expandable pants

"My belly looks like a marshmallow," I thought, seeing it in the mirror.

A few dress pants of mine had gotten snug. Working from home, I haven't worn them in forever anyway, but that's besides the point.

It's too bad, I thought while looking at the pants, that they can't be made wider. There's no way to do it without cutting the waistband and inserting extra material which wouldn't match and would look bad.

I was debating whether to keep them or give them away.

Then I noticed something. Could it be? Yes, indeed. I was stunned that I'd never noticed it before. The pants were designed with extra fabric in the back. The waistband was sewn together in the center back, folded over on itself on each side. You only need to take out some stitches and sew it back together to widen the pants! Men's pants are so cool.

Two pairs of pants that I'd been debating about have that feature.

Another pair of my snug pants has a snazzy matching suit jacket, so I really didn't want to give them away. These pants don't have the extra fabric in back. However, the waistband folds over on itself on the front sides. And the pants have pleats in the front that could be taken out to provide more width. I doubt these were designed with that intention, but I might be able to widen them too.

Boy's shorts sometimes have elastic bands in the waistband that can be pulled to the desired tension and hooked onto a button on each side to allow for an adjustable fit.

gender inclusive job postings in Germany

In German, many words that refer to people have an extra suffix ("in" for singular; "innen" for plural) when used to refer to women. To refer to both men and women with that word, you can't use only the masculine term; you need to use both.

So for example, the German word for "teacher" (masculine singular and plural) is "Lehrer". The feminine singular form is "Lehrerin"; the feminine plural is "Lehrerinnen". To refer to both male and female teachers in speech you would use "Lehrer und Lehrerinnen".

Based on the linked site, you can also put the feminine form first, ie. "Lehrerinnen und Lehrer", but this sounds quite awkward to me. My knowledge of the German language is mostly from my childhood however, not from the past 30 years, so perhaps the latter form has become more common nowadays.

To simplify this kind of expression in writing, various short forms have been devised, as shown on the above (www.genderator.app) website. Some of these short forms are inclusive of non-binary genders too. Here I have listed the nominative case forms from that site:

Paarform (unabbreviated):
👤 die Lehrerin bzw. der Lehrer
👥 die Lehrerinnen und Lehrer

Schrägstrichschreibung (using slashes):
👤 der/die Lehrer/-in
👥 die Lehrer/-innen

Klammerform (using parentheses):
👤 der/die Lehrer(in)
👥 die Lehrer(innen)

Binnenmajuskel (using internal capitalization):
👤 der/die LehrerIn
👥 die LehrerInnen

Gendersternchen / Genderstar (nicht binär) (using asterisks; inclusive of non-binary):
👤 der*die Lehrer*in
👥 die Lehrer*innen

Genderdoppelpunkt (nicht binär) (using colons; inclusive of non-binary):
👤 der:die Lehrer:in
👥 die Lehrer:innen

Gendergap (nicht binär) (using underscores; inclusive of non-binary):
👤 der_die Lehrer_in
👥 die Lehrer_innen

Today I came across some job postings on a German website. The advertised jobs include:
- eine(n) Schlussredakteur(in)(mwd)
- eine(n) Software-Tester(in)(mwd)
- eine(n) Systemadministrator(in)(mwd)
- eine(n) Postmaster(in) (m/w/d)

I wasn't familiar with the (mwd) abbreviation.

https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/mwd-meaning

https://fashionunited.info/news/business/q-a-about-m-w-d-german-gender-regulations/20190725147

It stands for "männlich, weiblich oder divers" - "male, female or diverse".
The 2nd page explains about the legal reasons for including this in the job postings.

In November 2017, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) ruled that civil status law must allow a third gender option, besides "female" or "male". The changes are aimed at all those who can not or do not want to be assigned to any gender within the so-called binary gender system and protect their “right to personality”.

This means, for example, that birth certificates cannot have blank gender entries for intersex and/or nonbinary people and as of mid-2018, they need to provide a third option. The deadline for the Federal Government to improve the civil law accordingly was 31 December 2018. As of 2019 employers and recruiters should comply with the same rule, by not excluding non-binary people and offering gender-neutral job advertisements.
...
In Germany, according to the General Equal Treatment Act from 2006, employers are not allowed to discriminate against an applicant on grounds of gender. The gender identities of people are diverse. This must be considered also in recruitment circumstances, job postings included so that no gender is discriminated against.

Another interesting German-language topic:
“Freundin“ means both friend and girlfriend. How do you differentiate between the two in conversation?

Wuthering Heights

I've been reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

Someone had posted a reference to the Kate Bush song. Watching the video of that song made me curious about the book, which is why I started reading it.

I enjoyed the first chapter or so. The opening of the story was amusing to me, defying my expectations. But since then it has gone downhill. The characters and plot seem unpleasant and mostly unbelievable to me.

I'm now on chapter 21 of 34. I am considering quitting the book. Without giving away spoilers, can any of you tell me if the story gets better again? Is it worth continuing to slog on through the grimness in hope of something good coming out of it?