motherhood

dane at 3:21 pm: happy

dane at 3:22 pm: sad

dane at 3:27 pm: asleep

two of the things i was most afraid of before dane was born was that a) i would get bored staying at home with a baby all day and b) i wouldn't like it. i think these fears stemmed from reading The Feminine Mystique in college and (more recently) from reading too many mommy blogs. there are so, so many representations of frustrated stay-at-home moms out there. and despite the fact that i personally know many happy and fulfilled moms to counterbalance that image, i never knew which side of the fence i would fall on. this might sound blasphemous to say, but you can't deny that it's a bit of a leap into the unknown! and it's impossible to predict how you will feel or how your baby will act or how wonderful/difficult it's going to be for you.

but i have had the beautiful surprise of loving everything about being a new mom. and i don't know why it should be such a surprise--i mean, i've always loved babies and loved taking care of them; of course i'm going to love taking care of my OWN baby. but every day i think, "wow, i love this." and whenever i'm rocking dane or singing and talking to him or even bouncing him to sleep while he cries, i always tell tommy, "i could do this all day long"--forgetting that, yes, that's what i do all day long. the empty gap in my life that i felt while i was still in school--the feeling that what i was doing was abstract, pointless, and not exactly useful to anyone--has gone away. i feel a billion times more useful and, yes, fulfilled, than i ever did writing a research paper on a book for a class. (to be fair, i did feel useful and fulfilled while teaching. just not while taking classes.)

now, i know that cuddling with one very easygoing newborn is not all that motherhood entails. and i know that he's only seven weeks old, and that things change very rapidly, and that i'm very, very lucky in how everything has gone so far.

but i hope that when i look back on this short time in my life i remember how happy i am right now.

swimming as an metaphor for life? MAYBE.

i started swimming for exercise a few weeks ago, after my poor knees refused to let me keep running and i was not ready to give up exercise completely. i bought a 20-swim pass at the santa monica swim center and have been going several times a week. i've never actually swum before--swimming to move and burn calories and go fast instead of just float around in the pool and play categories. the first time i went, i was totally out of breath after my first fifty meters. i had to take a break after every couple of laps before i could go on.

but it's gotten a lot easier really quickly. i started building up and trying to go longer distances and timing myself so that i could improve my times. every time i go, i set a long-distance goal that i try to hit (400, 600, 800 meters) and try to stay on my normal pace for longer and longer times. really, i started competing with myself and was feeling guilty any time i didn't go farther and faster than i did the day before.

today, i just swam. i didn't count or time or measure or even try to go particularly fast. i just hopped in the pool and lost count of how many times i turned around, how many meters i covered, how many minutes went by. i didn't think about my strokes or try to keep up with my lane buddy when he swam past me. i just kicked and pulled and thought and thought, and i kept going forever. i didn't need to stop until my goggles started boring holes in my skull and i felt like i was giving myself two black eyes.

it's not that trying hard and working to improve my exercise and my swimming times is a bad thing. it's just that sometimes i forget that right now, when i'm six months pregnant, is probably not the best time to train to become an olympian in a brand new sport.

it's okay to let go of my pride and just swim every once in a while.

prioritizing

"i can do anything i want, just not everything i want."

this quote is a pretty good reflection of what i've been thinking about lately. you have to spend your time doing the things that are going to be most meaningful for you, because you won't get around to doing everything in the world that sounds appealing to you. this applies to your day-to-day activities but also your major life goals. prioritizing is essential for our sanity and for our happiness. you just really need to know what it is you want in order for it to work. (which, for me, is the hardest part.)

recently, i've been spending ALL of my time on schoolwork. no joke--my google calendar's been filled, every hour, for the last two weeks (and the next three as well) with meetings, readings, and research. this is why there has been no blogging going on here any time recently. there also hasn't been much exercising or enough scripture reading. but lots of stress. doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me, right? but there's not much i can do when i'm faced with deadlines and 20 students who are waiting for my exciting lesson on introductions. (speaking of which, i thought we had a really interesting discussion about plagiarism today. THEY WERE ACTUALLY LISTENING! AND CONTRIBUTING! it was amazing! it's the small victories that matter in teaching, i'm starting to learn.)

oh well. at least i KNOW things are out of balance, right? it's a lifelong (eternal?) goal. i did make the time on wednesday to make some pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. the baking was beautifully therapeutic and the cookies have been delicious. so i'll try again on the whole prioritizing thing next week.

and i think i'm going to go read some more wives and daughters and take the next few hours off.

hello, mr. president!

today was a special day: a day in the middle of the week where tommy and i got absolutely no work done!

no wait, it was more than that. barack obama came and spoke at nc state and i stood in line for a few hours yesterday to get two tickets, so tommy and i both got to go hear him. i figured that it was a rare opportunity to have the president come speak at your school while you're a student there, so it was worth the hours of waiting. go wolfpack!

(yes, we were sitting behind him. but we actually had really decent seats, although you can't tell with this sad horribly-zooming-in camera that we have. we were sitting with a friend who said he'd send us his much better pictures, which i'll share with you if i ever get them!)

obama came to talk about his new american jobs act that he recently came up with. and i must say, it was really interesting listening to his speech as an english teacher who's been talking about rhetoric the first few weeks of class. i was taking notes the whole time, writing things down i could talk with my students about his use of rhetoric and his reaching out to his audience, etc. it was awesome.

my opinions on the job act: i have no idea if the dang thing will work. i'm not an economist, and i don't understand how recessions and unemployment problems get solved. both parties say the EXACT SAME THING--"this act will/will not give people their jobs back! the american people deserve to have jobs! we need to get congress/the president to do something to make more jobs!"--which makes everything convoluted. and nobody KNOWS what type of legislation is going to work to fix this economy anyways. so i refuse to have an opinion on economic stuff because i just do not understand it.

