Those of you who have known me for long enough may recall a journal I posted a few years back explaining that although I'm American by birth, I was moving permanently to the United Kingdom. There were a lot of reasons for this, but one of the main ones, and the one that really made it more of a necessity than a choice, was that the US possessed no legal avenue by which I could spend my life with one of the people I love. Because he happened to a) be British, and b) have boy parts. (Author's note: I also have boy parts)

In the UK, a consistent nationwide legal framework for same-sex civil partnership existed that granted the same legal rights to same-sex couple as marriage. More recently, they've done away with the double standard in naming and just made same-sex marriage legal. My legally-valid-but-apparently-spiritually-meaningless-husband-analogue-unit and I will be upgrading the next time we're both able to get to a government office up in Scotland.

In the US, I've watched the road toward marriage equality be, until now, a broken and piecemeal process, addressed on a state-by-state basis where your life relationship can have legal recognition in one place and no validity in another, and good luck trying to make sense of anything that crossed national borders. So here I remain, an American expatriate in the UK. England is where my roots have sunk down now, and where I've committed my life and career to staying, but with the recent Supreme Court decision on marriage equality I can finally feel significantly less ashamed and apologetic about the nation of my birth when I try and explain to people why it is the way it is. So for this, I am tremendously grateful.

(That same awkwardness will still be in the air when my colleagues ask me about the US public's understanding of anthropogenic climate change and why we can't seem to stop shooting black people, but one thing at a time I guess.)

There's still a long way to go. The negative responses I've seen to the decision by those who feel it's a terrible thing highlight that, while public perception is slowly progressing away from historical bigotry, there are still a lot of people who just don't understand the issue and feel that their way of life is somehow threatened by people they find distasteful having the same rights they do. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but I've had a very long time to think about my feelings on this issue and that is, quite simply, the clear truth of it.

It's an enormous step in the right direction, and marks America's willingness to drag itself, kicking and screaming if necessary, into vaguely modern times. So for all of you who have been fighting, petitioning, convincing your family and friends, and making your life dreams wait while this came to pass, congratulations.

Greetings all! A good friend of mine just e-published her first fantasy novel through Amazon Kindle, and having just finished reading it I felt it was worth promoting/evangelizing a bit. I like supporting my friends, obviously, but more than that I thought it was just a really fun read.

The story is set in a fantasy world filled with a lot of familiar fantasy/RPG conventions, but in a self-aware way that has a lot of fun with them. It follows an adventurer named Susan who wants to become a proper hero, so sets out to vanquish a dark lord in true hero fashion. She quickly gets in over her head though, and has to deal with a lot of new things that force her to adjust her world view.

It's a really fun read, light-hearted and with good characters, and takes a really creative and somewhat tongue-in-cheek approach to handling a lot of fantasy stereotypes. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but still made me care about the story and the characters. And of course there are dragons, including some transformation if that appeals to ya. If this sounds appealing I highly recommend it; go support my friend and give it a read. :)

The story is called 'How to Be a Hero (and Part-Time Dragon)' and is available on Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-be-Hero.....539&sr=1-1

Thanks!

Last weekend one of my loved ones and I hopped in an Audi TT and took a long weekend road trip to Cornwall, UK. Tremendously good times were had! Highlights included:
-Stonehenge
-Cheddar Gorge
-Fish and chips and ice cream at the seaside at sunset in Perranporth
-Lizard Point (southernmost point in Britain)
-St. Michael's Mount, a tidal castle that can only be reached by foot at low tide
-Land's End, the extreme tip of Cornwall with many pretty cliffs
-Dartmoor National Park
-Tintagel Castle, suspected to be the birthplace of King Arthur

I've posted photos on my Flickr gallery here (https://www.flickr.com/photos/doran.....57652006023904) if anyone is interested! It was a lot of fun, the sights were wonderful, the companionship was perfect, and the car was an absolute joy. Very happy times.

I spent last week on holiday with my household, the four of us going to a woodland resort called Center Parcs. It's a place we've gone a few times before and always enjoyed, and the week was blessedly relaxed and gentle and carefree. It's one of the first times we've been able to take a proper holiday just the four of us without other concerns or people setting the tone and pace of things. It felt very much like something we all desperately needed, and I think we're all feeling quite a lot more capable of facing normal life for it. We've each got our own reasons for needing a recharge; for my part I've been struggling with some mild depression the past couple months and this has helped considerably with it. Good times with the family just being together and enjoying one another free of stress.

As for Center Parcs, the resort is a really fun place. It's made up of a bunch of semi-detached lodges in the middle of a pine forest, connected to one another and a few central areas by footpaths and small paved roads. It's all walkable but many people cycle and we brought our own. My husband's Sinclair C5 of coursed turned many heads and started many conversations as it always does. The central areas of the resort have various amenities including shops and restaurants, among which is an American-themed place called Huck's which is always a favourite. Makes my expat nostalgia go a bit nuts, and we had a particularly nice time there. One of the big attractions is the 'subtropical swimming paradise,' a massive indoor water park with a wave pool, a lazy river, and assorted waterslides. Good fun for relaxing and splashing around, particularly for folks like myself with water dragon leanings. There's also a very nice spa where we spent three hours of our last evening relaxing and exploring various saunas and steam rooms. Apart from this we played a bit of pool and snooker but otherwise just relaxed and took things at our own pace.

All it all it was a really lovely time, and definitely something we'd been needing. Tomorrow it's back to work again but for my part I'm feeling quite a bit less ragged about it than I was.

Taken from  Toeclaws


1. You can ONLY answer Yes or No.

2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages/comments you and asks.

