Un-common Courtesy

The thing that strikes me about the phrase 'common courtesy' is that it doesn't seem to be all that common any more. From the people who leave their bags on the seat even though the train is full and people are having to stand, to the ones who push their way onto the bus before letting anyone else off, to the ones who fail to hold a door for you despite the fact you're only a couple of steps behind them, leaving it to slam shut in your face. It's not really hard to think of examples of it-it's happening everywhere, everyday. Not many people go out of their way to help a stranger any more, and a lot of people only look out for themselves. It does make me wonder what it is about our modern lives that mean the little kindnesses and courtesies are being forgotten?
Is it because no-one really lives in communities any more-no-one knows their neighbours and the people that live near them so they are less likely to do things for them? Or is it because people nowadays are so busy with life, and if they're not then they have their noses glued to their smart phones and don't notice the world passing them by. I think people don't feel like they can spare the time to help someone else out because their lives are too full of emails and Twitter and Facebook, and there's not much room left for the real world when the virtual one occupies your head almost entirely.
I can't help but wonder if there's more selfish motives too-along the lines of 'why should I do something for someone when it doesn't benefit me directly?' Or if not taking the time to give someone a little common courtesy makes your life a little easier, then why would you do it and put the hardship upon yourself?

It makes me sad though, that this is the world we now live in, where people would rather serve themselves over everyone else, where taking a couple of seconds of your time to do something small for someone else is too much for effort for too little reward. And, let's be honest here, it really sucks to be on the other side of this-to be the person who's had to stand on an almost full train when you've had a long day, to have to break your stride to not get hit in the face by a closing door, to be pushed past and shoved aside as if you're nothing but a nuisance to other people. I've been on the receiving end more times than a few recently-I've been looking for places to live in Sheffield since September and there have been at least a couple of occasions where I've been promised that I'd be contacted by the landlord, only to never hear anything from them again. The waiting and hoping without hearing anything was gradually replaced with just another sense of disappointment. To be honest, I would have preferred to just hear it from them-if they'd given me the simple courtesy of letting me know that the room had been let to someone else rather than leaving me hanging without a definite answer, it would have been much nicer, and the disappointment easier to take. Yeah, I know that it's never fun giving someone bad news, but I think they're going to have a lot more respect for you if you handle things professionally rather than just letting it slide and hope that they get the message.

As I said, it just makes me a bit sad that this is just the way things are nowadays. And I guess the only way to combat it really is to make sure I'm don't become one of those people myself-to make sure I do that little something to make someone else's day run more smoothly, to try and always show a little consideration for other people, even if they're not responding in kind. Who knows, maybe in the spirit of paying it forward someone else might then extend a simple courtesy to a stranger for no other reason than because they're a fellow human being, and we all appreciate the little things sometimes. I'm not especially hopeful though-I reckon I just have to come to terms with the fact that courtesy isn't all that common any more. I guess it's just another sign of the times, ey?

-Jenni-

Barefaced Cheek!

[Source-BBC Website]

Tonight is the annual BBC's Children In Need fundraiser to raise money for children's charities across the UK. I'm not here to pick fault with the event on the whole because I actually take a lot of pride in the fact that as a country, we come together twice a year and give stupendous amounts of money to people who are worse off than we are-it's one of the few truly great things left about Great Britain, I reckon. Every year, the BBC suggests some sponsored events to take part in, and this is where my grudge lies. This year, they're asking women to be sponsored to go 'Bear Faced' for CIN, and I have all kinds of problems with this. The idea is that you forego all make-up (save for a small paw-print temporary transfer) for an entire day, and ask people to sponsor you for it. Ugh, this makes me cross for so many reasons.

Firstly, as I've said before, I'm not really keen on the idea of forcing people to wear no make up-for what ever reason it may be. Some women choose to wear make-up every day for a whole host of reasons personal to them, and I'm not going to judge them for it in any way. I know that for a lot of people, wearing make-up helps them be more self-confident, helps them feel beautiful or just helps them face the world a little better, and I would never want to ask someone to forego that layer of comfort, even for charity. Asking someone potentially feel uncomfortable or unhappy for a day as a way to raise money feels like a pretty dirty trick from the BBC to me. I know that all the money raised is going to good causes, but if it's at the cost of someone's self-confidence, even if it's only for a day, then it's asking too much, as far as I'm concerned.

