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)