Credit: https://i.imgflip.com/kws7f.jpg

Category One: the genuine hard worker

Profile: quiet, unassuming, and the first to put their hand up when the group leader asks ‘So who’s doing this bit?’ As a result, this worker bee will often end up doing most of the assignment themselves.
The pros: The genuine hard worker will learn the most out of everyone and they also have the most control over the quality of the work. If you’ve done the majority of the assignment, you know you’ve done your best!
The cons: The lazybones of the group will take advantage of the genuine hard worker, as might the others. Don’t be a martyr – make sure everyone does their share!

Category Two: the lazybones

Profile: chilled out, easy to get along with and full of jokes, but mysteriously absent when it comes to splitting up the workload.
The pros: The lazybones will help relax the group and keep things light and fun, often coming up with little ideas that are actually really clever or funny.
The cons: The lazybones will be all too quick to offload work onto the control freak or the genuine hard worker – if you’re a lazybones, make sure you at least pitch in a little bit! Believe it or not, teachers can tell when group work isn’t true group work. It’s not worth losing marks for.

Category Three: the control freak

Profile: The control freak will be certain their ideas are the best, and can often be found overriding the quieter group members and pushing their own ideas forward constantly.
The pros: The control freak will work HARD – they’re so certain their approach is the best one that they’ll often be happy to take most of the workload off your hands.
The cons: The control freak will stress out the group and can often be bossy and cruel, especially when giving other group members feedback on their work. If a control freak is stressing out other group members, try throwing a casual ‘Guys, it’s only an assignment!’ line out there to pull everyone into a calmer mindset.

Category Four: the natural leader

Profile: whether or not chosen as the leader, the natural leader will rise to the top and organise the group’s roles.
The pros: The natural leader will keep the conversation focused and the group organised, calm down the control freak and make sure the lazybones does their share.
The cons: The natural leader can get bossy – and if your group already had a voted leader, the two leaders can butt heads. Worse, if you have two natural leader types vying for control, things can get awkward! The best type of natural leader is one who knows when to be a follower, so if this is your type, just relax – you don’t have to lead all the time.

Category Five: the silent sister

Profile: the silent sister will agree with everything everyone else says, never offer any opinions of her own, and pretty much just melt into the background of the group.
The pros: The silent sister will never make waves or break the rules. You can be confident that they’ll do exactly the work they’re supposed to do – and nothing else.
The cons: The silent sister can be unimaginative, and in creative work this can feel like a bit of a drag. You might have to carry the silent sister in the ideas stage, but make sure they pull their weight when it comes to completing the work. A lack of creativity shouldn’t mean a lack of work!

Credit: http://weknowmemes.com/

How to manage your group

Don’t let the silent sister get ignored. If they put forward an idea, make sure it’s recognised to encourage them to keep contributing.
If two natural leaders are butting heads and fighting for control, suggest splitting the project into two (e.g. ‘Research’ and ‘Collation’) and give each leader a section.
If the lazybones hasn’t put their hand up for anything yet, drop a hint to the control freak that this has happened. They’re bound to deal with it in their own bossy way!
If the control freak is constantly undermining the natural leader, drop a hint to the lazybones to make a joke and calm everyone down. Control freaks will often back off if they think they’re coming off as uncool.
Make sure the genuine hard worker is happy with his or her workload, and encourage them to contribute with ideas as well – the genuine hard worker can often be a chattier version of a silent sister so they might end up feeling downtrodden.
Finally, make sure the natural leader takes enough work for themselves – they’re often so happy managing and delegating that when it comes to actually completing the assignment, they’ve given all the work to the rest of you!
Try to work out which member of the group you are. You might even be 20% lazybones and 80% silent sister – often people are a mix. Once you know your strengths and weaknesses you’ll start seeing them in others.
But most importantly, no matter whether your group gets on famously or starts to hate each other – it is really just a school assignment! Just focus on getting it done on time and well enough – and if you’re still mates at the end, you’ve done really well.