Secondly, I can't help but feel like this is making an issue out of something that really isn't an issue-it's making not wearing make-up daily seem like a weird, abnormal activity. Considering that this suggestion lies alongside 'wearing your pyjamas to work' and 'sponsored silences', it's definitely placing the not wearing of make-up into the 'abnormal stuff you just wouldn't do all the time' category and not the 'this is actually a pretty normal thing' one-which let's face it, it is! There's already so much pressure for women to look a certain way, so many airbrushed photos telling us that this is what we should be that it's not really all that surprising that women wear make-up. That doesn't make not wearing it weird though-I can't help but feel like this is just one more way to tell women that they "should" be wearing make-up every day if they want to be "normal", and that makes me really cross. Whether or not you choose to wear make-up or not shouldn't make you "abnormal", whereas I feel if you started going to work every day in your pyjamas then you might get talked about. They're not on the same level of behaviour, and I for one am a little bit insulted that the BBC seems to think they should be.

Finally, I just don't think people should be sponsored for not doing anything. I realise this sounds a little contradictory to my first point, so I'll try to explain myself.  Personally, I would never feel comfortable asking someone to sponsor me to not wear make-up, because I might as well ask them to sponsor me to wear pants every day, or remember to brush my teeth. It's something I already do anyway with no thought whatsoever, so how could I ask someone for money for it when I have done literally nothing to earn it?
I know that this is not the case for everyone, and that some people will find the idea of not wearing make-up for a day a huge psychological trial-and they have my utmost respect if they choose to go Bear Faced anyway because that's a big thing for them. But I still feel like they shouldn't have been asked to in the first place-it's way too personal and goes way beyond simply not putting foundation on in the morning. For everyone else, the people like me who are fairly indifferent to wearing make-up, or the people who don't really think they need it, but just like wearing it, this is no big deal at all. It's literally saving you time when you get up in the morning, and I just can't bring myself to sponsor people for doing nothing.

So yeah, Children in Need will still be getting their money from me, but I definitely won't be supporting their Bear Faced campaign. How about you?

-Jenni-

Diary Of A Scrounger

Ugh, even this makes me feel depressed

I've been on the dole for a little over two months now and they've already made me want to jack it all in again-if it weren't for the fact that I kinda need the money I probably would have by now. I'm a little in awe of anyone who chooses to deliberately live like this (like our dear government seems to think so many people are doing)-going in for fortnightly meetings, being moved around from person to person, having forms filled in for you (because of course they're much too complicated to do by yourself!) and jumping through all of the necessary hoops to keep them satisfied that you're actively looking for work-it's exhausting and humiliating. I can't understand why anyone would choose that as a life for themselves if they had any other options.

When I was sat there the other day having the appropriate form filled out for me, there was a box to fill in my National Insurance Number, so I rattled it off to the guy. He continued searching through the various bits of paper looking for it so I assumed he hadn't heard me. I told him it again, and this time he acknowledged that I'd spoken to him, yet he still found the appropriate bit of paper and copied it down as if I'd never opened my mouth. I just felt like a child, like I couldn't be trusted to know my own personal information and it had to be verified through another source.

On another occasion my advisor expressed surprise that I hadn't got a job if I was applying to all the ones I'd listed on their stupid form. I told her why-because I'm really crap at application forms-then asked if they had anything that could help me with that. She basically replied that they only really have workshops to help people who have never had a job and that there wouldn't be any point in me going on them because they wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Apparently I have had too much work experience for the job centre to help me find a job...great. Oh and my degree, that confuses them every time. I sometimes have to wonder if I am the only person who's come through Higher Education who's ever stepped foot in that place, the way they goggle at me like I'm an alien. Clearly the concepts of a graduate failing at life is not something they encounter all that often at the good ol' dole office.

