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Reflection

Ceremony of Lights

Sunday, November 9, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

DSC_1522The cemetery where my grandparents are buried held a remembrance event last night. They covered all the paths and walkways on both sides with tealights in jars and invited people to come and bring a light to their loved ones there. They also offered warm drinks and cake because winter’s nights are cold. If you didn’t have a candle or light, you could get one there. And there was also a rack to place lights on if your loved one wasn’t buried here. All of this free of charge, just asking for a donation if you could.

DSC_1524I went with Mom and my Aunt and were planning to visit not just my grandparents, but also my grandfather’s parents, and my grandfather’s brother and his wife. We had planned in advance, so I had bought two lanterns while I was at Ikea getting my plates. My aunt had also bought a lantern so we had one for each grave. And earlier in the day, Mom and I had stopped at the florist for some pretty plants that can withstand the winter.

The cemetery looked beautiful, and it was really nice to see so many people there. We visit the graves fairly regularly, individually, and then we clean it, or maybe bring some new flowers. But now we were together, not just the three of us, but all of us people, sharing a moment.

We cleaned the gravestones, put up the plants and the lights. And in the background they played music, interspersed with people reading poetry. Once we had done that, we went back towards the entrance to get something warm to drink. I got one of the candles they offered there and placed it on the rack for people not buried there in remembrance of others that have died, both in my family as well as friends.

DSC_1508

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Family, Me, Memories, Mom, Reflection

Shrinkage, or, My Family is Awesome

Monday, April 23, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I saw the psychiatrist today for my gender intake. I was a little bit disappointed, I was (calling all stereotypes) expecting a couch or at least a comfy chair to be present but no such luck. Ms. Doctor and I sat at a regular table with regular chairs and talked for about an hour and a half.

Obviously it covered the gender feelings and when it started and how it manifests and stuff like that, but also more generalised questions about feelings and behaviour, mental health family history, current and past life circumstances etc… All this so they can determine not only if the gender dysphoria is severe enough to warrant transitioning, but also to check if there might be other mental issues that might need attention first, and to see if I have realistic expectations of this whole process and if I can handle it and have a support system and such.

Ms. Doctor is going to discuss this with the Head-Shrink and then I get to come back for another appointment with both Ms. Doctor and the Head-Shrink. I’m very curious about it, the first appointment turned out to be a reasonably pleasant experience.

 

Going back in time a little, last Saturday I (or rather, we) told (a large part of) my extended family about my being transgender. My Mom had already told a few aunts/uncles but we decided that Mom’s birthday party on Saturday would be an excellent opportunity to tell the others. So, during the day we told the family from Dad’s side, and in the evening Mom’s side of the family all showed up so we told them.

It was a really positive experience. I was pretty nervous beforehand (and I imagine Mom, too), but all reactions we’re positive and basically boiled down to “if this is how you feel, and you’re serious about it, then we support you”. I really could not have asked for a better reception. I expect that from here it will trickle down to various cousins (in so far they don’t see one of these posts via Facebook or Twitter).

Posted in: General Tagged: Birthday, Family, Gender, Health, Medical, Mom, Reflection, Stereotyping, Transgender, Transitioning

The Week(s) in Review: 2012-12 & 2012-13

Tuesday, April 3, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for quiet times at work that allow me to take some extra days off here and there. Not just because yay-freedom, but also because I have a lot of in-my-head things going, what with the genderprocess and all. Some extra days to deal with stuff are nice.

I’m happy because I finally have a new appointment date for my genderteam intake. It will take place April 23rd. This time they actually managed to refer me to the shrink so this really is it: the start of my road to fully being who I am. It’s going to be a long journey, and it’s not going to be easy, but I’m more than ready to finally get this show on the road.

I’m also happy because the Postcrossing is taking off quite nicely. All but one of my cards have been received. The only one still in transit is one to a school class in the USA. I got my first five cards, they came from the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Poland. The cards can be seen on my Postcrossing profile. I requested new addresses yesterday, which I will pick (and write) cards for tomorrow.

Last Friday we went out with (almost) the whole e-mail squad from work. Nico and I put the thing together, and since it was meant as a getting to know each other better thing after the team expansion from early this year, we settled on bowling and food. The evening was a grand success, a lot of fun was had.

I learned I need a lot of warm up time before I throw proper balls, and that if I want to throw a strike, I first need to drop the ball behind me so it rolls back to the people on my team.