Earlier this year, Caitlyn was known as Bruce Jenner, an Olympian and the ex husband of ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’-fame Kris Jenner. Back in April, Bruce participated in an interview with Diane Sawyer where he explained that his gender identity was that of a woman, and that he had begun the transitioning process to physically become a woman. Are you with me so far?

Taken down to basics, it’s really simple. Bruce was a woman in a man’s body, and now Caitlyn is a woman, inside and out.

But unfortunately not everybody sees as simple. Some people have been downright cruel about it. And it’s exactly that reaction that makes Caitlyn’s public transition such a monumental event.

Transphobia is the final hurdle.

Let’s look at homophobia (the fear and hatred of people who aren’t straight/heterosexual) first, to give this all some context. It’s awesome that we live in a world where most free-thinking people realise that you’re born gay or straight, and that being gay isn’t actually a bad thing, and doesn’t mean you can’t also be a great person. There’s still a lot of homophobia in the world, but as marriage equality (legalising marriage between two people of any gender) is achieved in more and more countries, we’re finally seeing a world where an increasing majority of people understand what it is to be gay, and they no longer view it as something to be hated or feared.

This forward progress has been complicated by misinformation and ignorance. Your ‘average Joe homophobe’ is just hating and fearing what s/he doesn’t understand. With celebrities like Sam Smith and Ellen DeGeneres being in the public eye and showing us that gay people aren’t a threat and they actually aren’t any different to us, we’re really starting to tackle homophobia based on misinformation.

Don’t get me wrong – homophobia is still an issue, but we’re getting there on it. More and more people are re-assessing their opinions and, basically, getting over their hate.

But transphobia is different, and is only just starting to enter the spotlight.

Gender identity and sexuality are completely different things. You can have straight cisgender men and women, gay cisgender men and women, and straight and gay transgender men and women. For example, if you were transgender, you might be born a girl but always felt you were male, and yet you’re attracted to men. So you may have been born a straight woman, but were you to transition, you’d become a gay man. The reverse happens just as much – a lesbian girl transitioning to a straight man, for example, or a gay man transitioning to a straight woman. And I haven’t even touched upon bisexuality, pansexuality and asexuality yet!

But the gist of it is that whether you identify as male or female, that’s your gender identity. Whether you’re attracted to men, women, both or all genders, that’s your sexuality.

As a society we’re feeling our way around understanding sexuality, but gender identity remains largely under-discussed, and transphobia (the fear and hatred of transgender people) is still a big issue in society. The amount of people Tweeting things like ‘Bruce has lost his mind’ and ‘what a monstrosity’ shows that as a society, we still have very little understanding of the transgender experience.

It’s okay not to know.

I’m a cisgender female, so I have very little experience in what it means to be transgender! How could I possibly know what Bruce Jenner felt all his life, or the struggles he went through? How could I possibly know if becoming Caitlyn Jenner was the right move for him, or if as Caitlyn she’ll be happier?

That’s the root of it: I. DON’T. KNOW. And neither do most people.

There are two things most people do when they don’t know about something; they either learn about it, or they fear it. And this is why Caitlyn sharing her story is so important. We need to learn. We need to learn what it means to identify as a different gender to the one you were born with. We need to know that this situation doesn’t have to be threatening to us – he was a man, now she’s a woman, there’s really not much we need to fear there. And we need to learn how to appropriately respond to and communicate with transgender people.

A quick course in being transgender-friendly.

1. Use the right pronouns.

When Bruce first did the interview with Diane Sawyer, he requested at the time that we all still use male pronouns, which is why all the news outlets were still saying “he”, “him”, etc. Now that Bruce has become Caitlyn, she requests that we use female pronouns – “she”, “her”, etc. She’s a woman, we call her a woman. Simple!

