Jump to content

Hunter Thomson

Author
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,160

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Hunter Thomson

  1. Hunter Thomson

    Therapy

    By Hunter Thomson,

    Therapy. Counseling. Mental health. Talking doctor.
    Whatever your choice word for it, that seems to be where I've landed. BEFORE THE PANIC SETS IN, I'M FINE. Well... that's a relative term, but there's no need to worry about me. I've been feeling depressed and uncertain about my future for a long time now, and it's getting in the way of my work. 
    It's not what I thought it would be. For one thing, I don't come close to fitting on the damned couch. My person seems to like cognitive behaviour therapy. They're challenging me. Making me articulate what I believe, where those beliefs came from and how they affect my life in subtle and not so subtle ways. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel after sessions, though I'm going to guess that having sore legs is not typical. 
    I don't like feeling so exposed. It's good for me to think about the things they're having me think about, but the way they stare at me... I feel like a science project run amok. They look at me the way I look at a particularly dismal essay response, just sitting there studying it, trying to figure out what to do with it. It's been very superficial so far, we're still establishing who we both are in the process and nobody seems interested in delving too deeply into my childhood, which is a kindness. 
    I do think I chose well. My person has a similar background to me, at least in some ways. I confess I don't know them overly well yet, but we both have sports and being LGBTQ in common, so I can talk about those sorts of things much more freely than I otherwise would. More to the point, I don't have to explain things about my athletics frustrations because they get it, they've been there and can talk to me about those same issues from my own perspective instead of just a counselor's perspective, which can feel patronizing at times.
    It's only been a couple of sessions, but it seems to be helping? I have some more motivation to do things that I need to do for work and for school. I'm not lapsing into melancholy each night and questioning everything I do. I still have a LOT to work through though, and it's nice to have someone who can help me work through things. 
     
    Anyways, that's me. I guess this is my new project now, fixing myself. Yay me.
  2. Hunter Thomson
    First off, apologies to everyone who wondered where I wandered off to. I went home this weekend to go curling in a local bonspiel (tournament) with my team from two years ago. We just lost on the A-side semifinals, and it feels bittersweet to me.
     
    First the good. I'm so proud of the four of us. We can back together after a season away from each other and we took a perennial provincial qualifier right into the last shot of the extra end. We made the semifinals and to get there we beat a different junior provincial champion. We were under pressure from the other teams right from game one on Friday and we held together and kept each other's spirits up, even in the grim moments we had at different points in the weekend. 
    I've been curling for fifteen years now, and I will never, ever curl as well as I did this weekend ever again. Something changed in me this weekend, and maybe it was the fact that this was supposed to be fun and none of the usual attendant pressure was with me in the competition, but I was utterly at ease and was making shots that world champions hesitate on. I made it look easy this weekend, and for once I didn't get down on myself when I did miss a shot or two. This weekend was a test for me to see if I could honestly compete with people at a provincial championship and who are the top calibre players in the province. The fact that I kept pace with these people made me feel good about myself, and even if it ends up being fleeting and I never get it back, I know that I have that capacity within me to shine and lead the way. As time goes on I'll forget the individual shots that were made or missed, but I won't forget this feeling of being so completely at ease and simply knowing that I could do anything. 
    My team was magnificent, I couldn't ask for three better people to play with again. All three rose to the occasion and being around people who accept me for who I am made all of this worthwhile. My boys are crazy, but playing with them made a good weekend that much better. A special shoutout to my one teammate who hadn't even played since the last time we were all together, and who shook the rust off in plenty of time for us to push towards playoff Sunday. 
     
    With all of the fun that I had and the memories I made, I'd be remiss unless I reflected on the things that just didn't work out. 
     
    Losing hurt. Losing by half an inch in the extra end hurt more. The part that kills me is that's on me. A split second lapse in judgment and a second's worth of hesitation cost us a chance at the championship finals. I compounded that error by not pressing the option I had to measure, even though I was pretty sure that we still would have lost. I should have asked for a measure, as it could have given us a win.
    There were some ugly misses along with my good shotmaking, and it is to my detriment that I wasn't able to correct those mistakes even during the game. It was a consistent inability to read the ice and get a handle on the weight for the shots being called, and it very nearly cost us our early games as well. 
    I was disappointed by the amount of drinking done by my teammates. I don't drink, and while I understand that other younger people like to drink on the weekends and at events like this, we're still also competitors. There's no need to have multiple pitchers of beer in a single night, especially when we've got a game the following morning. That couldn't have benefited their play, and  of course we'll never know how things could have gone down if everyone had been completely sober. 
     
    I'm glad I came down, and I proved a lot to myself this weekend. But I won't deny that this hurt more than I thought it would to get so close and fall short.
  3. Hunter Thomson
    So, this is it. In ten hours I'll be on a plane to my new home in Prince George, five hundred kilometers away from everyone and everything that I've grown up with for the last twenty-seven years of my life. 
     
