Miscellany, as usual

Last weekend was our first wedding anniversary. It also happened to be the first nice day of the year, which was a change. This weekend is actually prettier and warmer (see below) but it was wonderful to just pootle around the garden and giggle at each other. I still catch myself pointing at Boy and shouting "Husband!" with a measure of disbelief. It really is odd to stop and think about it, at least for me. We married each other!

Anyway, the other thing I did last weekend was go shopping. I wore a hole in an unforgiving location in my favourite jeans, so needed to replace them. I guess this is to be expected when one wears her lightweight denim lady-jeans around a construction workshop, but it annoys me nonetheless. I have work trousers, I just don't particularly like them. Maybe I should do something about that. It's just, y'know, the rest of the trouser is absolutely fine, no stains, no holes, pristine, but one hole in the crotch and they're roont--you try to patch it and wind up destroying the area further because the fibres have all been ground down to a powder by your giant thighs, so there's no fabric that will hold a stitch... Anyway, I went to Marky-Sparky of an afternoon, picked out about five different types of trouser to try on, and happened to accidentally grab a pair of...jeggings. 

I wasn't shopping for them, and I didn't mean to like them, but when I tried them on...comfort happened. These are the denim-spandex type, they actually look and feel like jeans and have a zip closure, but unlike the superduperskinny jeans that seem to be 90% of what's on the market these days, which don't typically fit over my feet (and certainly not my calves) these are form-fitting but accommodating. They're cozy. They go on easily and don't rearrange my fat into a a slug-tube that would offend even Renoir. They seem to say "oh this is your shape? Okay, we can do that." 

I'd imagine they'll last a few weeks at work, so I'm going to try to resist wearing them in the metalworking area. (Days I know I'll be doing a lot of welding I actually just wear leggings under my boiler suit. Much easier to move than fighting the canvas-denim friction war.) But they are unfortunately very comfortable, not too unflattering, reasonably priced and readily available. I am such a conformist.

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In other news, as of last week I'm a certified first aider for my workplace. I've been working for Central for nearly a year and a half now, and while that's peanuts compared to some of my colleagues I feel ready to engage more thoroughly with the operations of the school than previously. I'm also doing a lot of paperwork with regard to the healthy and safe usage of my props students' classroom materials these days, around the day-to-day carpentry and workshop supervision. It's involved, but I always have something I can be doing (which I'll gladly take over being bored.) 

First aid has really changed since last time I took a class in 2008. Well, maybe it's just different as I'm in a different country and doing a different form of first aid--this is simple FA at Work, with the expectation that paramedics and trained, equipped hospital staff are right around the corner, that while the situation may be urgent it's rarely so urgent that you need to get creative to stabilize someone, and that there's typically a dry indoors to remove yourself to in inclement weather. It is different in scope and in approach to Wilderness First Aid in almost every way. I didn't have to make a bandage out of the casualty's bra or pull traction with a jib-boom. Despite low survival rates of cardiac arrest without speedy defibrillator access, you are expected to keep going with the CPR until help arrives, not until you get too tired to continue. We did not learn how to move someone with a suspected spinal injury or how to improvise a back-board out of a tent. We learned no triage models and practised no knots. For the most part, aside from raising injuries above the heart and putting pressure on wounds, CPR and the recovery position, the bulk of first aid at work is "reassure the casualty, phone for an ambulance and monitor vitals." Fair enough. 

Seems like CPR in general has gotten simpler, though--less cerebral, anyway. There is no distinction between artificial respiration and full CPR in this aid style, which is handy. Just jump in there. Choking response begins with 5 back blows before launching into 5 abdominal thrusts, which makes sense. It's funny, coming from different areas of life-saving expectation, the different ways I've been taught to encourage someone to breathe are not only numerous, but conflicting. For drowning events, you're taught how to begin abdominal thrusts in the water, while swimming. I don't think a back blow would work very well in that instance, but maybe I'm wrong. Once you get the casualty (in the US the victim) to terra firma you begin with horizontal abdominal thrusts--you kneel around their knees, knit your fingers and shove away from yourself on their abdomen above the navel. It shoots water out of the lungs with impressive force. It can also badly injure other organs, but that is considered secondary. Only then do you start AR, and if they don't cough you'd start CPR. I don't know if this is current technique for lifeguard training--that training was from 15 years ago--but it requires much more thinking and ordering of response. Not "check for breathing for 10 seconds, if you do not detect a response begin CPR, a simple 30 chest compression to 2 breath ratio"--much less thinky and specific. All crafted with an assumption that the first aider will be pretty freaked out, so keep it simple and easy to remember. 