If you’re not sure which pronouns to use for someone transgender, the best way to find out is to ask. The second best way is to take clues. Caitlyn is a woman’s name and Caitlyn Jenner looks like a woman – she has breasts and long hair and she wears dresses. Had she not specifically said to use female pronouns, they’d still be the safest bet here. So if someone looks and dresses like a man and uses a man’s name, and you can’t ask them what pronouns they prefer, go with “he”, “him”, etc, and vice versa if someone presents themselves like a woman. And if you use the wrong ones and someone corrects you, that’s okay! At least you tried – and now you know for sure.

This does get tricky when talking about transition – even in this article I’ve had to think about where to use “he” and where to use “she”, so if you think I’ve made a mistake somewhere, let me know! Just like most people, I’m new at this too.

2. Don’t ask ‘body questions’.

As the situation stands, Caitlyn Jenner possibly still has male genitals. But she also has breasts, and a feminine face, and – most importantly – thinks of herself as a woman, which makes her a woman! With 1 in every 2,000 people in the world born with intersex organs (genitals that can’t immediately be identified as male or female), having a penis is NOT the only thing that makes you a man, just as having a vagina is NOT the only thing that makes you a woman. A man in a terrible accident who loses his genitals is still a man, because he identifies as one. A man who undergoes gender reassignment surgery to become a woman is a woman, because she identifies as one. Some transgender people don’t ever have full gender reassignment surgery, and that’s their right. You don’t need to know what someone has in their pants. Unless you’re actually openly discussing the transition process with a transgender person, those questions aren’t polite and they aren’t necessary.

3. Just don’t sweat it!

Some people get so worked up about the gender identity of a complete stranger. Is it hurting you in any way? Has your day-to-day life actually changed now that Bruce has become Caitlyn? Probably not. Even if you’re a Kardashian or a Jenner kid, chances are all that’s changed is more media on your doorstep and slightly different catch-ups with your parent. We don’t need to completely freak out over something this harmless. Bruce hasn’t hurt anybody by becoming Caitlyn – least of all people who don’t even know her – so we don’t need to take offence to this. It is what it is. Life is complicated for some people, and being transgender is far from easy. It took Bruce 65 years to work out what he wanted and then take the final leap to become Caitlyn, and it was very brave of Caitlyn to share her transition with the world.

If any of this is still confusing, check out this great Upworthy article and the video within it: http://www.upworthy.com/if-you-dont-understand-why-using-her-name-caitlyn-jenner-matters-this-should-help

Why we should learn about Caitlyn.

This is actually a rare gift – the stars have aligned and we have instant media and a celebrity willing to share an otherwise very secret process. We should take this opportunity to learn what it’s like to change your gender. You just never know who you might meet in your life, and a little bit of knowledge goes a long way! I’m not saying you should religiously watch the show – just check in every now and then with news, media and Caitlyn’s Twitter feed (@Caitlyn_Jenner) and make the whole situation less unfamiliar. If you ever meet a transgender person, or one of your friends or family comes out as transgender, you’ll be way better equipped to treat them with respect. It’s a big world, full of very different people, and this is just one example of the amazing stories we can hear if we’re open-minded enough to listen.

People are saying that Caitlyn shouldn’t be called ‘brave’ or a ‘hero’. I agree in part with the word ‘hero’ being thrown around too loosely nowadays, and yet Caitlyn could definitely be considered a hero to the trans community, or a personal hero to a transgender teen or young adult struggling with their identity. But I sure as hell agree with her being called brave!

Stepping out as Caitlyn is a brave act, because she’s facing thousands of people who hate her just for who she is. The transition process can be painful and difficult enough within the secrecy of your family and community – imagine opening your story up for the whole world’s scrutiny! The argument has been made that she’s doing it for money, but it’s always been about more than that. This is a story that needs to be told. She is brave for telling it. And looking amazing on a Vanity Fair cover is a pretty stylish way to hush the haters!

So you can fear and hate her for being different to you, or you can embrace the idea of someone learning who they are and being their true selves. As fellow transgender woman and talented actress Laverne Cox (who, until now, has been more or less alone in the world of transgender celebrities) said, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!”

