It's officially summer

How do I know? Well it was warm enough to sit by the lake and even *GASP* go swimming. I read the entire book "The Swallows of Kabul" sitting on the dock in the sun. READ this book. It is beautifully written, I couldn't put it down, and it is a haunting story, but one that should be read. I plan on reading his second and third books in the trilogy, "The Attack" and "The Sirens of Baghdad", respectively. Tommorrow is Friday so as soon as I finish my quiz I am off to the lake to read more.

I'm also nicely tan (I am 2nd gen Sicilian, we get dark fast) and not wearing pants (well, I'm wearing short pants, or capris, or whatever they're called. I don't like shorts b/c they're such an American thing (N+S))

I also got to avoid everything I wanted to for the most part yesterday by meeting my friends at another lake where we hiked a few miles in to avoid people. (It was good timing too, because people started showing up at my usually quiet dock right when I was going to meet them). And we built a rock bench in the water. I feel my muscles growing all ready. I wish I had a picture....it looks AWESOME. (Next time we go I promise to get a picture

Holiday, uh, fun?

Things to do:

1) Prepare bag for day trip
2) Go to woods and/or secluded lake to avoid

a) Drunken idiots
b) Fireworks ALL DAY
c) a + b

3) Come home and complain more about stupid US holidays to foreign friends (because of a, b, c)
4) Tell countless people who wish me a happy 4th that I hate the 4th because of a, b, and c, and convince them it's not because I'm UnAmerican.
5) Make more iced coffee (taking the last bit with me to the lake/woods
6) Think about the fact that like 99% of the population really knows anything about the holiday just that it's a day off where they get to be drunk and stupid and shoot things that could set them (or someone or something else) on fire.
7) Hate the world when the stupid fireworks are being shot off by neighbours at 3 am like they have been the past week.
8) Plot my revenge. (did I mention 3 am fireworks for the past WEEK?!!!!)

So You Think You Can Dance week 3

This week is hard. Unfortunately I missed Sara and Jesus, so I don't know how they did and can not comment. :( But I will vote for them because I love them and they were doing hip hop which Sara is obviously going to be fantastic, and it looked good on the recap clip.

Here comes the critique (thumbs up means I'm going to vote for them, thumbs down: not):

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Ohh la la Pasha. I love latin dancers, oh that hip action. *wipes drool off of chin* That was one hot cha cha. mmmm mmmm mmmm baby baby. He of course NAILED IT. That is what cha cha should look like. As Mary would say, he was on the hot tamale train. If he's in the bottom three I will LOSE it. Seriously. I'd have to get trampled by wild horses not to vote for him. You should too. (side note: I'll be sad if Jessi has to leave because of illness, her and Pasha work so well together, even though I HATED her audition)

Cedric and Shauna:
Shauna was amazing and fluid. Great lines, beautiful movement. I loved watching her, she was amazing on that stage; she danced with so much passion and skill. Cedric was awkward and stiff (big surprise there). They both had great characterisation and performed their roles wonderfully, even if Cedric looked awful while he was dancing. I think because Mia likes Cedric so much she coereographed the piece to keep him from having to dance too much, which upset me because after 3 bad performances he should go. Thumbs down, and I definitely believe Shauna will pull through.

Lacey and Kameron:
Obviously Lacey is somewhat more comfortable in a ballroom type dance. She of course had great footwork and a great frame. Kameron needs to work on his frame. He did well, but you could see his right arm sagging and Lacey holding her arm above his in a proper frame. His arm should look like it's supporting hers (even though a follow is only touching her arm ever so slightly on his....it just looks like he's supporting her.) Frame is the cornerstone of good ballroom dancing, but it is more important when you are not doing a routine you practiced. Thumbs up.

Anya and Danny:
Again they performed fabulously. I agree with the judges that they are indeed the dream couple on the show right now. I know Lacey and Kameron may be the most popular, but they have performed the absolute best out of all the dancers in all their routines. Anya did amazing for a ballroom dancer. SHe may not have hit every break with the right strength (hard v. soft), but regardless she still did very well. I absolutely adored the ending of their piece. I have nothing written down for Danny, strangely enough, but he did perform well. Thumbs up.

Sabra and Dominic:
I wanted more passion. They partner well together, but for me they lacked the passion neccesary in a Rumba. Dominic had some great leadership skills. They had great lines and Sabra had great footwork. Good turnout, perfect placement. But for me half of what makes a Latin dance great is the passion of it. That's what's at the heart of Latin dances: passion. 50/50

Lauren and Neil:
Another Latin dance that was lacking passion. Tango is best known for its intense passion. Along with the passion, the sexiness and the partnering were also missing. They looked and felt awkward together. While they were dancing on their own they moved well, yet together they faltered. I wholeheartedly agree with Mary that they were too high on the floor; they needed to dance into the floor-it's a highly grounded dance. Thumbs down.

Jaimie and Hok:
Good lord did they look great! They showed incredible control in their movements, just look at Jaimie's first movements. Their lines were impeccable. I was blown away by Hok's performance (Jaimie was also phenomenal, but she's been doing better then Hok in the dances). They played well against each other-really stepped up their partnering skills. I didn't think they had it in them to be honest, esp after last week. I am so proud of Hok, his performance blew me away. I hope America votes for him even though they probably don't understand the routine. Thumbs waaaaaaay up.

I'll update this tommorrow after the results show with notes on the solos and what I think of the bottom 3 and the cuts.

Edit: Results Show

Again, I would like to point out that America is stupid. Cedric and Shauna did not have to dance for their lives, but Anya and Danny did. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Were they watching the same show I was?

I agree with the judges that the women's solos left much to be desired. I know that they can do better; it was sad. The two who got eliminated were Jesus and Jessi. I'll be sad to see Jessi go, because her and Pasha danced so well together. It will be interesting to see Pasha dancing with Sara. I hope they do well together, and I'm sad that we have to wait two weeks until the next episode.

Shiny

You scored as Serenity (Firefly), You like to live your own way and don't enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Serenity (Firefly) 100% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 100% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 88% Moya (Farscape) 81% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 50% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

Watch out kiddies

Mingle² - Online Dating

Because of this:
zombie (21x)
death (10x)
dead (8x)
porn (6x)
hell (4x)
sex (3x)
ass (2x)
fuckity (1x)

'Whiny' Feminists and comics

SO over at Girl-Wonder.org someone posted this (there's been a lot going on lately in the comic book world, including the Heroes for Hentai cover that rightly pissed off a lot of people. If you don't know what Hentai is, there's a description in the article, I wish I didn't know, but they left off the whole part about it being tentacle porn.)

The Heroes for Hentai (it's actually Heroes for Hire) cover looks like this:


and the one we're 'overreacting' to is this one:


My comments after the article:

Certainly everyone seems to be spoiling now for a fight. A few weeks ago it was Marvel's suggestive HEROES FOR HIRE cover, which was worth taking them to task for, since it was representative of widespread and growing trends in the general American comics market. (I weighed in on the matter for Publisher's Weekly, in the context of the trend.)

But Zombie Mary Jane?

Okay, citing a comic allegedly starring "strong women" for a cover that portrays them as held in bondage and apparently sexually exhausted while a swarm of evil eyes watches lasciviously - even if Marvel's staff is totally ignorant of the clichés of hentai (a cartoon subset of Japanese porn obsessed with the domination and sexual torture until the female victims are overcome with sexual pleasure and eagerly submit to their master's advances, albeit with modest initial resistance) it's hard not to see it as highly suggestive unless you're doing it willingly - but citing a zombie cover for not being tasteful?!

What planet are you people living on?

