Transsexuality, difference and a beautiful Canadian

Hello all



Jenna Talackova

 Now I know some of you will be looking at the "beautiful Canadian" part of that title and think "Oh for fuck's sake, he's going to be talking about Jodi again," .... but you'd be wrong.

No, this blog is about a subject matter that has always interested me for various reasons and that's transsexuality and difference, or to be more precise, I'm going to talk about one transsexual in particular, Jenna Talackova (right). Jenna recently entered the "Miss Universe Canada" contest but was disqualified after it was discovered that she was born male.

I'm not going to get into the politics of it all but I must say that disqualifying her simply because she was born male was ridiculous, having said that, so is a contest to decide which of a group of females is the most "perfect". For me personally, it's not about how a person was born, it's who they are now and in a world where racism and homophobia are now in a minority, it's such a shame that transphobia is still "going strong."

No-one's perfect, everyone has something "wrong" with them and taking hormones and having surgeries to become the person you want to be is not a character flaw. Everyone wants to change something about themselves, either emotionally or physically, and on the most basic level there's no difference between someone changing their sex than there is someone changing there hair, that person is only becoming the person they want to be. Obviously a sex change is a bit more "extreme" (and costly) than colouring hair, but both are changing how they currently are to be happier.

From Pinterest
"I am gay. I am lesbian. I am bisexual. I am transsexual.
 I am heterosexual. I am like you. I am human."

I think it all comes down to people being afraid of what's different to them, or at least people not understanding what it's like for other people. For example, I like rock music, but all my friends who my friends who don't like it just assume that all rock music is about slicing open your wrist or hating your family, whereas it's not at all (although granted there is a certain small percentage like that), and I think that is being blind ignorant, and I think that's the same with aspects of sexuality.

Ignorance is what is the cause of a lot of hate in the world, people not understanding the "different" people out there and not wanting to.

The way I see it is that if someone is living their life in a way that they want to live it, and as long as their not hurting anyone, then just let them get on with it. If you find out that your friend is gay, it doesn't automatically mean that they are attracted to you. If you find out that your friend wants to change their sex, it doesn't automatically mean that they're doing it because they are attracted to their original gender. These people are just trying to live their lives, just let them get on with it and if you don't like it, you don't have to make their lives miserable because of it.

I'm going to leave you with the reaction of Jenna and her lawyer to finding out that she has been disqualified, and this includes one of the best pieces of logic you will ever hear.

Celebrating 10 years of sobriety

Hello all.

It's April 6th 2012 and that can only mean one thing.....it's ten years since I last drank alcohol. It's strange looking back on it as it doesn't seem like ten years. I am always asked why I don't drink alcohol and I have given many reasons over the last ten years as to why, but only twice have I actually told someone the reason.....until now.

To tell the story I will have to go back exactly ten years to April 6th 2002. I was 17 at the time and was in the middle of my first year at college. My closest friend is a girl from Brighouse, just outside of Huddersfield, called Faye and we had met for the first time about 2 months previously. We had met via a mutual friend of ours (Dee) and become good friends, and I was looking forward to seeing her again. I had been given that opportunity by her sister, who was turning 18, as she had invited me for her night out.

Skip forward and it's around 7pm and the group of five of us head out and despite being only 17 (for those of you who don't live in the UK and don't know why I am highlighting that, the legal age to buy alcohol in bars/pubs in the UK is 18), but luckily I have always looked older than I am, this in hindsight was a bad thing as I was freely buying alcohol.

Skip forward and it's now around 11pm and I have had what must have been close on 10 pints, and given that I had never drunk that much before, it didn't have a good effect on me. We move onto more pubs and I continue to drink. I should really mention that at this point in my life I was a bit of a drama-queen and made things out to be a lot worse than there were and during the night I climb to the top of a car park and threaten to throw myself off......I do. Maybe I had drunk far too much but I thought I was on top of a six/seven storey car park.....in reality I was on a car park that only had two floors, so did pretty much fuck all damage to myself other than maybe a slightly hurt toe.