This week they didn't give me any money. I've been racking my brains trying to work out why this is, because as far as I know I'd done all that they had asked of me. Apparently I didn't jump through every hoop properly, or forgot to do something and therefore MUST BE PUNISHED. Now I'm kinda lucky in that I do have a little bit of spare money to play with-money that was ear marked out for driving lessons but is slowly but surely being consumed by trips to Sheffield and a new waterproof coat for this lovely British summer we're having etc. I'm not desperate for the dole money (yet!), but I can't help but wonder what would happen if I was? What if that £113 was all that I had to last me two weeks, and it got taken away with no prior warning, where would that leave me? I had a meeting with my advisor last week, she could have told me what I had neglected to do, given me some forewarning that I wouldn't be getting anything this week, pointed out my mistake so that I wouldn't do it again. Instead the first inkling I had that I was getting any money for (at least) this fortnight was when it wasn't in my bank account on Monday morning. If I'd have needed that money to, y'know, LIVE OFF, I would have been absolutely screwed: No food for me this week, I have nothing to buy it with. That's OK though, because I can't even pay for the bus trip to the supermarket because I have no money. Better not turn on any lights or use any hot water because I have nothing to pay the bills with.
I know I am lucky because these aren't problems I am actually facing, but Jesus, if the people who run the country think that people would actually choose to live like that, their livelihood decided by the whim of someone else, then they're bigger wankers than I thought they were. Here I was thinking the job centre actually want to help people. Fat chance.

-Jenni-

My dear readers, can I ask of you a huge favour? Me and my best friend Rara have made the final of a competition to win a holiday to Dublin but the result is decided by Facebook votes. Please can you spare a couple of seconds to go to this link and vote for 'Jenni and Sarah' to give us a shot? I would be forever grateful!
THANK YOU!

Awkward Duckling

Photo from treehouse1977 on Flickr

Last night I went out to celebrate my best mates birthday at a comedy club and as I left the house I was feeling AMAZING. I had on my new favourite dress (it's a polka dot rockabilly style halterneck and it's gooooorgeous!), my hair looked really good, my make up was perfect and I was wearing red lipstick which always leaves me feeling like a bit of a saucy sexpot. I was sashaying down the street with a smile and a sexy bottom wiggle and generally felt Fucking Fantastic (if you'll excuse the language). You know when you catch sight of yourself in a shop window and internally go "Phwoar!"? Well that was happening, and life was wonderful.

The comedy gig was good, well 3 out of 4 acts were, and the food was spicy but still tasty, and despite having been roasting in a very warm room for a good few hours I still felt pretty darn awesome as we stepped outside and headed off to find a drinking establishment to do drinking and some dancing in. And that's where the awesome feeling flickered and died like a lonely bulb in a dark room.

Put me in a room full of conventionally beautiful people wearing fashionable, skin tight clothes, or barely any clothes at all, surround me with "propa LADS" looking for some "banter" who are sloshing beer down my dress whilst they try and grind their skinny-jean-clad-peni (penii? penises?) into the ladies in the barely-there-clothes and suddenly I feel all awkward and dowdy and frumpy and a bit of an ugly duckling. I don't know whether it's because I don't really drink and never really enjoy being around drunk people, whether it was because I was gripping my £50 coat tightly in a bid to stop it touching the sticky, sticky floor, whether it's because I basically don't enjoy any modern music* or even because I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that my tights had worn through on the inner leg region and any movement meant that I was slowly but surely removing the skin from my thighs**, but whatever the reason, I didn't feel comfortable.

Don't get me wrong, I love myself and the way I look most of the time, but faced with all those people who were enjoying themselves in an environment I felt completely alien in I could just tell that I didn't really fit. I was surrounded by girls wearing hot pants and crop tops and suddenly my mid-calf length 50s-style dress felt somewhat dated, like I wasn't gratuitously exposing enough of my body to be dancing in that room full of sweaty people with their libidos turned up to 11 due to copious amounts of alcohol. I left early because, ugh, life's too short to do things you don't enjoy and that don't make you feel awesome!

Maybe I just accidentally skipped the bit where teenagers/students/twenty-somethings like to go out and get sweaty and rub themselves against each other to awful modern music and went straight instead to the bit where I'd rather be in my PJs with a cup of hot chocolate than a pub full of noise and so much synthetic smoke that you genuinely can't see your own hand. I'm sure my friend doesn't mind that I left early, she knows it's not her, it's definitely me, because I am a big weirdo and old before my time.

But hey, each to their own, right?