    I wish I could say I was excited, because I should be, and on some level I suppose I am. This is a chance for a new start and to erase all of the mistakes I made in Vancouver. No one knows me in Prince George; I don't have to face the stigma of all of the things that people think I am or anything like that. I can be a completely new person and not be held back by my past life. Except that this is my home, the place that feels most comfortable to me in spite of the summer heat wave and the fact that I'm completely persona non grata in the gay world and my political world. I'm utterly alone here, but at least I'm alone with people who love me. I won't have anyone or anything when I get to Prince George.
     
    I wish I knew how things would turn out, or that at least I'd be okay up north. I don't know anything about the culture of the city or even what the food will be like, and I'd hate to think that I spent all this money just to get sick repeatedly and not be able to actually do any of the things I want to do. I'm scared that this will be another stupid detour and waste of my time and money, that I won't be any more employable than I am now and that I really am to be relegated to a pointless existence for the rest of my life. But there are no guarantees, and staying here is nearly a sign of surrender. So I guess I'm off. I don't know what it will accomplish, but I will be back again someday... I think.
     
    Except for GA. I'm not leaving here, you people can't get rid of me that easily.
  4. Hunter Thomson
    Let's play the what if game. I should point out, there's a reason behind this, for once. I've started going to life coaching, a program put on by a local gay men's health organization. Normally, life coaching is meant to help clarify your goals and give you a few tools to achieve measurable, concrete goals. By sheer happenstance, my life coach has some psychology training and we seem to have delved off into actual therapy instead of just life coaching. Which is fine by me, apparently I need it.
     
    Something we touched on last week was that I often don't feel comfortable advocating for myself and being assertive among groups. Those of you that see me interact on here are likely surprised by such an assessment, but it rings more true in my in person interactions. This has led me to miss out on a few things that I would have otherwise gone for, had I been more prepared to speak up in my own defense. So let's play, and have a relatively frustrating look at what might have been.
     
    In primary school, I joined the volleyball team and wandered my way up to playing on the school's top team. This was back when no one could be cut, so the school had multiple teams, even though everyone knew which team was considered the top team for the school. I liked playing with the guys, they were pretty cool and we all had a bit of status from being sports stars for our school. I'd grown up with all of them, and we all agreed that we were going to try out for the high school team together, since we'd played against most of them already and felt that we all had a chance of making the team. In eighth grade when I got to high school, I suddenly dropped out from the tryouts without giving a reason why to either the coach or my former teammates. As it turned out, one of my former teammates ended up playing for the school team for the next five years, so it was definitely attainable for me to make the team if I'd stuck with it. I can only imagine that I would have been better known had I stuck with it and maintained that jock persona all through high school. It would have made coming out easier, because at least then people would know me and not have a confused look on their face when I did eventually come out. Better to be the gay jock than the absolute nothing I was in high school xD. No regrets about coming out to my baseball and curling teams, and there's some delightful stories I can tell about that. 
     
    I got into my first choice university, and I was surprised to see that UBC had a number of fraternities on campus. I thought it'd be a wonderful opportunity to join a fraternity. Meeting all those guys would have given me a social network right away that would have grounded me a bit more in my first year of university. I didn't join, because I was afraid of getting too busy and far away from home, but it's another instance of things that could have changed. First among the changes would have been a much better social life, since the frats are always busy with something or another, including a few charity activities a year. They wanted me, too! I got asked to join them for a sushi dinner and it was fun, and I should have stuck with them and gotten pledged.
     
    Joining the frat might also have given me the push I needed to go try out for the UBC baseball team. At that point I'd been playing competitively for thirteen years, and while I wasn't the biggest or strongest person, I knew what I was doing and had some professional coaching over the previous few years that made me competitive, even against top competition. I backed off from trying out for that sports team as well. This time I gave some crappy excuse about how the tryouts were in the Winter and I wouldn't be ready. I saw a UBC baseball game a couple of months ago. I could have easily made the team, even back eight years ago when I took the coward's way out. Again, it would have given me a social network to rely on and hang out with instead of the mind-numbing boredom of my first couple years of university. It would have given me some extra confidence that I so desperately need in my professional life. 
     
    In each of these situations, I could have gotten what I wanted had I actually stood up for what I wanted instead of simply giving in to the expectations of the people around me. No one expected me to be good at volleyball, so I didn't try out even though I knew I could. My father didn't want me to join a fraternity because it would take me away from music, so I didn't join. I didn't try out because I didn't think I was good enough and again, my dad was annoyed by the winter tryout. So I didn't try out. Even if I hadn't made any of those teams or been accepted into the fraternity, at least then I'd know because it was entirely due to my own lack of ability or lack of what they wanted for their organization. I'll never know that for sure now, and that lack of knowing haunts me. Particularly because it was based on a lack of assertiveness on my own behalf. 
     
    Go figure, therapy actually accomplished something. These were all things that we sort of talked about in my session, and now that I've had a few days to expand on them I realize there's a lot more there to work with. 
     
    At least this will dispel the rumours that I have my **** together. Or who knows, no one believed the rumours that I was gay either, and I was the one who started them. 
  5. Hunter Thomson
    On may 9th, 2017 British Columbians voted for change. Today, they have finally gotten it. The Legislature voted 44-42 in favour of the NDP amendment to the Throne Speech expressing no-confidence in the Clark government. Because of that vote, Premier Clark and her cabinet have resigned. Later today, after meeting with both Premier Clark and Opposition Leader Horgan of the NDP, the Leftenant-Governor has invited John Horgan to form a government and Cabinet, accepting the resignation of the Clark government.
     