Several hours later and we have finally made it back to where I am staying. By this point I had thrown up at least four times, and it was still coming.

The next morning and despite originally supposed to be there for another night, Faye's mum drives me to the train station because I am ill, or at least that's what she said. I should have gotten the clue by the fact that Faye didn't talk to me at any point during the day before I left, not even saying goodbye. Several hours pass and I finally get home, and Faye says that she knows what sort of stuff I did, including the car park incident. She says she doesn't want to be friends anymore, and I was distraught as she was my closest friend and probably the only person at the time that I trusted.

So, that's why I don't drink. Not only do I remember not liking the taste and it saves me a lot of money, but I don't trust myself not to do something stupid if I got drunk again, such as finding a car park that is actually several storeys high and jumping off of it.

I'm sorry that it might not be the dramatic story that some of you were hoping for, but there you go.

The Aftermath

As soon as Faye told me that she didn't want to be friends anymore, I went out to try and replace her and ended up finding Marinda/Maz that same day, and she turned out to be the great love of my life. Had I not getting drunk and ruined my friendship with Faye, I never would have met Marinda, so in that sense that was a good thing.

I also try and take my mind off things go deciding to go to more football matches, however, even I never imagined how far that would go. The day I went to Brighouse saw City play away at Kidderminster towards the end of the 2001/2 season....since that day I have only missed two matches, for better or worse.

Me and Faye also haven't spoken in the ten years since this all happened but I am now fully over her. I have been for a long time. I might occasionally think of what happened but not very often, and it's the best example I can think of of the term "time heals".

Yes I am. No I'm not.

Hello all

I've recently discovered a website with a lot of images that states a fact and then say something that fights the stereotype, so I went through and found a load about myself. I figured that not a lot of people who know this blog will know certain things about me, so I figured this would be a good way for me to do that, rather than me trying to explain it all.

I wasn't able to find a ridiculous amount but the below nine all sum me up quite well.

It's been like hitting a brick wall

Hello all

I write this on a Tuesday afternoon where I am recovering from several days of illness. I don't get ill very often and in three years of working in my current role, I have only ever phoned in sick once and that was last July....and was because I had torn an ankle ligament and couldn't walk, but didn't have any crutches. I wasn't even sick, so having to phone in sick felt a bit ridiculous, but when you don't have a working ankle, you can't get to and from work and you don't have much of a choice.

As I was ill a lot as a kid, it's served me well as an adult as I am very rarely ill, and even rarer is an illness that causes me to phone in sick to work, but that's what happened over the last few days. It didn't stop me trying to get into work though. I still woke up at 6am on Monday morning and drove to work, but two hours and one toilet bowl full of sick later, and I agreed/was told to go home from work.

Since then I have been confined to my bed, although now I have started to recover and will probably return to work tomorrow. It has been like hitting a brick wall in many ways. I don't get ill often but when I do, my body doesn't cope very well at all and stuff like simple colds can end up lasting for several weeks.

It seems strange being sick though as I am rarely sick. Before yesterday I hadn't phoned in sick (as in actually being sick rather than just injured) since Christmas 2005. Don't get me wrong, I have been ill in that time but not enough to stop me going to work. It does take a lot to stop me from working but the illness of the last few days managed it.

....and before someone says it, no, this wasn't man-flu.

Maybe it's time to hit "restore to factory settings"

Hello all

This happy little kid turned into me
What the hell happened?

Earlier I became ashamed of myself as I seriously lost my cool with someone. Most people know it takes a lot of make me angry, but the last two days have seen me get extremely angry at three people, two of whom deserved, but today saw me threaten someone because I got exceptionally angry. I'm not even a violent person and I just became disgusted with myself afterwards. I won't get fully into what happened and why I was angry at him, but I owe Jack Mulhall an apology.