Now repeat after me: zombies are an inherently tasteless concept. At least since George Romero sunk his fangs into them in 1968 with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, where they became not just occasional bodies resurrected by voodoo (what one publisher told me was "old school" zombies) but shambling, implacable flesh-eating machines that all the dead become until the world itself is overwhelmed by the hungry, mindless dead, zombies are the total antithesis of tasteful. I'm not a fan of zombies and can't imagine writing a zombie book, because from my perspective they're boring; despite the multitude of zombie books on the stands today, there isn't one that has taken the concept any further than Romero has or done anything new with it, and even the decently done ones, like Warren Ellis' BLACKGAS at Avatar or Robert Kirkman's THE WALKING DEAD at Image, are mainly interesting when they're not focusing on zombies, and even they didn't manage to go anywhere Romero didn't. Creatively, it's a - sorry - dead genre, and probably has been since John Skipp and Craig Spector produced their BOOK OF THE DEAD prose anthologies in the late '80s.

Commercially, though, there's no doubt it's thriving, and it's obvious Marvel's entries into the sweepstakes - essentially dark comedy zombie versions of their famous superheroes, which about the depth of creativity to which the genre's likely to aspire so give them some props for hitting the zenith of a pretty shallow field - are doing well commercially. They're cashing in while the cashing's good. What would you expect them to do?

I've read a lot of complaints about the Mary Jane Watson-Parker zombie cover, how it exploits women, links death and sexuality, savages a character for a throwaway gag that Marvel's been marketing to children via various series, etc., and while the HEROES FOR HIRE cover definitely embodied issues that Marvel and other companies would be wise to pay attention to, the hysteria around this approaches Parents Television Council-level nuttiness. A couple points:

1) The "linking death and sexuality" thing. Grow up. Death and sexuality have always ridden tandem in western culture, and you don't have to take my word for it: Georges Bataille has written whole books on the subject (including, as it happens, one called DEATH AND SENSUALITY, which sits on my bookshelf). The whole modern zombie phenomenon ties in psychologically to a fear of both sex and death, and if the Mary Jane cover taps into that, it's the fault of the genre, not the image.

2) The cover isn't sexy. The Mary Jane figure on the cover isn't sexy. She's cute, except for missing a nose and part of her face, and having a gaping hole where half her bowels ought to be... but that's hardly the same thing. As opposed to say, the much condemned Mary Jane statue on sale a few weeks ago, there's nothing in her stance that suggests "sexy pose." No hint of cheesecake or nudity. In fact, except being dead she's presented as exactly the same bubbly personality she has always been, but aside from being a woman there's nothing particularly sexual about her. There's no need to break out the burkas over it.

3) It's Mary Jane Parker - but so what? "The girl next door" as zombie is a staple of the zombie genre, and it carries no moral significance but this: regardless of one's pronounced take on morality, once one becomes a zombie one behaves like a zombie. Sure, she's the sole figure on the cover, but Marvel has done the same with virtually all its top characters by now. No one can claim the company's singling her out for special treatment.

4) Boom! Studios did effectively the same thing on the cover of their first ZOMBIE TALES, with an even more iconic figure, Paris Hilton. The book was pretty popular. No outcry. Of course, Marvel gets much more exposure than Boom!, but, again, while there's something to be said for Marvel thinking about the types of images of women it puts on its covers, given that it is pretty much marketing it all as a "one size fits all" publisher, that's not an argument for no images of women on Marvel covers, and, as with most comics covers, a cover with no jeopardy or twist isn't likely to attract anyone's attention - and the whole point of publishing comics is to attract attention.

Like it or not, a comic featuring Mary Jane Watson-Parker as a zombie is likely to have a picture of Mary Jane Watson-Parker as zombie on the cover. The difference between that and the HEROES FOR HIRE cover is this: if Marvel were publishing HEROES FOR HIRE as a hentai book, their cover would be appropriate. They weren't. Marvel is publishing the Mary Jane story as a zombie book, no question. Is it appropriate to feature Mary Jane as zombie? Sorry, that's a matter of personal taste; if you don't like zombie stories, you don't have to read them. If you like zombie stories, you know what you're getting.

As near as I can tell, this issue cropped up because somebody figured Marvel was on the ropes so we should keep at them, but, c'mon guys. Learn to choose your shots. This is one thing pro wrestling has never quite learned: if you treat everything as being equally serious, your audience will stop taking any of it seriously. If you want Marvel to take complaints seriously, you can't start complaining about even innocuous things. And if you can't tell the difference between serious and innocuous issues, if you're not willing to critique things in their context, the problem is yours, not Marvel's. Why shouldn't Marvel produce zombie comics? The zombie seems to be the dominant metaphor for our current culture, equally representative of mass market culture and a pervading fear of an apocalyptic future that's been a consistently growing, if cancerous, part of the national psyche since at least the Nixon years. It's just the zeitgeist, baby, and zombies, even a Mary Jane zombie, are just a symptom.

1) Linking death and sexuality is common place so stop yer whining.

See it happens everywhere, so we shouldn't get upset about it, because people like it! But death and sexuality only seems to be linked when it comes to women. The whole horror movie industry is built on sexually exciting the teenage boys in the audience as the woman gets chased and killed. (For more on this see Jackson Katz's Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity.) Let's not even delve into the relationship of sex and death in porn in the interest of brevity. It's all over TV with the stream of abused, battered, and dead beautiful women shows. Death is only sexy in our popular culture when it applies to women. I can't understand why anyone (i.e. men) would get upset by this!

2)It's not sexy

Except the fact that everything on her torso is rotting except her extremely perky breasts, and the whole lads mag type body language and face. It doesn't look like high school Mary Jane, it looks like some model from the pages of GQ or Nuts. Not very in character for the cover that Marvel is spoofing.
Original cover here:

Not really the best for a drawing of a high school girl, but she also doesn't have the whole 'come hither' look or lads mag facial features.

3) Blah blah blah...girl next door is so cliche, forget that it's spoofing this exact character.

We're doing it to everyone! Shut up!

4)Other people are doing it too.

Well will you all jump off a cliff all ready?

As near as I can tell, this issue cropped up because somebody figured Marvel was on the ropes so we should keep at them, but, c'mon guys. Learn to choose your shots. This is one thing pro wrestling has never quite learned: if you treat everything as being equally serious, your audience will stop taking any of it seriously. If you want Marvel to take complaints seriously, you can't start complaining about even innocuous things. And if you can't tell the difference between serious and innocuous issues, if you're not willing to critique things in their context, the problem is yours, not Marvel's.

Really, I mean African Americans should have only complained about the lynchings and the flaming crosses, I mean using separate entrances and separate facilities isn't AS BAD as those first two, so what are you complaining about? GAH! I am so sick of this argument. Anything that is sexist is NOT innocuous and just because we have it better then we used to is no reason to only complain about the big stuff. basically they're saying if you aren't getting killed, don't complain, or that's what it sounds like to me. I shouldn't complain about harassment or when somebody grabs my ass or my breasts, because on a scale of things they're not as bad as say, rape or death. All I can say to these assholes is a big FUCK YOU.

Moving on/Random Bullets

Car Troubles
SO my darling '94 Toyota Pickup died on a trip up to Vancouver. My 4 month old radiator neck snapped off causing the radiator fluid to spew out which totally destroyed the engine. I love that truck so much, I've been around the country several times and put my futon mattress in the back to make those cross country trips possible. It holds so many memories and it's so strange to have a new car that runs so silently and is not a truck. I mean, my new 99 Subaru Forester is a good car, but it's so fancy compared to Truckie. And I entered the adult world of making car payments every month. I will be paying for the next 5 years. Wooo. Her name's Audrey. It's just weird b/c my truck was one of a kind and everyone around here has a subaru w/lots of Foresters. Pooo. I got an IWW window cling and a Cubs sticker on the window, but I'm hesitant to put any more stickers on, for now.

School
My lab may be cancelled this summer, fingers crossed that it doesn't because I need the money. We didn't get the grant for writing the new labs this summer, so I don't have that job either, but hopefully we'll get the grant this fall. The labs need a lot more work, and I'm not just saying that because I'll get paid to work on them. Classes start on Tuesday. I'm taking Multivariate Calculus (which I put off way too long...I elected to take the harder non-calculus courses first) and Limits and Infinite Series, which is kind of scary as we don't have a textbook. It'll be weird to go back to 200-level classes after a year of 300-level. I passed Discrete, which makes me soooo happy, and I aced Advanced Linear Algebra. WOO WOO.

