Buffy marathon

and me snuggling with my kitties. Stupid migraines. Everyone else have a fun and safe New Year (i.e. watch out for the drunk drivers, who I hate with a passion.)

I'll be snuggling in bed hopped up on Midrin.

And who said I didn't have any fun. I ambled over to the local bookstore where everything was 20% off. I managed to only spend about $10 more then the limit I set and walked out with a new Raymond Chandler (Lady of the Lake), a cd set of old detective radio shows, 2 knitting books, and a crossword book and a book on the history of crosswords. WOOWOO.

and organic mimosas!

Update: By the time the New Year rang in (judging by the fireworks) I was watching Ginger Snaps III. I've got to say, nothing quite says hello new year then watching a bunch of misogynistic guys get it and a couple of strong young women be responsible for much of it. I love Bridget and Ginger.

Also, I added a list of links to publications that I subscribe to, and sometimes contribute to, so check them out. All radical, all good. (The first two feminist, the third the paper of the Industrial Workers of the World, and the fourth radical environmentlaism.)

I have a problem with this:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	4.6
Mind:	4.8
Body:	6.4
Spirit:	7.7
Friends/Family:	3.8
Love:	1.5
Finance:	5.2
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Because it doesn't seem to think that one can be single, not searching, and happy. I'm not lonely, I'm not all longing for a relationship, I mean if one comes along then nice, but if one doesn;t then that's also 100% okay by me. It says this: Your love rating is a measure of your current romantic situation. Sharing your heart with another person is one of life's most glorious, terrifying, rewarding experiences. Your love score is very low, indicating trouble. There is love out there for you. Seek the advice of wise people on how to go about finding it. Do not lose hope. which truly judges that all spinsters or bachelors (ha ha guys aren't spinsters) are somehow lacking a huge part of life. Stupid is all I have to say. Don;t they know that having loving meaningful relationships with friends fulfill the whole love thing for some people?

This and that

-I'm watching the Best. Movie. Ever. (see right) If you're not from a Mediterranean family then it may not be as funny to you as it is for me, but it's HI-larious and after watching it you will know what it is to live in my family. (The whole living at home thing until marriage is true. My parents still give me crap about not living at home.)

-I've had migraines every day in the morning for at least a week. It's even impinging on my dreams. Last night in my dream I had to keep going home and going to bed because I had a migraine. I missed out on dreamtime fun. :(

-Logan's sleeping on my foot. What should I do?

-I'm gonna grow up to be Red Forman from That 70's Show. That's right, jackass.

-Yay coffee!!!

Join me New Year's Eve

Skytrain Party (Vancouver, BC)

Here are the details.
NYE Meet at VCC Clark at 7:45.
Bring EVERYTHING!!!
Music, Costumes, Party Favors, etc,,,
If you have a Stereo or instrument... BRING IT!!!

At 8pm we hop an Accordion Train to the Future.
We ride it full circle to Waterfront and then "Whatever".....

Total Trip time 1hr.
8pm to 9pm.

Well I guess I'm a handmaiden of patriarchy then

From the trans thread:
I hate to be picky, but the person who wrote this isn't a radical feminist for two reasons
- a radical feminist would never be intimate with a man or a person who was born male

Oops. Guess all those people calling me radical got to me. I will now go and inform them that my pornstitution fighting ass is not radical at all. Then I'll start defending porn and practising BDSM.










(not)

Seriously, Andrea Dworkin was definitely a radical feminist by my definition. John Stoltenberg anyone?
Check out a rad post on the subject here.

(Feminist) News from the math world

The latest newsletter from the Association of Women in Mathematics (AWN) contained a letter to the editor that I want to share with you all.


In the July-August AWN newsletter, President Keyfitz outlines the difficulties involved in obtaining appointments for women on key prize-awarding committees. We would like to add that even when women are appointed to important decision making bodies, they may not be able to advance the careers of highly deserving women. As women who have served on committees, we have observed that it is quite easy for other members of the committee to deny the quality of a woman mathematician and quickly dismiss her from the discussion. A single outspoken committee member bent against women can seriously hinder the possibilities of awarding a woman an honor that isn't shared by five or six men as well. Even well-intentioned colleagues often don't realise how their unconscious assumptions accumulate to become heavy drags on women mathematicians. This can affect both the writing and the interpretation of letters of nomination, as well as committee discussions. Even women mathematicians may fall into this group.