Me and Jack first met just after Christmas 2008 and although I've never considered him a good friend, or even a friend the majority of the times, he didn't deserve what happened this morning. The thing with Jack is that he knows how to wind me up, and he often tries......and succeeds in his attempts, but even then he didn't deserve the reaction he got today and it made me think about how I am continuing to change into someone I don't like.

I have mentioned in recent blogs that I have started therapy again because although I think I am generally quite strong, I don't think I am quite strong enough on my own anymore. I do have a network of three/four good friends, a forum of people who I've known for several years and a great girlfriend (Vanessa), but I need a professional to help me out with other issues I have. I've had two sessions so far as it is a bit strange as we haven't really spoken about anything I went there for yet, but I'm going to give it a bit of time.

However, I think I need to go back to the way I used to be when I was last truly happy, the period of 2005-7, a period when I was able to just be myself. I had people around who I could talk to about simple stuff such as music and they would know what I was refering to, now there's no-one around that I can have those conversations with. After I moved to Nottingham, all these friends left Lincoln and I'm now not even close to being socialable after moving back to Lincoln in 2009. I don't really have anyone around other than Vanessa who I feel I can be socialable with.



How I feel at the moment

 I think I just feel lost really, I don't really know who I am anymore, what I want to do or who I want in my life. Up until July I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, I knew who I was, who I wanted to be, where I wanted to be and I had the next 50 years of my life planned out..........now I don't even know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow. Maybe I need to take that leap of faith and just get a fresh start somewhere else, maybe mundanity has just taken it's toll on me.

Maybe threatening Jack was the wake up call I needed. Maybe it's the signal that I can't go on without changing something. I think it's time that I start to restore myself to the state of being I was in 2005-7, it's time I try and find what makes me happy again, so if anyone reads this, lives nearby to me (I like in Lincoln, England) and likes the below type of music, give me a shout because it would be nice to make some new friends.

Non, je ne regrette rien

Please note I have experienced some formatting issues with this particular blog entry.

I really can't get enough
of this quote. Love it.



A week ago I stumbled across a quote which has changed the way I look at things........

“Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it need to be. Don't think that you've lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. and now is right on time.”
― Asha Tyson
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Since then I have been reassessing a lot of things and to be more precise, the recent past. The quote taught me that there's no point regretting the past because I can't change it, but what I can do is use my experiences to shape my future.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, it's time to be open and honest to a point where it might upset a few people, and let's start with the person who started this mini-evolution of me, Jodi.
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I thank Jodi for the 11 years we were friends, I appreciate the times she helped me but I no longer regret losing my friendship with her. It is what it is now because we just weren't compatible of friends at this time. We were good friends and maybe we'll be good friends again in the future, who knows?
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Don't get me wrong, Jodi was a lovely girl and was one of the few who could bring out virtually every emotion in me, and it hurts how our friendship quickly fell apart, but I think it might have been a good thing as she isn't what I need right now so there's no point regretting what happened anymore. I have apologised for my part in the friendship falling apart (for those that don't know, her friend accused me of being a stalker, something which I can assure you I was not, and I find it disappointing that now she is going around saying I was to people, at least according to the people who have contacted me to tell me what she's been saying. I don't really want to replicate the immaturity she has shown since the friendship ended, but I can assure you all that I have not, am not, and nor do I ever intend to stalk Jodi).
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If she accepts my apology then great, if not then meh, either way I think that friendship is dead in the water for the time being, although never say never. That is the last time I will ever reference Jodi in this blog.
adsjpiasjdoijasojdaoisdj

Letting go of regret has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. It's a fine line between regret and insanity and I was treading that line very dangerously, but that's the old me. This shit happened but there's nothing I can do about it, just get on with it. And I think that it's summed up quite well in a quote from the Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying!"
adsjpiasjdoijasojdaoisdj

So yeah, this is now what my life is going to be, regretting the past is pointless, it's all about the future. I think about the past on a regular basis and have regretted stuff, I have regularly gotten nostalgic as well, but the best part about nostalgia is that you conveniently forget the bad parts of what you're remembering, and that's the difference between the two. Nostalgic is fucking awesome and that's what's going to happen from now on. Nostalgia, not regret.

