Things Found While Cleaning My Room

• Five buckeyballs
• My RSI Summerbook
• The block of wood I cut when first learning to use a table saw (note: this was two weeks ago)
• Money
• More money
• Saudi Arabian money
• JSHS Pen
• A broken watch
• My Princeton Preview lanyard, which I'm keeping for the summer because it is very high quality.
• A "This is what a feminist looks like" bumper sticker
• A sexy silver lanyard I have no recollection of previously seeing
• 5 towels in various stages of dirtiness
• The bookmark I got for buying a prom ticket 
• 70 more buckeyballs
• Approximately 600 tampons (note: hyperbole)
• My MIT CPW folder (MIT! <3 <3 <3)
• This was the point at which I became fed up and threw everything remaining into one large bin.

In other news, I went prom dress shopping and came home with two new pairs of shorts and some chocolates for my beloved mother, but no prom dress. Sweet success!

Extended Weekend of Awesome Awesomeness

This can also be referred to "the time that Tea decided not to study for her midterms, and instead elected to enjoy her spontaneously week-long school vacation."

No, I am not kidding about the week bit. Wednesday was a snowday, Thursday had a delayed opening, Friday was staff development, Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Tuesday was another snow day. Yes, this is a lot of no-school, so, of course, I did a lot with it.

Thursday afternoon--ran science bowl practice. I made a list of all this stuff to look up, then didn't look it up. In my defense, my teammates said they were unwilling to start learning it before midterms anyway. Drove Julie home from ScienceBowl Practice. Well, not quite home--I started the weekend off with a bang by getting into my first ever car crash. Yup. Good stuff. Julie was giving me directions while talking about her sexy boyfriend (not that I'd know if he was sexy because I STILL HAVEN'T MET HIM!!!), she broke off midsentence to say "you should have turned there." I then totally misjudged the truck's ability to break (I blame it on the fact that the entire bed was full of snow, but I didn't think of this until the next day, so it's not a very good excuse), turned anyways, and whipped straight into an oncoming car. The driver of that car was really, really really really pissed, but I stayed relatively calm, even after she (totally unnecessarily, I might add) called the police. Then I called my dad, who untangled the vehicles, both of which are still totally drivable. Cosmetic damages, people. I drove the truck home, explained everything to my mother, then panicked about how much money I was going to lose.

Friday: I discover that the deductible on the insurance is a mere $500, so I'm only down between 500 and 627 dollars (those gosh-darned police gave me a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road, which I'm likely going to argue because I wasn't driving on the wrong side of the road, I swerved into the wrong side of the road due to an inability to judge the breaking ability of my father's pickup truck...but I digress). This was immensely comforting. I also rediscovered the buckyballs I got for Christmas and proceeded to spend most of the day attempting to build a 6x6x6 cube (for the record, I did eventually succeed). I also took my younger sisters shopping at Delias, where I bought a gray sweater, new boot-cut jeans (note that I've stopped referring to the clothing that now fits me as fat pants), and a $20 jacket that I am head over heels in love with. Shelby spend a lot of money in exchanges and gift cards and is still pretty excited about it. I'm just glad that I have pants that fit that I can wear with boots, because given the current snow situation, boots are a must.

Saturday: I spent all of the daylight hours milling around and feeling like I ought to be doing something. I probably started in on my final project for Mideast. I finished reading the entire archive of Ben Jones's blog at MIT, then read the entirety of Laura's. I went to a yoga class, where I failed miserably at giving off the appearance of having any idea what I was doing. The fact that my calves are so tight that I can't do a proper downward dog (apparently a very important portion of vinyasa), and my arms are so weak I can't do this weird lying down thingy we had to do a kazillion times, and the my blood pressure is still so low I felt like I was going to black out by the time we reached the 10,000th forward bend--where was I going with this?--oh, right, did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of the class. It was not quite as successful as the first class was--I spend a good three days after that one feeling sexy (no, I do not know why, but it probably was some sort of hormonal thing meant to reward me for finally getting my ass off my swivel chair)--but still nice. Then I came home, inhaled my dinner, and spent three hours ice skating. The ice skates made circular bruises around my ankles for reasons as-yet unknown. I felt so active on Saturday night, you have no idea.

Sunday I don't really remember, which means it was probably boring. I think I got the oil changed on the cars, but that might have been Thursday. Or Friday. I think it was Friday, actually, now that you mention it. And I've just remembered that Sunday wasn't boring! Kathrya came over, ostensibly to do homework (we didn't). We skyped with Bart! Saudi-Arabia-dwelling Bart! Kathrya was so excited I'm kind of surprised she didn't implode. I enjoyed the opportunity to actually put my computer's built-in webcam to use (also, talking to Bart was fun).

Monday I did stuff. What did I do? Again, I'm rambling because I don't remember. Stuff probably happened, most likely. I slept pretty late. I went to Borders and exchanged one book my parents got me for Christmas for a host of other books, including 2 Eloisa James romance novels (I read one, but the second one isn't really working for me, since the protagonist is like 20, very much unrelatable, and is pretty definitely going to end up with a 43 year old. Laaaame). I also got Ned Vizzini's autobiographical essays written at age 19. I am in love with teenage Ned Vizzini. It is unfortunate, but it is true. If he was my age, he'd probably have a blog. I should probably find blogs of random teenage guys to read, so that I develop weird writing crushes on people my own age, instead of the historical version of older people. I'll work on it later--for now: Hot Guys Reading Books!

