“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

Congrats! Tapering was a rough process for me, it took me about 10 months to get down from 150mg/day (after 8 years), but it still wasn't as scary as I'd been warned. It was life-changing getting off it, I was and am so happy with that decision!

I feel like I stick out a lot already, so wearing ear defenders adds to that. But then I'd stick out if I went into shutdown, so we can take the more comfy option? I've also never really worn ear defenders before so there's a sensory unknown. But this was a much better outcome than I'd feared!

Because the problem was never the noise reduction (within reason), it was more that they didn't want people thinking I was taking the piss, and to make sure that lab session tutors were aware so they didn't just assume I can hear.

I feel kinda mixed on this just now, but I'm willing to try!

It's also not "just another" extinction, it's the first from mainland Europe in centuries. CENTURIES.

And there will be others within our lifetime.

That's biodiversity loss.

We'll never hear this sound, ever again xeno-canto.org/398794

Anyways, week 1 is going great so far, all the humans I've met are lovely, and tomorrow I get to go on a tour of the NHM and really soak up how exciting this all is! Trying to hold on to that alongside the trepidation involved with fixing up access.

...where without them, I am less able to do those things. It was an unexpected thing to have land in my face during online lab safety this morning when I realised that this "immovable" H&S rule may literally make me less safe. But apparently the argument has happened before and DAS lost.

The options here are quite literally "Rory can function, move, speak, and understand" vs "Rory might drop things, walk funny, and not be able to talk or process if it gets too loud". I can and do hear alarms, instructions, conversations, etc through my earplugs...

I'm less excited about having the conversation with Imperial that says "your rules demanding no earplugs will make me and those around me less safe, I have Evidence of this". While I absolutely get that, say, earphones in the lab *can* be a risk, overload makes me riskier.

...and I've just got out of my meetings with the disability advisory folks and NHM people with my head buzzing. I've never considered that heavy doors are something you can do something about. Or that a personal assistant just for me for labs is a thing?!

Nah I was late to this particular party 😛