Well, the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder, so I can’t help but feel a pang of sadness that summer is coming to an end. Summer is my favorite season, and I always look forward to spending time outdoors with my family, enjoying the sunshine and the warmth. But living in Northern Ontario (ugh), I know that winter is just around the corner, which means months of snow, ice, and fucking darkness.
I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, which I'm sure you're already familiar with so I won't bore you with the details. I feel so hopeless when the days are gray and gloomy and have trouble staying motivated. I dread the thought of driving on our snow covered roads, scraping my windshield before I go anywhere, and bundling up in a shit ton of layers. I really do hate winter.
I have lived in Sudbury for 10 years now, but I still haven’t gotten used to the harsh winters here. I grew up in Guelph which, yes, did have winter. But the winters there offered a warmer climate, where winter was mild and short. I wish I could live somewhere where it’s summer all year round, or at least have the option to escape to a tropical destination for the winters. But that’s not realistic for me right now. I will probably have to wait until retirement to enjoy that luxury, so until then I will chase the sunshine with a vacation or two a year.
I had a wonderful summer this year with my family. We spent lots of time in our camper, traveling to different places and relaxing. We visited some beautiful lakes in some gorgeous parks. We went swimming, had picnics, bonfires, and marshmallows. We laughed, played, and cuddled. Summer to me is not long enough. I wish it could last forever.
But alas, summer is ending and fall is beginning. The kids have gone back to school and life has gone back to regular schedules. I know I have to face reality and prepare for the winter ahead. But I also know that summer will come again next year, and I will have more opportunities to make lasting memories with my loved ones.
I hope everyone enjoyed their summers as much as I did. And I hope everyone can find ways to cope with the end of summer blues.
This week, I go back to school. Wednesday and Thursday, we have professional development. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, I am still at home. My last official days of summer for this year.
This is the first Fall that I am an LPS staff member instead of EDUStaff. I haven’t ever had required PD, nor have I started back to school before my kids.
I love summer. I look forward to it every year. As…
3rd grade!!! Here he comes! I pray 🙏🏽 to God to bless my pequeño campeón this school year! And every child out there 🙏🏽🙏🏽🤩 The journey continues! Let’s go 😀😀🥹🤗😎🙌🙌 #schoolyear #1stdayofschool #laureloaks #northnaples #naplesflorida #myboy #prouddad #mysonmylife #papaorgulloso #3rdgrade #letsgo (at Laurel Oak Elementary School) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChF_i1_Ao-l/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Hi, I've been following you for a while now and I really like your blog! Today Tumblr showed me a screenshot of the "my name is Olivia" poem because you liked it. The poem makes it sound like the term "cisgender" is somewhat derogatory, am I misunderstanding it?
well, the reason i reblogged that poem (and i suspect why several mutuals did too) was because i found it amusingly naive and self-centered, as well as extremely generic.
see, there's a certain type of immature and sheltered person who also thinks of themself as deep, sensitive, and dignified. when that kind of person is also cisgender and heterosexual, they usually produce a very bad, self-righteous poem in high school about how their feelings and identity have just as much profundity as all the queer freakjobs who are having nasty sex ugly style and not coincidentally writing great poems that fuck hard.
a lot of people who are queer and trans and into poetry have met a lot of olivias.
As the familiar tune of Billy Madison's iconic back-to-school song echoes in my mind, I'm transported to a time of innocence and excitement.
Back-to-school season has this magical ability to stir up emotions and take us down memory lane. The memories of those early school days, adorned in fresh outfits and a backpack full of untouched school supplies waiting to be used, remain etched in my heart. The simple joys of childhood!
Back then, each new school year felt like an opportunity for a clean slate, a chance to start new. It's fascinating how time has a way of creating stories that sometimes unravel into unexpected twists, pushing us towards unforeseen experiences.
My own journey, once marked by being labeled 'gifted' by the school board at the age of six, took turns I didn't anticipate. Hidden beneath the surface were the struggles I faced – battling ADHD and dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic experience that I'll get into in a future post. The school board saw potential to accelerate me a grade due to my intellect, but my attitude and behavior held me back.
ADHD was something that wasn't often observed in the 90's. If it was, it was generally diagnosed in boys and then a prescription for Aderall was thrown at them. Instead of looking into the root cause of my "issues", I was labelled a "bad kid" and overlooked for the rest of my educational career.
Fast forward to the present, I stand at the intersection of the past and future, now a parent to a remarkable four year old who mirrors not only my looks but my own story of giftedness and ADHD.
