Storytime

I wonder if carbon nanotubes could be used in conjunction with another highly resilient material to create wings that could function while making minute adjustments like those a bird's wings utilize.

I was raised to consider serving people as a part of the environment, like the racks that belong in a department store. Perhaps describing them as serving robots would be more descriptive. In my universe, they existed only to do their job with a smile as part of the background. This was not an overt part of my upbringing, and I don't want to give the impression that my parents are horrible people.

When I was fourteen, I took my first community college class and my world changed. I met the people who served in these tiring, backbreaking jobs, struggling to smile and be polite to their customers who could be horribly and unrealistically demanding. I realized how abhorrent and narrow-minded my previous view had been. I admire people who work sales and service jobs, grueling, demanding, and intellectually deadening as this work is. And while I most likely will never, thank God, have to work in one of them, I try to make sales people's day a little easier if I can.

It really bothers me when people treat sales people with the naive attitude I possessed earlier in my life. I've known plenty of people working their way through college trying to balance school and work at the same time, and the last thing they need is someone snobby enough not to appreciate this. Almost nobody wants to be in these positions, but they work in them because they have to provide for themselves and sometimes their children. Why would this make them any less human?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every time I walk to the video store I remember a story from my childhood. When I was twelve and in seventh grade, my science teacher Mrs. Simons(sp?) assigned us a project to cook a nutritionally balanced meal. I procrastinated until the last day and then informed my mom when she came home that I had to get the ingredients necessicary. Uncharacteristically, as my parents usually would go to great lengths to help me succeed in school, my mom said that she was too tired to deal with this and that she was going to take a nap; when she got up she would decide what she was going to do.

This was not satisfactory to me. So I stole twenty dollars from her purse and set out to buy a Cornish hen.

The distance to Food for Less, which is in the same complex as the video store, was far from the longest distance I had walked at that time. But small and paranoid as I was looking like an out-of-place elementary schooler, the store seemed much further than it actually was. When I got to the store a nice sales person took special care to help me get exactly what I needed, and I went home with a feeling of satisfaction. And yes, I did give my mom the change from the bill.

My mom was angry but strangely proud and told the story to all of her sisters. This reminds me of when the Orange Line was built and I started sneaking off to downtown. After a bit of astonishment and upset, my mom wanted to know if I would take her with me.

Winnetka is now a street which I feel completely safe strolling down, although for some reason somebody always honks at me. I still don't feel comfortable in the dark out there, as the last time I was somebody grabbed my hand. But still, how times have changed.

Tonight we're watching "Run Fatboy, Run". We went on a huge shopping spree thanks to mom, though we also stopped in at the one dollar bookstore. We bought some plays by Moliere(accents are too much trouble) , Neuromancer, a book of short stories including Faulkner and Chekov, To Peking and Beyond by Salisbury(experiment) and a couple other books. I also bought Micheal Crighton's book Twister for Chris, because I couldn't help myself.

The Skinny

You know what I've noticed? Usually the people who claim that nerds secretly long to be included in the popular crowd are not nerds. Sure, these wannabe-peoples may exist, but most "nerds" are pretty damn happy the way they are.

Another song by a pop queen that I grudgingly like is Katy Perry's "Hot n' cold", though I only like it when it's paired with the video. I dislike Kathy Perry herself because she sang that song "I Kissed a Girl and I Liked it". Nothing better than slutty faux lesbianism! A lot of actual lesbians dislike the song as it perpetuates the stereotype that lesbians are actually girls you have threesomes with.



Apparently some girls do legitimately PMS. We learn new things....

I slept most of today since my medication backfired on me. Next week is finals week.

Another thing that I want to do over summer vacation is screen or block printing.

As you all know, I read Jezebel. While I do not agree with/am not interested in everything on the site, it can certainly be intelligent and sensitive to cultural issues. I like, for example, that it recognizes that many of the "scientific" tests geared towards proving "all women like muscular men" and similar conclusions generally contain a set of females encultured the same way, meaning that a general theory cannot be formulated from their results. What's strange, though, is what happens when discussions on the site turn to issues involving weight and its portrayal in the media.

I am a size zero. Don't ask me why they named that size the way they did, because I do not know. The reason I am a size zero is predominantly genetics, though I also didn't eat a lot of candy (or really anything) as a child. I certainly didn't give myself my metabolism, though.

Every day I read about how unrealistic my body size is. Now, I am not in favor of marketing size zero as an ideal which everybody should aspire to fit, and in fact agree that this is a dangerous thing to do. I think that there are plenty of different body types and every single one should be represented as long as the individual is healthy, as I've stated before on this blog. I've met girls skinnier than I am who complained about needing to loose weight, which scares me.

But it's also completely unfair to represent small people as unrealistic, because I exist, surprise! I am not a skinny weight-obsessed b*tch who spends her time putting others down. Also, clothing sizes keep getting bigger in an effort to play into people's insecurities with their bodies. The fashion industry markets to skinny people, but does not like to manufacturer clothing which they can actually wear.

We interrupt this rant:
"You make light of algebra now, but when you're all grown up and your friends are making logarithm jokes at cocktail parties, you won't have a clue as to what everybody's laughing at."- Mr. Dewey

This is my life, except I am in on the joke. Oh my. Also, I never watched those shows.

Anyways, it seems like a cultural assumption that I wield some sort of power from being skinny. Yes, I was born in the right place at the right time in terms of fashion, but I didn't create the zeitgeist. So when we talk about the recognition of "real women's bodies", could we include me, instead of banishing my body type to fashion shows, anorexics, bulimics, and freaks?*

Today I had lunch with Anthony and met his friend. Anthony then proceeded to give half his house away to me and the other half to his friend. I am touched by his generosity, and am sad that he's doing this because he's going back to Rio.