I discovered that it is actually possible for naturally (somewhat) touchy people to be like this in a fun, non-obnoxious, non-threatening way. Normally when people, for example, hang over my shoulder to ask me something, or randomly grab my arms, I have this knee-jerk reaction to pull back and get this ‘get the fuck away from me’ vibe. I’m glad to say I did not have this then. Yay, progress!

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Food, Gender, Postcrossing, Reflection, Sports, Transgender, Transitioning, Work

The Week in Review: 2012-10

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 by Tse Moana 2 Comments

I’m grateful for the fairly quiet times at work that enabled me to take two extra days off so my one week off turned into a glorious week and a half.

I’m happy with my new tablet (a Qware pro 3, 10″). I ordered it online last week after I’d been to the Intertoys for the 7″ version for the third time and they still didn’t have it. This one was more expensive, but the added screen real estate makes it worth it. I spent the weekend loading it up with apps and am contemplating adding a custom rom to update it to Android 4 (it has 2.3 now). And, I’m blogging from the tablet now. Which is showing me one thing very clearly: I need to get a dictionary imported here somewhere because I spend way too much time correcting myself.

I was annoyed with the reflection essay I needed to write to finish the education track at work. I hate those sort of essays with a passion so when I finally sat down for it I spent two hours hatefully avoiding it and complaining about it ( 🙂 ) and then decided to go all the way in, over the top and all. So an hour later I had three pages with artfully inserted quotes and section headings and all that jazz.

I learned that I’d been playing my ukelele wrong (and slightly cheating here since this was actually yesterday and thus already week 11). Turns out I’d been counting my strings wrong. I started at the top (near my chest) with one and then went down, while in fact the top one is string four. So the c and d that play on the third string I was actually playing on the second. And the e, f and g that play on the second string I was playing on the third. No wonder the Frere Jacques sounded off. Got this fixed now so I’ll be spending this week getting the fingerings on the right strings under control, as well as practising the two beginner tunes on the next page: Frere Jacques and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

I discovered I still have some residual unresolved sort-of-jealous feelings about something (and yes being vague on purpose). I thought I worked through this, rationally I understand the choice, but feelings can be a bitch sometimes.

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Music, Reflection, School, Tech, Ukelele, Work

The Week in Review: 2012-01

Sunday, January 8, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Contradicting myself slightly, the only scheduled thing I’ve decided to continue (or restart, rather) is the Weekly Four. I really enjoyed this last year, and am still kicking myself for not keeping up with it. It’s also a good reflective tool.

So, here’s a look back on the first week of this new journey around the sun.

I’m grateful for cats that always cheer me up, even when I’m feeling down, sleepy and annoyed at the same time 😀

I’m happy for central heating *puts feet on heater*

I’m annoyed with text messages (sometimes). Conveying tone and intention in a text message can be tricky, which can lead to wonky interpretations of messages.

I learned some things about myself this week, which led to the making of a decision I’ve been on the fence about for a while. More on that later.

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Cats, Communication, Milo, Monkey, Reflection, Winter

Another Beginning

Sunday, January 8, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

So, here we are, a week into the new year. I don’t do resolutions, I know myself well enough to know that’s pointless. I have, however, decided to pick a theme. Basically an idea, or motivator of sorts, to keep in mind and use to guide my decisions this year. Theme for this year is Just Do It (to steal from Nike). This year the idea is to be more active in my pursuits, to take action to get where I want to be.

In that light, I’ve made some related decisions in what I want to do this year, both long term things that I want to start this year, as well as things I want to accomplish. Most of the stuff I can’t, or rather won’t, talk about just yet. But I hope to provide further updates soon.

I also have some stuff that I will talk about. First of that being this blog. It took way longer than expected to fix the image issue I was having. This was mostly my own problem because I let it lie for too long while it, in the end, turned out to be a relatively simple fix. After it got fixed I did one of the photo posts I said I would and then left it again. Putting pics together for the August photo post was annoying the crap out of me, so I just sorta stopped.

To prevent shit like that from making me stop blogging again, I’m not scheduling anything anymore. No more ‘I’m going to do this on a weekly basis’ or ‘every month I’m gonna…’ or even non-committal shit like ‘I plan to regularly…’ I’m not planning anything any more in regards to the blog. I still have a lot of things in my head that I wanna post, but I’m just gonna do whatever comes up, whenever I want to. There’s already enough shit in life that you have to do, I don’t want this blog to be one of those things. After all, I have this website to have fun with and to make a record of who I am and what I like. If it becomes a chore, it’ll loose all life it has.