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Today we scrubbed the kitchen floor, after an unfortunate case of digitis butteris led to the demise of a coffee-filled mug. It is probably the cleanest it has been in a year. We keep looking at it approvingly. We've also been able to do laundry and hang it in the garden to dry, which is fabulous. The rest of the neighbourhood's washing machines are likewise whirring away. Ah, returning to some semblance of in-house civilisation. Ah, spring!

Dang, Not Bad

So I've been busy this year. The neglect suffered by this blog is probably evidence enough of that, but I haven't just been grocery-store post-office busy. I've been scratching my name on some pretty important milestones since January 2012, many of which you only do once (or at least only want to do once.) Namely:

I started working at Central. First 9-5, 5-day a week permanent full time job I've ever had, and I plan to keep it. I pay into a pension, have my tax deducted automatically, buy an annual travel-card, am entitled to sick days and am required to take my allotted holiday leave. I have a desk and a computer that no one else can use. I manage the supply inventories so I control how much of everything we need and know where it all belongs. (Well, I know where most of it belongs. A lot of it, anyway.) I fix things when they break. I teach students good work habits before they develop weird ones on their own. My employment end-date is my 65th birthday. It really is not a gig. It's a career. That's cool.

I prepared for and followed through with Getting Married. It was fun. It was pretty. Boy and I are happy. And we never have to do it again.

I visited Devon and Deal for the first time. They were both very lovely in their own ways. The sea around England is so much prettier than the beaches of South Carolina and gulf coastal Florida. The sea is always a dark, muddy green there, if not simply brown. I realize it's the algae in the area and not strictly South Carolina's fault, but cold water is so clear and blue and beautiful, or such a clear emerald tone, it's just absurd. The first time I put my toes in clear seas was in Honolulu in 1999, and I thought I was doing something rare and special. How was I supposed to know that the sea is clear or a pretty colour most everywhere except where I grew up?

My family is going through a hard time on several fronts, difficulties that I sincerely hope none of us ever have to deal with again. I have little excuse to feel sorry for myself in these trying times, as it's not really me who's sad, and the stories are not mine to tell, so they won't make their way onto these digital pages. Why blog if not to fling complaints into the void? My little home is happy enough--Spouse has been ill but is 80% better, work is cracking on, it is nearly April but no one has bothered to tell the snow--in other words, nothing to report, sah.

Poor neglected pages. I have nothing to tell you.

Oook! Oook! baaaa...

Hats off to the government. I do salute you. No one else has the audacity to pull your stunts--writing laws, breaking them, then gathering the shards and declaring them the new law! I appreciate your brazen, no-holds-barred outlook on legality almost as much as I celebrate your similar attitude toward internal codes of practice and your relationship with the globe's larger governing bodies--the EU, the UN--whose precisely delineated policies you bravely disregard, and from whose judicial systems you triumphantly evade prosecution! Three Cheers for You! Hip hip-hooray! Hip-hip...

Sod it. No. That's the attitude I'm supposed to maintain, I know, as a foreigner, as a hopeful, as dangerous overseas scum, but I just can't maintain the façade without it putting strain on my rebar. Too many lies, too many law changes, too many nonsensical forms, too many badly-spelled threatening letters from faceless bureaucrats. My nerves are shot. I think I'm being watched. I'm losing sleep and packing on pounds.

First, the good news: This past Wednesday I was granted provisional leave to remain in the UK for a period of 30 months.

Now, the fine print.

They changed the criteria for and the parameters of the category for which I was applying a full four months after I applied, but nevertheless applied the changes to me. 

The fact that someone used my application form to line a bird cage for six months meant that by the time they looked at it, the form I filled out was no longer legal, and the category I applied to enter no longer existed. I should point out that I sent the application form certified signed for via the appropriate channels, and received a letter of confirmation that they would be considering it soon a week after I submitted the application form and the relevant (substantial!) fee.

Last time I applied to extend my stay, I submitted my forms, paid my fee, and waited. Three months after I applied I caught wind that the category I applied under was being done away with, completely and permanently. I was legally barred from asking questions about my application form until 14 weeks had passed, so on day one of week 15 I called and after two hours on hold was politely told not to worry, that because I had applied long before the change was announced they could not apply the change or cancel anything regarding my application retroactively. I was granted 2 years leave to remain as a post-study worker, exactly as I applied for, one of the last few to eke through.