*Anorexics and bulimics aren't freaks.

Photocredit JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images

Scum of the Earth. and Some Stuff about Fish.

Ok, so most of you will have probably already seen the link to the KKK kid's wear I posted on Facebook, so I won't re-post it here. Here is a page with more "interesting" t-shirts. In my opinion, striking a blow against anything KKK related is a worthy cause. The KKK and neo-nazis barely register as humans in my regard, since they choose to identify with something so evil and hateful to their fellow beings it makes me want to throw up. The only reason that they even register as human in my regard is because of the careful enculturation and indoctrination that is involved in making someone a member of these societies and brainwashing them into these rabid ideologies. Neo-nazis are the worst in my opinion. Almost any education in Europe or America will show you what the Nazis did, what excuses for human beings they were, and to choose to identify with something like that...well, I'm not God, I can't claim almighty judgment, and re-education programs probably would be the most helpful thing in this scenario, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be happy to punch these people in the face, repeatedly. I mean that.

From my understanding, two routes of those indoctrinated into Neo-nazi society are those who are born into the ideologies or singled out loners who are "trained". Lonely kids at school whom skinheads befriend and then poison.

Just..ugh. I can't write about it anymore, even to vent. On an ideological level, on a historical level, and on a person level, thinking about all the wonderful Jewish people who have passed in and out of my life, my friends, imagining them being told that they aren't human, is too much to take.

Later, Marisa calmed down.

Here is an interesting study of sexual harrasment in guppies.

"The findings showed that females who had experienced a lot of sexual harassment were less able to recognise the other females in the group and were more likely to form bonds with new females introduced from outside their network."

Also, apparently vunerability to angling may be related to genetics in bass, says an ongoing study of 20 years.

"This provides the first direct experimental evidence that vulnerability to angling is a heritable trait and, as a result, that recreational hook-and-line fisheries can cause evolutionary change in fish populations."

Another Hodgepodge

I'm still drifting between denial and reality at the moment. I wrote a lot of this entry yesterday before the breakup and want to publish the content.

I was invited to an "erotic party" over Facebook, which is a first. No, I'm not going, just noting this because of amusement.

The top three mistakes in my writing are:
1.) Forgetting words. I'm not quite sure why this happens, though I suspect that it's because my
mind thinks faster than my fingers can type.
2.) Extraneous commas
3)Repeating words.

"The real question was why no one ever seemed to figure this grim scenario out on her own, just by looking at you. This was enraging in and of itself - the fact that severe depression, much as it might be treated as an illness, didn't send out clear signals for others to pick up on; it did its deadly dismantling work under cover of normalcy. The psychological pain was agonizing, but there was no way of proving it, no bleeding wounds to point to."
-Daphne Merkin

Depression is a disease that our culture fails to recognize. Bringing in a note about being sick from stomach flu will help people excuse a lapse in productivity but equivalently crippling mental issues will inspire no sympathy from many. This is not an overall rule, as I've actually encountered many sympathetic and kind people, but there is still a feeling of judgment which encourages silence rather than reaching out for help. Therapy is seen as either for the weak or shallow and pills a part of our feel-good culture. Are there some people who will prescribe medication without a second thought and therapists who are ineffectual? Absolutely, but this overall stereotype of the psychological and psychiatric professions is horribly detrimental to those in need of help. Mental illness is not a choice and those affected can still be sane, competent and smart people, as I would like to consider myself to be. I still blame myself for things I did under the influence of this disease, although for me it actually is easier to accept blame in some ways than to admit that it is something which I can't or couldn't control. Therein lies another problem, as the line between the disease and the patient can be difficult for the patient themselves to recognize, let alone others. This fact only beneficial to disease out of all those involved.

After reading this Wikipedia article on Francis Bacon I am wondering what a movie about his life would be like. Also, I wonder what regular names in our day will go on to become swear words, food items, or some other oddity.

I really like this song by "The Kills":


I haven't even watched the video, however.

Seriously

Seriously, stab its eyes out. Violence for everyone! Picture me throwing around confetti, but the confetti stands for violence.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Edit: Thank you, Gunther, for cheering me up. I love you!

Domestic Violence

I just have to rant here.

Why do all of these people blame the victim?
Abuse is not a simple process. Usually before an abuser physically assaults his or her partner it is preceded by slowly demolishing the partner's self esteem and isolating them from all support networks. By the time the actual violence happens many victims even feel as though they deserve it. It can take an abuse victim six or seven tries to before they leave their partner permanently. This is a complex psychological subject that has entangled thousands of people, and to call Rihanna stupid because she did not leave Chris Brown or to say that "she deserves him" is blaming the victim, an attitude which makes it even harder to break the circle of violence and reinforces the self esteem and isolation issues that have been created around the the victim.

To say that she deserves his violent reaction she got because she hit him first? Yes, in a loving relationship anything more than playful violence is not acceptable, but choking, punching, and biting are not in the same category as one swat. If one partner does something unacceptable that is no reason for the other partner to escalate in, especially since he was hardly defending himself.
If they were not romantically involved, would we find this situation ok? Girls are very capable of being violent, but that does not mean that women(or men!) do not need protection from this sort of thing. He beat her into a pulp and she barely swatted him. Unjustified much?
Nobody in a healthy relationship has to be afraid of their partner in any way.