The debate about Donetsk

Hello all

The Donbass Arena
Home of Shaktar Donestk
Venue for England vs France

As regular readers know, I am a fan of the most popular sport in the world, football.....and by football I don't mean the game that is effectively rugby on steroids. I've been to a few big games in the past. I've been to Champions League finals, I've been to FA Cup and Playoff Finals, I've been to games at all 92 Football League and Premiership clubs, hell, I've even been to a triangle match (three goals, three different teams facing each other at the same time), any type of match you can imagine, I've probably been to.....except for an international tournament.

About a year or so ago I thought it would be nice to go to the European Championships that are taking place later this year, so me and two people from work applied for tickets. We initially planned on going to three games but that eventually went down to one, and it was going to be in my prefered choice of Donetsk. We didn't know which teams we would be watching, but just to get a ticket would have been fantastic, so when the news came through a few weeks later, we were delighted. It later turned out the game would be England vs France.

All of us got quite excited and started planning, but it was at this point that issues started.

External view of the Donbass

However, then the other two people started getting reservations with regards to plane flights and the fact there were very few hotels within a reasonable distance of the stadium, and both pulled out, meaning I was left on my own effectively. Now initially I was like "fuck it then, I'll go on my own.....but on my own in the middle of the Ukraine is not an ideal situation, so I thought that when the ticket arrives, I'll sell it.

Skip forward and it's now 10 weeks until the game and I am suddenly finding myself wanting to go again, but the negatives far outweigh the positives when debating whether to go. I mean it is just another stadium and it's not particularly unique in it's design, but it just looks awesome fom the outside, especially at night, and I am very keen to see this in person.

Decisions, decisions.

Positives

• Stadium I've wanted to visit for a long time.
• Chance for a game at an international tournament and effectively complete the set

Negatives

• The Ukraine has a reputation for being less than safe
• I can't speak Ukrainian and have left it too late to learn.
• It's quite expensive
• The nearest hotel that's available is 30 miles away and it's £120 a night.
• THe seat isn't actually that great

I still want to go and probably still will end up going, but it's going to be a tough choice.

A long overdue thank you

Hello all

 

As I mentioned in the video for my previous blog entry, I owe two people a massive thank you and they are Ellen and Charlie.

 



Myself and Ellen back in 2007....after she had stolen my hat

 I've known both of them since 2005 and since then they have been awesome friends and I can't thank them enough, especially over the last few months where they have both really helped with my well documented (well, I say well documented, on here and Facebook) issues.

 

I first met both of them when I started working at BT. I had been working there for about 2 months when one day a girl came up to me saying asking if the seat next to me was free......"Go for it" was my response.

 

After about two hours she noticed I had a lot of football programmes next to me that I was slowly making my way through. This lead onto our first ever conversation and we just clicked instantly. Two nights later and my, her and her boyfriend at the time went on a night out.

 

 


 Soon afterwards I met Ellen through Charlie, probably at Cubes. She also worked at BT but in a different team, so we rarely spoke, but we also got on quite well, although we are very different people in the sense that Ellen is loud, in your face and very friendly, at the time I was pretty much the opposite, the shy, retiring type. It was very weird, but a good weird.

 

Through these two and the weekly nights out to Cubes, I met some people who I have also gone on to be good friends with, such as Catherine, Debra and a few others who's names escapes me.

 



I don't think I've ever been more socialable than when I am with Charlie and Ellen. I was regularly going out on Friday nights with them (although I often didn't stay out long), I would go to the cinema with them (as opposed to the usual venturing on my own) and they were just awesome.

