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'Make YouTube videos so we can learn'

Writer: Amanda RiddellAmanda Riddell

People within the academic music community and theatre community have been implying this to me for years, despite not valuing my harmony, melody and text-setting knowledge enough to consider hiring me as a full-time professor of music (not that I would ever want to be that, particularly for VUW, but just saying...). I'm writing a bloody opera, I've finished the score for a rock musical, and I'm fundamentally desirous of one outcome only: VUW must cease reading over my shoulder as I compose, because I am not a current student or faculty member. In fact, I'm enrolled elsewhere and enjoying TWOA's laidback and supportive vibe, compared to the bigots that told me to take HRT or detransition. That's what VUW and all the rich pricks in Wellington - who want to steal my songs - said.


VUW crossed the line into illegal behaviour trying to steal my script. That resulted in a definite boycott, where previously I'd just been avoiding the campus because I'm often like that: I randomly avoid places where I used to spend a lot of time.


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So, that's my answer: if you want to learn my knowledge, I expect at least $60/hour. - They have this strange two-faced thing about me: like, my personal habits are eccentric and I'm famously critical, so they love to try and one-up me. At the same time, they're completely blind to the fact that they're excluding me from the privilege that they enjoy because I play the wrong instrument, specialise in the wrong era and the wrong styles, plus I make the predominantly straight, conservative element feel deeply uncomfortable with my flamboyance.


Imagine if I asked somebody else for a lesson: they'd expect payment. You know I'm cash-poor, so why aren't you simply signing up? Oh, wait, because that would mean admitting I'm not just some sick retard.

 
 
 

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