Dance dance dance
Preparing for the competition in October, and the performance on the 20th I got some practice heels and new performance shoes. Stupid ballroom competition means that I must wear heels. F*$%ing hell.

Practice shoes because I can't even walk in heels:


Performance shoes:

Mmmmmm, shiny and red. I'm in love.

So You Think You Can Dance

Personal Favourites:
Pasha
Faina
Lacey
Anya
(go ballroomers! Gotta represent)
and a special place in my heart for Hok and Sara (B-Girl!! WOOO WOOO WOOO)

Funny enough I don't like Jessi, but her and Pasha have been so good with their dancing the past two weeks I just had to vote for them. It was amazing to see another ballroom dancer move that way. Of all the ballroom/lindyhoppers I know I am the only one who has trained in Jazz and Modern/Contemporary. It's just not what ballroomers do, so to see him pull it off so spectacularly warmed my heart.

Shauna and Jimmy make me smile, and I've voted for them the past two weeks, but that also may be because they have such great energy...I'd like to see them in something more serious to see if they really are flexible dancers. Performing hish energy routines is one thing, but pulling off a lyrical, contemporary, or smooth routine (like the waltz) is a horse of another colour.

I absolutely adored Sabra and Dominic's contemporary routine. The way they played off each other, the chemistry, they had some beautiful lines and it blew me away. It was amazing. Simply amazing. They better be safe this week, they have my vote.

Jesus also blew me away, he looked like someone who had danced the Paso Doble for years, he had the additude, the lines, the stature, everything that dance requires he had. Sara was amazing for someone who had never danced in heels and who has never partnered before. She sure looked better then me when I first did the Paso Doble (sans heels).

People I'm voting for whose routines did not blow me away:
Lacey and Kameron: their routine needed more energy and Kameron needed more. My notes on this dance are somewhat shabby so I can't comment on it too well.

Anya and Danny: Anya looked spectacular, but she's a ballroom dancer, it's no suprise she pulled this off. Danny was uncomfortable and it showed. His lines, his partnering, and his footwork were sloppy. Anya carried the dance, but in ballroom it's the leads job, whether male or female, usually male, who is supposed to make the follow look good.

My friends make fun of me for not only being obsessed with the show, but also take comprehensive notes on each of the dances so I can make good choices on who to dance with. I always vote for multiple couples, leaving the three who impressed me the least out of my voting. It was hard picking today, but I believe Hok and Faina can save themselves if they dance for their lives. I would really like to see Faina with a new partner, because I think she sparkles.

Up on my plate this summer: 3 day workshop with Ron Montez, Salsa, Viennese Waltz, Argentine Tango, the Seattle Lindy Exchange, and preparing for the DVIDA National Closed Championship in October. Which means I better start dancing in heels, booooooooooooooooo.

Looking forward to the elimination show tommorrow. I hope none of my favourites get cut.

As if finals weren't enough

I got a security alert from campus police that is very scary:

Restroom graffiti, written in small ink letters, was found Friday in a stall in a
men`s bathroom in the Haggard Hall wing of Western Libraries that read: "what
happened @ VTU will happen @ WWU on 6/14/07."

Needless to say this is horrifying, and I have a final on campus that day besides working in the morning. I only hope that this is someone's sick idea of a joke.

In other news I think I broke my brain. It doesn't seem to want to concentrate anymore. I can't wait until Thursday and I'm done with my last final until the end of summer school. I'm ignoring summer fo now, as I not only have 2 classes, but I am also rewriting the calculus based physics labs and TAing. That is if I don't get shot. Fuck.

See, I do hate people

You Are 76% Misanthropic

Here's the truth: Most people suck. You are just lucky enough to know it. You're not ready to go live alone in a cave - but you're getting there.

How Misanthropic Are You?

Dumbfounded

So the rumours I've heard are true. There really is a Creation Museum. I just can't believe it, although a poll at ctv.ca shows that 45% of the voters think visiting would be a good educational experience, although I kind of hope they mean educational in a 'what the hell are these people thinking' kind of way. But I fear that is not the case.

This whole project just astoundss me, but there's one detail that really pisses me off. In the "Plan Your Visit" section at the bottom it says this: Strollers and wheelchairs are available on a limited, first-come, first-serve basis. A minimal fee is required. Charging a fee for wheelchairs! Ableist fuckers.

And I used to think Catholics were the crazy ones, but at least they believe in the Big Bang.

LOOKIE what I got!

Ozomatli tonight!!!

WOO WOO

Why Joss Whedon is my master

(Because I'm a geek, but I'm not buying the t-shirt)

Joss Whedon weighs in on the stoning of Dua Khalil and more
I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.

A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.

...

How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

Strong Female Characters too much for TV

The lovely Veronica Mars has been cancelled.

It's a cliche at this point that females are bombarded with unhealthy messages in pop culture, but it's true nonetheless. I'm honestly surprised women can stand to watch network TV. It's filled with idealized virgins and scheming whores, every one supermodel scrawny. More recently, with the attempt to present "real" women, we've gotten the likes of Grey's Anatomy, filled with insecure, indecisive, twitterpated drama queens. I can't count the number of times a female character has been introduced on a TV show as spunky and independent (see: Izzie) only to descend within an episode or two into hysterics over some guy -- of course an emotionally unavailable guy who fears commitment, cause that's what men are like, right? (Actually, if I were surrounded by TV Women I'd be scared of commitment too ...)

....

In this milieu, Veronica Mars was a revelation: she radiated easy confidence. She was interested in but not obsessed with the opposite sex, vulnerable but not dependent, and above all, genuinely smart and funny. She was her own person; she had her own thing going. She spent her time outwitting men, not weeping over them. Hell, she even had a healthy relationship with her father!

Veronica was supremely smart, and because of this her relationships suffered. She wasn't willing to sacrafice herself in order to make her relationships work. She was indeed a teenage role model who allowed girls to have someone to look up to that wasn't neurotic and guy-obsessed. Look at all the women on TV now. They're never portrayed as anything but broken, and they make me want to rip my hair out over the idea that they all need some sort of relationship to be fulfilled. Nowhere else do we see someone as strong as Veronica. It truly makes me sad, but buys into my idea that all shows with strong female characters are too much for TV. Not only that, but her friends included a female hacker/computer wiz named Mac. Where else do we see women in this role? Tech stuff is usually the domain of men. (And don't "but CSI" me. It's a show that routinely shows sexually/sexualized brutalized women. That more then makes up for the whole women working with tech stuff.)

A show that did get picked up for fall: "The Pussycat Dolls Present." "Nough said.

This is exactly my response about porn

That's censorship!

No, censorship would be if the critic was heading a government body and inspecting each title before it came out, with the ability to prevent the publication of anything that violated the guidelines of that body.

Unless that is what the critic is doing, or proposing others do, what they are engaging in is critique, not censorship.

Personally, I’m not interested in censoring things. I want people to stop depicting women so poorly in comic books, but I want them to stop because they realise it’s fucking dumb, not because there’s someone with a rubber stamp hovering suspiciously above each page. If criticism contributes to people realising that depicting women so poorly is fucking dumb – and I have an inbox says they have – then that is awesome.

From Girls read comics (and they're pissed)

Food Stamp increase?

If you've been reading this blog for awhile you will remember me begging for donations to help pay for food for myself and my cats. (Thank you again all who donated. I got cheap veggies from the farmer's market and was so happy about having veggies instead of pancakes and malt-o-meal which was all I was eating at the time.)

Well, I may not have to do that again (*crosses fingers*) Well US Congresspeople are trying to live on the paltry $1 a meal that most Americans on food stamps have to live on:

Their spell on "the Food Stamp Challenge" will end on Monday, just before the House Agriculture Committee is expected to begin overhauling U.S. farm law. Food stamps and other public nutrition programs account for two-thirds of the spending governed by the "farm bills" written every few years.