At the end of August of 2012 Spouse and I submitted a form to apply to extend my clearance to remain in the country, as his wife. I filled out a fairly simple and straightforward form on their official website--one that asked a few general questions at the beginning, to help it decide which questions to ask you (for instance, if you answer 'no' to the question, "Do you have any dependants who are applying with you?" it skips about eight pages worth of questions about them. Likewise, if you answer 'yes' to "Do you live with your spouse?" it re-phrases questions about housing to sound relevant to both of you.) then tells you how to pay and suggests a number of documents you need to send along in the post. The form and the money go straight to the office through the interwebs, and they ask you to send your travel and supporting documents along in a registered mail envelope soon, but in your own time. We sent along our passports (Spouse's current, my current and expired), council tax bills, pay stubs, bank statements and utility bills from the past three years, our tenancy agreement, letters from mutual friends, our marriage certificate, PAYE information, several self-labelled passport-sized photographs and several other talismans, nearly a kilogramme of original-not-photocopied paperwork accounting for our every movement since 2009, crossed our fingers, and waited.

A little over a week ago I received a packet in the mail which contained a cover letter, a passport, and a sheaf of papers. I was excited for about three seconds, before I realized the sheaf of documents was actually a blank forty-one page form, with my husband's and my self-labelled photos stapled to it. The passport belonged to my husband--it had been photocopied but otherwise left alone. This was baffling--after six months of waiting, with no travel documents, no communication, and no public announcements except occasional newspaper articles about this department's incompetence, I expected any letter from them to be either good news or an announcement that, what with the unfortunate circumstance that the office had gone completely feral, the copier shaman's most recent bonfire had set off the sprinkler system and destroyed the hanging file hut.

I read the letter carefully, twice, three times, and it made less sense on each pass (mostly because each time I read it I noticed more grammatical errors). 'Please reply promptly and include: the completed updated form, a letter from your employer confirming that you work there, how much money you make, how long you've worked there, and how much they've been paying you what they're paying you, and a letter from your husband's employer confirming that she (?) works there, how much money she makes, how long she's worked there, and how long they've been paying her what they pay her.'

We had submitted pay stubs and bank statements as evidence of, not income, but our ability to maintain ourselves. As a dirty foreigner I have never been eligible for, nor will I probably ever become eligible for public support or state money. As my husband, Boy has waived his right to public support too. This is something we have always been aware of, and the state has always made a point to remind us in bold font that we may not, we must not, we better not try to claim benefits, but yes we must pay into the systems that fund British people's handouts, even if we're unemployed. This falls neatly into all nations' traditions of telling new immigrants to go fuck themselves. Whatever, I never asked the state to like me.

But now they've decided that, despite the fact that they have absolved the state of any responsibility for us, even if we're reduced to living under a bridge (and moreover, if we do get caught living under a bridge, rather than helping or imprisoning us they'll just send me away and then Boy will qualify for handouts), we need to have proof of above-median level funds and income if I want to stay in the country. This contravenes several laws passed by the EU about introducing unreasonable barriers to the cohabitation of married people, the fact that they have a duty to facilitate the naturalization of their citizens' legitimate spouses unless one is a criminal (neither of us are. I got a speeding ticket in 2007 for going 59 in an area that was normally 65 but had been lowered to 55 in advance of construction work. I didn't notice the temporary sign. My B. The last time I had anything to do with the Fuzz was in 2011 and I was calling to let them know I had witnessed a dog fight in my local park--as in, two adults standing in the grass, lining up their dogs with leads on, pulling the leads off and encouraging them to attack one another. They thanked me for letting them know and sent an officer to the area. London takes all kinds.) and the fact that they, like all government departments, are forbidden from discriminating against the working poor. I realize that the BNP and UKIP are scared of poor Romanian and Polish immigrants coming in, taking their jobs and their unemployment benefits (simultaneously?), and of course the Tories are afraid of anyone brown, but seriously, making it impossible for the real spouses of real citizens to really live with them just because they're not among the top 50% of earners? What the hell is wrong with you?

Thing is, they changed the law so as to require, not me, not us, but my Citizen Spouse only to earn above the national median in order for me to be allowed to remain. Boy must be able to independently provide for both of us, regardless of my income or earning potential. I assume that this is not a sexist thing, and if our roles were reversed that I would be required to provide for him, but the point is that if he's not reasonably well-off by himself, I get deported. Fun! A couple featured in the Evening Standard last week had exactly that happen--she was an Australian but earned £26,000 a year (this is bang on average, above median by about £5,000, and works out to about $40,000 p.a.), he was a citizen and a gigging musician and managed to scrape in £7,500 ($11,000, below the poverty line) in 2012. She was kicked out. Now they've joined the ranks of the Skype-bound, desperately clinging to their marriage over ten thousand miles of land and sea. They're appealing on human rights grounds, and if their case is allowed to set a precedent the state may be forced to discard their new policy which is clearly a deliberate attempt to exclude as many poor or financially-fragile from the immigration process as they can.