Tuesday I set my alarm for 6:10, called the snow line with my eyes closed, then slept for another three hours. I read books. I played the piano. I hid in my room while my sisters cooked both dessert and dinner (I'm really going to need to get over my irrational fear of cooking). I played with buckyballs some more. I ignored messages from Rube and Bart while I was reading, didn't manage to respond to Bart until he wasn't there anymore, never responded to Rube, talked briefly to Greg before he had to go to lab (but not before Olive stole his computer and started typing to me). Then I started reading Yan's blog over on MIT admissions, got about halfway through her freshman year posts, then saw that she got a UROP at Sadoway Group. Then I had an absurd jealous breakdown, followed by a decision to actually read some of the papers by the group to make certain that my minor obsession was founded on fact and not some imaginary "OH MY GOSH FLOW BATTERIES" thing, since they work on other stuff (that said OH MY GOSH FLOW BATTERIES AND HE WAS REFERENCED IN THE CANON THE DAY AFTER I WENT BY HIS LAB AND MET WITH RANDOM GRAD STUDENTS OH EM GEEEEE. Plus he teaches intro chem and is apparently really awesome. And the lab appears to be doing cool stuff). Pardon the all-caps, but I have limited self control. I started reading one of the papers (well, I saw that layer-by-layer is abbreviated LbL, giggled madly, then went to the living room to collect my laundry). I decided to write this post instead of reading the paper, took note of my current more-intellectual reading (it's about the fact that gender bias and subconscious-driven gender discrimination is damaging our nation's school children, and it's particularly awesome in that it's addressing the fact that gender bias is harmful to both girls and boys (something that a lot of boys with high feminist-potentials seem turned off by is the whole "only girls are being damaged" thing)), then came back to my room, where I proceeded to while away the hours until I was tired enough to go to sleep.

Unattached Musings

This is, *ahem*, a serious post. Somewhat unusual for me, I suppose, but I've been feeling rather moody all day (whether this is due to the comment we're about to discuss or to the fact that I'm back at school after a phenomenally luxurious break is currently undetermined) so this post gets to bear the brunt of it.

What set it off was a conversation with a certain Nyx regarding a certain Warburton (I'm currently trying to ignore the fact that it's entirely possible that Warburton will read this and recognize the description of himself...I'm still adjusting to the fact that people legitimately read this thing). Warburton is one of the many individuals who have emailed me in search of RSI assistance (my last count is 26 total); his email was one of the more memorable, though, as it was about four pages of sleep-deprived babbling, followed by an offer to play scrabble. I spent a couple of days pointing and laughing at the email, the read it closely enough to work out what he was asking and try to respond to that. After we had worked out that he was not, as I originally suspected, completely batshit crazy, I gave him Nyx's email because she wanted a scrabble buddy. She reportedly stayed up way too late talking and playing scrabble with him, and they reportedly had a bit of a nerd cred contest.

Nyx defines nerd cred as indie cred for nerds. Indie cred does have a wikipedia entry, so I suppose this is legit. I define nerd cred as "that thing I am always trying to get more of. Bryant probably defines nerd cred as "that thing I have so much of that I don't bother trying anymore." Bryant has an amount of nerd cred comparable to the level of indie cred held by a band that only its members have heard of. Warburton's nerd cred, from what I can tell, is more along the lines of the band that doesn't exist yet--so, basically, dude is a completely, ridiculously smart. I'm exaggerating a bit, but for the sake of the analogy, it is at least somewhat funny.

As I was saying, Nyx and I had a conversation on the way to school (it should be noted just how terrible I am at sticking to a serious topic). She said Warburton has more nerd cred than me. I agreed, saying that he should get into RSI as a result, but one never knows. She agreed with me, and I said that I wonder sometimes how I got into RSI when there are all of these awesome people out there. She gave me the look that said that I was missing some important point.

"You're a girl," she said, as if that was all the reason that was needed.

I can't find it on the website (so maybe it's not true) but I recall being informed, multiple times, that for those selecting an RSI class, affirmative action is not used. This is how we end up with 1.5 minority students and only 1/3 girls (I just checked flipped through my summerbook at counted the American students--30%. I cannot imagine it would be that low if affirmative action was used). The website does say that students are selected "solely on the basis of their accomplishments and intellectual potential," but this was in reference to costs rather than gender/race/what have you, and I'm not the sort of person who will seriously quote out of context.

Regardless, it hurts. It hurt when Dino said the only reason I was selected for SHP at the end of freshman year, when he was not, is that I was a girl. Because obviously my test scores are lower, or the same--I couldn't possibly have a greater level of scientific knowledge beyond the biology that I will freely admit he is better at. It hurts that when I am sitting at the top of my AP physics class (well, I'm not certain my grade is actually the highest, but that's because I'm being lazy and not working as hard as I should), class that has 25 boys and 2 girls (though I grant you the vast majority of these guys are jocks who probably should not be in the class), and people continue to think that I got into college because I'm a girl, that I had this opportunity and that opportunity because I'm female and not because I am a very intelligent person who has spent years working my ass off.

