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Welp, yours truly started off as an ESL teacher in this here kindergarten, and the discrimination from teachers here was overwhelming, one going so far as to say "You're a man, you should have a man's job, you can't be a kindergarten teacher." Another one I hear all the time since I've moved into management when I propose a male teacher for an international class "Men don't have what it takes to be caregivers and class teachers, they don't have the emotional strength." Hmm, I suppose in a society where displays of emotion by men are actively discouraged, then that must be true. "Women have it worse" is a fine argument, but if you want us to feel sorry for your travails, it's a bit shit of you to ignore ours.

Emotionally. "I am the only person who will ever truly love you." "No-one in your life will love you as much as I do" "You can never, ever know love like the love I have for you. Forget other people, they are just liars." Had that drummed in for about 14 years. A bit of an emotional cripple as a result.

My first two major relationships were long distance (the first became long distance after we both moved to separate Universities after six months) and both were eventually failures. Why? Well, in the first case it had more to do with the girl than the distance - we used to see each other every weekend. I would travel on the FUCKING NATIONAL EXPRESS every Friday night to Nottingham and then back to Reading on the Sunday, travel time around 9 hours depending on the buses. Nightmare. She was good to be with for the first year and a half, then she got kicked out of the University for failing the first year. She got into a pyramid scheme and then... just lost all sense. I broke up with her after 2 years together and she was devastated. Then I was devastated that I'd done it and tried to get her back. We eventually got back together two years later when we both moved to the same town again. That was a disaster. She was a bitch and I was looking for a decent job. Anyway, we kind of ... HAD to have the relationship as we never really got to have a proper ending the first time round - I was always convinced I had made a mistake. Turns out I was right to ditch her. The second one was with this Scottish lass I met in another forum. She was two years younger than me, we saw each other every two months. Great sex, but she was a mood swinger: she could go from 0 to UTTER COW in less time than it takes to blink. She was completely devoted to me the rest of the time, but those sudden changes were intolerable after a while. I'd still be willing to believe it can work, but the people have to be right.

Good question. What about adults with mental ages below the age of consent?

None of my business, but would you be willing to elaborate? My departed mother, whom I loved so dearly, left me with more than a few unresolved issues...

Can't see those Youtube vids, so sorry if I'm repeating anything you've already pointed out. Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws from Fish-era Marillion are two absolutely brilliant albums. Their first two albums are pretty good too, but the album tracks are a little ropey.

Overheard lyrics, the ban of my life. Not sure if there's a thread for this, but I'm a little desperate for help. I heard a song that starts like this: "Look up and let me see heaven from two stories down..." Then the refrain: "a million little pieces of my soul" Any help? Thanks much! Feel free to share your own overheard/misheard help me oh god please lyrics.

Good topic, but an absolute minefield. One thing I'm going to point out though: Esther Rantzen was for years one of the most feared people at the BBC, but never during Savile's heyday. If she wanted to out him as a Paedophile, she could have done so in the last 20 years or so without any trouble whatsoever, I find her excuses disingenuous.

Don't even go there. When my parents were divorcing, the Social Worker was one of those "mother knows best" types. My mother was an alcoholic, had beaten both me and my baby brother, had an affair and scratched my father's face to pieces... But still the courts and this lady believed I was making "the wrong choice" to stay with my father.

Minge! minge! minge! Happy birthday! Minge!

Rough spot has turned into a rough expanse.:/

Oh, Duuuuuuude, the dead are ALL ABOUT Mousetrap. Anyway. Yes, I've seen a ghost. I was about seventeen, it was this greenish-white apparition that hovered around my bed one night. It said "However, this is mine" and disappeared into my wardrobe. Creepy.

China would be the worst place in the world for you, or anyone else even slightly bothered by being singled out as foreign or different. There are three countries in the world for Chinese people: China, Evil Japan and Not China. Walking down the street can be a bit of an annoying experience: one in ten people will shout "HELLOOOOoooooooOOOOOO!" at you. It's not friendly, most of the time, it's said with the same inflection as "NIGGER!". Which, by the way, they also say. Speaking personally, I am ethnically mostly white, but mongrel Irish and native American. I identify as "White Other" because I don't see myself as purely Anglo-Saxon. It annoys me a little when people say "But you're white!" I usually retort: I am many things, many terrible, terrible things, but I am not white. But yeah, blue eyes like a motherfucker. To anyone concerned by racism/rabid nationalism, there is one way to think about it: when you are born, the first thing you are is not a race, colour or nationality, but a human being. That never changes.

What's a "wee face"? Is it like an "orgasm face"?

Because I don't want to look like some kind of weirdo /said without irony.

I am buying this. Today. Then I am wearing it.

Terrible, terrible stress recently, and a "Brain Fog" descended over the last few days. I have these last few days been having the most awful nightmares. Monday I dreamt I was on a plane that suddenly lost fuel, it dropped suddenly from the sky and crashed. Last thing I remember, a great fireball washed over me. I died :/ Another time, I was on a game show, trying to win money for a mentally handicapped girl to turn her house into a completely safe and happy environment to live in. However, just as I was winning another contestant dropped into the game - she started beating me, it came down to a tie in the end, she leaned over and told me that she was playing to win the money in order to pay for medicine to help a terminally ill little girl live for another six months. On hearing that, I suggested we split the money, but no, half would not be enough to help either girl. I remember suddenly bursting into floods of tears. Why is my brain doing this to me?

True, but at the risk of sounding obtuse, it's not always necessary to go off at a tangent and expect yourself to do a full 360. Anyway, it's all good fun and acute way to spend a protracted period of time.

Don't be so square, things tend to come back full circle eventually.

Someone got the crap beaten out of them in Shanghai for telling some people to shut up in the cinema. Stupid piece of shit, I HAD to take that phone call.

Or just changed them all to "BollockStation" and have done with it.

Lettuce see if we can chive to this chain together. Otherwise I'll have to leaf this thread.

Listen, I'm not going to waxfruit lyrical about the mangoing mad by bumping a thread, but it'd be taking the pips banning him, don't you think?

But...you'll die.