 

Something else I think I haven’t mentioned here yet is Milo. Milo is my new cat, whom I got from the shelter on October 22. He’s a young boy of almost two (in March) and he’s almost the complete opposite of Monkey. He’s playful, and active and a bit of a talker. Monkey only makes a noise when he really wants to go outside and I don’t respond fast enough. Milo opens his mouth a lot more, and when he does the most adorable little shriek comes out. It’s almost like a friggin’ baby bird going meeeeep! The shelter named him Bo, which is stupid, so I renamed him. But, in keeping with tradition I kept (most of) his shelter name as part of his name.

So, without further ado, meet Milo Beauregard Gibbs:

My cat

Monkey and Milo are getting along pretty well. Milo wants to play with Monk but he’s not really into that. They do chase each other around (in mostly good fun), though. This usually starts with Milo approaching Monkey to sniff at him or invite him to play and then Monkey does this hissy fit kinda thing where he yowls a bit and waves his paw around. Milo the backs off a bit and seconds later they’ll be chasing each other around the house.

He also loves feather teasers, so much so, even, that the one I had is almost dead already. So I bought three new ones right away to get a bit of a supply. And today the laser pointer I ordered came in. Tried it on him, he went insane for it 😀

In comparison, Monkey ignored it and pointedly reminded me that he knows I’m the one controlling the toys so he’s not gonna waste his energy on that, thank you very much. (related sidenote: Monkey has very expressive eyes).

Tomorrow Milo gets to go outside for the first time since I got him. I kept him inside a little longer than I normally would because of New Year’s and the fireworks and such. I hope he likes it, he tends to still be a little skittish with loud noises or big/tall objects/people although he’s progressed heaps in that since he came. The first week he would hide under the bed every time I walked through the house. He still runs when he gets spooked, but now he almost right away comes back out from wherever he runs to, to check out what happened.

In short, he’s a cool cat 😀

 

Other stuff… eh… Work is going well I guess. I applied for a trainer/coach position within my department, got through the initial interview with flying colors and got to do an assessment. I felt pretty good about that, the tests were easy and the talk with the counselor about work and ambitions and what type of person I was went well too, at least I thought so. The role play situation went less well. Both because I hate role play situations, and because I found the set-up they had for it not relevant to what actually goes on at my job. All in all, I had a good feeling about it.

The result came in a week later, and I got a negative result. They thought I would not be suitable for the position because, in a nut shell, I ‘m not social enough, and that’s not fixable… Right. I was fuming for two days. There’s a core of truth in the report. Yes, I am an introvert, I told him so, but that does not mean I’m antisocial, it just means that interaction with people costs energy (versus giving me energy). I know this of myself so I take precautions. This is the reason I don’t work on Wednesdays so I have a day in the middle to recharge. Also, social interaction has been difficult for me in the past. I used to be more shy but this is something I’ve learned to overcome for a large part. Especially since I started working at my current job I’ve learned so much about interacting with people and have grown so much in that regard.

So, back to the report, I felt as if it were a snap shop of me three years ago, give or take. I discussed it with my supervisor and some other people later on, and they all were surprised by it. They saw the core of truth that was in there, but the extent of it…

Regardless of that, though, the assessment is final so it meant I was out of the application procedure. So I’m still doing what I did before, and that’s not a bad thing either. I love writing so the e-mail and letter thing is a good job for me to have. I’m doing a lot of letters these days, more so than e-mail, and I’m really enjoying that. However, I will be looking for opportunities to move forward or at least expand my skill set. For the moment still preferably within the same company.

 

I think this is more than long enough for a first blog of 2012. I hope to do a post to catch up on my booklist and 101 list. Booklist definitely because I failed my target so very much I think it might be the lowest in years. The 101 list… Meh, I think it needs revising first. I’m having second thoughts on a lot of the goals and I think the sheer amount of them, even keeping in mind the long time one has for it (1001 days) it might be too many things for a person with an attention span like mine.

Posted in: General Tagged: 101 in 1001, Animals, Books, Cats, Holidays, Introvert, Me, Milo, Monkey, New Year's, Random, Reflection, Site, Work

Happiness is…

Monday, November 8, 2010 by Tse Moana 1 Comment

Taking a cue from Eva here. I’m usually pretty good at seeing the small things, I can really enjoy the world so much just by seeing things. Lately that’s been overshadowed a bit, but I’m getting back to seeing the small things again, after the system shock that is Winter Time, and am feeling better suited in my own skin again. So I figure I publicly acknowledge some of those small things.