But I'm a secure individual. I know that shouldn't bother me, because satisfaction rests within the self. I believe that I am both capable and deserving, so it shouldn't matter what others think. The only reason that it should bother me is the same reason that the previous sentence says "believe" instead of "know." I am not as certain as I think I am. Nyx's words troubled me because she is among my closest friends, and is one of those I've known the longest and know the best. It makes me wonder: if my best friend doesn't believe in me, who will? And if she doesn't it, is my belief in myself unwarranted?

This is the insecurity that gnaws at me. It continues to live partly because most of the things that people regularly dispute can be attributed to affirmative action, so I can't quite tell myself that they aren't true--but I can't totally blame an outside source. Much of it is a case of "imposter syndrome", the feeling that, no matter what I've achieved, I've cheated somehow, and one of these days, someone is going to notice that I don't deserve my current position. It's common, from what I can tell, among women in the sciences, and I'll discuss it later, but I went on a huge tangent below, and I think that a discussion of that idea deserves its own post.

The insecure feeling is similar to that which troubled me when Kathrya assumed I wouldn't land something because I'd be competing against international students, and they'd all be better--though in that case, it bothered me less, because I'm well aware that the best of the rest of the world is substantially better than me. I'm well aware that a lot of students in this country are better than me--but in what I've dedicated myself to, the number is damn small. There are probably tens of thousands with my grades, but if you throw in research and everything else--there are a number that do better, but from what I can tell, there are a few hundred of us that are about on par with each other (maybe closer to 1000 or so, I'm not entirely sure), maybe a bit more or less--though I'm getting stuck on this one, because while it's easy to make sweeping judgements, I don't know what everyone else is capable of, and I still don't know precisely where I stand.

However, any of these people would be qualified, overall, for RSI. These are the people that will do research at Caltech, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford (though a smaller number of them will end up at other schools). I don't really know what separates those who got into RSI from those who didn't--RSI is literally too small of a program to accept all of the qualified applicants, particularly if we take to heart MIT's constant statement that it, too, cannot accept all who are qualified--but regardless, there are more people sitting at the level of "totally awesome" than there are people at RSI. And at this point, I no longer remember what the purpose of this discussion was--something along the lines of being the best here, but not the best everywhere, which doesn't totally make sense. My 1000 estimate of people who are really into research--well, that's not a very conservative estimate. I would probably be better off with a few times that. And if "the best" includes that many people, what really qualifies me to say that I or anyone else is the best? If we make our definition broad, we pick up people who are good at many things. If we make it narrow, we discount the most intelligent.

I think I just made a point, but it has no relation to anything else I've talked about. I wanted to say something about affirmative action, I think. About how horrifically bitter Gretchen is because, from what she can tell, being an asian female puts her at a disadvantage in the college process. About how worried I feel that I've been receiving things I haven't deserved, even as I am fuming over the fact that others don't believe I deserve them. So where does it help?

It helps the statistics. It makes schools have the right numbers. And as I said before, with the huge numbers of the best, you could quite possible fill an MIT class with asian females and have the whole class be amazing. You could probably do the same with white Europeans. I don't know enough about the numbers to say if one could do the same with blacks, or with hispanics--I have a feeling that there aren't enough total people in research positions already. You could probably fill a class with people capable of succeeding, but it's quite likely that they wouldn't have had the same training. Just like I wouldn't have had the same training if I hadn't been accepted to the programs I was accepted to--because that's what enabled me to be one of these best people.

I feel like my reasoning is going in circles. The problem is that any equality in receiving an opportunity can go two ways--you can try to equalize people based on what they've had access to, and accept based off of that. Or you can actually take the people who have done the most, sum total, to be the most qualified. It's confusing, and I don't totally get it, and I'm tired, and I have a feeling that I'm going to offend people, and I'm a bit annoyed about the fact that I'm no longer anonymous, so I'm probably going to offend real people.

*insert curse word here*

Things I Do Not Like

People who willfully cause pain to others.

Computer software with a trial period.

Ubuntu partitions that don't function.

Cellphones with diminished battery capacity.

Poorly written books.

Poorly written fan fiction.

Poorly written scientific papers.

My lab partners.

My scientific paper.

My inability to properly work a scanner.

The lack of image editing software on my computer.

My innate stinginess.

The fact that I still haven't practiced piano.

How loud my leg-twitching habit is.

Undercooked cookies.

My ex-not-boyfriend.

Mean people.

Whoever invented menstrual cramps.

Evolution deniers.

Feminist haters.

Feminist haters who argue incompetently.

People who talk faster than I can think.

College applications.

The fact that I am still obsessed with MIT (even Yale couldn't break me).

Headaches.

Menstrual cramps.

Menstrual cramps.

Menstrual cramps.

Why are English papers so much work?