Are you still feeling confused or unhappy about Bruce’s transition to become Caitlyn? Information is the cure! Get all the facts on transgender people here.

‘Using a tampon means I’m not a virgin’

FALSE

The only thing that will make you ‘not a virgin’ is if you have sex. Anyone who tells you that tampon use takes away your virginity, quite simply, is wrong!

You can use a tampon from your first period, but it’s best to start with pads until you get used to how heavy your period is likely to be on certain days; this will help you estimate how often you’d need to change a tampon.

The biggest benefit of tampons is that they allow you to go swimming while you’re on your period. But if you’re not a swimmer, and the thought of tampons freaks you out, then that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with using pads. It’s all personal choice.

‘Pads can fall out of my underwear’

HIGHLY UNLIKELY

By the time you get a pad all stuck down onto your underwear and get dressed again, it can feel like it’s already gotten unstuck. Pads are fantastic for sleeping in, and for being able to easily tell when you need to change them, but they can be kind of annoying if they don’t stick down too well!

However, by the time a pad gets to the point where it’s SO unstuck that it’s about to fall out of your undies – trust me, you’ll be aware of it. A liner might sneak away more easily as they’re thinner and smaller, but chances are you’ll be well aware that it’s not sitting where it should be, long before it falls to the ground while you’re walking! So don’t worry – this is just another horror story that may have happened to someone, somewhere, but probably won’t happen to you.

‘If I haven’t had my period by the time I’m 14, there’s something wrong with me’

MOSTLY FALSE

Everyone gets their periods at different times. There are girls in the world who got their first periods at the age of three, and girls who didn’t start menstruating until they were in their 20s. So if all your friends have their periods and you don’t, it’s okay – you’re not any less of a woman and you still might start yours any day.

If you’re worried about why you haven’t menstruated yet, it’s worth seeing a GP just to make sure everything’s okay. It might be lifestyle factors or just a quirk you’ve inherited from your mum; perhaps late periods run in your family. But it’s worth just checking with a doctor for peace of mind as much as anything; if they find something wrong, then you know and can fix it, and if nothing’s wrong then you can relax!

‘It’s possible to shove a tampon too far into my body’

FALSE

Tampons are scary, and the thought of something being ‘up there’ all day can be really off-putting until you get used to it. But the horror stories you hear of girls not being able to find their tampons again are just that – horror stories!

U by Kotex has a great explanation on this. The short version is that there just isn’t enough room in your vaginal canal and cervix for a tampon to get lost. And even if the string gets bunched up, you should still be able to reach it with your fingers. Uncomfortable, but not impossible.

‘I can’t get pregnant before my first period’

FALSE

Sorry—you can! The problem with first periods is that they’re impossible to predict, so if you’re having sex and your first period is only weeks away, you can easily get pregnant.

Generally, though, if you haven’t had your period yet, it’s better not to have sex anyway. Periods are our body’s way of ushering us into womanhood, and until your body is in that adolescent stage, you’re not likely to have all the hormones and responses you need to actually enjoy sex! So what’s the point?

If you’ve heard a rumour and you’re not sure if it’s true, it’s always best to ask a parent, your GP, or a health teacher. While you can often find the answer on the internet, you’ll also stumble across plenty of wrong answers too!

Have you got a period-related question or embarrassing story? Submit it to Ask The Nurse!

You were friends for life. You knew each other inside and out, you made jokes, you stuck up for one another in arguments. All of a sudden, she’s turned on you, and you don’t know why. So what happens when friends become enemies?

There are a million and one reasons for why. It could be that you’ve done something to offend her. She might just be having a bad day. Or she’s completely insane and she’s decided you’ve been trying to steal her boyfriend. Ultimately, when it comes to these situations, the reason doesn’t even matter. If she wants to be mad at you, she will be.

