King of Sassyness

I think I have nearly achieved one of my life ambitions of being bad-ass and sassy. I am sure everyone can think of a person who they have known that, no matter what is said to them, continue on in a breeze of cool indifference. And famous people whose words you read when they are sassing someone and you feel the burn echo through the centuries (see Oscar Wilde). I have always wanted to be like that, and up until yesterday never was.

Yesterday, in front of my whole class of beginners who I was teaching at the time, one of the other trainers (which I have the misfortune of also teaching) loudly announced ‘You’re crap’. At some point during that direct and short sentence I transformed from the wimpy sensitive kid I have always been to someone of almost Winston Churchill levels of cool.

The conversation went as such:

Her: “She’s Crap’ (yes wrongly pronoun-ed)

Me: “If you’ve got anything to say to me say it to my face”

Her: “You’re Crap”

Me: “And you’re a bitch”

Her: “Yes, but you are crap”

Me: “Ah but if I’m crap I can improve, while you will always still be a bitch.”

I am going to have to eventually stop riding on my high of being one of those people that just doesn’t care (In my head I’m Douglas from Cabin Pressure at the moment) and have to address this problem like an adult. It was unprofessional of me to sink to her level in front of the whole class but what else can you do when a fellow tutor sinks to such a level to cause a scene in front of a whole class by spieling verbal abuse at me. The route of the problem is she is old school in teaching and I am new school, but I extended the courtesy to her to not state my opinions on her methods and the same should have been extended to me. I think I’ll write a letter of complaint to the committee about her, but I’ll do that later. For now I will concentrate on being cool. I might even start to wear sunglasses on indoors.

Ben-Addicts

Ben-Addicts - The dangers of becoming addicted to Benedict Cumberbatch.

This is one of my final pieces for Soundscapes and Voice - Media Production (Audio). Enjoy.

The Adventure of the traveling shorts

Yesterday was a big achievement for me. I put on some shorts and walked down to town, all by myself.

This may seem ridiculous to you, but to me it was a big step and quite nerve racking.

To misquote Stan Lee: With great legs comes great responsibility. And my legs really are great, so great that they seem to cause quite a drama everytime I show them in public. Infact the last time the smallest fraction of them were glimpsed in public (I'd forgotten to wear socks) a facebook fan page appeared the same evening, from none other than the people I lived with (not any more though), with the wonderful caption of 'is it a boy or a girl?'. Other comments followed such as 'disgusting' and 'I think I am going to be sick'. This resulted in me having to lie and say 'no, those aren't my ankles', to a lot of people that I had trusted, people who I had thought were my friends. I suddenly became very aware of the fact that being open and honest about myself was always going to be dangerous, that I could not extend the same blind trust that most people my age could do to the people they happened to live with. (Note: these were my second lot of flatmates, the original group had tried to smash my head in on a brick wall, shouted abuse at me at 3am in the morning while a group of guys tried to break into my room and had rotting meat left all over the entrance to my room).

You may be wondering what I had done to trigger such a negative reaction. The answer - I do not shave my legs. Okay, it is slighty more complexed that that - I identify as male/gender-queer (I'm still not quite sure where on the spectrum I fit, but as time goes by the more I feel I am most probably male).

 The offending limbs

To feel the sun on my pasty white legs is quite unusal, due to the amount of negative attention it gets. Once I had met up with my friends in town, I did notice the one odd glance but nothing was said. I did get shouted at by a group of young men outside KFC but beyond that it was a really great experience (I bought an easter egg!) Maybe by next year I will feel confident enough to turn up in shorts to a lecture. However, the whole experience did make me very aware of male priviledge, I could not imagine doing that while presenting as female. My safety net is always, that untill I speak, I appear male or atleast androgynous. If I didn't  look male and looked and dressed female - I honestly would be terrified and the abuse experienced probably ten times worse.  So to all the unshaven women out there, I take off my hat to you, you are far braver than I will ever be.

Enjoy the sun everybody!

About me - A Longer Introduction

Greetings fellow bloggers. I am what you might call a prolific blogger. I have had many blogs in my time, all focusing on many differing, small aspects of my life such as one for university, one for hobbys etc. These havn't really worked out - probably because its such a small snapshot of my life, with this one I intend it to not be so niche and to truly be open and honest about everything that is happening to me.

I am currently majoring in Criminology as well as doing a few Media Production. It's just coming up to the end of second year, so I'm starting to think about dissertations and what I want to do with my life after university. I am hoping to do a Masters Degree if I get a good 2:1 or a 1st so the pressure is on! I've also just turned 21 and am slowly getting used to being an adult, in the loosest sense of the term 'adult'.


I have the travelling bug. In my gap year I went to South Africa to work with big cats and predators which was a childhood dream come true. I'd previously been to Malawi on an aid giving trip and so Africa will always have a place in my heart and I can't wait to return one day. However, I do also want to see the rest of the world aswell, speciffically the Amazon rainforest.

I'm a geek and proud of it, with one of my life ambitions being to publish a paper on Sherlock Holmes one day.

This is a big turning point in my life which is why I want to blog about it. Many of my friends, some of whom I am living with, others not, are moving on to pastures new - one of my best friends is even moving out of the country. I'm starting to work out my identity and who I am as a person, as well as starting to get a rough idea of what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.

Me in a blizzard