Food stamp benefits are roughly $1 a meal or $3 a day. With that budget, the U.S. representatives said, they found starchy foods are attractively priced and little chance for variety. "I kept taking things out of my (shopping) cart," said Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat.

"It's amazing how hard it is to buy fruits and vegetables," said Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, who also enrolled in the challenge. With two loaves of bread, Ryan planned to "allocate" 12 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches among his meals.

...

Ellen Vollenger of the anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center said the Food Stamp Challenge "is a reality check." Various public officials including state governors and city mayors have used it to get a first-hand taste of food stamp budgeting Story here.

This is the only way people will actually get enough money to buy food for an entire month. As it stands now, I am not the only one who runs out of food that recieves food stamps. Those of us who have the audacity to buy something other then starch products, dried beans, and rice often run out approximately 2 weeks after recieving the months money. Unfortunately I am more interested in eating healthily then I am about making my food stamps last a month. And I shop at discount groceries and liquidators, and the farmer's market where I find the cheapest veggies (not to mention freshest).

The fact that some legislators are taking the food stamp challenge makes me very happy, because it's the only way that they'll change anything. It's depressing how little they give us each month. For me, my disability pay went up by $10 and my food stamps went down by $25. I have approximately $118 to spend on food each month, and unfortunately the only time the stupid food bank is open I'm in class. You'd think they'd have it open at least one evening during the week, not that they have much for someone who is a vegetarian like me. (Though if I weren't a vegetarian you couldn't pay me to eat the 'chicken in a can.') Lucky for me I have a friend who works at the co-op who gets food from the free box for me.

But all this is still not enough. It's not enough for a lot of people. I would wager that most of the 26 million on food stamps can't make it last an entire month either.

Hat tip Grrrl Scientist

They just won't accept it

This weekend I went home to see my brother graduate this past weekend. I forgot my medication and decided to tell my parents that it was my mood stabiliser. They, of course, asked why I was on a mood stabiliser. I told them I was bipolar, because I knew that they could accept this, because they won't admit that I have PTSD partially from the physical and emotional abuse my mother inflicted on me as a child, and heaven forbid I tell them about my Borderline Personality Disorder. The conversation went as follows:

Me: "I'm bipolar"
My mom: "What? Why are you bipolar?"
I start to explain
My dad: "It's a chemical imbalance."

That stopped the conversation dead, because it being something I can't control, wheras I can apparently pull myself out of my PTSD-induced depression, which I have told them that that is the reason I miss classes, failed a class, and dropped out of school winter quarter, and why I can't leave my house for days at a time. This they repress because it doesn't fit into their ideal of having 'the perfect family.' I know this, but I wish that they would accept the fact the I HAVE A DISABILITY and it's not all about the bipolar. Heaven forbid I try and bring it up and be honest and open about it. They just gloss over it, and five seconds later it's as if it never happened. I was surprised that they accepted it when I told them I was on Medicaid. I thought that would invite many more questions, but it didn't.

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't tell them that I'm on SSI-Disability. Because I don't think I could take the look that they would give me, and the things they would say. Because I know they'd think that I was leeching off the state. (My parents are very big right-wing Republican Catholics who judge people on welfare, etc.) Because in their eyes, everything but the bipolar is all in my head, and I can snap out of it at any time. They won't talk about it, won't hear about my side of the story, won't even admit that I have PTSD. Last time I told them, before my mom shoved it out of her conciousness she asked me why I had it. Having brought up the abuse before and her responding with "But I never hit you" and I pointed out a few examples she just said "Oh, yeah" and promptly forgot about it. There was no bringing up that topic again. She wouldn't hear it; she wouldn't let me bring it up again. She shut me down everytime I tried to bring it up again, just as she shut me down whenever I tried to bring up the PTSD. I didn't feel like telling her about the abusive relationships, the sexual assaults, the scarring from all the abuses I have lived and continue to live through because of living in a society that views me as less then human.

It hurts. I'm sure anyone who has a mental health disability has gotten the denial or the outright refusal to believe that it's something that's not all in your head (har har har) from friends or family. Because they can't listen to us, can't hear that maybe something could be wrong with us that wasn't 'easily shaken off given enough will power.' They can't see it as something that is an actual disease like lupus or diabetes. No matter how much we speak out about this, people refuse to listen.

I personally know that my parents would shame me for being on disability, for mooching off the taxpayers for something that is not really a problem. As if I don't have enough internalised stigma to deal with on my own. Is it too much to ask that my parents support me? If anybody should, it would be them, right?

WHY WON'T THEY ACCEPT THIS?

I thought if anybody would, it would be my dad. He saw, what I told him was, a PTSD related breakdown a few years ago when my mom tried to take us out for a 'nice family dinner' and I had not healed enough for it. She got verbally abusive because I ruined her perfect evening. Just remembering that night makes me cry. My dad and I talked about it for hours, as he was trying to calm me down, and make sure she and I kept away from each other. I explained to him how I had PTSD and how her behaviour towards me as a child reminded me of her behaviour that night, and how I just couldn't pretend to be this perfect family when I was still so hurt inside. I mean forfuckssake we talked for HOURS. But if I even hint at bringing it up, the topic gets changed. (A few months later when I said I couldn't come home because of what happened last time he asked me "Why? I thought you had a good time last time you were here.")

I fucking hate this, and pissed off as hell that they can't, nay, won't accept that I could have a mental health issue that is real, and not something I'm pretending to have or a crutch that I'm leaning on to pull a paltry amount of money (that doesn't cover my bills) from the state each month. I'm so aggravated.

HELP!

Tommorrow there is an actuary coming to speak at the same time as my linear algebra class. This sucks because I don't want to miss class, but this is a field I am interested in knowing more about, if not get into. ARGH!

What should I do?

What I'm reading

Uppity Women and Sexual Harrassment in the Physical Sciences
Catherine Price of Salon.com writes about the recently-published research of Jennifer Berdahl on sexual harassment in the workplace. Going against the common wisdom, Berdahl concludes that it's not the most stereotypically feminine women who are most likely to be harassed.

She asserts that actually the opposite is true -- women who act like men are the ones who get the most harassment. She thinks that this is because most sexual harassment has little to do with sexual desire; instead, it's used to keep women in their place.

The idea that sexual harassment is about control and power is not that surprising. What's interesting about Berdahl's hypothesis is that it means that the women who act the most like men -- which Berdahl defines as showing stereotypical characteristics like assertiveness, independence and dominance -- are the most likely to be harassed. She calls this phenomenon "gender harassment" and defines it as "a form of hostile environmental harassment that appears to be motivated by hostility toward individuals who violate gender ideals rather than by desire for those who meet them."

The (new) page of consent
Noticing that the American justice system seems to regard women as existing in a perpetual state of compliance, I posed a little thought experiment on the subject of rape. What I said was this: consider if lack of consent were the default position. Imagine if all women were considered a priori by the courts to have said “no.” In fact, “consent” would not apply to women at all; we would exist as inviolable entities, human beings with full personal sovereignty, the way men do now. We could have as much heterosex as we want, but the instant we don’t want, the dude becomes, in the eyes of the law, a rapist. This shifts to onus onto the dude not to be a barbarian. He can avoid jail by not having sex at all, and significantly reduce his risk of jail by ceasing to rape, prod, cajole, shame, or nag

An Autopsy of Sexual Harrassment or its all in the details
After I had finished fuming and imaging revenge scenarios (okay, I haven’t actually finished doing either of those things yet), I started to pull apart the details of this little encounter. What made me think was a comment from my partner. When I described the first part of the conversation (coffee query), he asked if Student 1 had stood up to ask if I would partake of caffeinated beverages with him. Confused at my partner’s question, I said no. Student 1 had stayed where he was, on the grass, surrounded by his mates. Then the significance of such a small detail began to dawn on me. If a Person A wanted to ask Person B for a coffee, A could at least get off his backside to speak to B, and better still ask B away from all A’s mates, making the situation more comfortable, and refusal easier. My immediate reaction to Student 1’s question was one of anxiety, as I was afraid of being overly rude, and hurting his feelings in public. It didn’t occur to me that a) the public setting made it more difficult for me because of politeness, and b) that when a stranger asks you for a coffee you don’t owe it to him to spare his pride. So his feelings were at that point more important to me than my integrity in refusing; I could not just say ‘no’, and leave it at that. I did not consider that I didn’t need an excuse to say ‘no’.