Boy and I didn't have this problem, but we might well have. The couple in the newspaper article was news-worthy precisely because they were not so different from us--educated, employable, English-speaking and (I'm not blind) white. Moreover, we have to go through this another three times, and who knows what the future is going to hold for the publishing and theatre industries? We strive to live frugally, but the dollar is volatile and my student loans repayments aren't cheap, so aside from our work-based pensions we're not doing a whole lot of saving. If he loses his job and we haven't managed to shove £20,000 into a footlocker, the next application (let's call it a refresher) will be summarily rejected.

The Next application, you gasp? Surely you became a citizen the day you popped that ring on your finger?! Surely you're as British as mushy peas by this point? Surely there is nothing for the State to dick around with once you're married--it's just a formality now, right? Oh you poor sheltered doll, Nora. No no, Britain wants to make sure, not the most loving, not the most devoted, not even the most resolutely determined, but only the most wealthy unions between citizens and outsiders survive. This is why they have changed the rules (and again, retroactively applied them to me) to ensure that couples live together under the Probationary Leave to Remain (PLR) visa category for 5 years before applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain, whereas when I applied this was 2 years, but they have not extended the period of the PLR to match. No, the PLR is. . . here, I'll make you a little table of changes.

2012 FLR (M) Important Bits
Length of Application Form: 18 Pages (6 pages of check-lists)
Visa Period: 2.5 years (30 months)
Financial Requirement: Provide evidence that you can provide for yourselves without state assistance.
Evidence of Finances: At least 3 months of bank statements and pay stubs from either or both partners.
Next step: ILR (SET (M))
Requirements for SET (M): 5 years of legal residency in the UK, continued marriage to and cohabitation with the same spouse, continued evidence that you can provide for yourselves.
Relevant period of residency for application for citizenship: 2009 (student), 2010 (Post-Study Work), 2013 (FLR (M)), 2015 (SET (M)).
Cost of Application (FLR M (561), SET M (991), Naturalisation (1562): £3114 (as of today)
Earliest UK Citizenship Application Date: 2017.

2013 FLR (M) Important Bits
Length of Application Form: 46 Pages (1 check-list page)
Visa period: 2.5 years (30 months)
Financial Requirement: Provide evidence that the citizen in the house earns at least £18,500 per annum, plus £3,000 for each child (if any). If you cannot provide this evidence, provide evidence that you and your spouse hold at least £16,000 cash in savings
Evidence of Finances: At least 6 months of bank statements and pay stubs from both partners, letters from both spouses' employers verifying their employment, their start-date and rate of pay, changes to pay in the past year and job title.
Next Step: FLR (M) Renewal
Requirements for FLR (M) Renewal: Not less than 29 nor more than 30 months of continued residency under FLR (M) immigrant category, continued marriage to and cohabitation with the same spouse, fresh letters from employers, pay stubs and bank statements evidencing that the citizen earns at least the national median income
FLR (M) Renewed Visa Period: 2.5 years (30 months)
Next Step: SET (M)
Requirements of SET (M): at least 5 years of residency in the UK under FLR (M) category only, continued marriage to and cohabitation with the same spouse, more letters from employers, pay stubs and bank statements evidencing that the citizen earns at least the national median income.
Relevant period of residency for application for citizenship: 2013 (FLR (M)), 2015 (FLR (M) Part 2), 2018 (SET (M)).
Cost of Application (FLR M (561), FLR M2 (561) SET M (991), Naturalisation (1562): £3675
Earliest UK Citizenship Application Date: 2020.

The "Earliest" dates here are of course assuming that the relevant departments process each application level in 6 months or less. This is optimistic, I know, but I had to give HR a loose time-frame.

It is worth noting that the 46-page application form is riddled with grammatical errors, evidence of blind copy-pasting from other forms (numerous pages ask for data that I can't legally have, data that I'm in the process of applying for, data that they just asked for on the previous page, data that makes absolutely no sense*, data that only applies to refugees (but I'm not exempt from filling in)), and an array of veiled and blatant threats, mostly having to do with the fact that they can reject an application for any reason, but under no circumstance will they give your money back.

We have 29 months now in which we can relax and not think about immigration. Who knows what the law will be in August 2015? Maybe there won't even be laws by then. Maybe the Gregorian calendar will be abolished by then and we'll have to submit the next application form in Metric Time. Maybe America will have annexed the UK by then and Boy will have to apply to be My spouse. Maybe the EU will have collapsed. Maybe the state will get soft on immigration. Maybe one day, just one day, they'll dust off and fill up all of Heathrow's passport control desks.

We'll just have to see.