Thankfully, there has been a ton of research regarding ADHD over the years which has provided us with many different avenues to assist her with obtaining the tools she needs to achieve her goals. We were presented with a unique choice: to propel her ahead a grade or to embrace the world of French immersion. Why not seize the opportunity to nurture bilingualism? She spent the last 4 months of Kindergarten completing half days in a French immersion program and witnessing her courageously adapt to this challenge fills me with pride and hope for the journey ahead. French is her Father's first spoken language, and a language used by her family members on a daily basis. I am excited for her to learn more not only so she can understand the conversations her family has, but also for her to develop skills which will prove beneficial in her future endeavors.
Back-to-school isn't just about books and pencils; it is filled with a whirlwind of dance classes, gymnastics sessions, swim lessons, birthday bashes, and school festivities. The blend of excitement and stress in these moments places me in a whirlwind of emotions that reminds me how grateful I am for the life I live.
As the school bells ring in the rhythm of life's chaos, I find myself treasuring every moment of this existence. Motherhood has given the privilege of watching my daughter unfurl her wings, learning and growing with every sunrise. Motherhood, something I never thought I would be able to experience.
On the threshold of another school year, we're ready to embrace this new chapter……Wish us luck!
My very first 3d model, still WIP but I'm stuck rn so posting it anyway
Based on my interpretation. It still misses teeth, membrane of wings, webbing on paws and fins' filling (?). I also have to remake it's texture and perhaps upscale it.
what do you think about tommy&dream situation as of right now? do you think tommy publicly cut ties with his "if youtubers were honest" video or intended to poke fun at dream and found out in his usual tommy-style? on the topic of the video, i partially view this skit as him being fed up and saying "fuck you" to twt users that try to control him and his humor. i leaned into this after he made an effort to emphasize how schlatt is his hero on the stream after
I want to walk back the post I did a little bit ago about how him saying that Florida was ‘too far’ was more likely a joke than an excuse because I think something changed around then. Don’t know what, but the friction between the time when he was excited to go to the Dream team house and pulling back really does look like a turning point in retrospect.
Tommy has become openly disdainful of Dream in public, which technically isn’t a change since he’s always picked a fight with Dream on some level, but now it’s entirely hostile. I don’t know if other people are getting this vibe, but to me Tommy seems to be coming off a lot more angry in general lately, in a way that’s a bit of a callback to when he was younger but with less Youth behind it.
Tommy has historically had a warped sense of what he is allowed to do to other people vs what other people are allowed to do to him, so I really don’t know what he expected when he put the video out cause-and-effect wise. I think that thinking of himself as being in the right really changes his view of what ‘should’ happen in situations, but his expectations are hard to read with the skit video.
Tommy did a couple streams recently and I’ve had to pick and choose what I wanted to watch since I run low on time, but I caught the product testing stream since it was short. At one point he talked about why he wanted to try reviewing products, and that he thinks he was too afraid to say what he really thought before. Now he says his attitude has changed, and he said something along the lines of: I don’t have anything much to lose anymore, and more to gain. This was mainly about giving Youtuber brands ‘honest’ reviews (calling Prime trash, valid) but something tells me that he’s taking that attitude to other areas as well.
Tommy seems close to acting out lately. I’ve mentioned a few times before that I’ll often mentally compare him to other people with his habits who went on to be critics / reviewers / pundits, but right now his impulses are really un-refined and mostly based on being grumpy and testing things to their breaking point. If he really is in a “I’ll break it to feel more in control” headspace, I’m genuinely concerned with what he’s going to convince himself is a good idea moving forward, because even though he values having nerve he is just not good at criticism yet. He’s gonna say/do some dumb shit in public and get bodied. God he should have gone to uni-- anyway, sorry.
I think he’s going through a phase of being twitter-aware. There’s a subsection of stans that are egging on his public reactions and he seems more receptive to them right now. Some of the switch-up came after his tour where he seemed to come back from with more of an appreciation for his fans, but keeping up with the Big Name Fans is a whole different can of worms since that’s more of a power game/echo chamber than the general fanbase at large. Then again, the youtube comment section can be it’s own thing since they’re more likely to just want a spectacle. He seems sensitive to people leaving or disengaging with him so I wonder if a part of it comes from not wanting to give up the fans (or friends!) he has left by coming down on dream, since the last time he fucked up on stream involved a snapchat joke.
There’s big holes in this story around what Dream and Tommy’s direct communication has looked like in the past year. That feels like the most important bit that we’ll probably never get to see, so it’s all half-informed stabs in the dark from me.