It is imperative that the AWN address these concerns or women will lose the gains we've made in the past 30 years. We need to demand that men and women condemn openly sexist statements without waiting for someone to be bold enough to file a lawsuit. We need everyone to watch themselves for their own subtle biases. We need to educate people about writing strong letters that will survive reading by even the most biased committee members. If committees are more likely to choose a woman when they are choosing five men, then we need more prizes awarded to multiple recipients. We need to stop the downward spiral caused by judging mathematicians based on a lack of prestigious positions, plenary addresses, top notch publications and awards, without ever pausing to examine their research directly.

This does not even address the issues that may uniquely affect women who are parents: the publication gaps and temporary inability to travel. There is almost no funding to help such women recover their research programs. Certainly there is no funding available from the NSF (National Science Foundation) that will allow them to work part-time in research-only positions at their home institutions like many top women mathematicians did in the past. Given the societal pressure to work even with a young child, few women mathematicians today take unpaid leaves for childcare. Instead they work fulltime jobs, often keeping up their teaching and service while their research is forced on the back burner. It is time to provide grants, even small ones, which will allow women to recover their research after children, or to keep their research going while having young children around. It is time for universities to offer 50% pay for 50% work. It is time that committees realise that many parents with doctorates a decade ago may have been doing research for only eight of those years if not fewer.

There are also the solved two body programs which often place women at second tier jobs with higher teaching. Rather than holding the lack of prestige against the women, it should be noted that her important results have more weight for being completed in what may have been a less than supportive environment. What would she have done at a top notch department with time granted to complete research? What could she do now if offered funding or a top notch position?

Finally the AWN might attempt to spread the word as to which top notch jobs are truly top notch for women and which have such incipient sexism as to prevent the women there from succeeding. Sexism at times can be so pervasive that it is more of a distraction from mathematics than teaching, service, and childcare combined. When the only recourse is to file a lawsuit, there is really no recourse at all.

Anyone with ideas for effective action is encouraged to post them at the Effective Action for Women in Math Webforum at http://groups.google.com/group/WomeninMath.

Sincerley,
Stephanie Alexander
Jean Taylor
Karen Uhlenbeck


I'll add comments later, as I'm in a rush.

Tagged

By Kasper over at Thoughts on Science and Life.

I'm actually at my parent's house, and the nearest book was a Dictionary.

So on pg 123, sentence 6 through 8 equals
chastise: v.t. punishment, esp corporally; chastisement.
chastity: n. quality or state of being chaste.


I don't think I like this page *wink*

I failed

my first class ever. I thought I'd at least get a D. Nope, I got an F. This is what that feels like. Too bad I'm at the library; I feel like crying.

(Yes I was planning on retaking the course for a higher grade as I missed 4 weeks out of an 8/9 week quarter. Stupid PTSD. Stupid med mixup. I wanna crawl into a little ball and die.)

Addendum: At least looking at my transcript shows that last quarter is an anamoly. Thank IPU for that.

Happy Cephalopodmas

SIng a carol.

Have some fun.

It's Cephalopodmas!

Here we go again, the trans wars

I just went over to Screaming Into The Void and read her latest post:

I am a radical feminist, and so is my wife. My wife is also a transwoman.

If you are one of these people who insists upon calling my wife “him” against her expressly stated wishes or otherwise insulting her because of her birth gender, while ignoring all the efforts she has made to separate herself from the social class of “men”, and you still consider yourself a feminist, I must ask you to deeply consider the implications in that, because the clear implication there is that gender roles are inborn and immutable, which is an idea feminism has historically fought against.

And then I must depart from any calm, logical and rational discourse on the subject and say, if you insult my wife: Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you fuck you. Oh and - fuck you. And don’t forget - FUCK YOU.

In a similar vein - if, because I do not agree with every tenet of transactivism, you have decided I am transphobic, you may refer to the previous paragraph.

I’m done with this ridiculous battle. So. Fucking. Done. Quit fucking fighting each other and fight the people at the top who love this game of divide and conquer.