*6.Do you and your spouse currently live together? If YES, proceed to question 7. (Yes)
7. Does anyone aside from your spouse live in the accommodation you plan to live in? (Er, Me?)

hack hack splutter (probably gibberish)

Sick. Again. I've spent more time ill since I moved to England than at any other point in my life. I don't know what it is about the germs around here but they are unforgiving to say the least. And while British healthcare is tax-funded, and I'm glad of that, I also have learnt my lesson about going to doctors for anything less catastrophic than cancer. Twice now, after bouts of illness lasting at least a week, fever, chills, all sorts of symptoms, I've been told to put my head over a bowl of hot steamy water and breathe deeply--something I do anyway, and tell them I've been doing up-front. It's amazing, with the NHS--if you are sick but it's not likely to kill you or rapidly become a plague, above and beyond not giving a shit about you, they directly express disdain for you. They really want you to go away.

The exhausting thing is, it's not like I'm presenting at the emergency room with a runny nose and a slightly elevated temperature. I'm at a GP, I've waited my turn, I've outlined my symptoms, what has so far been unsuccessful in treating it, and asked for advice. I don't show up the second I get sick, but rather quite late in the game, after I would expect most ailments to have run their course, but they still sit there and eyeball me like I'm some sort of attention-starved hypochondriac intent on wasting precious time they could be using to save children from ultra-polio. Is this some sort of power-trip? Do they want me to feel bad about feeling bad? I'm Sorry I've come into your office with a mere fever and swollen lymph nodes and a painful cough that has kept me from sleeping for the past week. I'm terribly apologetic for inconveniencing you with this trifling concern that has kept me shivering and sweating in bed for so long my real fever has been compounded by the cabin variety. If you are simply incapable of offering any helpful advice or medicine, could you just, maybe, say that? Instead of trying to lay the blame for the wasted trip on me? Maybe a quick "hey, I realise you've been sick for at least a week, I realise your symptoms are getting worse and you're worried, I realise you've come here hopeful that I could help you, but I just can't. It's a virus and there's nothing I can do to expedite your recovery. It just has to run its course. I'm sorry." I would appreciate a modicum of humanity.

Frustratingly, something no doctor seems to understand is, just because I've consented to staying in bed and drinking my meals this week, that shouldn't suggest I'm just a switched-off robot in the closet until I can pick my hammer up again. The fact that I can't bear solid food should suggest that I'm in pain, and while no, it's not a giant tumour putting pressure on my brain, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a suggestion if paracetamol and ibuprofen don't seem to be helping manage it in the slightest. No, I'm not asking for opiates or something that would cause withdrawal symptoms. I'm not seeking some sort of recreational high. I'm asking if there's anything that might be more appropriate, that could help me, I dunno, not cough until I'm purple in the face and having back spasms at five in the morning. Why do you think I would have come here if I could manage my symptoms myself?

It's like they assume I should be grateful for the excuse to stay home--that the pain is somehow a fair exchange for the weekday lie-in. Maybe I'm unusual here, but I Like my job, and don't like missing it. If my symptoms were controllable, I'd be there--even if I shouldn't because I'm highly contagious. Wait--is that why I get to enjoy every coughing fit, every wave of dizziness--to keep me off the streets? If I'm not miserable, I'm harder to contain?

I guess mister doctor and I are at cross-purposes here. I've visited the doctor to ask for help for myself. But the doctor's job is to help contain the spread of disease and maintain a healthy, able workforce. Never do you feel quite so insignificant, quite such an anonymous member of the general public as when you're sent home with nothing. While yes, it is more important to keep me away from children and the vulnerable while I'm potentially contagious than it is to eliminate my temporary discomfort, I'm not a fucking soldier. I don't have to man up if I don't want to.

When I get sick, even a little sick, my hearing collapses. While the world doesn't exactly go silent, all sounds muddle into one. If you want me to hear you, you need to ensure you are the only sound in the area and you have my undivided attention. If I'm trying to read your lips, chances are I'm guessing at half of what you say because I don't actually know how to read lips. Even a distant helicopter or clothes dryer will distort speech, so there is no point trying to maintain a conversation on a busy sidewalk or in a cafe. This doesn't make visits to the doctor any more fun--when I say "I've got a cold, just fairly mundane, but my ears hurt quite badly and I'm having a hard time hearing" for some reason this annoys people. I never say "I've gone completely deaf" but rather "I'm having difficulty hearing, distinguishing between sounds--everything is muffled and muddled" and this is apparently not permitted. I had one doctor look in my ears and say "yeah, your eardrums are bulging a bit, just drink some water and that will go down" like I was a stalk of f'ing beef jerkey. Oh, of course, why didn't I think of that? If I keep doing this cactus impression I might never get my hearing back! When I get a cold I spend half my time in bed, the other half peeing. I am no stranger to hydration advice. I also have constantly bulging, painful eardrums. And guess what, funnily enough, several meta-analyses of patient data, accepted and distributed by the NHS, have suggested that antihistamines, anti-inflammatory agents, hydration and bedrest do absolutely nothing for ears like mine. What does seem to do something is grommets, in a lot of cases, but of course that would have to be determined by an ENT. My hearing is pathetic at the best of times, but when I'm sick it's worse and painful. But actually investigating my ears would apparently take money or time or something so I'm ignored, time and again. I suppose I could pester them about it, but I'd miss work. I hate having to squeak to get attention.