Democracy is Hell
Iraq today is even worse for women: more repressive, more violent, more lawless. As if car bombs and suicide bombers weren't horrific enough, criminal gangs, religious militias and death squads kidnap, rape and kill with impunity, with special attention to women professionals, students and rights activists. According to the United Nations' most recent quarterly report on human rights in Iraq, domestic violence and "honor" killings are on the rise.

Sitemeter fun time!

I miss sitemeter blogging, and since I have nothing to do right now (well, homework, but I'm procrastinating) I thought I'd revive this (sometimes) fun past time. (But really it was to answer this first one)

wolverines being endangered and it is not humans fault
No, it is humans fault as we keep encroaching upon their territory. They need large tracts of land to roam around and we keep building crap in their habitat.

the reason of patriarchy
Hmmm. This one has many theories, mine being that it's like bullies on the playground...people want to put other people down in order to make themselves feel better about themselves and to overlook their insecurities. Why it's still around? Because men don't want to give up their privilege. And a large number of them hate us. I point to the video farther down the page and a lot of the things on this blog and the ones on my sidebar as proof.

are strip clubs wrong
Yes.

it [sic] all her fault
Well if you're googling this to feel better about yourself, it probably isn't all her fault.

girls in white panties
drink draino, asshole.

NEW ONE
Do all men go to strip clubs?
NO! The good ones don't, anyway.

Bits and pieces

-My mood stabiliser is working! I love you Lamictal! (I think it may have added a few more spoons to my day.
-I will be helping to rewrite the Physics 101 labs and the calculus based physics labs this summer.
-Gilmore Girls ended last night. I'm so sad, but I loved that they ended with Rori and Lorelai talking in Luke's Diner-it was perfect. (And I'm also happy that Lorelai and Luke are back together....it was inevitable)
-Finished my Summary and Evaluation for my senior seminar and gave it to my advisor. No more writing!
-Got That 70's Show Season 3 from Netflix today. I love it except how it normalises porn usage.
-Got a B on my last Linear Algebra test
-Went grocery shopping yesterday, one of the stores offered buy one get one free on dried food for everyone using food stamps. Now I won't have to get so completely wiped out from shopping for awhile. (I had no more spoons left after shopping)
-Need to get my computer fixed. It won't give me my DVD back.
-Have downloaded all but the Christmas special of the new Doctor Who
-Teaching lab in an hour
-Happy about getting published in the Scientiae carnival.
-Finally got my financial aid (with 3 weeks left and one week of finals, grrrr)
-Miss Chicago terribly. Got to go back to see my little brother graduate from Northern Illinois with a Mechanical Engineering degree. I didn't want to leave. I miss my city.
-Heroes finale on Monday. Sooooooooo excited.
-Woke up covered in cats this morning. Yay!
-R2D2, Death Star, and Yoda Pez dispensers
-SUN!
-Lost weight since I've been taken of Risperdal. My summer pants fit again, thank god.
-Half way through putting together my hour long presentation on women in mathematics and the mathematics of nature.
-Counting down the days until summer (even though I have summer school and am teaching a lab)

Women and science and posts, oh my!

This is definitely a must read for any patriarchy blamers out there.
The IEEE Spectrum writes about how female and male scientists have been judged differently when posing semi-nude. As an example they take a look at the "Girls of Engineering 2007" calendar. It all started when mechanical engineer Jennifer Wood and an anonymous male friend decided to create a calendar that would show that attractive women can be intelligent. While Wood and new partner Syed Karim claim that the purpose was to "challenge stereotypes" by showing that smart women are sexy too. It doesn't seem that they've achieved that goal.

*Important* The new Scientiae carnival is up at On Being a Scientist and a Woman. Check it out. This edition has a theme of "mothers and others, those who influenced us along the way".

Women talking about Science and women who've influnced them. Can it get any better?

(Oh and my post From Feminist Theory to Mathematics made it into the carnival! Yippeee!)

Also the Disability Carnival is up. Go read!

Kind of sexist? KIND OF??!!!

From the Chicago Tribune:
Store manager Allison Worrell and I agree that it's kind of sexist to call the packet of female overnight necessities the "Shame on You Kit" ($28) while the guy's version of similar items is labeled "Clean Getaway Kit" ($30). Each contains undies, condoms, toothbrush and such and -- this is a nice touch -- a little blank "leave behind note" to fill in with some sweet nothings.

A "Shame on you" kit? Obviously any woman who needs one of these is having a dirty, dirty affair, but the guy who needs one of these is obviously a stud who's having a fun weekend fling.

Of course this is playing into the whole idea that women who want sex are dirty sluts. I don't know any woman who doesn't have hang ups from the bullshit virgin/whore dichotomy. As women we're supposed to be ashamed of having a sex drive, but one has to wonder just who all these 'studly' men are supposed to be having sex with. (Oh, right, I forgot: whores and sluts, not nice women who only begrudgingly give in to the animal urges of the men they are in relationships with.)

Lesson from teh patriarchy today: women should be ashamed of sex where men should celebrate it, but I think we all all ready knew that.

This describes my life so well

From Hoyden About Town

I first learned about spoon theory when I was poking around reading up about lupus. Christine Miserandino, a person with lupus, was trying to answer a question by her friend. The friend had asked her what it was like being sick - not about her symptoms, but about what it was like being her. Stuck for a metaphor, Christine grabbed all the spoons off the table, and explained that every day, she had a very limited number of spoons, unlike a healthy person who has a near-unlimited spoon supply. Each spoon stood for one chunk of activity. The friend started out with 12 spoons, and had to run through a day, giving up one spoon for every thing she did: including getting up, dressing, showering, and so on. The friend was down to half her spoons before she’d got to work in the morning - and the light dawned. It dawned for me, too.

Every day, every moment, is a tradeoff. Every piece of activity has to be a conscious choice. Normals never have to choose between cooking and cleaning up, between showering and playing with their kid. Never have to think ahead to the weekend, and say “I’m having lunch with a friend on Saturday, so I have to keep Sunday completely free to recover.” Spoons are always my first thought when planning out my life.

Well if you can't run away...

...you can electrically shock them!





She wanted to be empowered without losing her femininity, to have the freedom to be sexy without fear. The shoes certainly achieve that, offering 100,000 volts of high fashion stun gun power which can be activated by a control on the matching necklace. The weapon is hidden and when the wearer taps on the matching necklace an electric spark is displayed in the transparent tip, warning the would-be assailant to back off. The weapon is designed for a one time use, in case of emergency, by breaking the tip of the shoe. Link here.

Again, misuse of the word empowered, but hey, who knows what the hell it means these days.

From Feminist theory to mathematics

I need to preface this with stating that I have been to a plethora of colleges, the majority of which were art and design schools with one liberal arts school before I came to my current university. I was admitted to the hippie college because I wanted to create a concentration in Media, Women's, and Labour studies, which was my life for the years that passed between colleges. I had no idea I would throw off my intended concentration for mathematics, but one person made me dream of a future filled with equations.

