When I started over 10 years ago it was a place I was proud to say I worked for. In many ways it still is. But the culture is changing, & a once-healthy NPO is getting more & more corporate cutthroat now.

This past week my manager - among the best I've had in my career history - was shitcanned & shown the door. The org is restructuring & the ppl they've brought in to do it are micromanaging bullies.

It's official: I'm leaving my job.

...& upsides that I strongly feel need to be available to everyone, somehow.

The best education shouldn't be reserved for the kids who test highest on whatever bullshit standardized test is out there.

I can't say that gifted programs aren't warranted, necessarily. I firmly believe that ECE & primary education is best when it can support *every* student where they are, who they are, whether they're "gifted" or not. There's so many downsides to gifted programs I don't even have time to get into them here...

It was all based on test scores & numbers & what level we could read at, things like that. Both teachers & parents expressed constant surprise & bewilderment when we behaved like the adolescents we were, then punished us accordingly.

They fed our minds & brains & intellect with a feast any child should have access to. And they did jack shit for things like our emotional intelligence or psyches. We were all 10 or 12 & they assumed we were adults.

The part that fucked us up is that a lot of adults assumed that because we were all really smart, that therefore we didn't need to be taught anything. And they NEVER focused on our emotional & psych development AT ALL.

The program had a TON of educational enrichment stuff, that wasn't the bad part. In fact that was the best part about it. I had some really excellent teachers too.

So when I was a kid, my school district did a bunch of tests on me & decided I was gifted. I went into two diff. programs, eventually landing in the program that had the students who scored in the top 1-2% on district tests at the time.

It fucked me & many other of my cohorts good & proper.

Ok, I just saw a thread on a discussion board about a healthcare provider not being willing to insert a copper IUD, and before my brain completely processed the sentence I thought it was something to do with Ea Nasir. #reallyshittycopper

Chilling in a house by a winter beach. Friend made fried rice. Place is a relaxed mess. We're watching 'Labyrinth', mainly for David Bowie's *enormous*... acting talent.

New Year's Eve.

Thank Janus that 2023 is almost over. That year sucked royal ass.

I dunno. There's a lot of tangled threads in here to pull on. Mostly I'm just alone & need help & there isn't anybody here, & that is just SUCH a common pattern throughout my entire life.

I mean, the specifics of *this* particular evening are that I volunteered for this, so I can't really blame anyone for the situation I'm in. So that's not what my rant is about. It's more like it's a larger, decades-old pattern, that I do soooo much stuff alone that I either need help with, or wish that there was someone around who wanted to do this sort of stuff with me. Like cook a family dinner & put up some tinsel or some shit like that.

@BillieBun Yeah. I honestly think that some of this is that nobody really cares that much but me about these get-togethers. Or maybe they care? But don't want to put in the labor. Or they can't.

They're just... *not here*. Nobody's here. None of my friends I invited, not my family (who are all doing their own thing tonight), not my partner, no one. It's just me. I fucking hate it. It's so terribly *familiar*.

They're broken, too. My body gave out & their brain - they have a TBI. They're exhausted a lot of the time. & they're not here bc they have a med appt. tomorrow that they've waiting 8 months for. It's not like the don't have a good reason not to be here.

Partner's an adult & gets the idea of emotional labor & all that stuff. Most of the time they're awesome - like we're adults & nobody has to complain about the stack of dishes in the sink because in our case we both know it's dirty, we're just... physically broken.

I'm starting to resent my partner about it.