Like the sun over the horizon as dad and I drove to Parentville, or the colours of the fall leaves on the train tracks. And the new gloves mom knit for me. And getting a laugh out of Nienke, who’s arguably more girly than I am, and should thus (stereotypically speaking) be the one to arrange flowers. Except she sucks at it. And I don’t. 😀


Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Autumn, Dad, Eva & Jarig, Friends, Image Dump, Me, Mom, Nature, Nienke, Parents, Photos, Reflection, Winter

Names

Monday, October 4, 2010 by Tse Moana 2 Comments

Lately I’ve been thinking about names, specifically my own. I’m wondering how I’d feel if I had a more neutral name, something less obviously girl, but not a fully masculine name either. However, names that are used for boys and girls, usually started out as, or are derived from, single gender names. So I got to wondering what the conversion rates were, how many former boy names are now seen as boy and girl (or even purely girl) and vice versa. This starts out as a mostly anglo-centric piece as I tend to gravitate towards those names myself, but I will touch on Dutch names at the end.

Starting with some current,  more or less gender-neutral names that I like – both English and Dutch – such as Riley, Alex, Puck, Robin, Max, Noah or Chris, I notice something.  It seems that all these names come from a masculine base, or were used as purely masculine names before becoming unisex. Of those that could come from a feminine base (Alex-Alexandra, Max-Maxine, Chris-Christina), all these bases are themselves derivatives of masculine names (Alexander, Christian etc..).

Now, there must be unisex names that started out as feminine and are now used for boys, however I’m having trouble locating them. I find many examples of what we now see as girl names that used to be boy names (Kelly, Meredith, Ashley, Hilary), but not so much the other way round. And since this is supposed to be more of a random thought kinda thing and not in depth research, I can’t really be bothered at the moment to investigate further. I just think it’s unfair, but given western society’s male-centric history, not unexpected.

To briefly touch on some Dutch specific things, I don’t think we really have a lot of original Dutch names that are unisex. However, a lot of traditional girl names are derivatives or diminutives of boy names. The masculine Geert gets the diminutive suffix -je and turns into the feminine name Geertje (which is then, literally, small Geert). Same goes for the masculine names Jan and Jaap, which become Jantje and Jaapje. Feminine forms can also be made by adding the suffix -a. Johan becomes Johanna, Hendrik becomes Hendrika, Jacob becomes Jacoba. There are also individual feminine names (Grietje (short form of Margaretha), Aaltje, Maria) but they are few.

I’ve also only been able to think of one traditional Dutch name that is used in a unisex way, but this is very dependent on which part of the Netherlands you’re in. I’m talking about the name Anne. This is mostly known as a girl’s name, but in specific parts of the country (Drenthe, Groningen) this was traditionally a boy’s name as well.

More modern unisex names in use over here all have a foreign origin. Names like Jamie, Sacha, Luca or Beau all come from non-Dutch roots (English, Russian, Italian, French in these cases).

So… I don’t really have a point, with all this, just something that was on my mind. As for neutral names I might want to use, at some point… For now my preference lies with Riley.

Edited to add: Here’s some links [Dutch].

  • Gerrit Bloothooft (zie voor meer artikelen over o.a. namen de link publicaties op zijn pagina) – In de naam van… 2. Uniseksnamen
  • Voornamelijk.nl – Geen specifieke dingen hier, maar wel leuke naamblogjes.

Posted in: General Tagged: Gender, Names, Reflection, Thoughts

Weekly Four: week 37

Monday, September 20, 2010 by Tse Moana 5 Comments

I’m grateful for warm clothes and lights and other things that keep the winter cold and darkness at bay.

I’m happpy I got lots of socks on sale 😀

I am annoyed with my life in general right now, too much inertia, not enough movement, both internal as well as external. Part of this is the winter coming on, I don’t like that it’s still dark when I get up, and gets dark so soon in the evening too. It gets me down.

I learned my first weight loss milestone is almost here.

It’s really fascinating to see which of these points I struggle most with each week, in terms of thinking of something to write down. Normally I have most the issue coming up with something I was angry or sad about, or that annoyed me. While today, and last week in a lesser way, the negative emotional trigger/response was much more clear, and I’m having trouble with the positive things. It’ll right itself in due time, getting used to the darkness is half the battle.

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Body, Mind, Reflection, Winter

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