Because I devote hours and hours (and pages and pages) to the following drivel:

The intersections of morality, religion, and sex.

How does an individual define what is right? When people choose a path, what makes them determine in which direction they want to bend? Society influences, yes, but in what ways? How so?

The power of religion. Decisions are made around it, people join or flee it. Yet it is defined, more often than not, but the individual.

Religion and the conscience. How do we decide things?

Tess of the D'bervilles

-innocence destroyed by rape

-rape defines a marriage

The Purity Myth

-goodness of women is defined entirely by what they have between their legs.

But is it? Really? Truly? The fallen woman can be seen in so many places, but she redeems herself in the eyes of the reader. But what is redemption for the men?

Gender and atonement: what sins are worth a life?

Jane Eyre—he's redeemed himself, but has she?

Orlando—a man, a woman, both at once, but he is not a man who ever needs redeeming

Tess of the D'ubervilles—Tess, obviously, spends a lifetime trying to make up for a sin that wasn't hers, but it seems, in the end, that it is religion understanding, not atonement, that drives her (with the death of her 'husband' she returns to her husband). For Alec, though, what is there? He turns to religion, then believes that the only way he can make it up is through marriage, a life's commitment.

Redemption is sacrifice.

What is it that makes an individual good? How do people define what is right and what is wrong, and to what extent is this dichotomy of thought present in our everyday lives?

The Purity Myth, by Jessica Valenti, centers on the idea that the societal perception of a woman's morality stems entirely from her chastity. No quality is as important, no trait as worth protecting, as virginity.

Is this true? Judging by the books, the answer is resoundingly yes. In Tess of the D'ubervilles, we have a woman who, after she is raped, is a ruined woman; her eventual marriage falls apart, her life is spent searching for redemption.

When old books—centuries old, not whatever your grandmother considered popular literature—are read, it becomes very clear that from a modern perspective, with its own take on what is morally upstanding and politically correct, the good can be far more evil than the author intended. Who today would consider the ivory trade savory, the oft-said 'nigger' polite? This is made even more clear when considering opinions that haven't changed. In past centuries, marriage has shifted away from a sacred institution, defined by God.

The lack of stagnation in moral perceptions is demonstrated clearly by shifting perceptions of marriage. In days of yore, marriage was defined by sex.

You should see how much worse the handwritten crap is.

Lemocy

What a beautiful, beautiful captcha. I bet Dino cried at that.

So, what is occurring in my life? I'm reading The Purity Myth and freaking myself out.

"Have you already unwrapped the priceless gift of virginity and given it away? Do you now feel like "second-hand goods" and no longer worthy to be cherished? Do you ever wish you could re-wrap it and give it only to your future husband or wife? Guess what? You can be abstinent again! You can't change the past, but you can change the future. You can decide today to commit to abstinence, wrapping a brand-new gift of virginity to present to your husband or wife on your wedding night."

--from this website, from which we can also learn that people who have sex like to do so "when there's no one around."

"Your body is a wrapped lollipop. When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he's done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker."

This is a) a mixed metaphor and b) sexist. Because nobody bothered to compare men to these. Unless they're saying that men would become one of those if they have sex with other men. In which case we should all just be lesbians. Screw men.

I'm not sure I can take much more of this.

There Was No School Today

So I went shopping, and I bought this amazingly fuzzy sweatshirt, and these t-shirts. Then I went to the Y and swam, and I ran into Richard's mother, who apparently knows who I am, and it was rather awkward. Then I had a piano lesson, then I came home and read some more of American Gods and wrote back to Andy and ate dinner and read some more and used the computer and wrote a blog post.

Well, since that's rather boring, let's do another English event.

Feminine Irony is the title of this paper, and it exemplifies my ability to make all essays about feminism, religion, or both.

During the Elizabethan era, England had a female queen. However, this is ironic because, incongruously, women had no other power, and the queen kept her power frequently by repressing her own femininity. Isn't that fun?

For one thing, if Elizabeth got married, she couldn't be queen, which pretty much sucks. Also, I used the line about denying her femininity here, not in the first paragraph. Oops.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet demonstrates that those gosh-darned Elizabethan females were weak, powerless, and repressed. Juliet doesn't get to choose her own husband. Then she offs herself. That is not fun. It is not fun at all. It is, really quite tragic. When I saw the show with Nyx, I cried for a good half hour afterwards, and then we went home and talked about how sexy the guy playing Romeo looked shirtless. He really did look good. Probably about as good as Norman, this guy from California who's going to RSI next year who's using a picture of his entire swim team in swimsuits as his profile picture, and they all look rather, uh, nice. What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah, Lord Capulet is a dickwad, right.

Oh, also, I need historical research in this paper. So, check it out, women were property of their husbands, and I'm going to back it up with laws and literature. Is that some great consonance or what? Anyways, I'm not going to bother with that sort of thing. I'm well above it.

Queen Elizabeth's situation was unique. Life sucked for everyone else.

Twelve Months of Tea

This is blatantly ripped off from Dr. Jay, who stole it from Dr. Isis. It is the first post of each month of the year, accompanied by the first sentence of the post and the first comment on it.

