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  1. <?php
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  19. $xhtml = array(
  20. 'title' => 'Not yet able to shed my old name fully',
  21. 'body' => <<<END
  22. <section id="general">
  23. <h2>General news</h2>
  24. <p>
  25. It looks like I&apos;m going to have to masquerade as [insert my birth name here] for a little while longer.
  26. My head manager won&apos;t update the name on my pay cheques until I bring in a copy of my new $a[DMV] $a[ID] and new Social Security card.
  27. That&apos;s plenty reasonable, but I don&apos;t have the new Social Security card yet.
  28. Unlike the $a[DMV], the Social Security Administration doesn&apos;t give out temporary cards to use while waiting for the permanent cards to show up in the mail.
  29. Without my pay cheques updated, I&apos;ll need to keep at least one of my credit unions in the dark about the change so I can still deposit the cheques there.
  30. </p>
  31. <p>
  32. A customer came in with someone else&apos;s credit card today, but that person&apos;d written &quot;See ID&quot; on the card.
  33. I had no choice but ti ask them for $a[ID], and when their $a[ID] didn&apos;t match, I had to decline the card.
  34. They were pretty angry about it, and said we&apos;d lost a customer.
  35. What could I do though?
  36. I mean, if someone writes &quot;See ID&quot; on their card, they <strong>*want*</strong> this extra layer of security (though some say this actually adds a vulnerability to identity theft more than security for the card).
  37. They claimed the owner of the card allowed them to use it, but a thief would&apos;ve said the same thing.
  38. The next customer in line also had that written on their card, and they claimed not to have their $a[ID] on them.
  39. They didn&apos;t freak out like the first customer, but they did have to cancel their order.
  40. I have to point out though that they were in the drive-through in a motor vehicle.
  41. Legally speaking, they were required to have their driver license/$a[ID] on them.
  42. </p>
  43. <p>
  44. One customer, when asked to sign their receipt, signed with an at sign (&quot;@&quot;).
  45. That&apos;s a new one.
  46. I&apos;ve seen a few smiles, a star, and a couple simple lines, but not an at sign.
  47. None of these are my problem though.
  48. My job is just to ask them to sign the receipt.
  49. If they do something else, I don&apos;t push the issue.
  50. </p>
  51. <p>
  52. My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
  53. </p>
  54. </section>
  55. <section id="dreams">
  56. <h2>Dream journal</h2>
  57. <p>
  58. I ha a strange nightmare last night.
  59. At first, the dream was fine.
  60. I was looking for a place to live so I could escape my unfavourable home life.
  61. I guess I still lived with my mother or something.
  62. Someone asked me if I wanted to live at their apartment.
  63. I agreed to live there, only to find out this single, huge apartment was sectioned off into miniature subrooms with temporary walls put up to provide us with some privacy.
  64. Nudity wasn&apos;t a problem though, and a few of us, myself included, inhabited the space unclothed.
  65. However, I didn&apos;t really run into any of them, as we all seemed to keep to ourselves.
  66. I did accidentally walk into someone&apos;s subroom at one point though, because I thought it was uninhabited.
  67. The door was in terrible shape and full of holes.
  68. This place was a mess, but months went by and I didn&apos;t have to pay any rent.
  69. </p>
  70. <p>
  71. Somehow, later in the day and with no transition, I instead lived alone in an apartment in a tall, many-storied complex.
  72. A nearby building made me jealous.
  73. It looked like my own, but had signs saying all the proceeds from rent whent to some charity.
  74. I quickly noticed my building was connected to that other apartment building via a large, outdoor ceiling though; they were the same complex, and were likely under the same policy of donating their income.
  75. Somehow though, I ended up staying the night in one of the empty rooms of this second building.
  76. </p>
  77. <p>
  78. Night fell, and I was in bed.
  79. Come to think of it, it was an actual bed, and not just a mattress on the floor like I have in the real world.
  80. I heard creepy sounds outside the window, and I thought someone was climbing around the outside of the building trying to somehow sap heat from the units through the windows.
  81. It was at this point the mostly-good dream began to become a nightmare.
  82. I stayed quiet and tried not to be noticed.
  83. I didn&apos;t want any trouble.
  84. At some point though, my blanket started coming off the bed toward the foot.
  85. Someone was in my unit, pulling my blanket off!
  86. I wasn&apos;t safe and I had to make a move.
  87. I dove off my bed down past the foot.
  88. However, what I found wasn&apos;t human.
  89. It was dark so I couldn&apos;t see very well, but the thing pulling my blanket off was a cubic blob, and now I was being pulled into it.