3. It is harder than it looks, but NO explanations !!! You will want to... but don't!!!


Kissed any one of your Facebook friends? ~ Yes
Been arrested? ~ No
Kissed someone you didn't like? ~ No
Slept in until 5 PM? ~ No
Fallen asleep at work/school? ~ Yes
Ran a red light? ~ No
Been suspended from school? ~ No
Experienced love at first sight? ~ No
Totalled your car in an accident? ~ No
Been fired from a job? ~ No
Fired somebody? ~ No
Sang karaoke? ~ No
Pointed a gun at someone? ~ No
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? ~ Yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? ~ No
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? ~ Yes
Kissed in the rain? ~ Yes
Had a close brush with death (your own) ~ Yes
Seen someone die? ~ No
Played spin-the-bottle? ~ No
Sang in the shower? ~ Yes
Smoked a cigar? ~ No
Sat on a rooftop? ~ Yes
Taken pictures of yourself naked? ~ Yes
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes? ~ No
Skipped school? ~ No
Eaten a bug? ~ No
Sleepwalked? ~ No
Walked a moonlit beach? ~ Yes
Ridden a motorcycle? ~ No
Dumped someone? ~ Yes
Forgotten your anniversary? ~ No
Lied to avoid a ticket? ~ No
Ridden on a helicopter? ~ No
Shaved your head? ~ No
Blacked out from drinking? ~ No
Played a prank on someone? ~ No
Hit a home run? ~ No
Felt like killing someone? ~ Yes
Cross-dressed? ~ No
Been falling-down drunk? ~ No
Made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? ~ No
Eaten snake? ~ No
Marched/Protested? ~ Yes
Had Mexican jumping beans for pets? ~ No
Puked on amusement ride? ~ No
Seriously & intentionally boycotted something? ~ Yes
Been in a band? ~ No
Knitted? ~ No
Been on TV? ~ No
Shot a gun? ~ Yes
Skinny-dipped? ~ No
Caused someone to need stitches? ~ No
Ridden a surfboard? ~ No
Drank straight from a liquor bottle? ~ Yes
Had surgery? ~ No
Streaked? ~ No
Taken by ambulance to hospital? ~ No
Passed out when not drinking? ~ Yes
Peed on a bush? ~ Yes
Donated Blood? ~ No
Grabbed electric fence? ~ No
Eaten alligator meat? ~ Yes
Eaten cheesecake? ~ Yes
Eaten kids' Halloween candy? ~ Yes
Killed an animal when not hunting? ~ Yes
Peed your pants in public? ~ No
Written graffiti? ~ No
Still love someone you shouldn't? ~ No
Think about the future? ~ Yes
Been in handcuffs? ~ No
Believe in love? ~ Yes
Sleep on a certain side of the bed? ~ No


If you desire context, ask away!

A very mixed bag for me and mine. In some ways it's been very productive and left us in a very special place. In other ways I'm content to tell it good riddance.

On the plus side, my mates and I bought a beautiful house in a town we love, adopted a wonderful dog, and things progressed considerably toward us putting down roots together for the long term and my building a career and a life in this country.

On the negative side, all of these things felt extremely hard-won.

The process of buying a new house took us from the beginning of the year through to mid April, and involved much stress and many delays including one month with my household split apart, staying in friends' spare rooms and cheap motels with most of our possessions in storage while we waited with no idea when or sometimes if we'd finally have a house at the end of it.

My first attempt at gaining permission to stay in the UK indefinitely was confounded by the Border Agency publishing grossly inaccurate information which led to my application being mis-handled, and my partner and I being insulted and intimidated to a point where I feared that everything I had spent ten years of my life working toward was at risk.

We lost loved ones. Holidays meant to help us recover gave us more anxiety than normal life. Finances remain tight enough in the wake of the house purchase and associated repairs and upkeep that I'm left with no ability to tell distant friends and family when I might see them again.

Somewhere in the middle of all the stress and uncertainty, against all my hopes I discovered that I am capable of anger and bitterness after all.

In many ways it has been a year of ordeals.

And yet, we survive. The generosity and compassion of friends and loved ones has seen us through, along with our own dragony stubbornness. The above are all 'first-world' (though I would argue, legitimate) problems, and at the end of the day (or year at least) we have a roof over our heads, we are feeding ourselves and paying our bills and moving forward toward clearer skies. Having just bought our first house and finally finished paying the last of the unrealistically large sum of money required by the government to immigrate from outside the EU, financial stability is probably at about its lowest point right now and should only go up as our careers develop.

Things are good and will continue to get better. But man, 2014 has made us fight hard for it. 2015, I'm watching you. Behave.

Because hey, it's been a little while since then for me.

Stolen from the ever-fantastic  Toeclaws

1. Did you date someone from your school?
Yep! Fell into a very delightful boygirlfriendship with my high school sweetheart toward my last year there.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
Not in a legal sense, but we're still very close and make up two of the dragons in our four-dragon household.

3. Did you car pool to school?
Took the school bus.

4. What kind of car did you have?
First car was a deeply endearing 1989 dark blue Chevrolet Cavalier wagon, handed down from my grandmother, but I didn't get that until a few years after high school.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
I have co-ownership of a black Peugeot 107 and a classic Saab 900, both of which I share useage of with my partner.

6. It's Friday night then...where are you?
Probably at home hanging out with my parents, having a nice home-cooked dinner, watching evening television, playing with the dog or something. Because I apparently grew up in a Normal Rockwell painting. ;D

7. It is Friday night now...where are you?
Probably at home hanging out with my Special Somedragons, having a nice home-cooked dinner and watching evening television and being happy the work week is over. I am a creature of habit.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
Didn't work much back then, just had one summer job helping out at the University's Landscape Entomology Laboratory. Which was a bit different from the usual I suppose!

9. What kind of job do you do now?
SCIENCE. Specifically, modelling urban ecosystems. And all the other associated things that academia hurls at you as a postdoc!

10. Were you a party animal?
Goodness no, always been one for more quiet and gentle spaces.

11. Were you considered a flirt?
Not to my knowledge! Was far too innocent and clueless.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I sang in the high school choir, had a lot of fun with it.

13. Were you a nerd?
Never was great at determining what qualified exactly, but probably. I wasn't exceptionally fantastic at maths or computer programming or anything, but I was definitely closer to nerdy than 'popular.' Managed to fall in with a good crowd of people from the choir and theatre though by sophomore year.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
Goodness no. It would've destroyed my little brain if I'd managed something like that!

15. Can you sing the fight song?
I can hum it...? Don't think I ever learned the words to ours.

16. Who was/were your favourite teacher(s)?
Probably would have to say Ms. Munn, the history teacher. Because above all else she was there to see to it that we learned stuff. She pushed us hard and modified the curriculum a little bit to make sure we learned a bit extra historical context that she thought was really important. We learned and we thought about things in that class. Though there were several teachers I really loved there, so it's a close call.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
Hmm. I think by my second or third year I was usually sat against a hallway wall a short distance from the cafeteria, socialising with a small group of friends while we ate. Found a nice cozy little corner somewhere to relax.

18. What was your school's full name?
East Lansing High School.

19. When did you graduate?
2000.

20. What was your school mascot?
The Trojan (yes, jokes were made frequently around the school about sharing it with a major contraceptive brand).

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
I'm happy for my life to have moved on from it now, but if I could relive those years with the confidence and knowledge I've since gained it might be a neat thing to do. I'm still frightened and insecure, but so much less so now than when I started high school. Maybe another pass through it would help even more. ;)

22. Did you have fun at Prom?
I did! The first time I went with a very dear friend, the second time I went with the aforementioned dragoness I'm still really close to. The music choices were kind of memorably terrible (almost all rap, almost nothing to slow dance to) but it was still a lot of fun.

23. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with?
Yep! The friend I went with the first time is still a very close friend whom I see and hug firmly when I visit the U.S., and the former girlfriend dragoness I live with now.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion?
No idea when or where they are, probably on the wrong side of the Atlantic for me, and the only people I'd know enough to reconnect with at all would be a few from the choir. So no, probably not!

25. Do you still talk to people from school?
Keeping up with people from high school whom I otherwise wouldn't speak with is the single most useful thing Facebook has enabled for me.

26. If you could change one thing about your high school experience what would it be?
It'd be similar to what ToeClaws said... I'd want to go back and bolster my younger self's ego, try and help him realise that much sooner that he's braver and more capable than he realises, and a very likeable person that will end up attracting close friends who will stick with him and help him along. Though to be fair, it was only my first year that I had that anxiety quite as much... by my second year I started to make a number of really wonderful friends who made all the difference for me.

Today I applied for my settlement visa in the UK, and was accepted. I have the last UK visa I'll ever need, so the Brits are officially stuck with me. ^^

In concert with having a PhD and a career-track job in the environmental sciences, living with my dragon family, and owning a wonderful home with said dragons, this is pretty much the culmination of a roughly 10-year long plan.

Squee. :)

I now own a house along with my three Special Somedragons. We moved in last week and it all went pretty well. The house itself is fantastic, built in the early 80's as a futuristic eco-home so it's got a lot of interesting spaces and unique architecture. Makes it feel like something out of Blade Runner or something. Very special and exciting!

Internet won't be up and running for another week yet, so that's why I'm being pretty scarce lately. We're doing battle with a few house gremlins in the form of leaking taps and pipes and a broken dishwasher, and we'll be a while yet unpacking and building furniture, but it's already feeling like a proper home to me all the same. I'm happy and excited and relieved after all the stress and uncertainty we've struggled through to get here. Hopefully next week I'll be back online a bit more!

We have a mortgage! The bank finally quit stalling us around and being ridiculous. A lot of professional chasing and assertiveness on the part of Tarkara is largely responsible I think, she's been awesome. It's taken over a month when we were told it'd be a few days, and we kept getting different answers from them, so generally it's been a month of stress and frustration and high blood pressure as we've waited helplessly to find out what would become of our life plans.

But things are finally moving. There's still stuff to work through and some uncertainties to face, but the end of the tunnel has a bright light now. We're going to have a house! And it's a very, very beautiful and exciting one.

Since my emotional crisis is now passing me by, I don't imagine I'll need to lean quite so heavily on Dark Doran to vent my frustrations, but I can safely say that he's here to stay. It's been a very helpful and cathartic thing exploring that aspect of myself through art, and he's a fascinating and valued (if a little bit scary) part of me who's going to be sticking around. You haven't seen the last of him. It's important to explore oneself. Besides which, I get the sense he's acquired a small fan base. ;) On that note I really do have to thank all of you, dear watchers and favers and commenters and whatnot, for the warm wishes and kind words about both my art and my life situations. You're all fantastic and make it an absolute delight to be part of this community. <3

Oh alright. These are fun every now and then, so here ya go!

What's your real name?
We'll just stick with 'Doran Eirok' for public internet purposes, shall we? It's real enough!

How tall are you?
5'9" (175 cm)

What's your natural hair color?
Dark brown

What's your eye color?
Dark brown

What's your orientation?
Some combination of bisexual, pansexual, and asexual. Essentially, I don't get interested 'that way' by many people, and when I do it's for the person irrespective of their equipment.

Are you single, taken or undecided?
Happily taken!

What do you do in your spare time?
Many things! Relaxing and watching shows with my loved ones, and eventually a bit of drawing, video gaming, and noodling around on my electric bass given enough time.

What's your job or occupation?
I am a researcher, currently involved with a project modelling urban ecosystems.

What do you like about yourself?
Quite a few things! Which I recently addressed here, actually: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/12270200/
In general I work hard at being a kind and gentle person, warm and genuine with people, and focusing on the brighter side of things wherever possible. I try to be the sort of person I'd want to hang around with, and treat others the way I'd want to be treated.

What do you dislike about yourself?
See above! The trouble with the 'golden rule' thing of treating others the way you'd want to be treated, is that it falls apart a little bit when it turns out that you're kind of an oddball with different priorities and perceptions and sensitivities than everybody else. I can be awfully fragile at times, and odd things that don't seem like much to other people can really affect me deeply. So I guess I wish I occasionally had the ability to sort of turn down my 'sensitivity' so to speak. I also sometimes wish I were better at expressing myself; I often err on the side of wanting to avoid conflict or causing trouble when I really ought to call somebody out on something they're doing that I'm uncomfortable with.

What did your friends notice about you when they first met you?
Difficult to say, and I'd be curious to hear people's answer to this. Possibly the fact that I squeak. Randomly. It's this thing my body's decided that it's going to do instead of either hiccuping or burping conventionally, apparently.

What is your belief/religion if you believe in anything at all?
I generally categorise myself as 'eclectic.' I am a quite spiritual person, but it's a pretty open-minded spirituality that will happily take inspiration from just about everything from liberal Christianity to Buddhism to Wicca to Carl Sagan documentaries.

Do you drink?
In moderation. A few times a week at most, and more than one unit over the course of an evening is quite rare for me. Although since moving to the UK I have developed a deep appreciation of good Scotch Whisky.

Do you smoke?
Nope.

What are your major fears?
A little bit of everything. No particular phobias or anything, but new or awkward social demands and responsibilities can raise my blood pressure a fair bit. Being a disappointment to people I care about. Being shouted at or snapped at by people I care about.

Do you have any dreams or goals?
Many! with varying degrees of realism. I've already conquered transAtlantic geography and international barriers to be with my loved ones, which was a pretty big one dominating the last decade of my life. At this point, I'm very much wanting to own a house with them (hopefully soon if things keep moving along!), and in a few years own a sporty car I can really be excited about. In a general sense I just dream of and work toward a comfortable and stable life with my Special Somedragons. The ability to transform into my dragon self would be kinda cool, too, since you're asking.

Have you ever had a crush or an ex?
Have had a crush once, which eventually matured into very special platonic friendship. No complaints there.

Who's your best buddy?
I don't really go in for ranking my friends, so I'll just express my overwhelming joy at having a number of people who are very very dear to me, and whom I am deeply grateful to have in my life. <3

What's your favourite dish?
Old Chicago deep dish supreme pizza. I miss that stuff dearly and wish they'd open up a franchise in the UK! Or at least that somebody in this country would discover the wonder of proper chicago-style deep dish and import it.