That said, I did phone my husband and squeak (well, croak) at him to come home early and make me soup. SOOOOOOUP. I have a guilty conscience when it comes to healthcare--I'm always aware that there's at least a billion people out there who are in worse shape than me, and with whom the doctor's time would be infinitely better spent. But with Boy? I demand soup. NOW.

So Proud

I'm very pleased that America rejected the 1952 party and appears ready to sally forth into the new millennium. It took bravery and maturity. Bravo.

I printed out an "I voted for Obama" button and pinned it to my shirt on election day to reassure my colleagues. No one doubted that I'd be the type to vote lefty, but they were a little surprised that I got to vote at all. It was surprisingly easy, if a little strange. I phoned my local polling place in Fort Mill (using Skype) in July and they emailed me an absentee registry/ballot request form. I printed that out, filled it in, signed it, stamped it, and put it in the post. Shortly after the DNC I received my official local/state/federal ballot by email. I again printed it and filled it out, but this time I just scanned it back into my computer and emailed the .pdf back to the office that sent it. Bada-bing. I voted for everything from president to national representatives to city council to school board. The coroner and the sheriff were running unopposed but I voted for them anyway. Jim DeMint wasn't up for re-election but I thought about writing in a "and tell that turd to sod off" bubble. Figured that would invalidate the rest of my ballot though, and I didn't want to waste it. (I've noticed that both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have run the same joke about Lindsey Graham being the first lesbian senator, and while I get the joke, Graham is such a turd I find it an insult to lesbians to try and pass him off as one.) 

Naturally, everyone I voted for (except those running unopposed) lost. I think that means I was voting for the sane, decent people.  I did plenty of research and placed all of my school board and representative votes as far outside of the Fundagelical Convention as I could, so naturally First Baptist of Fort Mill spent all of this morning celebrating. The slimy real estate shark will get another term in the House and the only "democrat" on the county council is known as Bump to his constituents. Yeaaah. 

I live in England. 

Oh, and by the way

I've had a birthday. I realize this happens every year and is not in itself particularly remarkable, but I think this one was significant for the fact that I no longer have any claim to the phase of life known as mid-twenties.  At 27 my grasp upon it was slippery at best, but now, a year later, I've been officially kicked off the team. I'm in the 28-30 crowd.

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge what this means. As a 28-year-old I'm now older than a significant number of music stars ever became--I guess this means I've passed the cut-off date for rock-n-roll. If I took up drugs, tight skirts and loud music now I'd be seen as pathetic and rather disgusting--a cry for attention from a has-been who never had-been. MTV is not trying to rock my vote anymore--no journalistic article, even a really patronising one would describe me as a girl, or even a young woman now--just a woman. I'm one of those Real Adults you hear about as a youth and secretly fear--a responsible adult doing responsible things with money, property, community and nation.

Except I don't really have any property, and aside from the pension plan at work and repaying loans for my MA I'm not doing much with money that most 20 year olds aren't already doing. (Reader, if you're a 20 year old with an advanced degree, I'm impressed but a little baffled.) As far as community goes, I work with technical theatre students for a living, so while I may be taking a bit more responsibility for their health and safety than they are, I'm hardly in a position to be a good influence on the next generation. Seriously, they're artists. If you're too overtly well-meaning toward them they bite.

I voted early in the US election by email and now get to sit tight and watch it play out. As much as Ward Cleaver of the Mormon Party scares me, there's not a whole lot I can do or say from the UK that would impact anyone's vote--ex-pats around here are already going to vote for Obama, I'm preaching to the choir when I sign a petition, and no one reads this journal without already knowing me and my views pretty well. (Hi Mom!) Romney has the cold dead eyes of a killer, but a lot of Americans apparently look for that in their leadership so who am I to burden them with sanity? Meanwhile Cameron is a self-aggrandising nonce who is striving to cripple the NHS so he can eventually justify dissolving it and giving his cronies in the private insurance industry some coin, but that's blatant to every nurse, cabbie and coal miner in the UK and no one seems able to do anything about it--especially me, as I can't actually vote here. 