    Today is the end of a long, 16 year nightmare. Leftist, progressive citizens in British Columbia have been crying out for change from massive infrastructure projects that serve no purpose. We've cried out against the shortchanging of children in order to pursue a fossil fuel industry that won't be competitive. We've demanded an education system that's funded properly, a welfare system that provides a fair payment to our least fortunate, and a health care system that works for everyone. 
     
    The NDP-Green coalition will not be perfect. They'll fight. It will be hell to get through a Legislature that is deadlocked 43-43 on all votes, with the Speaker needing to save every piece of legislation from the abyss. But we have a chance to make life better for millions of people right here, right now. Every single thing this government does will come under attack by the media, and it's unlikely that this government will serve a second 4 year term in 2021. But in the four (possibly less if the Greens abandon us or someone gets sick) years we have to us, we're going to change this small part of the world for the better. Universal child care, a basic income pilot project, billions of dollars in education funding and the expansion of the tar sands required by federal law. We're going to protect our environment and put thousands back to work on environmentally friendly infrastructure. 
     
    Welcome back, New Democrats. You've been given a chance to govern. Follow our principles, and when you see yourself starting to waver, remember that over one million British Columbians put their hopes in you. Don't let us down.
     
    Now, it's time to go celebrate, every bar in town is hosting an NDP victory party tonight!
  6. Hunter Thomson
    This past weekend I had the singular privilege of being able to attend Denver Pride weekend. This was to be my first Pride Parade outside of Vancouver, and indeed my first Pride events outside of Canada at all. Naturally, this means it didn't happen because I got super sick and had to leave before the parade. Before I departed early and fled back to a climate that could support my biology, I was able to re-learn a number of things that we should never take for granted as LGBTQ people and allies. For those who need background information, I attended Denver Pride weekend as part of the Outsports reunion. Outsports is a website devoted to giving a voice and platform to LGBTQ athletes, no matter where they are and what level of competition they participate in. This is what I learned and remembered from being around my brothers and sisters-in-arms.
     
    1. There are more of us than we will ever know, and we truly are everywhere. One of the first things we did on the weekend was hit up the bars and clubs as a group. We packed the house both times. More than half the people at the first club were Outsports people, and even though we didn't make up as big a share of the club later in the evening, there were more of us numerically than the start of the day. People kept coming all throughout the weekend, people who couldn't be there Thursday came Friday. People who couldn't make it Friday came Saturday. But they kept coming. Friday morning when I went to our big discussion event, there was a giant map of North America, and I was asked to put a sticker on where I lived. While the Canadian contingent was small (Go Team Canada!), it was amazing to see how many people from all over the continent were showing up just to celebrate Pride together. That was a powerful image, but of course no one has photographs of it because some of us are closeted and we used our real names on the map. I never thought I'd be going to Denver Pride and celebrating with LGBTQ athletes from Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii or Massachusetts. It was a perfect visualization for how many of us there were.
     
    2. We are diverse, and our diversity makes us strong. Part of the Friday sessions was to learn about each other, so we all wore name tags with our names and what sports we were affiliated with on our clothes so we could make those instant connections. Like I said earlier, I met people from all around North America, and all of us played different sports. I was the only curler, but I met people who played sports I would never consider, and it got me to think that even though we're all different, we're all still athletes and we have a fraternity among ourselves relating to the dedication and the work we all did to succeed in our respective sports. 
     
    3. Most importantly; we are, both as individuals and as a whole, stronger than anything that life puts in our way. I got to hear so many people's personal stories, and it shocked me how strong my fellow LGBTQ athletes are, and how privileged and blessed I have been that my life has avoided many of these anxious, stressful moments. I heard from Olympic Athletes talking about their struggles to remain true to themselves in sports where they would be the only LGBTQ person they know, and how they feared losing the support of their teams and their sponsors for living their truth. I heard from closeted athletes, people who'd never considered going to Pride but knew they had to be in Denver to meet their fellows and realize how many of us there are. I heard from people whose families didn't accept them, who worked hard to change hearts and minds and turn people who didn't support them into their greatest champions. I heard all of this from people, and the underlying comment from everyone was that we all succeeded, but we have so much further to go and that together we can do it. We were empowered to change our communities and to change our schools and to change everything about where we are from, because the organizers knew we could all do it if we put our minds to it.
     