Talk About It

Not easy, but absolutely necessary—talk about it. If you know why she’s mad and you owe her an apology—give it to her. Have the courage to approach her at lunch and take her aside, say ‘I’m really sorry,’ and don’t make excuses. Nine times out of ten, you’ll be friends again within a week.

If you don’t know what you’ve done, or if you’ve just drifted apart, there are a few things you can do. You can try to make contact casually—such as a comment on Facebook about something else—and see how she responds, or you can give it some time and leave her to make up her own mind about whether or not she wants to be your friend.

When You’re the Enemy

If you’re just thoroughly sick of your friend, or you don’t think you can forgive her for what she did, you might choose to take some time. You’re allowed to do this—it can be difficult, but you’re within your rights to decide who you want as a friend. However, as someone you used to trust, she deserves an explanation as to why. Be clear about why you feel hurt, and give her the chance to apologise. Try not to be too nasty—when you want to be friends again, she might not feel the same way if you’ve been cruel! Just clearly state that she’s hurt your feelings and you need some time and space.

When You’re in the Same Group

It might make being in the same group awkward if you’re giving each other the silent treatment. Try not to drag your friends into it: no nasty gossip, and no ultimatums like ‘If she’s coming to your party, I’m not’! Respect that they have nothing to do with the argument, and keep them out of it.

Have you ever had a big fallout with a friend? How did you sort it out? Share your solutions in the comments below.

Every school has a girl like this. The one where she used to be your best friend. She was funny, spontaneous, secure in herself, and liked going out. And now she’s with a boyfriend and she’s a completely different person. She doesn’t even claim to like the same music. Even her dream job has changed. Suddenly she’s a clone of him. It’s sickening to watch, and it’s really unhealthy.

Girls like this can be really frustrating because often they’re so much fun when they’re single, but now you feel like you just don’t know them anymore. You want to grab them and yell ‘You were great how you were! Why change?!’.

Why change, indeed? The reason these girls mould to their boyfriends is because they’re insecure. They don’t believe they have anything to offer, and they’re obsessed with the idea that once their boyfriends discover who they really are, they’ll be bored and leave. So they change everything about themselves.

There’s not much you can do in a situation like this without putting your friendship at risk. You can gently remind your friend that she had plenty of friends while she was single, but go too straightforward and she’ll be really offended. What you can do, however, is learn a lesson.

If you don’t love yourself, nobody else can love you. These girls, 9 times out of 10, end up getting ditched by their boyfriends because the boy feels like it’s not a challenge, or that she’s not the girl he used to like. That’s the whole point: if they start dating you in the first place, they must like you as you are, so why change?

Hopefully she’ll realise she’s lost too many friends, and she’ll learn her own lesson. Meanwhile, you have to practise loving yourself and when you pick up an awesome guy that you can be yourself around, she’ll realise what she’s missing. And you’ll be really, truly happy. Does sacrificing everything you are sound like happiness? Hell no. Be yourself. The rest is easy.

Dear Bully,

Your daily insult was actually something new today. I almost wanted to congratulate you on finally coming up with a creative taunt. A real nice change from hearing the same things from you, day after day.

I want to let you know that for a long time, I believed all the things you told me I was. I’d go home feeling like I really was stupid, and worthless, and ugly. I’d think that anyone who told me differently was a liar, and I’d take out my anger on my family and my friends, when they were really just trying to help. I don’t know why I pushed away my friends. They’re so supportive, and you’re really destructive, and yet I wanted to believe you, instead of them. I told them they didn’t understand, but it was me who wasn’t seeing clearly.

I’m glad you made the effort to think up a new insult today, because it woke me up. It woke me up to the fact that, if you weren’t making fun of me every day, I’d have absolutely nothing to do with you. You wouldn’t be a part of my life at all, just some other face in the classroom. In some other life, we’d never have met – or who knows, we might even be friends – but for some reason, right here and now, you’re absolutely horrible to me. If you weren’t, I’d barely know you, so why do you have such a large part in my life?