I may be 28, but I'm just as left-wing, pro-choice, anti-theistic, counter-patriarchal, feminist, state-education supportively idealistic as any naïvely youthful 27 year old. Hear me roar.

TASTEE FTW!

Ginger Biscuffin Noms

2 US Cups white lily flour (all purpose would probably work too, just sift it)

1 US tablespoon baking powder

1 US teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons sifted buttermilk powder (MUY IMPORTANTE! NOT milk with vinegar!!)

½ teaspoon ground ginger

(chunks of stem ginger would be nice too)

2 tablespoons nice shortening (who am I kidding, Britain has nothing. Buy Crisco from America.)

grate a sizeable handful of butter into it, probably a bit more than a quarter cup

1 US cup Ginger Beer (Old Jamaica works nicely, but stir it to flatten it first)

Heat your shitty-ass oven to 425 Fahrenheit. Mix ingredients in listed order, whisking dry ingredients thoroughly before cutting Crisco in, then grating butter directly into the mixture. It should resemble...erm, well it's sorta granular with the little chunks of butter in there but I can't think of anything not gross it's similar to. Add ginger beer in small splashes and stir in well. Mixture should be sticky (I wound up using about ¾ of the ginger beer, but that may change with the humidity so be prepared.) Spoon into a muffin tin (or roll it out and use a biscuit cutter if you're feeling classy) and entrust to your oven for about twenty minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test. There should be enough butter in there for the ginger biscuffins to just fall out of the tin when they're done, so fling onto the counter to cool. Yields about 8 muffins, maybe more if you roll out into biscuits.

Blurp, Blorp, Smoosh

Last week I took a class. An awesome class.  A class that makes you glad you're an adult who has finished regular school so you can spend a whole week doing this sort of class.

A class, in short, in mould-making and casting, skills which are very useful to my Props students and which I, until quite recently, had absolutely no hand in. But no more!

Yes, I, your humble narrator, am now absolutely teh awesomzors at pouring silicone on knick-knacks.

I've uploaded photos in chronological order, starting with Tuesday, as I forgot my camera Monday. I had a classmate and a teacher, but in the interest of courtesy I have excluded photos of them and their work as I don't really know them. But their work was quite good--in several instances, better than mine. Anyway.  The shot at the top is at home this past Saturday at dinner. You'll see. Pictures!

This is my 3D mould of a candlestick the morning of day 2. The original candlestick is encased inside. By this point I had poured and smeared silicone all over one side, and had let it harden overnight. I then made a trough around it and filled that with plaster, which sets up quite quickly (less than half an hour). The little dots help everything line up when you're reassembling it. The plaster jacket poured around it holds the silicone mould in the right configuration while the casting medium sets. Everyone catch that?

Your humble narrator MISSING A HAND OMG WTF AAAAA  graciously volunteered to demonstrate how Alginate works, an algae-based form-taking compound that typically works exactly once, but very quickly. Only used for safely taking moulds of people's parts, you slorp it on fast (and cold!) and let it set (in about three minutes). Then gently remove (in my case, I wiggled my fingers and it came off) and fill with plaster within an hour to get an amazing copy.

My hand, supported in rice, waiting to be filled with plaster.

Not bad, eh? Embiggen for detail. The alginate mould was, unfortunately, destroyed in the process of removing the plaster cast, but that's normal. Now I could mould the hand in silicone, which takes at least 8 hours to set up, without my fingers cramping up for 8 hours. 

My original candlestick, with its freshly-cured and freed plaster shell, waiting for its second silicone layer.  Neat thing: with enough petroleum jelly, the silicone and plaster you see here will not stick to the silicone and plaster you pour to make the other side, so the dots just form themselves! Poured second silicone layer and put aside.

Cookin' up some vinyl. Yum. It smells like custard-scented plastic, particularly so when you  melt it.  It gave me a headache.

My classmate pouring vinyl over an ashtray she would like to use as a lamp base. The vinyl takes a couple of hours to cure, so we left these overnight.

Wednesday morning. The brass-coloured coin on the right is the original, found in a pencil-box in my house.  I think it belongs to my landlady, though what its significance is (if any) I couldn't begin to guess. The yellow form above it is, you guessed it, the vinyl mould. The terracotta-coloured mould and block above are modelling wax (very very soft, smearable, smells like crayons) and the off-white set are Sculpey.

Wahoo! After a quick plaster-pour and set in the morning, the candlestick decanted beautifully. Silicone is amazing--it even copies the sheen of the original. The belly of the knick-knack is ever so slightly satin-textured, and that will reproduce accurately no matter how many times you use it (which could be an indefinite number with reasonable care). My classmate's prototype was glossy ceramic, and it transferred the gloss perfectly.