    The people I met at Denver Pride and the Outsports conference changed me. They reminded me of the good that we can do as individuals and as a group of like-minded people. We are bigger than mountains and stronger than those who hate us. I'll never forget this weekend, and I'm so ready for next year's reunion... assuming it's in a city that won't absolutely destroy me on contact the way the Denver heat and high altitude did.
  7. Hunter Thomson
    For those of you who read my #BCPoli election blog, thanks. It was fun, never doing it again. 
    This is a postscript for those of you who read through everything. The BC Liberals nominally won the election with 43 of 87 seats. However, the NDP won 41 seats and the BC Green Party won 3 seats, and they have agreed to a written accord (not a coalition, which is a formal governance agreement in Canada) whereby the NDP will govern with the tacit and supporting votes from the BC Greens to achieve a majority. It is not a coalition, in that the Greens reserve the right to sit in Opposition to the NDP government they are propping up, and have agreed only to vote with the NDP on matters of budget or confidence in the government. 
    Having said that, this government may die in a few weeks since there's an impasse on who will serve as the Speaker of the House. A liberal Speaker would preserve the Accord's majority, but an NDP or Green Speaker would lead to legislative deadlock. The Speaker, by unwritten convention going back 7 centuries, can only vote to continue debate or preserve the status quo. This means that legislation will die in Third Reading, including budgets, throne speeches and other matters of confidence in the government. Which means that as soon as the NDP attempts to table any such documents, it will die unless the Speaker is willing to repeatedly defy precedent for the next 4.5 years. Such a position would be absolutely unprecedented in Canadian electoral history. Liberals have unanimously declared that if elected, they will not serve as Speaker (something that they can apparently do in spite of the secret ballot used to elect the Speaker). So it's entirely likely that I'll spend my summer working a second election campaign, which would be an immense relief to me since I'm going insane from boredom. A summer election would end the boredom very quickly.
     
    But it's time to figure out what I want to do politically. Anyone who knows me knows that I harbour political ambitions, and I have the connections needed to make a good showing when I choose to make my run. Given the NDP sweep of my hometown and all of the surrounding districts, it's not advantageous for me to contest a provincial seat (which is what I would truly like), nor would I be well-situated to win given my lack of real-world experience at the moment. I'm also not likely to succeed at present in the federal seat I reside in. It has a history of electing NDP representatives, including very young gay New Democrats, but I think it unlikely that I would be their first choice, given the high profile of the seat and the fact that the party controls every other elected position in the city EXCEPT this one federal seat. 
    That leaves city council or the school board. Both have vacancies due to the provincial election, which guarantees an opening for me to run in that doesn't explicitly mean that I have to face the city council directly in a nomination battle. Given the absolute virulence that some on Council have shown me (and I've shown them repeatedly in exchange), that's probably a good thing, since they would deal with me in short order in a head to head election, but may not play favourites for the open council seat. The alternative would be to contest the open school board seat, where I have broadly strong relations with all of the major players, and would be seen as less of a public frustration than the current school board trustee blabbing about internal discussions to the local paper. I have the benefit of having worked with the school board on policy in the past, having pushed them into creating and working through an explicit anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia policy that includes resources for including pro-LGBTQ material into the curriculum. So... they know me, and they like me enough to invite me to be a keynote speaker at a district event. 
    Both options appeal to me. Council desperately needs my voice on housing issues, and even as the council reluctantly starts to take my activist viewpoint on expanding housing in the city, winning a council seat with that as my main platform issue would certainly boost the effectiveness of my critiques. In spite of their past anger towards me, they would be loyal and help elect me if I was part of the slate. I wouldn't be able to guarantee success on expanding housing options in the city, but those issues would have a voice and champion. It would also allow me to continue and expand my work on the city public safety committee where I've spent the last six years improving police awareness of youth crime issues and ensuring that stays on the radar. Councillors have seen me there, and they appreciate my work on those files, so they may also appreciate my diligence on other issues before council, should I get there. 
    The school board interests me as well. Obviously as a teacher I couldn't teach in a district where I served as a trustee, but with my master's degree coming I may not be teaching anymore anyways, and may shift entirely into a research career, which would free me up to serve as a trustee at home. I already know that I can work well with the current trustees, and it's a lower profile position that would allow me to get used to actually governing before becoming a councillor or something with more clout and public profile. There are things that I would want to accomplish at the school board as well, including the expansion of additional Mandarin language classes, and expanding the Advance Placement capstone program to all eight high schools in the district. Increasing public knowledge about the ACE-IT program for early trades certification would also be a priority issue for me. So there are things that I can do, and I wouldn't be choosing school board because of its potential as a springboard to alternative elective offices. There's also the fact that the open Council seat is likely to be more interesting to potential candidates than a school board seat. Better perks and the like, and I'm not entirely in it for the perks. 
     
    All of which is a long way for me to say that I don't know what I want for myself. I have a meeting with the local party's treasurer in the next few days, and I plan to sound him out a bit before I go too much further. I'm also considering talking to a current city councillor and a school board trustee that I have strong connections to, in order to better grasp what their views would be. I feel like they'll suggest I wait. It's what they Mayor said when I asked for his blessing to run federally in 2015, and I ignored his advice. The result was being squished like a bug by the powers that be. What a learning experience that was. Perhaps waiting another election cycle until I've more thoroughly rebuilt the bridges I've burned all to hell from my public comments. Perhaps hearing from my superiors will give me an idea of what my options are.
  8. Hunter Thomson
    In two months, my home province of British Columbia will be heading to the polls. I'm looking forward to the campaign, and hopefully in displacing the long-ruling BC Liberal government, which has had a continuous legislative majority since the 2001 elections that obliterated the BC New Democratic Party. Now, politics in British Columbia are different from the rest of Canada, so here are the important players.
     