What's your favourite drink?
Hmm. It used to be pretty easy for me to just say 'root beer' but it's tricky, I've got a lot of things I like now. Talisker single malt whisky is up there.

What's your favourite colour?
I am a particular fan of both Dorey Blue and green.

If you had a super power, what would it be?
I still really like ToeClaws' answer of the ability to remove greed/jealousy/hate from people, and it's hard for me to go better than that. Maybe to put something similar in my own words, I'd say... the ability to give people clarity. To somehow let them see an issue from other perspectives, so they could understand the point of view of the person they're hating on or being jealous of, see the big picture, and be granted that spark of realisation that comes with 'oh... I hadn't thought of it that way.' I like to think the world would be a more harmonious place if more people could do that.

What's your favourite movie?
My favourites list includes How to Train your Dragon, DragonHeart, Aliens, Terminator 2, Contact, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Fifth Element, and Children of Men.

What's your least favourite food?
Hmm... I'll happily give just about anything a shot, but I tend to react badly to anything with mayonnaise if it isn't fairly well-hidden.

What do you drive and what would you really like to drive?
Current car is a 2009 Peugeot 107 in black, a cute little manual drive Eurobox with a 1.0L 3 cylinder petrol engine. It's fun enough now that I've gotten more comfortable driving manual, but my dream is to own something a bit sporty and stylish a few years down the road. I'm looking at things like the Volkswagen Scirocco, Peugeot RCZ, and Toyota GT86, but given positive past experiences and being an American 12 year old boy at heart, I'm eyeing the 2015 Ford Mustang's Europe release with great interest.

What is your most disliked bug?
Gotta go with mosquitoes. Yes, they're slow flying and not hard as hard to hunt down as some, but that NOISE is pure psychological warfare, man.

What pet peeves do you dislike the most?
It is a very, very long list, for I am a quirky dragon with a lot of funny hangups. I don't think any of them are particularly unreasonable, and I imagine the greatest ones all concern matters of personal consideration and respect, and how people choose to channel their hostile emotions. I know people have bad days and get frustrated and angry at all sorts of things, I do too, but don't EVER take that out on the person who loves you and is trying to help and isn't the cause of it. Because that hurts in awfully deep ways that take a long time to heal. Don't ever channel it into how you drive, either, because that's just catastrophically dangerous.

What do you dislike in life?
People doing those things I just whined about in the previous question. And in the question about my major fears. I dislike letting people I care about down, I dislike being the target of people's anger. And more broadly, I dislike the actions of people and the designs of things that cause harm or frustration in ways that are easily and completely avoidable.

What do you love in life?
As much as possible. Because goodness, just look around, there's so much to love. I'm most grateful for my friends and loved ones though, since they're the ones who constantly fill me with the happiness required to be able to perceive that beauty.



P.S. Just as an aside, while the subject is being on everybody's minds it seems... as my profile page has said for a while, in addition to being here on FA, I've also got accounts on deviantArt ( http://doran-eirok.deviantart.com/ ), Weasyl ( https://www.weasyl.com/profile/doraneirok ), SoFurry ( https://doraneirok.sofurry.com/ ), and InkBunny ( https://inkbunny.net/Doran ). I still consider FA my main gallery, but in general most of the same stuff should get posted to all sites. So if for whatever reasons you prefer some of these sites over others, there can still be Dorey art in your life!

I really hope everybody's been having a wonderful Christmas season, and/or their holiday of choice. :) It's been quite a year for me, in particular the last few months. Just to recap...

-I spent most of the year living in Aberdeen, Scotland with my partner Zel and still being a jobless bum, continuing to work away at an annoying and somewhat demoralising job hunt, though most other aspects of my life were being good.

-Then in October, one of my applications finally came back to me, wanting an interview right while I was in the middle of visiting my parents in the Florida Keys. I got the email informing me of the date literally as I was boarding the plane to fly overseas. So, in the middle of a family fishing holiday, I scrounged up a PC headset and gave a Skype interview at 7 am local time wearing the least offensive fishing/hawaiian shirt I had access to. When I came back from fishing that afternoon, an email was waiting to inform me that they'd hired me for the job. There was much squeeing.

-In the beginning of November I stuffed my entire material life into the back of a cute little Peugeot 107 and drove down the country from Aberdeen to Oxford, through horrendous traffic, giving me a nice trial by fire at handling a manual transmission in less than ideal conditions.

-I survived, and began my new job as a post-doctoral research fellow at Cranfield University, where I'll be doing environmental modelling on a project studying ecosystem services and biodiversity in urban green spaces. The job started off pretty intensely, throwing me in to teaching on topics I had to hurriedly teach myself a few days before lecturing. But I got through that too, and am feeling quite comfortable and capable in the job now.

-About a month later, Tarkara and I dashed up to Aberdeen to rent a van and help Zel move down to join us once the notice period at his job was done. With Zel moved in with Tarkara and Azakir and myself, we became at long last a household of four dragons, representing the completion of a trans-Atlantic plan that's been in the works for about ten years. More squeeing ensued.

-Finally all living together and desiring nothing more than some stability, the Thursday before Christmas we received a letter from our landlord informing us that they wished to sell the house we're renting and will not be renewing our lease, so by March we need to be out and in new accomodation. Some grumbling and harsh language was heard.

-We have begun shopping for a house to buy, which had been our plan for sometime in the next year or two, though originally not quite this soon. We're moving fast on it though, looking at some exciting options, and been pre-approved for a mortgage in our price range. We are hopeful and excited for finding a house that will suit us well and that we can settle down in for the long term.

-And, our first Christmas all living together as a dragon family has been pretty happy and special. I hope the same is true for all of you!

<3

I've been at the job three weeks now. It's going well! Quite busy, but I knew that would be the case. Next week I'm helping my manager teach a course in environmental modelling. I'll be giving one of the lectures and helping out with some workshops. The teaching will be good experience, not to mention a good way for me to learn the stuff myself!

The most exciting bit this week was when I came out of work to find both my headlights had gone out. It was dark and the University is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, so I had to wait for a recovery van to make its way out. Turned out to just be burned out bulbs, so it was a quick fix thankfully, but waiting around in a carpark for my entire evening wasn't exactly my ideal night out. Just glad it turned out okay in the end! Apart from that I'm getting on awfully well with the cute little Peugeot 107.

So! I have survived my first week of the new job. It's going to be quite a ride, and a lot of work, but I'm tremendously excited for it. As said before, I'm now a post-doctoral research fellow on a project concerning urban ecosystem services, and specifically I'll be end up doing a lot of work in environmental modelling and spatial database management. These are both things that my own experience is currently a bit light on, so I'm really excited to learn.

