people getting offended on other people's behalf, there is standing up for people and then there is a patronising them in assuming they can't deal with it themselves but on the other hand calling insidious stuff out is important too. It is a huge minefield and, my policy is to treat every one like human beings.

I am in danger of derailing the post into other matters!

What I am really wondering is if other people feel this way, I have always got the impression that other people seem to feel like they're part of one group or another.

As a child people would always comment and play with my hair, even within my own family it is unusual though it is on both sides - the genetics of curly hair is still a bit confused, it is supposed to be dominant with straight hair as the recessive but people with wavy hair can have a child with full blown curls etc...and they haven't actually isolated the genes that cause it yet! Also populations with curly hair range from 'celts' to 'afro' to 'hawaiian' etc... I remember my mum's friend having to show her how to sort my hair out as brushing it was becoming a nightmare, mainly the solution was me nicking my Nan's special comb and getting leave in conditioner and not actually 'brushing' the hair except with the conditioner in etc. It is not the tight tight curl/frizz though bits of it are and if put in micro braids/dreads it stays there with now hair bands etc...

I brush it out most of the time and still get comments on my curly hair 🙂 I love my hair by the way even if it is a pain. I get called pre-raphaelite, get asked if I'm from Hawaii, get people approach me and on one occasion shouting at me for denying my heritage (what ever that is supposed to be), I had an old man in Bruge cry and say (via his curly haired daughter) that the Nazi's took all the curly haired people away when he was young. Is curly hair actually that unusual?

I find the reception differs drastically on the colour I dye it as well, so:

red = celtic
black = gypsy, Italian, Jewish and in one case arab
blonde = assumed perm? or celtic or Hawaiian (though I was asked why I had bleached my hair)
brown (natural colour though it has obvious other colours in it (all of the above) - I don't like the mash up hence the dying) = South African, Hawaiian, Australian, celtic, pre-raphaelite
Multi coloured pink, blue, purple = hippy, artist, druggy, scrounger

I have used the words that were used to me.

Do other curly haired people suffer from this? I know my accent gets confused too - it is ESSEX! Ok so I am social chameleon and accidentaly pick up inflections so there is a bit of South Ken (BBC English) and some words apparently now have a Gloucestershire twang to them especially if they are directed to the children, I also say some things with an Australian accent - blame my Dad, he was always saying stuff he'd picked up there in an accent. Also my spine is a dynamic spine (afro-carribean) and not the European (static) spine so maybe I just look odd?

I spent a lot of last night thinking about this which is stupid as it doesn't really matter, or rather shouldn't matter, mainly due to comments yesterday as I hadn't bothered to straighten my hair. They were complimentary and lovely, it just struck me as a thing after some of the accessibility lectures and debates I've seen going on recently.

There are silly things as well, like I never realised I wasn't a 'typical English Beauty' until several of the girls where marked as such on our undergraduate course. I remember feeling left out as everyone else was classified as various types (including dusky and pale etc...). And that is really stupid! But this post is about identity and indentifying and really a matter of belonging. I didn't belong to any of those groups - not that I really wanted to, but we are back to the school playground exclusion and being picked last for PE, aren't we? (To be fair I was later classified as 'natural, wild and classical' but sort when it was realised I'd been left out - this was girls talking about girls by the way.

So then I got on to thinking - well who do I identify with then?

Being a story writer and performer myself I of course turn to fiction and it has been a long time coming but of course there is Merida from Brave with her lovely curly red hair (I have waited so long for a curly haired animation!) and her tomboyish nature, then there is Diana Troy from Star Trek the Next Generation who is empathic and gentle, there is Saffy from Ab Fab who is the geeky science girl (and my nick name/twitter handle) and then there is Kaylee from Firefly - she is the only one without curly hair I note.

The others are male characters - mainly Sherlock and Sheldon (from The Big Bang Theory). I like Hermione but more in the books, her hair just was not frizzy enough in the films 😉

A lot of this stuff does come down to respecting people and not assuming stuff about them due to their looks etc...

Still wondering how rare curly hair is and what reactions others get. I asked Al and a couple of others if they had people randomly ask them in the street about their origin or ancestry and for Al it is only ever an issue if he is introduced as Alaric.

Molecular Knitting – NSEW (by sarah)

It's National Science and Engineering Week and so I have decided to release the knitting pattern to my bukcy ball (carbon 60). It will be here for free download all week 🙂

National Science And Engineering Week 2014 (by sarah)

Almost missed it this year! It's National Science and Engineering Week. I am ashamed that having gone off to study Science Communication I then almost missed one of the highlights of the year!

It runs until the 24th so there is still time for... something. Last year did a Science-Art exhibition with Centre Arts with molecular knitting and fabulous jewellery and ceramics from Lizzy Burns.

Which was amazing and fantastic and something I should have followed up this year but I have been far to busy :/

The year before I created Ballads of the Scientifica which you can still listen too or even buy though I do want to make it into a double album at some point so you might want to wait.

So what for this year?

Well I am in the middle of project design for my course and I know that the over all aim for me is to include a gaming element so some thought on sci-game design will be my own personal goal. For you lot out there I might see if I can release my molecular knitting pattern for the duration of the week.

For teachers, parents, kids groups and that there are lots of resources on the British Science Associations website so check them out 🙂

International Womens’ Day (by sarah)

It's International Womens' Day and I sort of didn't make it to the festival in London nor meet up with friends or celebrate another's birthday or any of the other things we had planned due to homework and sick kids.

I'm kind of in two minds about this sort of thing - part of me wants to say it is not needed and is just highlighting the divide but then I look in the history books, and notice the names that are not there, the ones we did not learn about in school, and the pay gap in this country between men and women, and watch the news and see girls being stoned to death for having opinions and I think... yeah this is needed to highlight those things.

I've been grumpy with the feminism stuff lately - for a start for me it is the wrong word and in general words ending in isms cause schisms. But I'd always said I was a feminist then recently I've seen talks being shut down because there was no female speakers even though the speakers and bored, were not chosen as such but came from people putting themselves forward - the issue there is that the women need to feel empowered to put themselves forward and that needs to be pointed out but not in a way that results in the shutting down of the whole event - due to the main backer pulling out for fear of public backlash. It was a pointless waste.

But that was just a bit of over kill and I understood where it had come from. However now what I am seeing is something far more insipid and down right nasty. And that is a sort of, 'your not a woman or not a woman exactly like me therefore your opinion is not valid.'

I have seen this applied to men, people of different ethnic origins/religions and economic classes and sexualities and orientations. And it makes me sad, angry and sick - how dare you say someone can not have a voice because they are not the same as you - you can disagree and debate with them yes but not crush them beneath your heels for not conforming to what you think a woman or feminists should be. This is mostly women to other women.

This attitude has highlighted for me exactly why International Womens' Day is important still, the term woman covers just over half the human population and within that there is a beautiful range of diversity and natures and stories to explore, not to mention potentials to be fostered.

Rant over... for those of you still reading I have a little favour to ask...

For next year I wish to release a little e-book of poems about inspirational women but I don't want to just use the ones I can think of so if people could nominate in the comment fields below - maybe with a link to wikipeadia though just a name is fine - that would be fab!

I've done poems for various events around International Womens' Day before and just want to create a little collection.

Thankyou!