    BC Liberal Party - Their leader and the current Premier is Christy Clark, who became Premier after winning the party leadership after former Premier Gordon Campbell was appointed High Commissioner to London. Premier Clark was, at the time, a radio host and former member of the Legislature, and won the leadership after a protracted leadership campaign. The BC Liberals, contrary to their name, are the main 'conservative', free enterprise party in British Columbia. Their membership reflects a combination of national Liberals and Conservatives, and is the direct successor to the Social Credit Party as the leader of the capitalist, free enterprise coalition in British Columbia. The Liberal Party vote has a floor of around 40% that does not leave the party, no matter what.
     
    BC New Democratic Party - Like their federal cousins, the New Democratic Party is the progressive, social democratic party in British Columbia. Our (Full disclaimer/disclosure: I'm a paying member of the BC NDP and have served as a party officer since 2009) leader is John Horgan, who won the leadership in late 2013 after our previous leader surrendered a 25 point lead in the polls. The party and its predecessor the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have been the main social democratic party in British Columbia since 1933, and has been one of the top two parties in terms of vote share and seat count since the party's inception. With the exception of 2001's massacre, the party can consistently expect around 38% of the vote in any given election.
     
    BC Green Party - A progressive leaning Green Party that focuses on sustainable development and environmental protection as their main policies. The Green Party is lead by Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist from the University of Victoria, and he is currently their only elected member of the Legislature. The party has been experimenting with new policy ideas, including a proposed pilot project for a universal basic income. The BC Green Party was created by dissident New Democrats in the 1990s, angry that the NDP government of the decade opened up part of the Great Bear Rainforest to development. Some recent polling has shown the Green Party surging in support across the province, taking around 20% of the popular vote.
     
    BC Conservative Party - The BC Conservatives are a new party, fighting their second election in their newly constituted form. Parties with the name 'BC Conservative' have come and gone, with the party being de-registered as an active party at several points over the last seventy years. The party currently has no leader after the previous leader, Dan Brooks, resigned the leadership for the second time in as many years. The party is not currently included in many election polls.
     
    With all of that contexty stuff out of the way, let's get to the interesting bits, the actual campaign!
     
    This year's election is being fought over the context of a number of different economic strains on the budget. Last November, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the BC Liberals unconstitutionally destroyed the teachers' contracts and required the government to reduce student-teacher ratios and class composition (the number of students with individualized education plans) back to the 2002 ratios. This necessitated over a billion dollars in new funding to the public education system and the subsequent hiring of over three thousand new teachers (a process that is still ongoing). This is a particularly black mark for Premier Clark, as she was the Minister of Education that initially destroyed those contracts. Adding to the financial strain on the government is the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which has been repeatedly under attack by critics for allowing children in care to die, and without even ensuring adequate care for the children. As a case in point, the most recent investigation covered an 18 year old in care who was placed into a motel as his housing by the Ministry. Additional funding has been promised, which has impacted the budget projections for the government.
     
    The Liberals have also been rocked by various ethics controversies, including accusations made against Health Ministry workers that directly led to the suicide of an accused graduate student who was later found to be innocent of the accusations. Finally, the government has been frustrated in its attempts to create a liquefied natural gas industry in the province, and failed to halt federal approval for the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion leading to the Pacific Ocean.
     
    In the government's favour is the fact that the NDP hasn't won an election since 1996, and has only won three times in all of its history in British Columbia. The Liberals have much more money to spend on the campaign, and most of their incumbents are running again. Many of them also remember that at this time before the last election, they were trailing by 25%, so being in a tied election right now is a far more comfortable position for them than they faced the last time they faced the electorate.
     
    The NDP, traditionally supported by the labour unions, is facing an internal revolt as private sector construction unions are beginning to endorse the anti-union Liberals, thanks to the Liberals support for massive construction projects that would lead to more union jobs in the province. This has sapped the organizational strength from the New Democrats going into the election, at a time where they could potentially be capitalizing on Liberal failures. The New Democrats also face renewed strength in the BC Green Party which shares an electoral base, especially on Vancouver Island where nearly a third of the NDP caucus is elected.
     
    My home district is a bellweather riding that normally votes with the overall provincial winner, though in 2013 we backed the NDP thanks to superb organizing and volunteer efforts. I'll be interested to see whether the parties can break out of their traditional bases. The Liberals have strength in rural and suburban British Columbia, but face difficulties in some of the inner suburbs and the main cities, as well as Vancouver Island. To win, the NDP has to start performing in rural British Columbia and sweeping the suburbs along with its traditional progressive coalition. For the Greens, winning more than just the leader's seat will be seen as a successful campaign, though some Green insiders are hoping to supplant the NDP as the main opposition party to the Liberals.
     

    That's a lot to take in about the BC Politics scene, so let's all take a quick break before I start talking about my favourite subject - my political career.
     

    In 2018, the municipal elections will be happening (In Canada, different levels of governments have elections in separate years from each other). I'm planning on contesting the local school board elections in my hometown. The place I live is one of the few communities in British Columbia with organized municipal political parties, and my relationship with the dominant party would be considered strained at best. They have accepted me again as a paying member of the party, but in the past years I've attempted to defend my seat on the executive and was defeated for opposing the party stance on affordable housing. Since that's an issue of Council and not the school board, I'm hoping that it will not be used as a weapon against me in any potential nomination contest.
     