The job is also going to involve teaching and project organisation, and after my very first day I was admittedly having a bit of a panic attack. It's a lot to take in, and was pretty overwhelming. Couple this with an hour/hour-and-a-half commute on roads that can be a bit dicey in a car whose transmission I'm still coming to terms with, and there's been a bit of stress.

With all of that said, the subsequent days of the job have felt better and better, and I'm getting more and more comfortable with the car too. I'm trying hard to see things not in terms of 'these are all the things I have to do' and more in terms of 'these are all the things I am going to learn and become an expert in.' I've also got a lot of really great people I'll be working with, everyone's been really friendly and helpful so far and has acknowledged that it'll take me some time to get up to speed. So it's going to be a lot of work, and the amount of time I'm able to spend online is going to be significantly decreased compared to my last year and a half as a bum, but there's a lot that I'm excited about. I'm properly starting a career now.

So, yesterday I stuffed my entire life into the back of a Peugeot 107 and made the move from Aberdeen down to the Oxford area. A drive that should have been 8 hours took 12 thanks to a whole mess of back to back traffic jams on the motorway, which are Absolutely No Fun particularly when you're driving a manual that you still don't always see eye to eye with. I managed though, made it safe and sound, and am now in the process of moving in and getting settled in my new home. Even made an obligatory Ikea run and assembled a new flat-pack desk chair for myself. Monday I start work!

I got a job!!!!! After getting my PhD, moving to the UK to be with my mates, and then hunting for over a year and a half now, I've finally been granted a position I'm really excited about. It seems pretty much perfect in terms of what I've been looking for.

I will be working for the next almost three years as a postdoctoral research fellow at a small research university in the UK, on a project studying urban ecosystems. I'm really excited for it, it seems like a great fit for my skills and experience while also offering new challenges.

What's really hilarious about all of this is that I'm currently on holiday visiting my parents in the Florida Keys. Literally as I was boarding the plane, I got the email from the university saying they wanted me for an interview at a date that was right in the middle of my trip. I communicated with them over email and they weren't going to be able to reschedule to a later date, so we agreed to hold the interview over Skype. So this morning at 7 am I woke up, put on the least loud and obnoxious Hawaiian shirt available to me, and did a job interview across the Atlantic. They must have liked me, because when we got back from fishing this afternoon the email was waiting for me, informing me that they had chosen me for the position.

I am delighted and celebratory. :) Big life changes are a-commin'!

Oh all right, this is making the rounds lately so I'll join in. I don't journal enough anyway. ^^

1. Why did you join FurAffinity?
Originally just to watch and follow all the wonderful artwork, but after a little while I decided to start posting my own stuff too in case anybody happened to be interested. The community around FA is one I've always enjoyed, bringing together a lot of wonderful, warm-hearted and deeply creative people.

2. What does your username have to do with you?
'Doran Eirok' is the name of my fursona/scalesona, online identity, and dragon self. The friendly blue dragon is much more than just a character to me; he is how I see myself deeper inside and the image by which I identify myself in a spiritual sense.

3. What is your current avatar of?
My own dragony self diligently working to keep the inside of your monitor clean, wonderfully animated by  Snapai a couple years back. Full size version is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/6323599/

4. How many watchers do you have, and how many do you watch?
525/375

5. Do you have more than one account?
Nope! Just the one. I like to keep things simple. The only division I do is to put commissioned and gift art that is -of- me rather than -by- me in the Scraps gallery, along with my actual scraps. I'm also on a few other websites which get most of the same uploads, but I tend to treat FA as my main stomping ground.

6. Name 3 of your favorite artists on FA.
I swoon over everybody on my watch list! But if I had to pick three favourites at kind-of-random, I'd go with  Ryoken,  TaniDaReal, and  FredrikMiller.

7. What artist do you admire because of their personality?
Again it's near impossible to narrow it down, there are so many. Artists can reveal an awful lot about themselves through the artwork they create, and there are many whom I don't know personally but really admire and respect by what they share here. If I had to pick just one I think I'd have to say  Necrodrone13.

8. Do you comment, fave, or both?
I try to comment if I've got something of note to say, or there are particular things about a submission I especially feel drawn to. For my own part I really appreciate when people take the time to comment on specific things they like about one of my own works. I often do just fave artwork too though, usually when I just like it all around and don't have something to say that feels like it would contribute anything, especially if dozens upon dozens of comments are already there expressing the same thoughts.

9. What do you typically post on FA?
Just about everything I art. Mostly digital personal work, mostly of my own dragon self. Sometimes fan art of things I like, sometimes anthro clothing and paw-wear designs, sometimes random ideas or requests from very close friends. There's also an odd smattering of the occasional bit of literary fiction or digital music. Commissioned art and gifts I've received are in the Scraps gallery.

10.What's your favorite submission in your gallery?
Another tricky question! So much of my artwork has deep personal meaning to me. While the Paw Fashion Project certainly deserves a mention for being such a fun project to work on and getting me noticed by so many wonderful and friendly supporters, for an overall favourite I might have to pick 'Sunny Morning.' https://www.furaffinity.net/view/1611399/ I feel like a little more 'artisticness' went into it, and the anatomy and lighting effects and proportions are things I'm still quite pleased with even five years later. Plus, the overall look of it feels to me like it presents the sort of relaxed, friendly cuteness that's so central to how I like to think I present myself.

11. What are the things you wish you could draw better?
Lines. All my lines are sketchy and scratchy and take aaaaaaaaages to clean up in the 'inking' stage of any drawing I do. Also I wish I could be consistently better with overall anatomical proportions, and I often think I should branch out a lot more than I do into drawing other things besides just... well, myself. I'm a bit vain and self-absorbed with my personal artwork. ;) But with that said, I try to avoid wasting too much energy 'wishing' I could be better at drawing something. If I really want to improve at those or any other things, I just need to prod myself into practising them more really! Which I will continue to argue is true for anybody.

12. How many hours a day do you spend on FA?
Probably too many. ;) I might guess it ranges between 2-5.

13. Are you a fast, slow, or medium typer?
Probably medium. I don't like making typos, but I do make them, so I spend a bit of time backspacing and correcting myself. Unlike much of the internet, I suffer from an irrational fixation on typing out my thoughts into complete, coherent sentences; using passable punctuation, capitalisation and grammar, and actually providing any sort of context for the thoughts I express. These things require a little bit of patience sometimes.

