Newbie Me

It's my first day in my new part time job today so naturally I'm a little nervous - not that I have too much time to worry about that because it's also the first time in a long time that I've had to pay attention to the alarm clock. I can now see what I've found it relatively easy to ignore it for the past couple of months, because it's highly irritating :)

So after a 6 minute commute (yes, how cool is that!) I turn up to work a little early and get the usual introductions etc and finally get set up on a computer and get given a bit of work to do to familiarise myself with their systems / file structures / working practices etc.

The day flies by, with me nipping home for lunch, and by the afternoon I'm a little more comfortable with what I'm doing - though working with numerous websites certainly will require more RAM on my part in terms of remembering whats what, and whats where.

Not a bad first day then really, I just hope that after a couple more days of working within a new system I'll be up to my usual development speed - I guess I'm being a little cautious at the moment as fluffing up on my first day wouldn't be a great entree on my part at a new company :)

After tea there really isn't that much left of the evening, though I do watch a documentary on TV called "Middle Sex". As if the title isn't enough to give the game away, it was an investigation into the common misunderstanding that there are only males and females, when infact there are numerous stages between the two, it's most definitely not a matter of black and white.

For example, a genetic male may have developed the appearance of a normal female - or vice versa, or anything in between. Maybe better way to perhaps describe one aspect of the whole debate would be that of the Thai Katoeys (lady boys) - get the picture?

But despite the scientific findings suggesting that in between sex is just nature and the associated diversity that procreation brings about, there still seems to be a considerable distain for any opinion that varies from the traditional "Adam & Eve" approach - which in my view is a little out dated and a certainly short sighted. I found one experiment that they ran particularly interesting...

30 males were chosen based on the answers they gave to a questionnaire. The questionnaire helped group the males into homophobics and those who were nonchalant about homosexuality. They then proceeded to put each member of the 2 groups in a room where they were hooked up to a gadget that detected any changes in the circumference of their jangly bits, and then asked to watch some gay pornography.

Can you guess what the results were? Let me enlighten you. You see the homophobes all had a greater sexual response to the gay porn than the other group - what does that say to you? I'm not sure, but perhaps it goes some way to understanding why pent up frustration more often than not leads to violence towards those who you envy.

Strange really because there is a saying in the UK that goes along the lines of "You always take out your anger on the ones you love the most"... guess there might be more truth to that than I first thought.

Posted by Abi on the May 26, 2005 8:54 PM