January: I apologize for never writing and rave about my love of Girl Overboard.

Well, would you look at that. I haven't written in a very, very, very long time.

------I was still blogging anonymously, so there are no comments on this post.

February: I read A Thousand Splendid Suns and experience emotional overload.

I forget, sometimes, what finishing a good book will do to you.

------Ditto.

March: I attempt to teach my younger sisters to notice sexism in advertising.

There's gonna be snow tomorrow, and I, for one, am psyched.

------Do I need to write anything?

April: We are introduced to the perversions of Nyx's chemistry class.

Two tenth graders in science class today.

May: I introduce myself to the communications medium of texting.

The rest of the dream makes even less sense than the first half, so I think I won't bother with it.

------Vicky: HAHAHA your conversation with mario is really funny.... Question though: why would you possibly tell Mario that your random friend from camp types fast?? I can just see that scene: Mario sitting peacefully reading the WSJ, you texting away then you blurt out: Hey Mario, my camp friend can type fast!!

June: I blow off studying and my U.S. portfolio in order to make lots and lots of schedule permutations.

The massive tree chart at left is what I used to make certain that I had accurately determined all of my possible schedule options (I had, and they are included at the bottom of this post).

------Vicky: OMG teaaaaa.....I can't believe you did that!! usually I just randomly make like 9 scheds a couple days before arena!! that's sooo cool, would you make one for me??

July: I get lost at the train station.

I am back in my home, sweet home, and I am oh so very happy.

------Vicky: OMG TEA!!!!!! I was at the YMCA (on main street) because my brother was working out there (yea, I know Gretch, someone in my family does actually exercise!) and I went over to the snack machine to get a snack. The snack machine's background/casing was made with 5 or so pictures of kids playing sports at the Y. AND guess whose picture was big (like 3 feet tall 2 feet wide) and front and centered? MARIO'S!!! I was like OMG! it's mario and my mom was like who? and I was like "this boy Tea know" and my mom said "why would Tea know an 11 year old (it was a younger pic but it was unmistakably Mario!) and I was like "he's 15 or 16 now...." anyway, I just thought you'd want to know that there is a picture of your lover emblazoned on the TMCA food machine...(not just like a picture taped on, his image was actually part of the machine!!!) your most faithful mario spy, vicky/bruney.

August: A detailed description of plumbing issues in my house.

The plumbing in my bathroom, my sisters' bathrooms, the living room powder room and basement is out. Although my dad has not yet determined why, we still aren't allowed to so much as wash our faces in this half of the house.

------Gretchen: hmmm...not sure what to say...

September: I recount my first day of school.

Guess what, everybody- I survived.

------Gretchen: yeah, my day was okay until english. i sat in the front and i didn't see nyx for some reason. i was all alone... :( i'm going to see her in the morning tomorrow. still hoping...

October: I gush about science.

The math team advisor who is known to call the house at odd hours just called and informed that I'm on the A-team for the meet next week.

------Gretchen: noooo mrs. cumulonimbus didn't flag down Irving!!! we did. well holly did. we were in the library and cumulonimbus had alread yleft! holly was just like "irving! can you come over here for a second?" after he left we found out that she didn't actually know him. of course mrs. cumulonimbus knows Irving!! she's the only one who teaches physics C

November: Halloween is detailed.

I haven't posted for the past two days because I didn't get home until after midnight, at which point I figured there really wasn't much point, since it was actually tomorrow.

------Gretchen: what pants were you wearing?

December: I freak about Mrs. Hirten's group assignments.

The first day of class, she thought that Edmund and I were twins.

------Gretchen: i am so sorry for you. if it gets worse, feel free to come running into my english class

Happy Hanukkah!

Again.

We had the family Hanukkah brunch today. Very exciting. I did get new gloves, a new scarf, and a new shirt out of it though, which isn't a bad haul for a mere brunch.

This is a sharp contrast to the current state of the Christmas decorations. We did the tree on Friday night. At least, I think it was Friday night. It's all a bit of a blur. It must have been the e I was snorting. Or is it coke that you snort? I feel like e is a pill... Regardless, family Christmas tree decoration. Very fun. We all sing Christmas carols and try not to cry over the dead dog and argue over who gets to hang what and then laugh when Mom rearranges everything and then when we're done, we sit cuddled together on the couch for a half an hour with the lights in the room off and the tree all aglow and just watch it and talk about nothing.

It's very wholesome. Happy like an old sitcom, minus the sexism. Happy like The Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver.

God we're weird.

I almost forgot the generous bag of gelt, which isn't a word according to spellcheck. Whoever made this dictionary is clearly an anti-Semitic bastard. Yay gelt!

Purity Lost: Female Vampires in Dracula

A synopsis.

Victorian women were well behaved, unlike Vicky (Happy Birthday!) who wears pants. They also were very pure and chaste, eschewing sexual contact (Vicky merely eschews hugs). When "Dracula" was published, these scary things called feminists were beginning to emerge from the shadows. Actually, they weren't called feminists, just "new women," but the basic idea is the same. In "Dracula," all of these semi-feminists are monstrous, bloody vampires. They want to suck your blood.