    For those who don't know, I'm currently a private school teacher teaching in Downtown Vancouver. Now that I've been on the teacher side of the field, I see the importance of strong leadership in education, and I'm hoping that my past experiences in policy formation and execution will help me as a potential school board trustee.
     
    Beyond the negative publicity of attacking my own party, the members who turn out for nomination races do otherwise have a favourable opinion of me, particularly those who have served with me in the leadership. There's also residual support in the LGBTQ community in the city due to my organizing and lobbying in favour of a local anti-discrimination school board policy that was enacted in 2011. Passing the policy over vocal objection both on and off the school board garnered lots of positive media coverage, but after seven years those views are unlikely to have remained with the electorate.
     
    Which is fine, I'm not running to defend the policy or even to expand it. While I'm proud of the work I did to create the policy and defend it in the election of 2011, I'm not focusing on it as a campaign platform. My focus is to be on expanding access to trades training programs and advanced placement programs. The province, in partnership with the local school boards, offers a program known as ACE-IT, which provides students with practical experience and their first year trades training in a trade of their choice. The program is entirely funded by the district, and helps reduce the time needed to become a journeyman tradesperson. However, there's a lack of knowledge about these programs being available, and each school only offers a few of the programs, creating a patchwork where students in some parts of the city do not have access to the ACE-IT program at all. Expansion of the College Board's Advance Placement Capstone program is another goal of mine. It's currently being run as a pilot program in two of the eight secondary schools in the district, and I'd like to expand that program to all students in order to provide that additional benefit to students pursuing post-secondary educations.
     
    Of recent issue is the idea of the district being a 'sanctuary district'. While I'm supportive in principle, I'm interested to see what happens with the new policy and how the district staff interact with federal immigration authorities over the next year.
     
    This is service for me. I believe in giving back to the community and the schools that helped shape me, and while I have no quarrel with any of the school board trustees currently on the board, I feel that many of them have served their community for long enough, and that new voices are needed to replace those individuals seeking their eleventh term on the school board. Changing educational technology and new pedagogical practices necessitates the need for new voices at the board of education to ensure that the students of my city are best served, especially with the rollout of new provincial curriculum guidelines and additional provincial funding to uphold the Supreme Court ruling. As a new teacher who's recently obtained my teaching certificate, I feel that I would be an articulate voice for the new generation of educators that is not being heard at the board level right now.
     
    Whew. That's all of it. I'll write another one of these soon, but I'd love to hear what people think about the BC Political scene, or any advice for a campaign I may or may not end up running. For the record, this won't be the first campaign I've run or worked on. I've been a past campaign manager, past candidate and past paid staffer for a few campaigns, so I already know what kind of costs are going to be involved.
     
    See you later blog buddies!
  9. Hunter Thomson
    I'm going to go back and get my Master's degree. I already have Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Education, and a diploma in Adult Education. The MA in Political Science is a bit of unfinished business, one that I swore I'd go and finish up. It's been years since I wrote an academic essay, but such skills don't usually atrophy over time. I... I want this. Not just for the sake of having an MA, but because politics is something I've grown to love from both the outsider's drama of it, as well as being deeply involved in my own personal battles with elected officials and political systems. I want to be teaching political science one day, and while teaching in high schools would be deeply satisfying, there's something about politics that keeps bringing me back.
     
    I can do it. I know I can. I also know that the last time I tried, I wasn't able to prove it. My marks have changed, but perhaps that won't matter. I like to think that it will, especially since my grades have gotten significantly better through my programs. I was always a good political science student as well, and my GPA only went down because of elective courses that were required for graduation.
     
    The only thing I don't have are recent letters of reference. I think it may be time to go and see if there's anyone at my old/current school who will write me a reference, and who feel doing so won't be a waste of time or insult to their time. There are plenty of people in the department that will still remember me, hopefully fondly. In the meantime, I'm going to be taking some time to write a couple of long-overdue papers to get myself back into the swing of things.
     
    I can do this. I need to do this. I know it's where I belong.
  10. Hunter Thomson
    A lot has been said about how sex sells. There’s no doubt about that; sex and sexuality are hugely important to many marketing and advertising campaigns, and the fact that companies continue to experience commercial success after using sex as a marketing tool proves how well sex sells.
     
    But, I’m not a marketer, or an advertising executive. I’m just a guy who writes young adult novels. Which leads me to wonder how much sex is too much sex for a novel, or even a series of novels. We’re all taught to hide sex in our writing, that if we really must have our characters be put in sexual situations then they must be off-screen, to be imagined by the reader instead of explained and detailed. All of this is done in fear of disturbing potential readers, or especially potential publishers. This moral paranoia extends to television and films, though not to the same degree. You see people on tv or the movies pre and post-coitus. Sometimes, you even see the sexual act in some clinical fashion.
     
    Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way, as authors. I try to be a realist in my writing. I write about young adults who are on journeys of self-discovery, particularly relating to sexual orientation. They fall in love, and they have all the same urges that we had when we were young adults. We had sex. We didn’t let sex consume our lives; it was present, to be sure, but it didn’t dominate our existences. It was one thing among many other things that we did.
     