14. What is the most annoying thing people ask you?
There's no single overall answer to this, but probably just... anything that's asked or said with such catastrophically poor or absent grammar/structure/punctuation that I struggle to even discern what's being asked or said. I'm fully understanding in the case of a language barrier and I enthusiastically salute anybody making the effort to learn more than the measly one language I can speak myself, but especially if English is your first language then seriously people, if you're going to try and communicate with your fellows, at least bring a -little- bit of effort to the party. ;)

15. What is the most annoying/offending comment you've received?
"I wish I could draw as well as you."
*clears throat, deploys the soapbox*
Now don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate that this is generally meant as a compliment, and for that part of it I am very grateful. However, there are just... multiple really huge problems I have with this statement.
-The first thing to get out of the way is my own modesty, and the conviction that there are sooooo many artists out there with a much broader, deeper, and infinitely more professional skillset and portfolio than my own. I'm very proud of what I can do, but it's something I do in my spare time for fun on a very occasional basis while there are countless artists on this very site who create art for a living and put so much more effort into what they do than I ever will. So being held up as though my own work some kind of artistic pinnacle is immensely flattering, but feels very awkward and undeserved. Not because I think my art is 'crappy' or anything, just because I know how much more effort and energy and blood and sweat and tears and wailing and gnashing of teeth goes into other people's artwork than mine.
-Secondly, now that that's out of the way... The drawing ability I do have, I didn't get by 'wishing' for it. Sure, it's possible that I was born with a genetic predisposition toward above-average stats in terms of colour perception, spatial awareness, and an overactive imagination. Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. But I didn't come out kicking, screaming, and drawing dragons. All I had was a fixation on the idea of 'I see this thing in my brain, and I want other people to be able to see it too.' So from a very young age I started moving crayons and pencils and markers around bits of paper (holding them improperly to this day, apparently, because none of my teachers bothered to correct me) to try and make this happen. It began with badly proportioned stick figures and slowly evolved from there as I worked through practise and observation to make these barely-coherent scribbles look slowly more like people, dragons, wolves, cows, deer, mountains, trees, clouds, stars, worlds. I draw as well as I do because I decided I wanted to work at it. If I am 'lucky' to have been gifted with any advantages though genetic predispositions or marketable skills lovingly bestowed by divine creative entities, by far the larger part of it all has come from the gift of drive and determination rather than from any sort of luck. Of this I remain firmly convinced.
-Lastly, the 'as well as you' part. While there are some relatively concrete measures by which artistic ability can perhaps be 'ranked,' the whole fixation on artists being better or worse than one another and positioned along some sort of scale of talent feels entirely unrealistic to me. So much more to art has to do with 'different' rather than 'better' or 'worse,' and it feels to me like the world would be a happier place if we weren't all quite so eager to rank everybody as better or worse than everybody else, and more content to celebrate the differences that make each artist unique. There's certainly a place for 'artist X appeals to my own personal preferences more than artist Y' but that's different. That's being honest about the subjectivity involved with art, not trying to force the illusion of objectivity and some absolute concept of value onto it. The second part of this that bugs me is the fixation on comparing one's own drawing ability to mine, or any other specific person's. I art how I art. You art how you art. If you spent all your effort trying to draw 'like me' or 'as well as me,' what is going to be the end result of that? Only ever a copy, a derivative work. For the love of puppies, don't try to draw like me. TRY TO DRAW LIKE YOU. Practise to improve on things that you can actually measure and evaluate somehow, but the focus of art should be on following where your own preferences and abilities and inspirations lead you. If you do that you'll end up with something so much more special.

16. What/who inspires you?
My friends and loved ones. Every artist on my watchlist. Every artwork I have faved or commented on. Every fave, comment, and watch I receive. My friends and loved ones a bit more. Sunsets. Birds. The ocean. Music by BT, Dead Can Dance, Fredrik Miller, Frederic Chopin. Puppies and kittens and lizards. My friends and loved ones still more.

17. Everyone has considered leaving FA once or twice. Have you? Why?
Nope! It is true that FA is by no means perfect, and I've borne distant witness to a number of unfortunate events that have made some people want to leave the site. These incidents sadden me, and have encouraged me to extend my presence to other sites beyond just FA, but I've never wanted to leave myself. FA has been good to me and I've gotten by far the most notice and appreciation for my artwork here. Other furry art sites have their own advantages that I like, but the community here feels the richest and most vibrant to me. FA feels like home, and has brought me enough joy and connections to have earned my loyalty over the years. I'm here to stay! Yay for FA. ^^

 Zelandeth and I happened to find ourselves in Inverness for the day, for reasons totally unrelated to furry conventions, but while we in town had the thought of, hey, ScotiaCon is going on here right now isn't it? We'd wanted to attend but with some family emergency stuff that came up for me recently plans have been rather up in the air. As it was, we decided to stop by and see if we could arrange a one day registration or something, and we ended up hopping in on just the last few hours of the convention.

Even that was an incredible amount of fun. It's been far too long since I was at a furcon, and the happy delightful atmosphere of them is something that makes me so giddy. With our late arrival we were just able to catch was a brief sci-fi pub quiz, a really neat art panel by the wonderful  TaniDaReal, and the closing ceremony. Even these few things were still enough to fill that little furcon-shaped hole in my heart again, and make the entire world feel warmer and brighter and fluffier than it usually does.

I love furcons, especially just the friendly and safe atmosphere of being at them. I'm sorry we couldn't attend properly and spend more time getting to socialise with the many wonderful people there, but hopefully next year! From what little I was able to experience of it, ScotiaCon was a lot of fun with a lot of really neat people, and they put on a great con.

I got a random/hilarious/awesome email today from a private pilot who flies his superlight plane around Europe, somewhat for fun and somewhat for charity fundraising for children's hospitals. His plane has the registry/tail number EI-ROK, and in searching for photos of his plane online stumbled across my artwork. He really likes my character and emailed to ask about the possibility of using a Doreydragon as nose art for his plane. :D

I think this idea is freaking awesome, so sometime in the near future I'll be seeing what I can sketch up for him. ^^ I'm gonna be an airplane nose pinup dragon! XD

I've been branching out a little bit lately with my internet presence, expanding to a few new sites and such. FurAffinity and DeviantArt will continue to serve as my main galleries (so no worries, I'm not leaving anywhere!) but I can now also be found on SoFurry, Weasyl, and InkBunny (links below). So if anybody prefers those sites or anything, feel free to have a look at my stuff there too!

I don't anticipate uploading anything to those sites that won't also be uploaded here; so far I've been posting a backlog of my favourite work from the last few years and am nearly caught up. Most future arts will probably be uploaded to all of these places, so it's just up to you to decide what site you like best. They've all got their own advantages and quirks!

