make a space here to write anything I want

I’m taking a break. I know better than to delete but it’s best for me right now. See you later alligators:)

I need to elaborate on my previous post since several people have asked me if it was something they’d written.

I’ve been able to ignore the drama since it’s largely occuring in circles that I don’t participate in directly. But I clicked on a link in someone’s post today and what I read was offensive. I spent some time reading further and then more widely to try and identify what had fuelled such a charged comment. And all I can say is bloody hell. Pathetic.

Beyond this particular situation, I’ve also noticed that there are some who quite freely comment negatively on the behaviour, choices or opinions of others in relation to their personal goals. Luckily it’s a minority but if this negativity is a culture that’s becoming pervasive then we should be mindful of it.

I’ve looked at myself and the way I respond to others on 43t. Sometimes I’m defensive if I feel under attack for the things I write. And it’s always easy to misinterpret the written word if someone is being facetious – I did it recently! I’m also very conscious that even though we share a common language there are some small cultural nuances that mean we might not always understand others’ senses of humour. Actually it doesn’t always have to be cultural!

I can still largely keep out of the discord luckily but perhaps we each need to consider what we want out of this community and our personal responsibility towards this. I will state openly for the record that I’m here to document my progress towards my own goals and to support my friends to achieve theirs. Call me on it if I don’t step up – but I’ll do my best to ensure I do:)

There’s a negative undercurrent running through my subscriptions that’s increasingly unsettling. I need to decide how I want to respond.

Because I have it. I struggled through all of last week before finally collapsing. Consequently I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in bed. With a cold. A cold!!! Now I’m fighting round 2 (or round 1 cont.) of this phlegm-inducing nemesis. This time it feels like it has set into my throat and my bones.

I will be spending my 2nd weekend in a row in bed (and this one is a long weekend!!!). But I will fight and I will win. Probably just in time to be back at work on Tuesday.

How long does it normally take to get a reply from the Robots? I contacted them about something (the last thing I wrote about here) almost a month ago and sent a follow up email and also got the standard reply. Is this particularly slow response rate normal?

Is she alright?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrasah#Misuse_of_the_word

‘Madrasas are basically a centre of Islamic learning. Post-9/11, the Madrasas are perceived as a place of radical revivalism among the Western countries. The word madrasah literally means “school” and does not imply a political or religious affiliation, radical or otherwise. In post 9/11 United States political contexts, however, the word has often been used to define Islamic schools – in the negative context of anti-Americanism and radical extremism.

It is important to note here that there have been negative connotations applied to the word by news reports in Europe and the United States, in which madrasahs are often incorrectly implied to be Islamic religious schools. Madrasahs are simply schools, with a variety of curricula, and are not all religious. Although early Madrasahs were founded primarily to gain “knowledge of God” they also taught other subjects including mathematics and poetry. For example, in the Ottoman Empire, “Madrasah’s had seven categories of sciences that were taught, such as: styles of writing, oral sciences like the Arabic language, grammar, rhetoric, and history and intellectual sciences, such as logic.” This is similar to the Western world, in which universities began as institutions of the Catholic church.

The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization examined bias in United States newspaper coverage of Pakistan since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and found the term has come to contain a loaded political meaning:

“When articles mentioned ‘madrassas,’ readers were led to infer that all schools so-named are anti-American, anti-Western, pro-terrorist centers having less to do with teaching basic literacy and more to do with political indoctrination.”’

I did not know this!

I only wrote my How I Did It story because I think that girls with bulimia need to know that there is hope even after all this time and also that they shouldn’t wait so long. But I don’t want it on my page! God no! I suppose I don’t want the daily reminder. I wonder if I can negotiate with the ‘bots.

I recently read this quote from Madonna – There is a stage in a woman’s life when you have to choose between your face and your body – I always knew I’d choose my body.

As you get older do you feel like this is a choice you have to make? If so, which one do you choose?

or has 43things been getting less intuitive and user-friendly? I couldn’t find where to give up on a goal, until after marking it completed without meaning to (and not being able to change it back), I realised it was under “delete”. Why would it make sense for it to be under delete?!