this job sometimes i swear

[lunabee34]

Josh is out of sorts. He just popped home for a few minutes after a conference with a student. Over the break, her boyfriend trashed her stuff and broke her hand and is now stalking her. The police are involved, and everything is as sorted as it can be on that front, but Josh is filled with an impotent rage. I know he is just seeing our daughters superimposed on this student. It sucks so much not to be able to do anything for these kids but listen and give them whatever small allowances are allotted to us like extensions on assignments. (I know they're adults, but every year they get younger, and I get older, and most of them seem like kids to me; most of them are the age of my kid.) This afternoon will be devoted to him figuring out with our chair how she can finish out the semester because of course she can't type or write and wasn't able to finish the assignments she was supposed to be finishing over the break and also she is fucking traumatized.

ETA: and then another student showed up to tell him that if she fails (spoiler alert: it's on the horizon), she'll be homeless, so he had to get her over to counseling and find someone who can help her figure out her future situation. *sigh*

So have some insta-recs. I read these yesterday and read them again just a minute ago because they are awesome and comforting and took me out of the darkness just a little. Hope they do the same for you:

Dig for Fire by gloss
Locked Tomb Series
Anastasia the First-centric
Glorious, fucked up backstory for John and the original Lyctors and Cavaliers.

The Irrepressible Radiance of the Homeward Star by gloss
OMC/OMC
Jaded Lowborn Mercenary/Friendly Nobleman He Didn't Mean to Fall in Love With
IN SPACE!!
What it says on the tin with excellent worldbuilding. I'm rooting for these two!

Comments

[amejisuto]

I'm sorry Josh is feeling upset. I hope the girl will be safe. So many people focus on keeping girls safe, they forget to teach the boys not to be entitled asshats.

[lunabee34]

I hope she will be, too. We get a lot of assault and abuse disclosed to us that can be hard to emotionally deal with. Usually it's not en medias res though. :(

I completely agree that it's not the girls' responsibility to stay safe, but the boys' responsibility not to assault.

[amejisuto]

Hopefully, they'll catch the guy and stick him in a cell with a big guy named Tiny or something.

[lunabee34]

I do hope they catch him. :(

[china_shop]

*huuuuuuuuuuugs*

[lunabee34]

*clings*

[spikedluv]

How awful! I understand Josh's impotent rage. I hope they're able to figure something out for her.

[lunabee34]

I hope so, too. Apparently, the boyfriend has gone into hiding and the police are looking for him. It sounds like a nightmare.

[spikedluv]

I just read the 'about me' section of your journal because it happened to be right next to my comment box, and I had to read it again because I was like o_Oo_Oo_O

Welcome to my journal! I'm a white, fat and deaf Australian-Danish woman in Australia. I go to uni, I knit, I sleep. I have chronic disabilities. I'm awesome. :D

I'm so confused right now, lol!!!

[lunabee34]

Well, me too, because that's not on my profile at all. I just checked to be sure. Lol

[spikedluv]

LOL I just went to look at your journal when it's not in my style, or whatever, and you don't even have an About Me section! Whose did they just toss in there in my style?!! Very strange.

[lunabee34]

Oh how bizarre. LOL I wonder if it changes for each person who views it in a different style.

[archersangel]

well going from my style to your profile give me this in the mini bio section (unless i need to looks elsewhere);

I give blanket permission for my fic to remixed, podficced, translated, and/or otherwise transformed by other fans.

I give blanket permission to any individual or newsletter to link to anything I've publicly posted.

[lunabee34]

Oh good. Whew. I guess it was just weird fluke then.

(That's what I'm going to tell myself LOL)

Thank you for checking.

[aphrodite_mine]

*hugs for you and for Josh and for College Girls omg*

[lunabee34]

Thank you. *hugs*

[oracne]

That poor kid.

[lunabee34]

I know. Apparently her boyfriend has gone into hiding and the police are looking for him. :(

[corvidology]

Josh is a good bloke! ♥

[lunabee34]

He really is.