For instance, Lucy Westerna. Before being vampirized, she's pure and blonde. Afterwards, she is voluptuous and wanton. Wanton, for all concerned, is not pronounced like the delicious segment of Asian cuisine. This is particularly directed at Jeff, who mispronounced it during English the other day. Also, when Lucy has been stabbed through the heart and killed, she is pure and sweet, not a bloody mess, which is nuts, because she should have turned into a relatively decomposed human body.

Also, the other vampire chicks are ridiculous sluts who make Harker into a mess, because, clearly, he can't retain control of his own sexuality because he is a thirteen year old boy, or something.

So vampires=sex=evil! According to Bram Stoker, anywho.

Love, Tea

Overheard

Today, during extended Health, I slipped out of class to go use the bathroom. There were two girls, probably sophomores, standing in front of the sinks and talking. There was a short, talkative one, and a larger, heavier one. I'll call them L and B, respectively.

L: Nice iphone.

B: Thanks.

L: My parents are getting me an itouch for my birthday.

B: Cool.

L: Know what's great about itouches?

B: No.

L:You can use the internet on them.

B: Yeah.

L: Emily has an itouch. She uses the internet on it.

B: Huh.

L: She looks at porn on it.

B: Wow.

L: Sometimes, I look at porn on it with her.

B: Oh.

L: It's kind of weird.

B: Yeah.

L: Don't tell anyone I said that.

B: That it's weird?

L: No, that I look at porn.

B: Sure.

L, speaking to me as I dried my hands: That includes you.

Tea: I don't know you anyways. Even if I told someone, they wouldn't know what I was talking about.

L: Good.

I, of course, promptly told both Red and Kathrya the entire story after I got back to health class. Kathrya and I agreed that even though we don't watch porn ourselves, it really doesn't seem like the sort of thing you want to do with a friend. I mean, seriously, that just seems like a recipe for either severe awkwardness or clandestine lesbian hookups.

On a completely unrelated note, we're writing essays on gender in English. Here are the theses of my group:

Margot: Girls wear clothes that are really uncomfortable.

Carter: Being a guy sucks because, like, we have to fit into expectations and stuff.

Brian: I have great female role models in my family, and we've now studied this so excessively I feel that my brain my spontaneously combust. It's all just empty talk that isn't going to do anything to stop sexism; that takes actions.

Tea: Femininity is an insurmountable obstacle preventing me from controlling my own life.

Rob: What Brian said.

Renna: Being a woman means not knowing what you actually want. Also, is it a problem if I write a synthesis essay using only personal anecdotes?

Fireyes

Today, during English, I glanced over at Alfredo. He was staring at a small spot towards the front of his desk. He looked rather as if he was attempting to set in on fire with his gaze. This continued for a good ten seconds before I got distracted at looked away. I think he's attempting to develop Matilda-esque powers.

Now, I don't know if all of you are aware, but one of my many pointless hobbies is reading dating advice websites. There's a certain amount of irony involved in that- probably roughly equivalent to Mario's reading Cosmo. One of them linked to this, which is (advisory warning here) basically inappropriate drawings of Disney heroes. I, of course, was thoroughly distracted. There's something both incongruous and enthralling about Prince Eric (from The Little Mermaid) making a "sexyface" at the camera and wearing next to nothing. I'd honestly thought that he didn't have anything under that billowing blouse. I clicked through all of them, actually laughing at Hercules (nobody can have arms that big, it just doesn't work), before going back and sighing over the skinny, geeky, bespectacled guy from Atlantis with the glowing blue pendent.

It's funny, isn't it, that I see just as, if not more, inappropriate pictures of women on a daily basis in everything from advertisements to museums, and yet these drawings feel so much more scandalous. I mean, seriously, naked girls are everywhere, but we still freak out over photos of penises on wikipedia pages that are completely related to the topic. It's sexism, I think, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with it.

And yes, foggy is still my word of the day.

Amazing

is that a group of people in my science class (Ali, Gnatta, Christoph, Dino, Tybalt, and Sergio) were able to have a long discussion about shoe sizes (Dino, for any interested parties, had the largest) without devolving in the slightest bit to making size jokes. There weren't even any snickers and pointed glances. I'm somewhat shocked. I thought that other high schoolers spent as much time in the gutter as I do!

On a more serious note, we had a discussion about gender distribution during math today. For some reason, only one third of the B.C. calc classes are female. Why did this happen? Oh, fellow females, why have you abandoned me so? I think the whole "guys are better at math" thing is utterly bogus. Do guys really just care that much less about grades? Maybe they don't feel that constant need to prove themselves, to show the teacher and fellow students that they really deserve to be in the tough classes. Are girls just scared out of the big, bad, b.c.? It seems difficult to believe. And when, precisely, are we getting funneled into lower levels. It doesn't seem to be early on, so why such a skew at higher levels? I don't get it! Does it have to do with us just assuming that guys are smarter? I mean, look at Gretchie's and my valedictorian list. Sure, we managed eight guys on the last one, but that took a fair amount of manipulating on out part. The first people we thought of on our extended list were all male, and we had to talk ourselves into adding girls to the top spots on the final. And as far as reputations go, the smart people, when others are asked to name them, are Bryant, Tybalt, Livny, and Mario. Never mind that Julie took B.C. last year as well, or that I keep up with Tybalt just fine much of the time, or that Livny has an ego far larger than anything else of his (that was a size joke), or that Mario really isn't much of writer. It's always the guys who get listed! It's just so utterly infuriating!