Then it hit me. You’re not important to me; I’m important to you. You rely on me! Making fun of me makes you feel better about yourself. Your so-called ‘friends’ are the most supportive of you when they’re laughing at your insults and you need to intimidate me, because you’re unhappy. You need me, you need my reactions. You need my fear to make yourself feel powerful. You need me smaller so you can feel bigger. You need me upset so you can feel successful.

But you can’t have that; you can’t have me, anymore. From today, you are no longer my ‘bully’, because you don’t even deserve a title in my life. I refuse to consider myself your victim anymore. Because I now know what you’ve known all along; that I’m in a better place than you. I’m happier. You’re the only reason I’m not happy at school and that’s going to stop.

You’ve known all along that your friends aren’t as close to you as mine are to me. You’ve known all along that I’m better than you at most school stuff. You’ve known all along that I’m not ugly, I’m notstupid, and I’m not a loser, and who cares if you say I am? I haven’t ‘lost’ at life – I’d rather be me, with friends like mine, than be cruel and bitter like you, and have your type of popularity. Don’t you realise that you only have friends because they’re too scared not to laugh at the mean things you say?

I know that you know all of this, because if you didn’t, why would you go so far out of your way to try and make me believe that I’m wrong? You spend so much time and energy on me – and why?! You care about me – I’m a huge part of your life. If you really didn’t care what I said or did, you’d never insult me, you’d never steal my school things, and you’d never knock into me in the playground. If you really didn’t care about me, you wouldn’t do any of those things, because why would you bother if it wasn’t important to you?

So, thanks, I’m flattered that you think about me so much, but today it’s going to stop. I’m not going to help you with your twisted attempts at popularity. You have your own issues and they have nothing to do with me.

I’m not your victim now. You can say what you like to me, but you can’t hurt me anymore. Call me ugly, I don’t care; I know I’m not. Call me stupid, I don’t care; I know I’m not. Call me worthless, I don’t care; I know you’re only calling me worthless because that’s how you feel. What are you, when you’re not a bully? Are you good at anything except intimidation and insults? Are you confident at all when you’re not making someone else tremble?

You can’t touch me. You were only my bully when I was agreeing to be your victim, but today I break our sick and twisted contract. I have no allegiance to you – every time you say something now, I’m going to tell the teacher, because I don’t care if you’re mad that I’ve landed you in trouble. You mean nothing to me, so why should I care if you’re mad? I’m going to laugh at your insults from now on, because they’re so far from the truth that they may as well be jokes. I’m going to ignore you, like I would if you were some random kid in another grade, because you have no importance in my life now. I don’t care where you are, I don’t care what you do, I don’t care that you think it’s cool to walk by and call me names. You can’t affect me anymore. I don’t care that you’re trying to bully me, because you can’t bully me if I refuse to be hurt by what you say.

I have amazing friends. Every time you got me down, they listed all the things they liked about me. They reminded me that I’m more than just a victim; I’m a friend, a family member, a student, and I’m good at all those things. They invite me out, we help each other in class, and we sit together at lunch. I have what I need in life, and I know who I am. There’s no place for you, and definitely no place for your lies.

So, have fun with your friends, spending all your energy thinking up ways to make me hurt – because I can guarantee you that even though you’re thinking about me, I won’t be thinking about you. You’ll be spending your energy on me, and meanwhile, I’ll be laughing with my friends, talking to my family, going out and living my life – and not wasting even a second of my time or energy thinking about you. You can wait around corners for me all your life if you want – I have better things to do.

Sincerely,

No Longer Your Victim.

We’ve finally got our new website set up, and with it, this blog! It’ll take a little while to get everything up and running, but eventually this will be your go-to place for High School Survival Guide news, articles, and gossip.

You can also stay in touch by visiting our Facebook page or following us on Instagram (@thehighschoolsurvivalguide).

If there’s anything you want to read a blog post about, please feel free to contact me!

Stay awesome,

Ally xx