A trainwreck beauty queen

Dealing with complex thoughts and emotions I can't work through in therapy, like grief, despair, a complicated relationship with pain and addiction

This past month, Parks & Rec has been doing a lot of work on the field adjacent to my school. They have trucks with flatbeds, mowing/tree-cutting/postholing machinery, etc. And when they arrived, I (campus monitor) was told I would need to herd the kids away from the trucks/machinery and basically prevent them from creating a dangerous situation.

So when recess came around and the kids stampeded out the door I held them up and I said (being funny but at the same time serious, you know how it is, kids listen better if you're funny)

"Okay, I know that you're all smart AND mature, right? And talented and good looking? Definitely the smartest and most talented class in this school? (I say this to every class, they're all 'my favorites'.) And because you're SO intelligent and mature, I don't need to actually TELL you that these guys have vehicles and machinery that you need to stay clear of, right? Because I know you figured that out already, and I also know that YOU know how sad I would be if any of you were run over, or squashed, or had a pole fall on you. I would be SO SAD, like, I would probably have to lie down on the floor and cry. So you're not going to make me cry, right? I can trust you to stay away from the trucks and machines no matter where they are on the field? Because you're wonderful and amazing? My favorites? My inspiration?"

And they're laughing at me of course, because I'm being so dramatic. Some of them are "Yes, and-"ing my dramatics and inventing more involved mourning processes I should undertake if any of them get run over. Some of them are yelling at me that they are NOT mature yet and they are VERY STUPID and I should know this.

It's been three weeks. We had one conversation about it. None of them have gone anywhere near the trucks. This is actually in excess of the typical elementary-schooler's working memory and I'm very proud of them. I haven't had to blow the whistle at ONE person for getting too close even when the trucks were literally 40 feet from the actual playground.

like it is supposed to feel jarring and insane. it is supposed to feel like lestat has been violently submerged in modern young people trends and culture and is now repeating all the new words he learned like a beautiful fresh baby. but because the book is from 1985, all I think is oh interesting huh I didn’t know that slang term even originated in the 80s how vintage how retro how lestat wow he’s so embarrassing aw aw so cute.

It’s an excuse to be violent towards an out group: something NI has a long and proud history of doing.

“this argument works both ways though. the converse can be argued, so the Irish have no problem with vast numbers of foreigners coming over and changing their culture, but it was a problem when the Brits did it?”

My response:

The Polish, Sudanese, and Syrian refugees aren’t actively segregating communities, paying the indigenous Catholics less, refusing them schooling, property, and legal rights, trying to genocide them through a manufactured famine, making the indigenous language illegal, and causing active discrimination which I experienced as someone born in 1999, several hundred years after.

recently there was a stabbing allegedly by a sudanese man [he has neither confirmed or denied but there is footage of him with the victim - with what has been released to the public its unclear]

conveniently this stabbing happened just after the news that the UK police let a white boy die after he was stabbed by a sikh [that one went to court] and caused riots in southampton

because the northern irish are so heavily segregated and so many of the immigrants are catholic it's skewing the republican majority so the republicans and their allegedly non-existent paramilitary groups have been building discontent towards the immigrants causing republican youth to firebomb stores, throw bricks into people's houses etc where these people have been housed in republican areas

riots and firebombs have been active in republican areas, immigrant homes are being firebombed, immigrants of every flavour are being assaulted by the republicans [think maga that are too racist to eat tex mex] whilst the DUP [republican political group] are complaining about how everyone should be treated fairly and if they don't want immigrants in their housing areas then the immigrants shouldn't be allowed in

they don't want the immigrants because it challenges their power, but conveniently it also distracts from the fact that their de facto leader for years turned out to be a pedophile whose wife found victims for him

every time the PSNI [police force] need money something happens where the republicans are threatened,

but they have groomed these areas to riot and this was no different, they are as aware as the unionists [not republicans] that violence gets them what they want so they send their people out with pitchforks and burning torches

and in july they'll build illegal bonfires so fucking big that they'll get the aid gondor hopes for, and on them they will put effigies of their enemies and deny everything as they insist on their cultural right to march past catholic homes playing songs that are basically burn the irish cromwell was on to something