So here are all the places my art can be found now:
FurAffinity
DeviantArt
SoFurry
Weasyl
InkBunny

I also have an occasional web presence here:
LiveJournal
Flickr
Twitter

A short while ago, a lot of concern was (rightly, I think) making the rounds over the language in a new UK law. The notion is that 'orphaned works,' being images and other media found on the internet without a watermark or otherwise showing very clear ownership and copyright, could be freely used by other people and companies, and that it would therefore be incredibly easy for art thieves to rip off original owners.

In the digital age we live in, the balance between allowing a free and open communication network and protecting ownership continues to be difficult issue to navigate, and like many artists and other internet users I've been concerned about this law. Enough that I did a little research and added my name to a petition to the UK government expressing these concerns, since I'm a UK resident. Today in my inbox I discovered that the government had penned a response, and I thought it was worth sharing.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49422

The original petition is at the top, the response is below it. In summary, the response downplays the concerns and stresses that anyone using orphaned works would have to conduct a diligent search to confirm that the original owner could not be found, and would have to prove that it had conducted this search to the satisfaction of an authorising body. Failure to do this properly would prevent the finder from being allowed to use the work, and actively stripping metadata from somebody else's work remains a violation of the Fraud Act 2006.

I'm not certain exactly where my opinion falls now to be honest; issues like this are always going to be exaggerated at least a little by the media and concerned members of the general public, while the government is always going to downplay the fears and try to calm people down. It's difficult to figure out what the actual truth is, somewhere in the middle. The government response doesn't completely abate my concerns but it does raise some good points, and if they're to be believed then maybe the situation isn't quite as bad as we feared. But I do not know. Are there still problems where many hosting websites officially take ownership of your work from you as soon as you upload them? If so, maybe that's the real concern here, if all the works in question legally already belong to Facebook, Flickr, deviantArt, etc. instead of the actual artist/photographer/etc. anyway. Again, I do not know.

What I do know is that it's important to see both sides of any story, so if this law regarding orphaned works has been a concern of yours then the government's perspective on the matter is worth a read too. I'm curious what people think!

I've just passed my UK driving test! Nice sense of accomplishment there, given how seriously they take it in this country. I've been taking lessons and getting practise for several months now, and had a delay when my original test date in January got snowed out. In addition to driving on the left and dealing with narrow roads and roundabouts, driving with a manual transmission was new to me and took a lot of work to get the hang of. There are still some rough bits to iron out of course, but I don't have to worry about the test any more, now I can just focus on learning to drive in the real world at my own pace.

In other news, since I haven't posted any in a long while... I'm doing well and enjoying life, although I'm still a professional bum. I've been sending out a lot of job applications but have only yet had one interview. It's closing in on a year now that I've been searching unsuccessfully for a job, which is kind of a depressing thought. The one interview I did have went well despite not getting the job, and I was told that a lot of my qualifications and publications are quite good for my career level. So I can't be sure if it's my immigration status that's scaring employers off or what. All I can do is keep at it. I've been focusing on full time career-path work, and it could be until I've been granted 'indefinite leave to remain' in another year or so, anything that permanent just isn't going to want to hire me. As such, I'm shortly going to start looking into temporary work more; hopefully I'll have better luck with that even if it's another stopgap between where I am and where I want to be.

Apart from job search frustrations, I'm still immensely enjoying life in the UK and being pretty happy.

I'll do my best to keep any actual political leanings out of this post and simply say this: to my fellow Americans who got out and voted in yesterday's election, I salute you. Regardless of how you voted, the fact that you did is a desperately important thing. It shows that you're involved and invested in something larger than your own self interest, and that you care about having your voice heard as a member of an organized civilisation seeking to find the best way forward for everyone.

Our country has become increasingly polarised along political lines over the past decade, with things like rational political discussion and compromise to find the best way forward for the country seeming like abstract theoretical concepts. While I don't hold a great deal of hope for this changing anytime too soon, the only way we'll work past it is together, by taking every opportunity to be informed and rational citizens, and being willing to listen and understand where those whom you don't agree with are coming from.

Both candidates last night in their speeches spoke in acknowledgement of the importance of coming together now, reaching across political lines and setting aside prejudices and to find the right way forward for the country. It's a usual sort of thing to hear at this stage and easy to dismiss, but it's something that ruly is of unspeakable importance and I hope we can all hold to it.

America is a great country with a wealth of ingenuity, spirit, and inspiration to offer, and it's worth fighting for. It's also worth voting for, educating youreslf for, listening to your fellow citizens for, and compromising for.

This is a political discussion. I apologize if that's disagreeable to anyone, it's something I try not to subject my friends and watchers to often, but the issue described here is something of great importance to me, and I think it really should be to a lot more people than it is.



Now, there are a lot of reasons why I made the decision to move out of the United States and in to the United Kingdom. I really love the UK in a lot of ways; my closest loved ones that I want to build a family with are here, as are a number of good friends. At the same time however, being here means moving away from my parents and other family whom I dearly love, not being around to watch my nephews grow up, being far from a lot of deep friendships I've developed over the years, and being far from the country of my birth that is home to me, and that I also dearly love. It is a hard thing, and was not a decision I could make lightly. Fundamentally though, one reason mattered above all the rest, and made it a necessity rather than any sort of actual decision.

I am male. And by chance, the person I love and want to share my life with and grow old with was born with boy parts too.

In the United Kingdom, this thankfully doesn't make a great deal of difference (1). The legal relationship we can and have formed is called a 'civil partnership' rather than a marriage, and despite the historically demonstrated problems with such 'separate but equal' political distinctions, for most legal intents and purposes it affords us the same rights as a male-female marriage would. We can visit one another in the hospital, be recognized together when we want to take out a mortgage on a home, and, most directly impacting us at the moment, have our relationship recognized at the federal level such that it provides the justification for the UK Border Agency to let me move to this country to be with him.

In the United States, this is not possible (2). While some few individual states have made the decision to allow same-sex marriages or some other form of legal partnership, and President Obama has recently stated his support for such legal equality (3), many states continue to explicitly ban same-sex couples from forming legal partnerships. More to the point, a federal decision ironically called the 'Defense of Marriage Act' forbids any of these unions from being in any way recognized by the federal government (4). One of the main things this means is that there is no path to immigration through a committed same-sex relationship; I cannot in any way bring my life partner to be with me in the US the way he was able to bring me to be with him in the UK.

Forced to make the choice between the love of my country, family and American friends on one side, and the love of my life partner and British loved ones on the other, well, you know how I chose. But it's not an easy thing. Hopefully I'll still be able to visit with my parents maybe once a year, and various good friends in the US once every several years, but I'll be a rare and fortunate case to actually have the resources available to do all this. So many people don't even have this option. If their loved one lives in another country, there's no way to bring that person into the US to be with them that doesn't carry the ever-present risk of deportation. For same-sex relationships within the US it's certainly more feasible to at least be together, but in most states there can be no legal recognition of their relationship. It's easy to dismiss this by saying 'who cares what the government thinks of my relationship?' until one starts to face real-world problems such as filing taxes, trying to take out a mortgage on a home, and visiting your life partner in the hospital when they're sick, injured, or dying.