All I can say is HELL FUCKING YEAH (which I couldn't say in the comments, because they are closed). This is exactly my stream of thought on the matter. I believe that feminism, especially radical feminism is the belief that we must get rid of all types of opression. ALL OF IT. That includes gendered oppression that fits inside this little itty bitty gender dichotomy. I know lots of transpeople that I consider to be women; also some that I wouldn't welcome into a women's only space. I had this battle back at Bluestockings where I was called transphobic because I didn;t think that someone's male roommate who sometimes wears a dress should be allowed to volunteer at our women's collective bookstore. A transperson I would consider is one who gave up their male priviledge on a daily basis. A person who considers themself a woman and presents themself as such on a daily basis. But that's only for the time being. I want the gender dichotomy smashed to itsy bitsy peices where the gender system includes all different types of people, including all those people stuck in between today;s accepted genders. Because there's room for more, and I think that the existence of intersexv people tell us that there definitely are more then two genders, and to an extent transpeople. If you can't understand this, you don't (in my eyes) understand feminism.

This post brought to you by the letter E

Dr. Brazen Hussy has given me the letter E. Now I must list at least 10 things that I love that begin with the letter E. (Damn, S would have been so much simpler). They are in the order that I thought them up, so the numbers have no real significance.

1. Equality. Can I have some now, please since I love it so much?
2. Egalitarianism. Just sounds like a nice idea.
3. Eggs. Poached, hard boiled, scrambled, poached in red wine, for dinner, for breakfast, for a snack. Eggs are Egg-cellent. (I hear you all groaning.)
4. Equal pay for equal work do I really need to say why I love this one? I mean if it ever happens.
5. Equador You were so pretty the only time I was there. Plus it's home of the Galapagos Islands which contain so many neat animals.
6. Equations Though not all equations, I do have a special place in my heart for them. Plus they explain physics a lot better then words do.
7. Emma Oh Jane Austen how I love thee. (You're one of my spinster idols!)
8. e Oh you continual growth constant you. Who doesn't love you?
9. Estes, Clarissa Pinkola Women who Run with Wolves has rejuvenated me many many times. I read it everytime I feel feminist burnout. Thank you.
10. Edna St. Vincent Millay My favourite poet of all time. I wish I would have been able to meet her. She speaks to my soul. What lips my lips have kissed was my life story for my teenage years/early 20s. Damn. I love her.
11 & 12. Earth First! & Environmentalism Saving the earth from destruction as best we can. STOP LOGGING OLD GROWTH!!! Woo woo. That's right, I've sat in trees. It's fun.
13.Edward Hopper Not anything at all like my painting style, but for some reason you're one of my favourites.

If you want to do this then leave a comment and I'll give you a letter.

A little of this and that

-Cat badges now added to the sidebar so you can visit my kitties anytime you would like (I know I love to see them all the time.)

-Also there have been updates to the blogroll. I'm always on the look out for good blogs, especially blogs dealing with mental health, BPD or PTSD, and feminist science or mathematics blogs. Any blogs I should read?

-Here's hoping that next quarter will be better then this last one, as I'm taking Number Theory (exciting) and advanced linear algebra (fun) and modern physics (unsure about this yet, but I like physics, so....), and I'm a TA for one of the physics labs.

-I learned "continental style" or pick knitting. WOOO!! Look at me go. Once I find a side bar for computer illiterates then I will put knitting progess bars in my side bar, but for now there's too much playing with CSS and other things that sound less then fun to me.

Do you think

that Jane Austen had a thing about preachers, i.e. didn't like them at all? I mean all Austen books I've read have horrible preachers (like the one from Emma) or are idiots (like the one from P&P).

Goddamn you CTV

Behind the man they arrested for the Ipswich murders did you have to have a provactively posed headless woman in a mini skirt? If they were 'regular' women would you have this titillating graphic? Probably not. I hate you.

Monday happy blogging

*snuggles*
(for more kitty fun you can see their Flickr page.)

and:

You Are a Snowflake

You live for the winter - blizzards, cold nights, snowball fights! The holidays are just a bonus!

What Christmas Ornament Are You?

Your Christmas Stocking Will Be Filled With a Puppy

Well - one cute, soft, cuddly puppy... And a very soiled Christmas stocking.

What Will Be In Your Christmas Stocking?

Weighing in on Ipswich

I ususally get my news from cbc.ca, but I had the news on while I was cooking today and I'm pissed. Girls? You mean to tell me that they're all under the age of 18? And do we have to place so much stress on the word prostitute? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Stated here much more elquently then I could:

The Ipswich murders: they were women, weren't they?
Matthew Parris

Prostitute is a noun and a useful descriptive term, but is it the right word to use in a headline reporting the death of a woman? “Another prostitute murdered” — yes, she was murdered and she was a prostitute, but she was a woman first, a woman of whom you could have said so many things if you had known her, only one of which was that she worked as a prostitute.