 

What I also love is their sense of humour. Me and Charlie both have warped senses of humour and are both a bit nostalgic. A few weeks after meeting her me and her had a massive Bomberman (an old game on the Megadrive for those who are not aware) session. I think we were playing for about 4/5 hours....which I can assure you, is a long time to be playing Bomberman.



Charlie



 

I've had some great times with both of them, and some of the funniest moments of my life has been with them.

 

• Ellen's school"girl" night out for her birthday in 2006.
• Carrying Charlie on my back before starting to go uphill and getting tired very quickly.
• Once getting changed in Ellen's room, one of her room-mates sort of walked in and then shouted "Ellen's got a naked boy in her room" at the top of her voice.

Good times. Good times indeed.

 

But what I love most about these two is that they are there for their friends. Granted, they don't always answer the phone, but I know that there is a reason behind it, rather than some others would just not answer for the sake of not answering. Over the past few weeks they have been awesome by helping me through my issue with Jodi, as well as various other things, and I can't thank them enough. There are no words for how great these two are.

And now for something a little bit different

Hello all

I figured that I would try a video to go on this blog rather than me just being sat here typing for hours on end.

I messed up the first attempt but figured I'd share it anyway, whereas I've also shared the two songs that I talk about in the video, just so you know what I am looking at.

In the videos I talk about a few aspects of my life at the moment, including relationships, old friends, my potential plans to move abroad and how Lincoln City have managed to win two games in a row.

Take 1

Take 2

Linkin Park - Iridescent

Robbie Robb - In Time

The end is not nigh, it's here

Hello all

New College Nottingham

As I briefly mentioned in previous blogs, I've been learning German at evening college in Nottingham and tonight that came to an end.....to my surprise. It turned out that tonight was the last lesson as the course had run it's 20 weeks, and I'm not available to do an additional five weeks that they were putting on in a few weeks. Now, I knew it was ending soon, but I was quite surprised by how soon.

It's a shame in a way because I enjoyed going to Nottingham every Monday, it gave me a nice mini-break from Lincoln and Newark, and typically it comes when the clocks have changed, meaning that I could actually enjoy the sights as I was making my way to the college, rather than just being able to see pitch black and street lights.

There were times when I wasn’t getting home until near enough 11:30pm because I would miss the 8:29 train (I do drive but the roads leading to the college are a nightmare, I can’t stand them) and the next/last train wasn’t until 10:20pm, and it just became exhausting because if I was on my 8-4 shift, I wouldn’t have a chance to relax as I’d be going to bed near enough as soon as I would be getting in, which wasn’t good.

I also assure you that filling two hours in the middle of Nottingham at that time of night when you have a bag full of books and your laptop isn’t easy. Before I went on my diet I was regularly going to the McDonalds near Market Square, buying a Big Mac meal (with a milkshake) and chomping it down……it’s no wonder I put on as much weight as I did by eating over 1000 calories less than 3 hours before I went to bed….with no exercise.



Germany - I could potentially hold a
basic conversation here.



It's also a bit bizarre in the sense that all of a sudden, the people who I’ve spent the last 20 weeks with are no longer going to be around, which is very bizarre. It's not even like I'll see them around and about because I was the only one who doesn't live in Nottingham. I only really got to know one of them as well (hi Lesley), so it’s a bit strange having the feeling of missing someone when you never really knew them, if that made sense.



The course didn’t start well as it had a really dull lecturer teaching at first and it appeared that she was literally only going to play CDs and get us to read along to a book…..I could do that shit at home…..which is what I imagine a lot of people felt as the first week had 25 people attending……the second only 11…..and by tonight’s lesson we were down to just 6. There are some people who I would definitely go for a social outing with if I ever saw them around, Lesley, Karen, Matt, Victoria and a few others.

The course does have a second year that starts in October(ish) time, I am unsure whether I will enrol though as I don’t know what I’ll be doing at that time, but I know that between now and then it’ll be nice to have my Monday evenings back to myself. It’ll be nice to be home half an hour after finishing my shift, something I haven’t been able to say for some time.