My dear readers, this is the 21st century. The human race certainly has some maturing to do on the whole, but we've made incredible progress in even the last hundred years in technological development and social equality, which I feel are two very important measures by which to evaluate a civilization. While even in the most developed nations things continue to be imperfect when it comes to equal treatment of races and genders, and especially income stratification, the progress that has been made in recent history for equal civil rights is inspiring. Yet despite this, the US is currently clinging to outdated and unethical practices that divide the population into different social classes, affording certain rights to segments of the population and denying them to others. This denial of rights is quite plainly in violation of the specific language of the Constitution and the ethical ideals our nation was founded on (5).

I love America. It is the home of my birth. But the country shames me, and shames us all, in the way it has allowed itself to be dominated by inexcusably outdated social ideals. While I will freely admit that a large share of the problem rests in the way that the two-party system has led to a completely polarized political landscape where it is virtually impossible to hold a civil discussion about the way forward for the country, and plenty of this blame can be placed at the feet of the Democrats, it is the conservative side of the political spectrum that is most severely holding the country back and trying to keep it in a social dark age (and who effectively left me with no choice but to leave the country).

I am perfectly willing to accept that the Democrats are not perfect, and I would delight to see the Republican party be able to provide a foil for my side of the political spectrum such that we can all sit down together and hold an intelligent discussion about fiscal responsibility and foreign policy. The way the landscape is now, however, it's difficult to imagine this happening. The state of the world is this: the irresponsibility and laissez-faire approach of the US Republican party over the past dozen years has helped drag our entire world into an economic recession (6), while its head-in-the-sand reaction to the entire scientific consensus of the developed world that human-induced climate change represents a clear and present danger to the stability of our civilization borders on the criminally insane (7). And yet, in this US election year of 2012, neither of these issues dominate American political discussion with nearly the fervour that same-sex marriage issue does. Don't get me wrong; same-sex marriage -should- be an issue of great importance, as that is the entire point of this journal. However, my point is that we are faced with a political party, representing (goodness knows how) approximately half of the voting population of the most economically and militaristically powerful nation in the world, that would prefer to ignore the most important issues facing not only the country but our entire civilization and instead fight tooth and nail to ban the right of people in a committed and loving relationship to be together, simply because the nature of that relationship makes them uncomfortable (8).



I hope that you can the absurdity of this as clearly as I do. All you have to do is look up. Look around. Witness the way the world is evolving. Witness the way that the majority of the developed world recognizes same-sex relationships and other measures of social equality, and that by comparison, America's outdated social discrimination puts it closer to some extremist theocracies in the Middle East and Africa where simply being gay is legally punishable by imprisonment or death (9).

What I think really gets to me is the people I've spoken to who I believe do have good sense about them, and say they prefer to vote for conservatives over issues of fiscal or foreign policy or whatnot. Now, that in and of itself I can absolutely respect. I might feel a bit different about those issues but that's what politics are about, and I'm always happy to discuss and learn more about such things. But when those same people are also, by the way, campaigning energetically for banning same-sex unions of any type (10), denying the scientific consensus about the impact of modern industry on global climate (11), and giving as many get-out-of-jail-free cards to large self-obsessed corporations as possible (12), I see these issues as very large elephants in the room that cannot just be ignored under the guise of, 'oh, I'm only voting for him because of his stance on government spending.' An unfortunate truth of representative democratic voting, especially in a two party system where the options are so few, is that you get the whole package. Voting for someone over one issue you like their stance on means they'll be bringing along the other issues you might not care for, even these ones that I feel are holding our civilization back to a dangerous degree, when considering the big picture. While this 'package deal' problem exists with any politician, the Democrats aren't the ones I see using insidious tactics to forward a whole host of unethical and interrelated goals that threaten the development of our entire species (13).

So in the end... what's to be done? As much as it might feel like it, my conclusion for all of this isn't simply, 'vote Democrat.' Certainly it's what I tend to do, but the take-home message isn't quite that. The message is to vote at all. To pay attention. And for the love of all that is green and good, RESEARCH. Even just spending five minutes on Wikipedia reading up on the candidate or issue you're considering voting for. It really isn't very hard these days, which is a really wonderful perk of the information age. Be sure you know what you're getting when you support a candidate or issue, vote, and find ways to be involved or at least stay informed between election cycles. Even adding your name to online petitions for causes that are important to you. It's so easy to dismiss all of it with cynicism, telling yourself that it doesn’t matter because all the politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt and nobody cares about petitions, and I see so many people taking this stance. I of course cannot be certain that such things -do- matter, but just maybe they do. Maybe my vote can make a difference, however small, and maybe a politician receiving a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of his constituents can make him stop and think for a moment. Just maybe it can make even a small difference in forwarding something that's desperately important to you (14). Meanwhile, you know what will -definitely- make no difference at all? Sitting on your rear and -not- voting.

I apologize for sounding preachy about all of this, but I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of some of these issues. The one fundamental thing I would simply urge you to do above all else, dear readers, is simply... care. Don't just float through life ignoring everything to do with news and politics, telling yourself that it doesn't concern you. I think you'd be surprised how much out there does actually concern you. What you've just read after all is an example discussion on how it all concerns me.



If you've taken the time to read all of this, you have my gratitude and appreciation. Thanks much!

- - - -
Sources and further reading:
(in recognition of the fact that Wikipedia is not always a perfectly valid source, however it has been my experience that the articles linked here concern topics that are widely discussed and reviewed to such an extent that an informal peer review process does leave these articles quite sound and well-referenced. If you want to dig deeper into any of these things, these articles link to additional sources.)

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-s.....United_Kingdom
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_r....._United_States
(3) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/09/p.....?iref=obinsite
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defens.....f_Marriage_Act
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_.....tection_clause
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes.....000s_recession
(7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
(8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-s.....and_opposition
(9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_r.....y_or_territory
(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi.....e-sex_marriage
(11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi.....Global_warming
(12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi.....t_interference
(13) http://truth-out.org/index.php?opti.....-left-the-cult
(14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respec.....r_Marriage_Act

Today had successful appointment with the UK Border Agency, where my Leave to Remain was approved. I'm now cleared to stay in the UK for the next two years, during which time I can now pursue a UK driver license and seek employment, and at the end of which I can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain which will be the permanent bit. Another milestone down!