What I've gotten good at

[branchandroot]

synecdochic has an excellent post about why "modesty" is a bad thing. (ETA: As per Phoebe's comment, it is well to clarify: a bad thing to attempt to require of other people.)

My own take is a lot shorter: Naraht et al are wrong. Put a period on it.

And annotated_em has a lovely meme/contribution/exercise, which is to say something about one's awesomeness. Something you worked at. Something you're proud of, or possibly something you should be proud of if you weren't shamed into denying it.

(I remember when we did this a few years ago, and it was really hard to do then, also.)

So: I'm a very fine writer. I write stories with well-considered character development, and I research the heck out of them. I write tight, elegant articles with sharp, well-chosen quotes to demonstrate my analysis. I have written one way or another since I was in middle school, and I've worked at it and read a ton and experimented with writing like Them, and I'm still going.

I also (wow, it's like hauling bricks to do more than one of these...) write lovely website layouts. I worked through years of trial and error and reading up on standards and hunting down CSS methods, and it paid off: I write lovely layouts with clean code.

I taught myself php by making myself a website, and wanting to do things with it. I learned by immersion, and frustration, and having screaming tantrums at WordPress, and now I can read and edit most code, and even make some programs from scratch.

I have taken care of myself and gotten better. Emotionally, physically, mentally, I have done what I needed to survive, and after that I have done what I needed to start getting better and keep getting better and make my life worth living.

I am fucking awesome, and no one can take that away.

Comments

[helens78]

I love hearing posts like this so much, I can't even tell you.

I actually subscribed to you in the first place because I love your layouts so much. They are just full of win. They are the kind of layouts I would totally want to write if you hadn't already written them!

I am glad that your life is getting better and better and that you're taking care of yourself.

And you are awesome! Go you!

[branchandroot]

*hearts* Thank you!

*grins* Yeah, I'm hoping we get a nice lot of these posts this time around. Because we /are/ awesome, and it does the heart good to say it and hear it.

[annotated_em]

Damn right you're awesome. *grins*

[branchandroot]

*high five*

[chronolith]

So: I'm a very fine writer. I write stories with well-considered character development, and I research the heck out of them. I write tight, elegant articles with sharp, well-chosen quotes to demonstrate my analysis. I have written one way or another since I was in middle school, and I've worked at it and read a ton and experimented with writing like Them, and I'm still going.

You and Em are probably my favorite writers. Period and the end. I enjoy your fanfiction more than I enjoy most published authors. You two also keep pulling me into fandoms that I should, by all rights, loathe. I'm not sure what to do with that.

I taught myself php by making myself a website, and wanting to do things with it. I learned by immersion, and frustration, and having screaming tantrums at WordPress, and now I can read and edit most code, and even make some programs from scratch.

This amazes me because when presented with how to stylize my own damned journal I threw my hands in the air and walked off. People who can make this entire coding thing dance continue to amaze me.

I am fucking awesome, and no one can take that away.

Damned skippy.

[branchandroot]

*hearts*

I'm really proud of learning to code, because I started out terrified of it and staring at this screen full of colored stuff going "this says something?"

[baggyeyes]

I'm always in awe of people who continually learn new things. My dad was like that. Very cool entry.

[branchandroot]

Thanks! *grins* It's the whole poking at things urge, that makes you take appliances apart as a child.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

You are indeed awesome!

Naraht does have a point, though. I say this as someone who evidently comes from the same New England subculture she does, and I'm here to testify that modesty doesn't code the same way to us as it does to synecdochic.

Is imposter syndrome still a big deal that predominantly affects women? Hell yes, of course it is. Is seeing only the flaws in what you do a problem for us? Also, yes, of course. Finally, yes, absolutely, the social convention can translate in ways that help to devalue the work and skills of women when read by those who're outside our cultural group.

Our cultural group does exist, though, and its norms don't always function for us the way our norms would when taken out of context. I don't think I could bring myself to do this meme, but that fact doesn't mean anything like what synecdochic suggests that it means. And while I'm very much in favor of people not undervaluing themselves, I'd like to think we could proceed toward that goal without insisting that all U.S. subcultures be flattened into one.

[branchandroot]

I'd be a whole lot cooler with her not wanting to participate if she weren't projecting her values onto me. As you say, the one does not always equal the other. And it pisses me right the hell off that she freely attributes deeply wrong and downright insulting motives to activities like the pride thread. Saying she doesn't want to do it: perfectly fine. Saying it's morally wrong to do it: really, seriously not.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Morally wrong?? Yeesh. I missed that, and I'm glad I missed it.

(I think. Perhaps I'll peek -- no, wait, I might be too afraid.)

Ick, ick, ick. It's cultural code, for God's sake. It has no absolute moral value. It doesn't even have much relative moral value. It's like the hand you use for your dinner knife! I --

No, I'll stop ranting now. Except to say, And here I thought for once I agreed with her about something. Silly of me, wasn't it?

[branchandroot]

*wry* That, exactly. I mean, if she wants to say "this isn't how my $community does things, so I'll be over here doing things this other way", fine! It's when she started claiming that no one should be doing it because it proves you're insecure, and also accomplishment is the product of privilege so being vocally proud of one's accomplishments is an expression of unexamined privilege. That's when my hackles went up and I started hissing.

[bewize]

*cheers*

Well done!

[branchandroot]

Thank you! Once you get going, you know, you realize just how much there /is/ to be darn proud of.

[(Anonymous)]

::I am fucking awesome, and no one can take that away.::

yes!

[kenllama]

oh, say -- that was from an unlogged-in llama who lloves you.

[branchandroot]

*cuddles her llama*