Cutting air-vents into some fiddly bits to prevent bubbles getting trapped. The vent must carry straight through into the rest of the piece.

GIANT CHRYSALIS. Or mould wrapped in cling-film ready to have plaster poured in it and shaken vigorously. 

Plaster poured, time waited, cracked open, success! Well, not really success--I mixed the plaster too thick and it set up a bit too fast, so there's more bubbles than I would have liked, particularly near the bottom (the last part I poured, by which point the plaster was already setting up.) Whoops.

But hey, my air bubble vents worked! Everything seeped out nicely.

Cleaned up and tidied. Did you know you can cut freshly-cast plaster with a scalpel? I do now. I finished up the bottom later.

As a curiosity, my teacher coated the handle in a thick paste-like silicone and let it harden over night, just in case. It came in handy. We also poured 2D moulds in silicone and left them overnight to cure.

Original at the bottom, while the top two are a study: both copies are made with a plaster compound mixed with iron for strength (and to give it a nice terracotta appearance) but they are resting on their moulds--vinyl to the left and silicone to the right. Embiggen for detail--you'll see that the vinyl one looks nicer, nice and smooth, but the silicone one, while rough and kinda crappy-looking, is actually a perfect copy of the original. Vinyl doesn't take absolutely the best copies of things, but it has three very distinct advantages over silicone--it is slightly cheaper, it sets up faster, and it can be melted down and re-used over and over. But silicone does the job far better.

Thursday morning. A shell being copied in polyurethane resin, padded out with Fillite, a lightweight industrial ash that is used to stretch polyurethane (as a cost and weight-saving measure). This process involved swirling the plastic resin carefully around the mould until it hardened (well, until it stopped moving).  It sets up in about twenty minutes. 

The shell to the left is pure polyurethane, no filler. The shell to the right is pure...shell. With some barnacles. But they're long dead. My landlady had about eight of these.

Check those deets! Polyurethane's potential for producing accurate replicas is OFF THA CHAIN. 

My teacher's genius idea for adding increments to disposable cups. Only works if you regularly use the same cups, of course, but this style is pretty easy to find, and dirt cheap. Great for polyurethane and polyester mixing. 

Oh dear, this is getting a bit silly. Original at the bottom, then a polyurethane copy with faux gold leaf powder added to Part A. It was lightweight and shiny but the gold comes off if you rub it. Then a polyester copy, filled with actual bronze and copper powders. Quite heavy, and polish-able to an antique-like glow. Then the two terracotta plasters, then wax, then a cruddy polyester one from the vinyl mould (made with leftovers, hence it is not full), then sculpey, then polyurethane/gold leaf in vinyl (again, leftovers). It gets worse.

Now it's your turn!

A polyester/metal powders apple, using a mould that was laying around. I've polished it a bit with steel wool to bring out some highlights. It is very cute. This was Friday morning.

A polyurethane copy of my candlestick's handle, with green pigment and faux steel powders mixed in. The steel just darkened it, really, which I think gave it a slightly antique-y feel. It was an experiment. As you would have noted earlier, polyurethane cures opaque, so suspensions in it don't show up very well.

Set handle copy in the mould for hollow cast attempt. The hollow-mould technique probably would not have gotten enough PU into the handle space for it to work otherwise.

Photo down the bottom of the mould to check how it was all curing in there.  Looks good!  Hollow PU casting involves rolling it around and around and around and around until it stops moving. Takes a while but it saves money on resin, which isn't cheap. Pretty much nothing involved in the mould-making and casting process is cheap.  The copy came out really well but I forgot to take pictures of it and my camera battery is dead. Maybe I'll update this after I take a picture. 

So yes, I learned something. A thing or two. I learned a lot of other things that aren't detailed here but these were some of the cool things. I also really enjoyed it. I screwed up a few times but was able to figure out what I'd done wrong (mostly speed and thickness-related issues that get better with practice).  The things I brought home look nice, and I'm proud of them, though what on earth I'm going to do with them now I have no idea. I'm back at work this week, ho-hum. Maybe next summer I'll take a class in ceramics. Or sculpture.  Or blacksmithing. Or silver-smithing. Or painting nudes. Or painting naked people.

MOAR! Just two--the middle ones are Jesmonite, a type of plaster that is mixed with a plastic polymer for added strength. The yellow one is Jesmonite with chrome yellow pigment powder, left over from my classmate's hollow cast. By the time I'd made my 10th copy I was giggling like a moron. I'm rich! I'm rich! I'm awaiting the arrival of my clear cast polyester copy, in a translucent blue with glitter. (classmate's idea). It wasn't set up by the end of class Friday so the teacher said he'd put it in the post, along with my vinyl mould and a few other things we poured.