-Jenni-

*Really not an over exaggeration. My favourite nights out are to retro cheesy club nights like Flares, or Reflex or the awesome Poptarts at my beloved Sheffield SU. I'll happily dance all night to epic 70s/80s/90s cheese, but stick me in a room with Rihanna and Lady Gaga playing and I'll get bored and go home, because I don't know any of the songs and I enjoy them even less.
**Note to self-buy thicker tights than 15 denier if you intend to be dancing in warm rooms for any length of time and value your thigh-skin.

Thanks To Twiggy I'm An Old Fashioned Girl

Title of Post taken from this song-Twiggy from A Slice of Saturday Night-a fab musical set in a nightclub in the 60s. This song is sung by an overweight, insecure character. 

I get inspiration for my blog posts in all sorts of places, most often train stations when I don't have a pen, but not always, thankfully. The inspiration for this blog came from this video by Those Pesky Dames-awesome feminist ladies talking about important stuff on the internet. (Forgive me for not embedding it into my post  but it felt a little bit cheeky as I didn't make it.)
Before I begin I would like to make a couple of disclaimers:

• This is in no way me hating on the Dames, I have a lot of respect and admiration for those ladies and think they speak a lot of sense and talk about a lot of important things. Whilst I can't say I watch every video, the ones I have seen have seemed very well put together and thought out, and are a good way for baby feminists like me to learn more about stuff that I might never have even thought about before. I think they're pretty awesome really.
• Secondly I know that the video I have linked to is a very personal account and I have no intention of criticising or judging those personal issues. This is not intended to be a personal attack on her or any of the other Dames, and overall I completely agree with the content of the video, it's just a few niggly bits that drew my attention and made me a bit cross.

In case you don't want to watch the video, it outlines a personal account of dealing with body confidence and weight issues and talks about how that links to feminism and the reasons why she thinks that its currently on her mind. The message behind it is that women need to stop shaming themselves and others about their body size, about their eating habits, about the way they look or the size of clothes that they wear (which, lets face it, doesn't tell you a whole heap anyway!), which is a message I fully support-people should love their bodies a little more and care less about what they look like and how others judge them. 

My problem comes from the phrasing of a couple of key sentences that she uses:

"...you're human and you have tissue, and skin, and muscles and hair, that's just like a human body!..."

"...we're all just made up of "body things", fleshy things-we're fleshy creatures, we're bony creatures and cartilagey creatures..."

because I noticed that she never uses the word 'fat' at all, and it struck me as rather odd. If you're essentially describing humans as tissue and hair and cartilage it feels weird to me that you wouldn't use the word fat as well. 

I mean, let's face it, unless you're severely malnourished you have fat. Everyone has fat. Yes, some people have more of it, some people have less of it. Some people have it in different places than other people. Some people have a more socially acceptable distribution of that fat and some less so. But everybody has it. Some people are happy with the fact that they have fat, while others are desperately unhappy about it. 

Personally, I don't think that vilifying the word FAT solves any problems. I don't think omitting it from a description of "what normal people essentially are" helps anyone to accept the fact that people have fat and that is perfectly fine. I totally agree that people, women in particular, need to stop being ashamed because their bodies don't fit the presented norm, and also need to stop shaming other people who don't either. Judging someone because they're fat or feeling relieved that you're slimmer is pretty horrible really, it's just a body-and it's not yours to judge or to care about anyway. Having fat or being fat doesn't stop you from feeling self-confident, from being beautiful, from being loved, from being happy! (Although aren't we always shown that this is not the case?)

I'm always amused when I say something to my friends along the lines of "I'm fat but..." or whatever it might be and they respond with contradictions: "Oh no, you're not fat, don't be silly". Are they even looking at me? Hell yeah I'm fat, fat and fabulous. I'm not using it as a negative word, as an attention seeking word, I'm using it as an adjective to describe my body shape. Yeah, I'm curvy. Curvy and fat. I've not got a pillow stuffed up my jumper, what do they think is under my skin?