When I took the Science of Sound with Nancy Swanson, I was reintroduced to a favourite high school subject of mine. Not only did I need the science credit, but I love physics. I ended up tutoring a couple of students with their homework, and Nancy started pulling me aside and asking why I was taking the other classes if I didn't enjoy them (at the time I was also enrolled in We're Not For Sale: Asian Women in America and frustrated with the lack of dialogue in the class.) She kept telling me that I was a scientist. In the evaluation at the end of the course, (I go to a college that does written evaluations instead of grades for their courses. Obviously now that I'm on main campus I get grades) Nancy wrote:

“It was great to have you in this class. It is a pleasure to teach someone who really
wants to understand the derivation of the equations. Unfortunately, you are in the minority.
As you found, you learn more by trying to teach others than you do by working on
your own. You REALLY have to understand a concept in order to explain it in English to someone else. Bravo!

You turned in all of the homework (one assignment late) and you had the correct answers for most of the
problems. You obviously understand the material and the mathematics. You actively participated in class
and asked questions. You were obviously interested and engaged.”

We had many discussions about me going into a scientific field; I was still concerned about leaving a possible career in women's studies for one in science, she told me about how I could work for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and work to enact policies that ensure that girls and women were getting the same access to mathematics and science that boys and men have, and ones that could encourage girls to go into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She talked to me about ways in which I could incorporate my work in feminism with science. I found a group Association of Women in Science and talked to many women who were in physics related fields. The idea of mentoring college women and high school girls was also appealing to me.

That quarter brought my hippie college writing portfolio review and transition conference. I had submitted the piece that had gotten published in off our backs for my portfolio and received the highest marks on it. At my transition conference my advisor, who had read the paper, and Nancy were there. We discussed my future as a women studies professor, and also my future, should I choose to accept it, in physics. We discussed how theory and physics were just two different languages, and that having learned one and learning the other was just expanding the way that I could see and interact with the world. Both my advisor and Nancy strongly pushed me towards physics, with my advisor pointing out that I had all ready been published, something that they look for in women's studies departments, and the hard part of becoming a theorist. I knew how to get published, which was half the battle. I had done the hard part of feminist theory, and I should study something that I had a natural capability in. I struggled with the idea of studying physics, a field that is dominated by men (with a big old boys club to go with it). I thought that maybe I could do it.

While I am still taking physics classes I fell in love with my mathematics classes. I still dream of doing mathematics in conjunction with physics. Whatever I end up doing, I am only doing because Nancy made me confident that I could pursue a science career over all my thoughts about being horrible at mathematics and better suited to study within the Liberal and Fine Arts. (I am however finishing my BFA in printmaking to go along with my BS in mathematics.)

I am forever grateful to Nancy for pushing me into a field that I completely adore, and that I am faring pretty well in.

scientiae-carnival

Circus tonight

I have no words for this

"A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion." Article here.

Warning: Could be triggering


Note the group of guys standing around cheering these people on as they stoned to death the 17 year old girl for being a teenager and falling in love with someone. Anyone who says misogyny is alive and kicking is a dumbass.

Sign the petition: International Campaign against killings and stoning of women in Kurdistan

I dreamt of Cob the other night

*Sigh* One day I'll get to sculpt my dream house. In my dream the other night I was mixing cob and building a structure. Here are some photos of why cob is so cool:

Dirty feet and dancing

I got to make cob yesterday. It looked something like this:


I used to love adobe best, but now I love cob the best.

To see what the whole process is check out the full cartoon here.

Cob is so cool. You can sculpt, and I really mean sculpt a house out of it. Check out this cob house:


It's so fun to make, although it is pretty labour intensive. I dream of making my own lovely cob house with built in benches like the above picture. Nice and round and beautiful. With a thatched roof. One day. *sigh* I plan on having an old timey or bluegrass band playing while everyone dances on the cob mixing it together. It'll be a hoot.

Me, Bipolar?

Well I am. But it took a long time to get here. I was so scared to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. PTSD, fine. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), fine. But bipolar? Not fine. Even after the government put me on disability I still fought my therapist against the diagnosis.

Why exactly? Well I'm not sure since BPD is more stigmatized then Bipolar is, I mean there are not many therapists who refuse to treat someone for being bipolar like they do for BPD. I know many people with bipolar disorder and never thought anything bad about it, or so I thought. But when I was first told that I was bipolar I wasn't aware of ableism in the way I am now. At that time I knew I had PTSD, but that was something I could get over given time. It was something that I acquired because things had been done to me, admitting that I was bipolar meant admitting that I had something that I was born with, that I would have for the rest of my life. It scared me. It made me think I was broken.

But I progressed. I applied for disability and got it. I started taking meds for the first time ever. I admitted that maybe, just maybe I *did* have a disability and I needed help. After all this I still fought tooth and nail against being labelled bipolar. As an anti-ableism activist I shouldn't fall prey to thinking of one diagnosis as evil and the enemy, right? Apparently not. How is it that I could accept some diagnoses and not the other? I admitted I had a disability, why couldn't I admit that I was bipolar?

It was the stigma attached to it. The thought that this was not something done to me. (I believe that BPD is a severe form of PTSD and I believe it, at least in my case.) The thought that this will never go away, that I would be labelled this the rest of my life. There was no getting over bipolar disorder.

While I was fighting the stigma against mental illness I was letting the stigma against bipolar disorder hold me back from being treated. I'm finally doing better, in no small part due to my mood stabiliser. It's a godsend. Since I have stopped fighting and accepted that yes I am bipolar I have been able to see how I let society's views of mental illness affect how I was allowing myself to be treated.

The stigma infiltrates all of our thoughts, even those of us who are fighting against it.

Here's more info on stigma.
My post on BPD is here

Happy Days

THANK YOU ANONYMOUS PEOPLE!
I was able to buy cat food and my migraine meds. Now I just have to worry about food and have my fingers crossed that my school will award me financial aid so I don't need to scrape by on my paltry disability pay (making the choice between food and paying bills is hard. I keep saying 'well I don't need power really' Now I need a bunch of free candles to fall into my lap so I can eat.)

And I ACED my Linear Algebra 2 test! WOO WOO! I feel like a math genius!

Fuckity fuck

My electric kettle is broken
I'm almost out of cat food
I'm out of migraine medication which only costs $10
I'm almost out of food

I have no money for any of it.

If you feel like helping me out, there's a donation button in the sidebar. Obviously I'm more worried about the middle two. At this point anything will help.

Who you'd be helping:

Wolverine

Mischief

Logan

More pictures here

Chocolate is the best

Well I need a new reason to indulge in chocolate. No, wait, I'm addicted to the rich dark chocolate with cacao nibs in it. A recent study has shown that chocolate is better then kissing.
Kissing also made the subjects' heart rates rise, but it did not last as long as with chocolate, which increased heart rates from a resting rate of around 60 beats per minute up to 140.

Chocolate also lowers blood pressure.
Applied to the population as a whole, researchers estimate that the blood pressure-lowering effect associated with cocoa would be expected to reduce the risk of stroke by about 20%, coronary heart disease by 10%, and death from all causes by 8%.

As if anyone needed more reasons to partake in the deliciousness of chocolate. I feel a craving coming on. I got a bar of 87% cacao.

p.s. I HATE grading. No going into academia for me.

Geometry fun. Numbers 5 and 8 are giving me problems

I'm illogical

:(

(At lleast the rest of the class is as illogical as I am)

Can we all just calm the fuck down?

If I hear one more "you ALL say/do this" from ANYONE I'm going to start smacking people.

No more threats
No more telling the other side that they can die horribly
NO FUCKING MORE!

EVERYONE go to the corner. YOU ALL HAVE A TIME OUT! Now get in that corner and keep facing the wall.

FERCHRIST"SSAKE point your anger and hatred towards the damn patriarchy, all right?











No, you are still on time out. No talking.

Bad TV

If you want to see mediocre to subpar dancing, just watch Dancing with the Stars. I watched (what was apparently) the Paso Doble being danced to some crappy pop song. So, yeah, the music sucks too. I can't wait until So You Think You Can Dance comes back in the summer. A dance show with REAL dancers.