I am not advocating euphemism. Woolly words such as “sex worker” will soon attract the same opprobrium as the terms they replace, and lose their wool. Nor am I suggesting we hide what those women in Suffolk did for a living. It is central to the case, it is what has linked the murders, and in a grisly way it fascinates. Any report should be unsparing and the language honest.

But in the headline, in the opening sentence, couldn’t we at least start by calling a victim what she mainly was: a woman? Some words seem to push a person away, to make them other than us. We ignore our common humanity when in the very naming of a person we launch straight into a descriptive term drawing attention to difference and inviting shame.


Read the whole thing here.

But then again, we prefer the othering, the thought that only discarded women are in danger. They thought the same about the Yorkshire "Ripper" but then he murdered mostly "women" not prostitutes. Words are powerful, and I'm sick of these women being posthumanously (and all the women in the sex industry still living) othered and discarded. (Not to mention all the women not in the sex industry who are also othered and discarded.) Blech. I hate it here.

Fuck you patriarchY!

Thank god that's over

It's been a hard quarter. A very hard quarter. I missed about 3.5-4 weeks out of the 9 weeks of the quarter due to med induced mixed manic states, insomnia, migraines, inability to concentrate due to my body readjusting from the meds that drove me to a frenzy a couple weeks into the quarter. Add to that muscle spasms due to stress and your garden varietyanxiety attacks and depression. I may have failed my math class; hell, I don't even remember taking the first test (during med debacle). (I KNOW! It was that bad.) Due to the fact that I could not concentrate on anything until a week ago, and then not for a very long amount of time. Risperdal is helping, I can concentrate longer, but how much studying can you do in the 2 days before the final. If I can get in to repeat this class it will put me up to 3 math classes. this one (multivariable calculus), number theory/proofs, and advanced linear algebra. Plus Modern physics. And I'm gonna be a lab TA for the lower level physics labs. I got a C in one of my physics classes, so you know my quarter was bad (other then my math class which my test scores scared my best friend. She wasn't worried about me until she heard those).

I'm so relieved that it's over, but I'm on pins and needles until my score comes back since I missed the last test my final counts twice and I left a page empty because my brain just quit (lack of concentration thing). It was stuff I could do, but I just took too long and didn't care anymore. The stuff from the last test I knew, making me believe that I would have done well on that test, but there's nothing I could have done now.

It's times like these that remind me why I'm on disability.

Memespotting from I Blame the Patriarchy

(Meme) which enjoins the would-be memist to pick up the nearest book, train the eye on page 123, and reproduce without permission the sixth through eighth sentences.

"'I wish the media would realize that girls should be recognized for being talented and healthy looking.' -Justine, Chicago, IL Media image-that's a huge issue for girls"

From Sisterhood is Forever edited by Robin Morgan.

Now let's just think of a world where women and girls are valued for being healthy and talented. That seems like a good thought to end this hellish week on.

SO COOL!

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Year in review (sort of)

As seen at What the Hell is Wrong With You? I mean, damn.

1) Harken back to your archives.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year.
3) Entertain us.

January 2006: One of the blogs I like to frequent Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty. had this definition come up and I thought that it would be as good as any to sort of introduce myself, as I am called and sometimes self-defined as a radical feminist.

February 2006: I was reading Time magazine's full page review of Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man, the premise of which is that she dressed, acted, and lived the life of a man for 18 months.

March 2006: Why is it that everytime someone starts a sentence with "Not to be a jerk" they invariably are one?

April 2006: Hey All, let's make this a really good resource out there for women (and men) who have suffered from sexual violence.

May 2006: I am blogging against the stigma attached to mental illness.

June 2006: I went boxing for the first time today and damn was it fun.

July 2006: I'm not dead; I'm just computerless, broke, and anxious.

August 2006: You all missed my birthday.

September 2006: I met Ms. Jared!!! (Tales of the Bay Area) And she's FAB-U-LOUS!!!

October 2006: A few days ago I read Twisty's post on girl's sports and the ensuing comments which went on to argue back and forth about how men are stronger biologically, blah blah blah

November 2006: Want to see kitties?

December 2006: 3 and a half hours until I have to officially be up and getting ready for school.

OH yeah?

In response to Dr. Brazen Hussy





Me geekier!

Just gotta say...

..ALyx I adore you too!