  90. Its consistency was like those gel snacks you&apos;d find in a grocery store.
  91. Somehow, I came to my senses enough to realise this was a dream.
  92. I now understood I wasn&apos;t in danger and kept telling myself not to wake up.
  93. I tried to shove the blob away from me, but it kept pulling me further in.
  94. I wanted to remain asleep, but I realised the only way to defeat it was to end the dream; so I did.
  95. I forced myself to wake up.
  96. </p>
  97. <p>
  98. I haven&apos;t had a nightmare involving monsters such as this for ages.
  99. I kind of wonder what it means.
  100. Normally, my nightmares are just of completely-realistic situations that I&apos;d be particularly troubled by.
  101. I wonder what this dream represents, especially given that I knew it was a dream near the end, tried to stay in the dream world, but had to make a retreat to the real world.
  102. The only part of the dream I know how to decipher at the moment is the nudity.
  103. It&apos;s possible I was nude in my apartment was simply because I live nude in my real-world apartment.
  104. However, it more likely represents exposure of self, as is common in dreams.
  105. It means you feel like someone&apos;s able to see you for who you really are.
  106. How you react to noticing your nudity represents how you feel about others seeing the real you.
  107. My first reaction to walking in on someone was that I hoped they hadn&apos;t seen me.
  108. I quickly closed the door and left.
  109. I didn&apos;t mind being seen nude, but I though <strong>*they*</strong> might have a problem seeing me nude.
  110. Fairly quickly though, I decided that I lived there too, and they could just deal with it.
  111. So in the real world, I probably feel like my real self is shining through in some way, and I think someone might be offended by it.
  112. However, I have a right to be me and they can just deal with it.
  113. I can&apos;t help but wonder if this has something to do with my name change.
  114. Others might not like my name for one reason or another.
  115. Some people can&apos;t figure out how to pronounce my surname right after being told how.
  116. Others might not like that my given name isn&apos;t indicative of sex or gender.
  117. However, these people can just deal with it.
  118. This name is a better expression of who I am than my birth name.
  119. But what does the rest of the dream indicate?
  120. I did check my deadbolt before going back to sleep though.
  121. It was still only about 03:00.
  122. </p>
  123. </section>
  124. <section id="university">
  125. <h2>University life</h2>
  126. <p>
  127. I&apos;ve added several pages to what was said to be my reading assignment, as I think these were actually supposed to be part of the assignment too:
  128. </p>
  129. <ul>
  130. <li>
  131. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/calendar.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.6 The Roman Calendar</a>
  132. </li>
  133. <li>
  134. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/dress.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.8 Dress</a>
  135. </li>
  136. <li>
  137. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/education.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.5 Education</a>
  138. </li>
  139. <li>
  140. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/food.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.9 Food &amp; Drink</a>
  141. </li>
  142. <li>
  143. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/games.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.10 Holidays and Games</a>
  144. </li>
  145. <li>
  146. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/numerals.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.7 Roman Numerals</a>
  147. </li>
  148. <li>
  149. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/slavery.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.4 Slavery</a>
  150. </li>
  151. <li>
  152. <a href="https://the-romans.co.uk/women.htm">The Classics Pages: Antony Kamm&apos;s &apos;The Romans&apos;: 5.3 The place of women</a>
  153. </li>
  154. </ul>
  155. <p>
  156. With a bit more information, I wrote up my initial discussion post for the week:
  157. </p>
  158. <blockquote>
  159. <p>
  160. Slaves were a major problem for the Roman economy.
  161. Many small farmers lost their land to large estates.
  162. Had these estates payed the small farmers to work their land, the small farmers might have still made a reasonable living.
  163. Instead, the large estates frequently employed slave labour.
  164. No one was paid for this, but employment was desperately needed by the masses.
  165. Many were jobless and unable to afford food.
  166. It&apos;s for this reason that Rome had to put in place a grain dole for the poor.
  167. There simply wasn&apos;t a way to provide jobs when all the jobs were taken up by slaves.
  168. By allowing people to keep slaves, Rome allowed itself to fall into a barely-stable (or perhaps unsustainable) mess.
  169. </p>
  170. <p>
  171. Slaves were abundant.
  172. Nearly one in three Romans was a slave.
  173. Labour-saving technology stagnated.
  174. The Romans <strong>*could*</strong> have worked on devices for making labour easier and more efficient out on farms, but why would they?
  175. Slave labour was a fact of life, and there were plenty of slaves to go around.
  176. Slaves worked in mines, digging up the metals needed by their masters.
  177. City jobs, such as building and maintaining public works, building pots, and being teachers; doctors; and scribes, were also filled by slaves.
  178. </p>
  179. </blockquote>
  180. </section>
  181. END
  182. );