This weekend I watched The Devil Wears Prada and I must say, I quite enjoyed it. Guilty pleasure I guess. I knew it was going to be horrible going into it because it's about the fashion industry, if anyone asks what's wrong with the fashion industry should just watch this movie. One of the characters is on a diet where she doesn't "eat anything, and then when I feel like I'm going to faint I eat a cube of cheese." The woman was a stick. Another great line is when the main character's getting something to eat and the guy tells her the main ingriedient in corn chowder is cellulite and then she asks if any of the girls there eat and he says "Not since 2 became the new 4, and 0 the new 2." (is there a size below 0? Like infant sized?) She then says "Well, I'm a 6." "The new 14."

One of the reviewers on Netflix says it's a great movie for moms to take their daughters to! Yeah, that's all we need, women watching a movie that says their size is morbidly obese if they're over a size 2. ARGH!

Funny thing is, I almost went into fashion design. I rethought that again when a friend of mine at Parson's who was in fashion design told me that I should go into it because I made a lot of my clothes and dressed kind of eccentric and, for lack of a better word, hip. Watching this movie made me miss being fashionable, but I never fell into the idea that I had to dress up, there were plenty of times I wore baggy pants and t-shirts. I just don't feel the pull to dress like I usually (read: when I'm in a city) do here, but that part of me is not gone. I am just waiting to move somewhere. I have my whole wardrobe (if it still fits me, I only have one pair of pants that fits me now because I gained weight and could only afford one pair of pants from a thrift store.)

The movie did get me to thinking about my weight, or more accurately the weight I have recently gained. It worries me only because my boobs have gotten bigger. It's nice to have a tummy that kind of balances that out, but I've always been heavy on top and want no help in that area. Since I don't really want to diet, and water polo season's over, I guess I'm just going to have to get off my ass and exercise. My therapist tells me to do it all the time anyway. Maybe the movie's influencing me as well. I think the bigger issue is that I'd love to fit into my pants again because I can't afford to buy new ones. (and I have some pants I love for the nice weather.)

I don't recommend it to anyone who has any body image issues, which would be most of us. Unless you're a masochist like I apparently am.

And a funny

It deserves to be said again

Terry over at I See Invisible People posted last week about a study being done for people who are Bipolar. They are hoping to find genetic markers for people with Bipolar and to try to understand it better. I requested to be included in the survey and hope that they contact me. Anything I can do to bring us closer to an understanding of Bipolar and how it's passed through generations sounds good to me.

Today I learned of a study being done by the University of Chicago which hopes to sequence the DNA of 5,000 people with BPD and their family members, hoping to isolate the genes responsible.

Here’s the specifics:

Individual and Family Genetic Study Of Bipolar Disorder
Elliot S. Gershon, M.D., Project Chief

The staff of the Bipolar Disorder Genetics Research Project invites individuals diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder OR individuals with Bipolar disorder and having two or more immediate relatives with depression, mania, or mood swings to join our study. Parents are also asked to participate when available. This study is funded and approved by the National Institutes of Health.

Why Study Individuals and Families?

Why Study Individuals and Families? An inborn tendency to develop Bipolar disorder runs in some individuals and/or families. However, most relatives will never develop the illness.

In our family studies, we can find chromosome regions with genes that may cause some family members to be at risk for Bipolar disorder. As we discover the nature of each gene, we likely will be able to develop better treatments.

For testing specific genes, large numbers of unrelated Bipolar persons offer greater statistical power. So we are enrolling Bipolar individuals without available families as well.

We urge individuals suffering from Bipolar disorder, along with their family members, to participate in this scientific study which will help us better understand the causes of this disorder.

Why Should I Participate in a Family Genetic Study?

Many persons who suffer from Bipolar disorder, or who have a close relative with the disorder, have already brought themselves and/or families into the study. The reason most often given is, “If I can help prevent this from happening to anyone else, I’ll do anything.” These individuals and families share our hope that finding genetic markers and genes that increase risk for this disorder will help medical researchers understand more about its biological basis. As a result, we will likely be able to develop more effective medications.

You are an essential player in the research. Without the help of people like you and your family, no study of inherited traits can be done and little progress will be made. We depend on your participation.

How Does an Individual or Family Get into the Study?

Usually, someone who suffers from the disorder, or a close relative, contacts us. We do an initial screening on the individual previous diagnosed with Bipolar disorder or an individual that has symptoms of Bipolar. We also inquire about immediate relatives with depression, mania, or mood swings. We must receive verbal or written permission from the immediate relative prior to our contact to them on study participation.

Participants contribute the following:

1. an interview session which may be completed over the phone or in person
2. a sample of blood
3. family history interview which may be completed over the phone or in person
4. self-report questionnaires

Confidentiality

All of the information obtained by the Bipolar Disorder Genetics Research Project will remain completely confidential, even among family members. When research papers are published, no names or other identifying information about individual participants will appear. The study has a “Certificate of Confidentiality” which provides further privacy protection. The interview and blood studies are not part of any clinical medical record.

If you’ve been diagnosed, I hope you’ll consider participating. You can read more details and arrange contact by email at the link above.

I'm such a geek

(for my non mathy readers: i is imaginary and pi is irrational)

Besides bad coffee

Coffee stands now offer sex.
In a short, sheer, baby-doll negligee and coordinated pink panties, Candice Law is dressed to work at a drive-through espresso stand in Tukwila, and she is working it.

Customers pull their trucks up to the window, where Law greets each with an affectionate nickname, blows kisses, and vamps about as she steams milk for a mocha. "You want whipped cream?" she asks, a sly smile playing on her pierced lip.

The next customer rolls up, and Law throws a long leg onto the window sill, like an indie-rock ballerina at the barre.

"Do you like my leg warmers?" she asks. "Aren't they hot?"

Hot is not the half of it. To stand apart from the hordes of drive-through espresso stands that clutter the Northwest's roadsides, commuter coffee stops such as Tukwila's Cowgirls Espresso are adding bodacious baristas, flirty service and ever more-revealing outfits to the menu.

At Port Orchard's Natté Latté, baristas sport hot-pink hot pants and tight white tank tops. Day-of-the-week theme outfits ranging from racy lingerie to "fetish" ensembles are the dress code at Moka Girls Espresso in Auburn and at several Cowgirls Espresso stands in the area. Bikini tops are the special at Café Lorraine on Highway 9 in Woodinville, and the women of The Sweet Spot in Shoreline pose provocatively in Playmate-style profiles on the stand's Web site.

"In this area, we all know how to make good coffee," said Barbara Record, who opened Bikini Espresso in Renton last month. The trick is to set your business apart, she said, and sex is one sure-fire way to do that.

"It's just, how far do you want to go?" she said.

At Best Friend Espresso in Kenmore, baristas go thigh-high. An elevated service window offers customers a nearly full-length view of pretty, young baristas — some of them high-school students — in short skirts, tank tops and high heels.

Best Friend owner Wayne Hembree said he requires employees to dress "classy;" in dresses, skirts and a nice top.

"What I think most of them have found is that their tips are better if they wear short skirts," he said.

Occasionally, Best Friend does theme days, such as "schoolgirl" or adding glasses for a sexy "secretary" look, manager Heather Bacon said.

Longer commutes, a change in laws regulating the stands, and the saturation of the carryout coffee market have given drive-through stands a jolt in the past few years.

When the state's smoking ban went into effect last year, many bar, casino and convenience-store owners sought to make up for expected losses by renting part of their parking lots to espresso stands, said Lori Bowden, owner of the Cowgirls Espresso stands.

The advent of "sexpresso" is harder to track. Business and baristas debate over who pioneered the edgy outfits, but they agree that by sweetening the product, with a smile and maybe a shot of hazelnut syrup, they've reached out to customers who've never set foot in a Starbucks.

Drive-throughs are a growing part of Starbucks' business, too, with more than 1,500 drive-through locations throughout the United States. But a representative of the company said it has no plans to sex up the dress code, as it wouldn't fit the company's brand.

At places such as Cowgirls, the barista is the brand.

"If I'm going to pay $4 for a cup of coffee" said one male customer, "I'm not going to get served by a guy."

