New experiences

[liv]

Hello! I haven't fallen off the planet, just a lot going on. Some new things that have happened lately:

• I didn't have any time in Amsterdam, because our planned overnight trip back Sunday night got turned into a day sailing. But I did manage to get to the excellent Micropia museum, which is well worth seeing when you've done the more obvious tourist attractions.
  
  
• I had an STD scare. Did a routine screen, got told to make a non-urgent appointment to discuss the results. Which turned out to be because my particular GP surgery has no means of communicating between "phonecall to the receptionist" and "appointment with medical professional". So they found an anomaly with basically no health implications, and since the test was just before Christmas, I had to stew for three weeks just knowing that "something" was wrong but not what. The practice nurse was mostly helpful, and very emphatic that an overgrowth of commensal bacteria can't be transmitted and isn't really dangerous. But at the same time I couldn't get her to acknowledge that I have several partners of both obvious genders, rather than one male partner. And I'm generally a bit annoyed that they couldn't send me a letter rather than wasting my time and the NHS's resources, not to mention causing me and my partners what turned out to be completely unnecessary worry.
  
  
• I met ghoti's sister and her family. I was a bit nervous about it but in fact this set of not-inlaws were generally helpful and took my girlfriend bringing a different partner from usual completely in their stride.
  
  
• On the way back we had dinner at Ed's Diner who served me a malt, a type of drink I hadn't tried before.
  
  
• I applied for a job at Cambridge that's on the edge of being HR, basically providing development support for post-docs. I got shortlisted and had an interview but didn't get it in the end. It was very different from my previous experience of job hunting, because the people who interviewed me didn't exactly know what they were looking for, and I didn't know whether I was really qualified for the job. But I think this is going to be the future if I step off the obvious escalator of mainstream academic jobs, so it was good experience, though yes, I am disappointed.
  
  
• Between travelling for the conference and for the job interview, I had two Mondays in Cambridge. And on one of them, ghoti and her younger two helped me learn how to make cookies.

And soon I will have another new experience, namely celebrating a proper wedding anniversary, since leap day is coming round soon. I am very much looking forward to being romantic with jack and to celebrating that we've actually been married for an unbelievable four years.

Comments

[davidgillon]

My last interview was a bit like the one you describe, it would have meant me being sole QA guy for a little local aerospace company that produces standby compasses, but was set up through friends rather than advertised, so they hadn't actually written a job description yet. As it went on I was getting more and more certain I only wanted a part-time post, and he was getting more and more certain he wanted full-time....

[liv]

Yeah, I think interviews where nobody's quite sure going in are not that uncommon. They were really strict about keeping the discussion to exactly half an hour, though, so in some ways there wasn't really time for an extended discussion or negotiation.

[davidgillon]

Mine went on and on! And I got indirect feedback to say they had really liked me, but they never got back to me. Which is probably just as well, I'm not certain the job would have been good for me health-wise.

[andrewducker]

Two of my friends got their Civil Partnership four years ago on the 29th. And so are celebrating their first anniversary by converting it to a marriage, with a party, on a boat. I'm rather looking forward to that.

Sorry that the doctor was so rubbish. You'd think that they'd have at least some experience of people being in non-traditional-monogamy situations.

[naath]

You might think that... especially if they are in Cambridge ;-p (although it occurs to me that they might be in Stoke). But my experience is... not. I think they cope better with "lots of casual sex" then "multiple committed relationships"

[liv]

This practice is on campus, in fact; maybe I should see if it's plausible to register with a GP in Cambridge but so far I haven't done so. I was talking to the first years about why someone might go a sexual health clinic rather than their regular GP, and I was tempted to suggest, there's a higher chance they might have heard of bi people. Decided that was probably TMI in the end; it's really bothersome to me that we don't teach the med students about gender and sexuality (ie the existence of non-straight people) until third year, which means that mentioning any gender or sexual minorities risks leading to some of the more sheltered straight students suddenly having to confront stuff they haven't thought of before, and that gets in the way of what we're actually supposed to be discussing, and is pretty unpleasant for the people for whom the issues are personally relevant.

[liv]

Aww! I'm delighted to share an anniversary with your friends. And it's also great we've got something a lot closer to marriage equality compared to four years ago; we considered not getting married while same sex couples could still only have CPs, but in the end decided that wasn't a useful protest.

The thing about the nurse practitioner is that she wasn't rubbish, she was polite and helpful, just kept switching to the singular and I decided I didn't have the energy to insist. I didn't need her to understand my particular relationship situation; I could be having casual sex with four people, that is fairly traditional even in a monogamous context, and I'd still need to know about risk. But I suspect even if the nurse had been more on the ball, she wouldn't have been able to give me any useful information, cos there's not exactly a wealth of research into transmission of low-risk conditions between women.

[jae]

Did a routine screen, got told to make a non-urgent appointment to discuss the results. Which turned out to be because my particular GP surgery has no means of communicating between "phonecall to the receptionist" and "appointment with medical professional".

This is how the health system always works in my jurisdiction (a Canadian province). You're absolutely right that it's a waste of resources! I'm glad it wasn't anything worse, in any case.

-J

[switterbeet]

Which province? Just curious. I'm in Ontario and got told about a mild yeast infection over the phone, along with negative STI results for everything else. I feel like that was out of the ordinary though (and am generally frustrated with the "no news is good news" policy for all other STI tests I've had here).

[switterbeet]

Happy anniversary!

And glad to hear it wasn't anything more serious.