End rant.

Chicken

Another narrative piece for English.

I take his plate from in front of him and shift my hand to keep the gruesome, putrid, picked-apart chicken carcass from contaminating my skin. My grandfather, Papa, has miraculously managed to strip every shred of flesh from the bones. I’m amazed that he’s managed to fit the bites in between the endless stream of praise for Kosta, the oldest, wisest, celebrated grandson.

I carry the defiled chicken remains to the trash and turn the plate sideways, trying to slide them off. A bit of splintery bone catches on the edge and sticks. I push

it off with the tiniest tip of my finger before thrusting my hand under hot water to remove any traces of grease. I slip past my grandmother as I returned to the table. She, despite her broken wrist, is transferring asparagus into a container to put in the fridge. Papa is still at the table. He’s picked a scab on his wrist and is catching the blood on his grimy napkin, but has finally moved on to praising my younger cousins.

“We’re going to be seeing Kat in a few weeks. She’s gotten very thin, very pretty. You know, when she was born, she was so fat. I was worried that she was going to be one of those awful overweight girls.”

I pick up the last of the dishes and walked to the sink to get a sponge. Papa stands. “Well, Anne, girls, I’m tired. I wanted to get to bed early. I’ll see you next week.” He opens his arms for a hug.

I don’t want to hug him. I don’t want to have to wait until he leaves to wipe his slimy kiss off my cheek. I don’t want to pretend that I want to see him next week.

I want to tell him what I think. “Kosta is not praiseworthy. When Kosta, artistically stunted as he is, assistant taught an art class at his college, he gave bad grades to the geeky-looking guys he didn’t like and the girl who didn’t shave her armpits. Kosta may be good a baseball and have a pretty girlfriend, but he’s an ass.” I walk towards the sink, towards Papa, as I speak. “Listening to you praise him makes me almost as sick as the chicken you make us eat every time you visit.” I pause, take a breath, and rest my hand on the counter next to the stack of greasy plates. “Kat has a black belt in tae kwon do, is in the gifted and talented program at her school, and is outgoing, fun, and wonderful. Praise her on that, not on her weight. After all, I certainly hope that you’d love her even if she weighed a hundred pounds more.” I clutch a platter of left over lumps of meat, trying to support myself as the rage spews forth. “Praise your granddaughters on something other than their appearance! Stop being sexist! Your wife has devoted her life to cleaning up after you, ironing your clothes, cooking your meals. The least you could do are the goddamned dishes!” I hurl the plate at him. It shatters. In my mind, I finish my diatribe and run out of the room.

In actuality, I say nothing. I hug him as if I want to. I wait until he leaves to wipe his slimy kiss off my cheek. I pretend I want to see him next week, when I, coward that I am, will stay as silent as always.

State of the Tea

74% of my facebook friends are female. To be honest, I'm surprised that is isn't more of them.

For English, I'm supposed to write a one page narrative with an implicitly made argument. Is that like I theme? Doesn't all writing have a theme? I am not at all certain what to write, so I can't really do it tonight, but I'm not going to have much time tomorrow, and it's all horribly annoying. All I really want to do is eat dinner and then spend a few hours curled up with my book before I go to sleep. Unfortunately, this seems highly unlikely, as I still have a pile of ASR work to do, as well as a bit more math.

In somewhat better news, Ariadne got into SHP. I didn't even have to ask her, she asked if I was is in. I had a feeling that she was, because the second day of school, she was about to say something but decided not to, and I figured that was it.

I got called "honey" by the school principal the other day. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until I was far enough away that it would have been weird to turn around and yell at him. I mentioned this to my dad this morning, and he told me to confront the teacher in question if it happens again. Thanks, Dad, I never would have thought of that one on my own.

The Ferris Wheel

Nyx hates ferris wheels. She is not afraid of them, but, for some strange reason, she absolutely loathes them. However, Cormac took it upon himself (with the support of Benny and I) to get Nyx onto the ferris wheel.

Cormac failed. Nyx is, after all, an extremely stubborn person. At the last minute, Nyx ran away and Benny chased after her, leaving behind Ryan, Cormac, Lysander, Johannes, Benny's little sister, Benny's sister's friend, and I. Rather than trailing Nyx (which I have been known to do) I stuck it out, granting her and Benny some quality time. Fortunately, I managed to end up next to Cormac, across from Ryan, and diagonally across from Lysander. Ryan and I both sat with our legs over to one side so there was absolutely no physical contact. I think our knees bumped maybe once (translation: they did bump once)

Johannes got stuck with the two little girls. Ryan yelled over at him, "Johannes, you're such a Dad right now!"

"No, dude, I planned it like this," he said. Lord only knows why he would do such a thing.