That attitude has been a boon to Cowgirls. Bowden, a former vending-machine-company owner, has acquired seven drive-through stands, with a total of 26 employees, all of them women.

Though most of the stands in the area pay minimum wage, Law said she makes more in tips than she ever did as a waitress at Hooters. One recent morning, she served 400 customers between about 6 a.m. and noon.

"Your customers freakin' adore you. Everybody's excited to see you," Law said. "You spend a few minutes with them and they leave."

They come back, too.

When Ryan Reed pulled up to Best Friend Espresso for his usual, a 24-ounce iced vanilla latte, on a recent weekday afternoon, he knew what to expect.

"The owner [Wayne Hembree] always hires super-hot girls," Reed said. "That's basically his philosophy."

Hembree said actually, he looks for customer-service skills. The dress code, which he started four years ago, was inspired by an employee whose polished look boosted business, he said. Hembree also requires staff members to wear makeup and do their hair, "and these guys, I won't lie to you, they like that," he said.

But Best Friend has made some enemies. Jeff Marshall, whose wife, Wendy, owns the gift shop Chalet Cadeau, said the couple moved their business from Kenmore to Kirkland last month in frustration over neighboring Best Friend Espresso. Marshall said the business caused traffic problems and drove customers away from the gift shop.

"It's disgusting," he said of the stand. "It's an undesirable business from a community that's trying to sell itself as a family-oriented community."

Kenmore City Manager Steve Anderson said city officials looked into Marshall's complaints.

"We've heard of issues and we've had undercover investigations, police surveillance, and it resulted in nothing," he said. Likewise, King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said the business isn't breaking any laws.

Bowden said law requires that employees cover their breasts and buttocks, so there will be no "thong Thursday," as some customers have requested.

Back in that cow-spotted stand in front of Silver Dollar Casino in Tukwila, Law steams milk and dreams up new themes.

"I like the idea of Saran Wrap Saturday," she mused. "Now they've got those colored Saran Wraps. Dude, they could totally make a cute outfit."

Really, it speaks for itself. All I can say is ARGH

I couldn't resist

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

It's all her fault*

*Not according to anyone with common sense.

Emily Jane Hilscher, the first person killed in the massacre at Virgina Tech.

According to the Metro (English daily paper)


This is the face of the teenage student who may have sparked the biggest gun massacre in US history.

Emily Jane Hilscher, 18, was killed on the fourth floor of a dormitory at Virginia Tech University as a gunman unleashed his terror rampage.

It is thought she was the ex-girlfriend of the unnamed killer who then went onto kill Emily's neighbour 22-year-old Ryan Clark who had tried to help. (emphasis mine)

Sure, blame the woman as though the guy who did this has no accountability for his actions. The 'student who may have sparked' my ass. Classic victim blaming. ARGH
I can't even begin to describe how incredibly pissed off and crazy this makes me feel. Maybe I'll add more later when I calm down.

Hat tip: Sparkle*Matrix

I am highly illogical

My Discrete Mathematics class is kicking my ass. Proofs and p ^ ~q and truth tables. GAH! My head feels like it's going to explode.

Anyone have any tips to keep me from going insane? (Math logic is a lot like philosophical logic, but with more symbols)

(We'll find out how truly bad I am at logic after I have my first test on Thursday. Hopefully I won't fall asleep like I did during my linear algebra test (bad migraine pain kept me up all night, I still passed it though). AHHHH LOGIC!)

Is it just me or do logic classes seem to make no sense at all?

For those of you interested in the mathematics of nature (what I'm going to give my senior presentation on for the hippy college I actually go to even though I'm a math major on main campus) check out this.

Mmmmm....champagne mangos. Back to (il)logic.

Crazy Busy

School has kept me busy (in a good way except the financial aid debacle*). I've updated my sidebar, especially the geekiness portion for those of you who like hearing about women in science. You should check them out, some sites are quite radical! Enjoy!



*They cut off my aid and I have to petition to get it reinstated. The process can take up to 3 weeks and is past the deadline where I get unregistered for classes. How I'm going to pay if I don't get aid we'll never know)

School again

I just started a new quarter and it feels good. I finished my linear algebra homework and my first essay for school in which I recounted how feminism led me into mathematics. (It's due on Thursday, they give you like no time to ease into the quarter. I have a paper due every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks.) The mood stabiliser seems to be working well, and I can only hope it continues to work so well as I continue with my classes.

In other news, I am so happy with the Supreme Court today.
In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions. The court further ruled that the agency could not sidestep its authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change unless it could provide a scientific basis for its refusal.
(Full article here)
Go go SUpreme Court!! Finally a decision forcing the EPA to regulate emissions. I am so happy.

Well, back to the reading. I have my Discrete mathematics homework to do. Oh logic, how I dislike thee.

Also, the Cubs home opener is today. I'm gonna listen over the internets and hoot and holler for the Cubbies!

Spokane

I went to visit my friend in Spokane this weekend. We went on a Benny and Joon abbreviated tour (I saw the hospital and the Milk Bottle diner) and we stayed on her boss's goat farm in the country. It was a nice relaxing trip. I'm only sad I didn't try to meet up with Terry from I see Invisible People.

Here's the sad part: When I was on the bus there was a little girl, must have been about 7 or 8 talking about the national fitness standards tests they give all kids, i.e. how many sit ups can you do, how far can you sit and reach, how fast can you run a mile, etc. She was talking about wanting to go running, etc, and she seemed to have a lot of kid energy. The she started talking about the weight portion of the test. She told her mom she had to eat right, and that she'd gained weight in the past couple of weeks and how she was worried that they would tell her that she was overweight. She was a twig. (And gaining weight in spurts is normal at that age). It's not surprising, but it's always sad when I hear stuff like this from girls, especially girls that young.

Bipolar II

I have been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and have been given a new mood stabiliser. Apparently it's the new kid on the block and is an anti-depressant as well. Hopefully this will work well and I won't get the horrid rash that means I have to stop taking it. *fingers crossed*

Can I get some crazy with that cake?

This year sucks. This year alone I have been diagnosed as ADD and with Bipolar moods. So that adds to my previous diagnoses of PTSD, BPD, and depressed. I love the rollercoaster. ACK.

Why?

Ugh. A person doesn't change when they get a sex change, I don't understand why they would fire a respected city official.

Stanton, 48, confirmed last week that he is a transsexual. With a solid reputation as a forceful and energetic leader, he had hoped to keep his $140,000-a-year job as he underwent the gender reassignment process.

"It's just painful to know seven days ago I was a good guy and now ... I have no integrity," Stanton told the commission. "My challenge here has always been that someday I was going to leave this organization. So I am going to do it with a smile on my face."

....

Mayor Patricia Gerard and Commissioner Rodney Woods cast the dissenting votes.

"He's done a great job for us," Gerard said. "He's done what we asked him to do and taken the heat over and over and over again and now we're going to turn on him."


Grrrr....I hate the world some days.

Self Injury Awareness Day

Dr. Deborah Serani has a good post up (see link) on the ins and outs of self harm. I think her table on why people self harm is pretty accurate, being someone who self harms myself. (Or used to. It's been 9 months without any self harm, go me. But it's also been 9 months with an emergency stash of Xanax, so no horrific anxiety attacks that I was awake for.)



The dissociation route is me. And for me instead of being told I want attention (so why did I cut in areas other people wouldn't see unless they saw me naked?) or something else inane like that, the reasons for my self harm are actually on target in this graph. We know it's bad, it doesn't mean it doesn't help us cope with dissociation. I'm in the middle of exploring other ways to ground myself. We'll see how this goes. In the middle of June it will be a year since I last self harmed, and it is myu biggest scar yet, so I've got my fingers crossed that the meds keep doing their job.

If you know a self injurer, leave your judgement at the door. Trust me, we're all ready thinking it, hence the amount of shame surrounding self harm.

Hat tip Terry at I See Invisible People