How BPD and PTSD have enhanced my life

Now it's easy for me to detail all the ways that BPD and PTSD have made my life a living hell, but there are some ways in which I feel that I have benefitted from having this (dis)ability. One of them being the fact that I have done/continue to do many different activities. I learned this while talking to the esteemable Laura and she commented that I do a lot of things. Due to the nature of my (dis)ability, I may stop and restart projects due to a) boredom, b) too much energy needed to perform said activity c) inability to leave the house and completely unrelated to my (dis)ability d) knee pain (I have the knees of a 90 year old. fun fun.)

How do you ask do I know I do these things b/c of my BPD? Well, one symptom is that we get easily put off of things, easily bored, and that we have very diverse interests. If that's a symptom then I sure am damn happy I have BPD.

Things I participate in on a regular (for me) basis that I am fairly good at:
Boxing
Water Polo
Delegate for the IWW
Knitting (I generally design things myself, no patterns needed here)
Lithography
Painting
CLowning/Circus (juggling, ring mistressing, stilting, unicycling, making an ass out of myself on a regular basis)
Math
Physics
Writing feminist theory
researching
political activism/theory
writing for theatre or circus
puppetry
dancing: modern, swing, west coast swing, jazz, salsa, and I'm learning the smooth waltz, tango (argentine of course), and flamenco
acting
photography
writing comics
decorating
teaching media literacy
traveling (I used to move every 6 months, well stay somewhere for the winter and travel all summer)
making/designing clothes

WOOWOO!!!

Knitting, a story in pictures

While trying to knit things like this:

I ran into big butted problems like this:

(OK, his butt's not really that big, but you wouldn't know by the way he uses it.)

Then I have to deal with him doing thigs like this when I try to take the yarn away:


But eventually the other night I did get to finish this:

You know what's fun...

...having crippling migraines the last 3 days of class then insomnia the weekend before finals

Have dinner with me!

Here's what I'm making, and anyone can make it too:

Eggs poached in red wine (NYT recipie):
Time: 20 minutes

Extra Virgin Olive Oil as needed
2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
4 thick slices of day old bread (the good stuff)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 cups fruity red wine, like a young Brunello, pinot noir, or Chianti
4 eggs
Grated pecorino or other hard cheese for garnish
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

1. Put 3/4 tbsp oil in large skillet and turn heat to medium. Add garlic and cook, turning occassionally until it just begins to colour. Lower heat a bit and add bread; sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and pepper. Cook, turning once or twice, until bread is crusty and golden.

2.Meanwhile heat wine in a saucepan, preferably one with sloping sides; add some salt. When wine boils, reduce heat to a low simmer. Carefully slip eggs in and cook, spooning wine over them, until whites are barely firm.

3. Scoop eggs into 2 or 4 bowls, along with some wine. Add a piece or two of bread to each bowl, garnish with cheese and parsley, and serve.

Serves 2-4 people. (Or if you eat a lot like me, 1 and a half people. ;))

In remembrance...

Better late then never. A migraine effectively stopped me from going to the vigil and from posting this earlier.

Remember them:

Genevieve Bergeron
Nathalie Croteau
Anne-Marie Edward
Maryse Laganiere
Anne-Marie Lemay
Michele Richard
Annie Turcotte
Helene Colgan
Barbara Daigneault
Maud Haviernick
Maryse LeClair
Sonia Pelletier
Annie St-Arneault
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz


The 14 women killed in December 1989 at l'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. Killed because they had supposedly taken the place of the gunman who claimed that feminists had ruined his life. The women were engineering students: engineering, along with geology and physics are the trifecta of male dominated sciences, i.e. they are the worst sciences for women today, back then I'msure it was just as bad or worse. (Women only made up 20% of the student population, but it was their fault that he wasn't admitted. Yeah, right.)

I wear my white ribbon year round, as it is used in Canada to signify remebrance of this fateful day, and to shine light onto violence against women.

A little thing I'm working on

Yay for sleeplessness.

3 and a half hours

until I have to officially be up and getting ready for school. With the snow melts my unbridled childlike glee that kept me afloat (and sleeping) for the past few days.

Have a doctor's appointment during my calculus test, but at this point I feel like it's better if I take it on Monday or have it averaged out from my final as I can't concentrate, ca't remember, and can't sleep.

I'm spiralling, but it's so subtle that I don't even notice it. Nor do I know how to stop it. I just want to curl up in a ball in my house for the next forever. Can someone send over a cook and a cleaning person though?