I just really like the negative connotations that are all put under the heading of 'FAT', when it's just another way society tells a woman (in particular, but men too) that she can't be beautiful. So I would like to add to the message in the video:
We're all humans. We're all different. We're bags of skin and muscle and bone and hair and FAT. Whatever your size is you have no more or less reasons to be ashamed of your body than anyone else in the world. Stop judging other people-and yourself-by the number printed in the back of your jeans and don't be scared of the word fat, of being called fat. If you want to be fat and happy then do so (Like me!) because there are worse things in life you could be. Having fat is not a reason to hate your body, and it's certainly no reason not to think of yourself as beautiful, but hating this fact of life is never going to let you love yourself as much as you should.

"Let's all eat and not feel ashamed and just be happy with each other." WHATEVER our shape and sizes are.

-Jenni-

How Rude!

(Source)
Have to confess to a slight confession with the Cheezburger sites,
but when I saw this I knew it was perfect for this post!

People nowadays no longer seem to care that manners are important and that it's courteous to other people existing around you in the world to not just consider yourself in everyday situations. I mean I know we all have bad days where we just completely hate everyone else in the world, but even then, when I'm striding down the street eminating fury out at all the people around me, if I bumped into someone (for example) I'd still instantly and instinctively apologise to them simply because it's rude not to. If someone is walking behind you through a doorway and you don't hold it but allow it to slam back in their face then you're a bit of a nob unless you were genuinely oblivious to their presence.

I think it's worse in the work place-I was lucky enough not to experience this at the theatre but if I get the bar job I applied for last week I almost certainly will do-when "the customer is always right" attitude becomes "the customer is going to be rude to you because you're merely there to serve them and they're always right". Another of my favourite internet procrastination sites is http://notalwaysright.com and it has a lot of stories of customers being uneccesarily rude to the people who were serving them, which seems to be a sad fact of life now- if you work in any job that involves dealing with the public then at some point someone is going to be discourteous to you just because they can. It's so uneccesary-what do you get out of being rude and insulting to someone when you could have smiled and been polite? The people who work behind the till are just as deserving as a kind word and a grin as anyone else, and if you do something stupid or rude then an apology is surely always warranted. 

It's not just at work though-more and more I seem to notice people being really rude in daily life, in various situations:

Example 1: I was at Derby train station, trying to find a seat in the waiting room to get out of the cold. All the seats were taken bar one, which a woman was using as a resting place for her carrier bag which had two books in. When I asked her to move the bag I got such a look of contempt from her, as if I'd just done her a huge injustice by asking if I could sit on the seat rather than continue to allow her to use it as a table. Admittedly this isn't too inconsiderate because she did move them for me, but the very fact she seemed to resent me for asking felt a little rude to me. They're BOOKS. They definitely don't need a seat to themselves.

Example 2: I was lucky enough the other day to be catching a bus at school kick out time, which was FUN.  Normally I'm content enough on buses with my headphones in and a good book, and this was the case here too, until some teenage (not by much, they were probably 12/13ish) lads got on and sat on the back seat behind me. One of them pulled out his mobile and a SPEAKER and proceeded to play his (IMO awful) music very loudly for the whole bus to hear. I took my headphones out and turned around to him and said (these are almost my exact words): "Look, I can hear that through my own music, can you turn it down please? Have a little respect for the other people around you."
What I got back was basically a mouthful of abuse so I stuck my headphones back in and tried to ignore him. Luckily he got off a couple of stops later after giving me the finger and then pressing every bell he passed on the bus just to piss the driver off. A really pleasant young lad, I can tell you. 

Example 3: This one actually happened to a friend of mine, who related it to me through angry text messages later that day. She was at work and there was a woman on the phone in front of her, although standing slightly out of the queue. She called the next person forwards and a man stepped up to her, at which point the woman on the phone started yelling angrily that she was next, not him. He responded with "well you were on the phone so I assumed you weren't waiting" before letting her take his place at the counter. Apparently she remained on the phone throughout and was incredibly rude during the time which my friend was serving her, before storming out and slamming the door so hard that apparently the whole building shook. 

And what purpose does it serve? All it does is make people who are just trying to do their jobs or go about their daily lives upset or angry because no-one gives a shit any more. It makes me sad that we live in a society where this is OK, or even normal. What's wrong with being nice to each other, what's wrong with treating people with a little politeness and courtesy every now and again? Just because you don't know someone personally doesn't mean you shouldn't treat them like a person. 

What do you think?

-Jenni-