We have had our ups and downs, and our marriage is not a perfect one, but I am so damn glad I married this man.

I mean, we've been together since I was 19 years old. We could have been making a very serious mistake in each other. Emma is 19 FFS. If she told me tomorrow that she was moving in with some random girl and starting a joint bank account with her, I would have a heart attack. LOL

But I am so damn glad we picked each other. He's my rock.

[corvidology]

Anyone who tells you their marriage is 'perfect' is either delusional or isn't actually talking to their partner. :D

I always say MG is perfect for me.

[lunabee34]

Oh totally.

Yeah, Josh and I have the benefit of spending our entire adult lives together. We literally grew up together. LOL So we trained each other to be right for each other.

[corvidology]

It's lovely but difficult to imagine.

MG and I met in grad school - grad school 2 for me - and grew up in completely different countries/cultures 3500 miles apart.

[lunabee34]

Equally hard for me to imagine. I'm such a intractable and irascible grown up. It's hard for me to imagine making space for someone after getting set in my ways.

Thank goodness life works out differently for us all!

<3

[corvidology]

I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I'm a grown-up so it works for me! :D

[lunabee34]

Heeeeeee. :)

<3

[executrix]

There's supposed to be an office for ADA affairs. She has a disability that interferes with the major life activities of writing and studying. It would take a hot minute to find volunteers to help her record assignments verbally or help her clean up assignments that she uses the dictation feature of her OS. If it's inconvenient for her profs to give her oral exams instead of making her write, too bad. Deaf students get interpreters and blind students get readers.

[lunabee34]

Oh absolutely. She 100% gets accommodations. They just have to figure out which ones will work best for her and/or whether an incomplete would be better and/or whether a hardship withdrawal would be better.

She's 100% going to get the help she needs; it's just figuring out which of the help on offer is the best for her situation based on what she wants to do for next semester.

It is so cool the stuff they have now to help students. I remember when I tutored at Ole Miss they had all this space age tech for the student athletes, and that is finally trickling down to help students who need accommodations.

[gloss]

God, that poor young woman. I'm glad she has someone like Josh on her side at least.

(Also thank you so much for those recs. I'm beside myself. <3)

[lunabee34]

Me too. He is so fiercely protective of them.

You're welcome. They really brightened my day.

[tabaqui]

I really fucking hate how kids (yeah, they are) are supposed to learn and work and *grow up* with shite like homelessness and financial catastrophe and stalker psycho SOs. The latter, of course, isn't something you can really plan for, but the other shite we force on them and then (some of us) yell at them when they break. It's ridiculous and so gross.

[lunabee34]

It is really sad sometimes. We started teaching in 2008 in the recession and the number of our students who were trying to go to school and had suddenly become the sole breadwinners for their families because their parents had lost jobs was staggering and sobering. And of course since COVID, the number of them dealing with illness and grief has been high. And of course our society does not have adequate measures to deal with childcare for people who want to work or go to school so a lot of our students are doing a delicate dance with that.

I try to be as flexible as absolutely possible because I know I'd want grace extended to me in their shoes.

[umadoshi]

Yikes, yikes, yikes. ;_;

[lunabee34]

I know. What a terrible thing for this girl.

[minoanmiss]

*hugs you*
*hugs you extra to pass on to Josh*

[lunabee34]

Thank you.

*hugs*

*hugs Josh*

[jackandahat]

Oh good god - the students are lucky to have him, but that's a lot of stress for him to handle too.

[lunabee34]

It is. He does't seem it from the outside; he's known for being sarcastic, but he's just a big softie on the inside, and he takes everything to heart.

*hugs*

[timespirt]

"HUGS"

Even before the pandemic people were being weird and violent. It's getting worse. Most jerks think they can do what they want and get away with it.

[lunabee34]

It's scary how many of our female students disclose abuse to us (collective us as in faculty at large). :(

[timespirt]

They are not home and anyone in authority is like having a parent around for advice.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*