"So, how's the phone search going?" somebody asked Lysander.

"Oh, pretty well. I sent a text message offering a two hundred dollar reward."

Ryan looked shocked. "Seriously?"

"Well, I actually just said 'reward if found,' so I wouldn't actually have to cough up the money."

"Is the phone actually worth two hundred dollars?" asked Cormac.

Lysander shrugged. "Probably not. But it's my phone."

As we neared the top, I looked over to the stage. Everyone was leaving, and I'd missed my sister singing.

Cormac looked down as well. When he saw someone carrying a large stuffed animal, he remembered a joke he'd attempted earlier. "Imagine seeing one of your teachers here, carrying some huge prize."

"Imagine if Mrs. V was on this ferris wheel. That would be a safety hazard," said Ryan. I didn't laugh. Fat jokes are a) rude b)disproportionately directed at women, and thus sexist and c)remind me of Livny (it's a type of russian pig), who always told them about the other orchestra teacher during biology.

I can't really remember anything else from the conversation, but I do remember enjoying it, and I definitely talked some, because I remember Ryan laughing at something I said in this way where he seemed to think about it a moment, understand it, and then decide that it was funny, as if the little comment truly deserved to be laughed at. I feel like that happened more than once, but I can't remember anything I said for the whole ferris wheel ride.

When we got back down and found Nyx and Benny, we discovered that, because Johannes had made them hold his popcorn, they hadn't actually been able to go into the funhouse, and had instead wandered around aimlessly for the duration of our ride.

an aside: check out this link.

Tomorrow

10 hours until SAT. I'm going to go to bed now.

But, just to keep you from getting bored....

I discovered my final planning from Western last year. I'm pretty sure that we got to pick our own topics, because I wrote about the effect of the French Revolution on the Catholic church, and I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who would actually care.

Basically, before, it was the official state religion, just like the Robin is the official state bird of our Connecticut. After, it was more like the Robin was a really well liked bird, but without the official stamp of approval, and if it were to chirp at us, we wouldn't be obliged to listen.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is like the Declaration of Independence, but with a less catchy title and even more sexist phrasing, espoused religious freedom. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy said nice things about tolerance, originating the CCC, the primary rival of the slightly less tolerant KKK. This constitution reassigned bishops. I believe that this is a process similar to castling in a chess match.

Then, came the National convention and the reign of terror, which basically took the Catholic church to the guillotine, as well as making a ten day week and confusing the crap out of all the workers, who were especially disgruntled about having a seven day work week. The high level of church bashing, coupled with the severe difficulty involved in actually locating a Sunday in the new calendar, diminished church membership greatly.

Then, Napoleon put all the little pieces back together, like all the kings horses and all the king's men, only more successful.

Imagine a scientist...

The past few days, I've been, to say the least, rather busy. This evening however, I decided to take a few minutes to catch up on the blogosphere. I was reading this post on Female Science Professor, and I saw a comment that said:

However, I do remember going in to do a simple physics experiment with my Mom's 1st graders many years ago, back when I was in grad school. My Mom had them draw pictures of scientists before I came in. Lots of white coats and weird hair, and all men. They had a hard time believing that I was a scientist when she introduced me.

-Cloud

This reminded me of an assignment we had in sixth grade. For the assignment, we had to draw a scientist (it was my first homework assignment in middle school). If I remember correctly, and it could be I'm not, I drew a woman in a lab coat with long brown hair, standing on a tile floor next to a table with some beakers on it. Now that I look back at it, I was probably projecting my own interests in science by creating a persona that resembled myself, buy it's interesting that I immediately thought of a woman scientist. I wonder if my ability to picture myself as a scientist stems from this lack of inherent bias, or if my interest in science is what allowed me to see it as a gender neutral profession.

There's gonna be snow tomorrow, and I, for one, am psyched. 8-14" should definitely be enough for a snowday, no?

Well, I'm blowing off my US history homework, so it'd better be. If it's not, I'll take it up with the management in the morning.

In other news, I wanted to comment on a product (red) commercial I saw the other day on American Idol (go Adam!, btw).

Usually, I love product red. They picked a shade of red that is one of my all-time favorite colors, and I love the fact that my penchant for consumerism is helping to shape a better world. However, I found this add incredibly aggravating. Basically, this guy carries around a red laptop, and everyone thinks that he's so amazing that they spank/kiss/mob him. Now, personally, if a weird police officer type guy slapped my ass, I would immediately freak out over the horrific state of authority figures these days.

I think this may primarily be a difference in the male vs. female perspective of things. Guys don't think of that sort of thing as rape or sexual harassment, so they should be happy with the attention. Sounds like a boatload of shit to me, considering I'm fairly certain that the male gender is often in possession of a personal space bubble.

On the bright side, though, when I pointed out to my sisters how weird it would be if that was a girl instead of a guy, the 13-year-old sister, who I will cleverly refer to as Genovia, said "wow, that's really sexist" and I was like "yes it is" and it just made me happy to think I was opening another person's eyes to sexism in advertising.

In conclusion, here's the commercial:

Peace out, y'allsies.