I wrote this a week or so ago – it seems a bit of a silly thing to be worried about considering all the stuff happening in Christchurch at the moment.
TRANSCRIPT:
Panel 1:
Sam: (A person wearing a blue t-shirt, black trousers and grey shoes, who is sitting on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking down. Eyebrows are lowered slightly, eyes downcast and mouth closed, with slightly downturned edges. Legs are bent at the hips and knees, and are brought up to Sam’s torso. Arms are bent at the elbows, hands atop Sam’s knees. There is a squiggle above Sam’s head, along with the word:) *Sigh*
Binary Challenging Person: (A person’s leg, upon which is a knee height, high heeled, buckled, grey boot.) Hey Sam…
Panel 2:
Sam: (A person who is sitting on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking at BC. Eyebrows are raised and mouth is open, with downturned edges. One leg is bent up at the hip and down at the knee, one of Sam’s hands atop it and the other is bent forward at the hip, and back at the knee, the foot below Sam’s other leg.) Oh, hey BC
Binary Challenging Person: (A person wearing a purple singlet emblazoned with the trans symbol in teal, a teal cape, dark purple-blue and pink-purple striped shorts, and grey underwear, with a black, gold studded belt that has a gold capital ‘A’ buckle, who is kneeling on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking at Sam. Eyebrows are pushed together slightly and mouth is open. One arm is raised slightly at the shoulder and bent forward at the elbow, hand open.) You seem sad, what’s up?
Sam: Ohh… just feelin’ worried…
Panel 3:
Sam: (A person who is sitting on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking to the side, with raised eyebrows and an open mouth, which has slightly downturned edges. One arm is bent up at the elbow, palm facing up and the other is atop one of Sam’s legs. One leg is bent up at the hip and down at the knee and the other is bent forward at the hip, and back at the knee, the foot below Sam’s other leg.) My Masters class starts this week and I don’t know ANYTHING about writing. My background’s in law & film! I don’t even know what an adverb is! And what if they ‘she’ me or see me as a mannish girl, instead of a girlish boy? And what if I discover I can’t draw…
Panel 4:
Sam: (A person who is sitting on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking at BC with raised, pushed together eyebrows and an open mouth which has downturned edges. One leg is bent up at the hip and down at the knee, with one of Sam’s hands atop it. The other is bent forward at the hip, and back at the knee, the foot below Sam’s other leg.) …anymore & what if
Binary Challenging Person: (A person who is kneeling on the ground, facing the viewer, but looking at Sam. Eyebrows are lowered and pushed together and mouth is open, with downturned edges. Arms are raised slightly at the shoulders and bent forward at the elbows, with one hand atop BC’s thigh and the other closed in a fist, which has two parallel lines above it, indicating movement.) What if you go in and see what happens first? *and if they’re mean I’ll kick their butts*
I hate that feeling: “Why should I be worrying about this? There are such bigger things to worry about.” Sometimes that’s a liberating way to put things into perspective, but most of the time it just makes me feel icky… the “smaller” things can also be pretty worrisome and it should be OK to feel that way.
Also, BC should be available for walk-in consultations like this. Walk-in as in, BC just walks in and makes you feel better.
Go get ’em!
Haha, it’s true! If BC walked into my living room right now, I’d feel instantly better!
You’re writing skills are just fine. I see you use them in every post and comic, including this one. You always convey your thoughts effectively.
The funny thing about writing is that the bare minimum requirement to get into it is to be literate. People always tend to forget that. They’ll worry about whether they can match up against the good books and papers they’ve read, but never against the terrible ones. It’s never a fair comparison.
So don’t you worry. You’re fine. You’re better than fine. On the scale of talents, you’re already above James Patterson and magnitudes of order better than Dan Brown. You’ll do just fine.
Thanks Julien 🙂 I m literate, it’s true, even if I don’t know what an adverb is. I’ll just make all my comics have no words if worse comes to worst (is that even the right way of writing that phrase?!?!).
I’ll second what’s been said above and let you know (as a writer myself) that I think you’re a good writer. You are clear, humorous, and intelligent in your writing, and all of those things will serve you really well for your course.
I’ll also offer some sympathy – I’ve been coming out as trans to my classes this semester. I’m not on T yet, and I’m small and baby-faced, so people inevitably read me as female (and also as about 16, even though I’m 25). I decided I couldn’t take another semester of being called she, so I came out instead. I’m also taking some theatre classes, and playing male roles is important to me right now (further into my physical transition I can see this being less of an issue – I’m very much genderqueer, and am learning to embrace my femininity, after much struggle with that). Leading up to it was pretty scary, but it turned out to be a non-issue. People have mucked up a little with pronouns, but I just correct them and we all get on with it. The thing that got me was that nobody really cared – my being trans has not upset anyone or caused people to hate me and think I’m a total freak. Or if it has, they’re not being awful to me, we’re all working happily together, and chatting to each other in the breaks and getting to know each other.
What helps me is taking a deep breath and remembering that, in the end, I can’t completely control how other people see me, (particularly strangers). There’s no point in me trying to “butch up” – all I can do is be genuine, and understanding, and deal with other people’s crap as best I can. It’s hard on those particularly dysphoric days, but it’s definitely do-able, and you will be totally fine! (And if you ever want to chat about it, you’ve got my email address).
Take a page from my terrified book when I started college.
My mother had insisted I stay on residence, and they had put me with girls despite my request for male roommates.
We had to introduce ourselves to the entire year, and my legal name was still unchanged on the paperwork.
“I know it says X X on the attendance, but I’m Jay X. I’m from Y, and here because I love television and have always been fascinated by the behind the scenes stuff.”
I was 18, pre-T, hell pre-being fully out in a brand new city. But goddamn I owned my name. Take the little victories that you can, and run with them.
(Like the victory of BC & my finally going to go find a sketch pad to hook to my laptop 😛 )
Ha! LOVE that story! I will take a whole chapter out of that book!
There was no chance for pronouns, but I have enrolled in the course as Samuel, so that’s pretty helpful.
I can always bring a stack of those newsletters I made with Joe as “examples of my work” to tell them…
But I figure that between the course conveners, my supervisor, and at least one other in the class they’ll adapt fast.
(PS OMG, you gotta show me any stuff you draw!! (well, not any stuff, obviously, but I’m totally excited to see what you do!!))
BC sounds like the most awesome therapist ever! You’re most definitely not alone in this kind of thinking, although you’re dealing with way bigger stuff about gender and personal identity. First and foremost you’re an awesome person and that’s what they should see. Also, an adverb describes how the subject ‘does’ the verb (i.e. the train chugged along slowly…where ‘slowly’ is the adverb that describes how the subject, the train, ‘does’ the verb ‘to chug’), as opposed to an adjective which simply describes the subject (i.e. it was a slow train). But no-one other than grammar geeks like me actually seems to know the difference anymore so I wouldn’t worry!