    I like to think that my writing is the same. Yes, there’s sex in my novels. Boys kiss boys. Sometimes they stop, sometimes they don’t. They’re learning how to control themselves and figuring out how to satisfy those urges without causing problems in the rest of their lives. But, they have other things going on in their lives that are much more important. I think that part of the equation is incredibly important, that sex not become the defining quality of the novel or the character.
     
    Frankly, the people who read my novels, and who read your novels, and who read anyone else’s novels? They all have sex.We’re deluding ourselves as an industry if we think our readers don’t know what’s going on when we fade the scene to black. Let’s be realistic with our writing. Write scenes the way that feels natural, not the way you think it needs to be censored in order to survive a publisher’s wrath. In an industry filled with things that defy reality, it will make your writing feel that much more connected to the lives of your readers.
     
    Cross-posted from https://authorhunterthomson.wordpress.com (Check out my blog/twitter/facebook page in my profile!)
  11. Hunter Thomson
    Prompt #526 may become a one-shot from me soon, but for now it serves as a perfect way to start my stream of consciousness today.
     
    “Damn, where the hell am I supposed to go now?”
     
    I have no idea where I'm supposed to go. None at all. I still haven't found a full-time job. I'm lost and beginning to lose hope for my career prospects. Which I suppose makes me like most millennials. I've definitely given up hope for finding a teaching position where I live right now. Biggest city in the province and there's no jobs. Strange how that works out, isn't it? But, I have an interview on Tuesday! A teaching job, even! Full-time, in my subject area!
     
    What's the catch, you might ask?
     
    The job's about 750 kilometers away, as the crow flies. Or about 1180 kilometers as the car drives.
    That's about 462 miles or 733 miles, respectively. My high school community had more people in it than this whole 'city'. Which is fine. I've never lived in a place that small before, but I think I can adjust.
     
    It's a foot in the door... right?
     
    It's more than I thought I'd get or deserve, and part of me is waiting to fuck up the interview anyways. The other part of my mind is quick to point out that if they had *anyone* else, they'd have given the job to them. They're desperate. I'm desperate. It's a horrible match made in hell, and yet it might just work for everyone.
     
    It's not how I thought my teaching career would start. That's for sure. I thought I'd be a substitute for a couple years. Pay my dues. Instead I'm getting close to a dream job. It's my subject and the classes are small and there's a real need for people to come up there and teach. I could make a real difference, especially since it's an area with a substantial First Nations population. I want to make a difference, so it's a great fit for me.
     
    Except I don't know if I can do it. I actually wanted to be a sub for a couple years to give me a chance to build some more/new lesson plans. Perfect my technique a bit and see what other teachers were doing before I had a class of my own. Now here I am, potentially being thrown to hundreds of teenage wolves (not like the show Teen Wolf AT ALL, just sayin'.) Part of me is terrified beyond all belief that I'll fuck things up and make it impossible for these kids to get a proper education in the future. Or I'll turn them off learning and they'll drop out. That's not the difference I want to make with kids.
     
    I suppose my other worry is more personal than professional.
     
    I have nothing up there in DC. Literally nothing. At this point, I don't even have a place to rent prepared for me yet. That's how little I have ready for myself and the potential move I'd be making. It's a mind-numbing thought, and I've grown accustomed to a support network. I'm 26 years old and lived at home my whole life... do I really think I'd be able to survive on my own? Could I do the day-to-day things that make a household run without someone else to do it, or would I crash and burn and make a total fool of myself?
    I'd miss people. People important to me... people I love. I don't know what I would do without some of the people in my life and being able to see them every day. I'm always telling people that nothing lasts forever. It's a Buddhist view, the idea of impermanence, and it's very pragmatic. I even convince myself that I believe in it sometimes... but the truth is I believe in forever. There's such a thing as happily ever after. As loving someone until you die and beyond the grave itself. I'm giving up on that, potentially. Is that selfish or stupid? This is my career. Love can come after... but then what's the point of anything if there's no one there to share your victories and your defeats with you?
     
    I'm not particularly religious, though I do consider myself spiritual, after a fashion... if anything or anyone has guidance, I would hear it. I don't know what to do.
     
    I hate not knowing what to do.
  12. Hunter Thomson
    Do you ever get the feeling like you're not good enough?
    Yeah, that's me. This guy. The one with more awards on his shelf than he knows what to do with, who's helped shaped and pass legislation in the face of bitter and personal opposition and who's repeatedly distinguished himself academically and politically. I know what I've done with my life so far, and right now all I can muster is a "so what?"
     
    I'm still dangerously underemployed. I'm 26 and live with my parents. I have no immediate prospects for work in either my political field or my educational field (though there are a few people pulling strings for me in the teaching world), and I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe I'll be working full time in the near future. Frankly, this isn't where I thought I'd be, and it's playing hell with my plans that I made for myself.
     
    The plan was to be teaching or a full-time worker by now, building up my contacts in the community and preparing for a run at municipal politics next year. I'm not ready. No one thinks I'm a serious candidate in spite of how well I acquitted myself before. I'm seen as a gadfly, and by all rights people are correct. I have nothing in my life that signals I'm a serious being. I'm supposed to be one of the people who helps shape my little corner of the world, maybe make things a bit better than they were. How am I supposed to accomplish anything like combating homelessness when I can't even land a job?
     
    I hate this.
  13. Hunter Thomson
    In eight hours, I'll be inside a science classroom, watching my new patron teach and taking copious notes about how to do the same when my turn comes. The main thought I've been having during all of the long spring break is "how did this happen?"
     
    Not the teaching part. I gathered that would happen when I went to teacher college and graduated with a bachelor of education degree. That part makes sense. But how did I go from being a political scientist, political activist and former candidate to a science teacher? I took my teaching program in civics and history, subjects I actually know something about. Now I'm preparing a lesson on comparative energy sources for a physics class that I'm nowhere near prepared for. I suppose this is similar to how substitute teaching would be as well; no preparation or strategy, just a classroom that you get thrown into and you do your best to work with what's left to you. But, wow. This is hard to consider and deal with, even if this is for the best in terms of my career development.
     
    This isn't really where I want to be. I want to be in back in my social studies classroom, where I can mold minds and teach students to think critically about things. I haven't even started teaching in this class yet, and I already miss my social studies practicum when my students would openly debate me about the issues we were discussing.Those were the best moments in class for me, when I could stop everything and have a class debate, or invite my students to come back during lunch or after class to finish arguing a point they passionately believed in.
     
    You can't do that in science. A resource is either renewable or its not. Energy conversion formulae are not subject to different perspectives and contexts, they're the same all the time and you either do it right or you don't, but there's no way to say "well, if we consider it from another perspective, here's how it could be". I shudder at the very thought. But, as I said, it's another way into the school system to become a real teacher.
     
    All of this is to say that while I know I'll enjoy teaching, wherever I'll end up because of how much I enjoy working with youth, this whole thing is weird. And it makes me miss politics. God, it actually makes me miss being politically involved. That'll be a post for another night.
     
    Wish me luck, and for goodness sake, pray that I don't have to do any lab experiments!
  14. Hunter Thomson
    Wow. Earlier today I posted chapter 18 of The Last Out, which is amazingly the final chapter of the story I've spun around Devin and Alex. I'm writing this and it feels surreal to me to have finished it (again, actually) and to have it published on a site like Gay Authors. I can't help but think 'what a strange, magical journey this story and I have gone on together'. The Last Out was never meant to be published. Not originally anyways. This was meant to be a guilty pleasure and escape, something I wrote to make sure I didn't lose my sanity during a stressful period in my life. I never thought it would be anything other than a piece of erotica, but somewhere along the way I melded it and molded it into something more than that. It became more than smut and as it did so, the characters became more than constructs to me, they became real, with real lives and real frustrations and real joy, and sometimes even real pain as I wrote and built up the people I'd created in my mind.
     
    I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel right now. I'm relieved to have finished it and put it all out there for people to read, but I'm also sad, knowing that it's now here and this vehicle I've created to tell stories isn't as open to me anymore. It'll live like this forever, and it's sort of like letting go of someone you cherish to do so.
     
    I wish there was more I could do with the story, or that I could go back and add to chapters wholesale, but its too late for that anyway. I read somewhere that any piece of art requires two people to create it; one to create the piece, and one to stop the creator from continually fiddling with it. I suppose that's true, since I'm continually thinking of how I would change certain things.
     
    I'm glad I did it. This gave me a chance to explore certain sides of myself that I didn't think I could. This won't be the last you hear of me, and it won't be the last you read about Devin and Alex.
  15. Hunter Thomson
    Many of you will probably know that outside of my writing here and the small pile of pseudo-educational jobs I do, I'm also a political activist and one-time candidate. This is not a blog post to go on and on about my politics, but simply to set the context for everything else. Five years ago I helped pass an anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia school board policy, and since then I've had the distinct pleasure of watching people become less worried about anti-LGBTQ discrimination in my hometown's schools.
     
    Since then, other school board and countries have moved towards greater legal acceptance of LGBTQ rights and freedoms, but many youth still feel like they can't come out for fear of or familial rejection.
     
    I'm working with some of my activist friends in the real world to help create an anthology, based on the Chicken Soup books, that would showcase the lived experiences of ordinary LGBTQ people coming out in all aspects of their lives and showing that things do get better. I'm looking to eventually have 101 stories, just like the series I'm using as my template, and different sections where the stories could be found, such as coming out to parents, to siblings, at work, to friends and a few other sections that could possibly make sense.
     
    I'm the first to admit that my circle of friends is not terribly diverse, and that we also come from very similar backgrounds as activists (which I fully admit are not the same as normal humans. Our lives are much less joyful.) which may not resonate with everyone else. I'd be honoured to have people submit their stories, or if this is something the community wants to do together and publish, we can find a way to make that happen.
     
    I want this to happen, so it will happen; I'd like it to happen with the people I've met here, all the writers and the people who know how to spin a good yarn and help potentially use our writing gifts to help out kids.
     
    Thanks for reading, and hopefully thanks for your support.
×
×
  • Create New...