(he did say something i don't necessarily agree with though--he said there was something in the bill that would make companies hire people who had been unemployed for more than six months. not sure how that's going to work, or why that's going to solve the depression, when that just means someone else will be unemployed longer. and also, why not just have people hire the most qualified people that apply for the job?)

but heck--it was really cool to hear and see him in person! look at the lucky people who got to shake his hand!

another tidbit to prove how charming nc state is: in the fight song (which i heard today for the first time--i don't have much school spirit) are the words "Go to hell, Carolina." (duke fans say the same thing. apparently we're not big unc fans around these parts.)

an outsider looking in on myself

i have this bad habit of looking at things in my life from the perspective of outsiders. i don't know if that's a sign of a low self-esteem (i hope not?) or if it means i have multiple personalities or if it's normal, but it's become reasonably disturbing as of late. it happens mostly with my religion and with the really important choices and decisions in my life.

for example: sometimes i'll think about something another religion does, and about how weird and foreign it is. and then i'll think, "whoa, that's what other people think about mormons. THAT'S why they think we're so weird." this happens quite frequently. i think this process is good, because it stops me from taking my beliefs for granted, but i also think it is bad, because it sometimes challenges those ideas i was raised in and makes me question them in a disturbing way. disturbing because nobody really likes questioning the paradigm they grew up in, and although i do realize how important it is to progress, it doesn't make it any easier to reconcile and believe.

another example: i was talking with some people in my program and they asked me how old i was and when i got married. naturally, they were shocked and most likely disgusted when they heard i was 22, got married when i was 20, changed my name to my husband's, etc. etc. and on the one hand, i wanted to plead with them and tell them, "it was the right thing to do! i WANTED to do it! i am happy with that choice and i'm happy with my life now! you just don't understand!" but on the other hand, i totally, totally understood where they were coming from and wanted to say, "I KNOW, I KNOW, i totally agree with you. i was a child bride. i think it's crazy too!"

conversations like that make me question all the choices i've made and all the future choices i'm going to make. after having that conversation, i just kept thinking, "and think how much MORE crazy they would think me if i happened to get pregnant before we graduate!" (*not an announcement, don't freak out*) it's awkward keepin' on knowing that other people think i'm crazy, think that my opinions are offensive or my beliefs and choices are naive. you know what i mean? not that i'm not going to stop keepin' on, just that i now have their incredulous looks playing in the background as i do it.

and the real problem is--those conversations and encounters are never going to go away. i've put my life on this path that other people (generally non-lds people) ARE NEVER GOING TO UNDERSTAND, and most likely will never agree with. i remember my mom had 4 kids by the time she was 30--and there are (many) girls in my program who are 30 and have no idea of having kids--much less 4 of them. they are great people, fun to work with and ambitious and hard-working, but they would NEVER understand the life choices we make, no matter how much i explain it to them. kind of like how i don't understand some of their choices (never having kids? that is completely foreign to me).

but you know what? i can't let that knowledge of their judgments and their ideals affect my future choices and decisions; those decisions have to be made based on MY judgments and MY ideals (and tommy's, of course). it's just so hard to remember . . . and sometimes it's hard enough to know what my judgments are.

my personal goal for the rest of the year: combine my multiple personalities and kick out the outsider in my brain.

famous for all the wrong reasons...

this may be cynical of me, but i'm starting to think that if a politician or celebrity seems to be a nice family guy who is married and faithful to his wife and is not a disgusting human being, it's just because he* hasn't been caught yet.

example a.

example b.

example c.

really, it's just getting more and more disturbing by the day.

*i suppose i shouldn't be sexist. this statement probably applies equally to female politicians and celebrities too.

where i was from: california

"i was born in sacramento, and lived in california most of my life. i learned to swim in the sacramento and the american, before the dams. i learned to drive on the levees up and downriver from sacramento. yet california has remained in some way impenetrable to me, a wearying enigma, as it has to many of us who are from there. we worry it, correct and revise it, try and fail to define our relationship to it and its relationship to the rest of the country."

-joan didion

i just read where i was from by joan didion, and i wanted to write down some thoughts about it. i've read several of didion's books now--she wrote the book that i wrote the magnum opus of my college experience on (baby's first fifteen-page paper!). i really like her minimalist writing style and (excuse the cliche) the depth of her ideas. i'd never even heard of this one, except when i was at border's and bought several too many books, i randomly picked this one up and saw her name on the cover, so i threw it in my basket. it was interesting--thought-provoking, if not amazing--and on a topic i've thought a lot about for a long time: california, and what california means. this book (and this blog post) would be probably boring to those of you who aren't from california, but it was fascinating to me.

i won't tell you all the stories didion shares or explain the conclusions she comes to. i just loved that didion wrote this book, as she said, attempting to resolve the inconsistencies, discrepancies, and provocations in california's image and history and ideals. of course, she goes a lot deeper than my thoughts ever have; for example, she talks about how californians imagine that they're so self-sufficient and pioneering and original, but california has historically relied on more than their fair share of federal government handouts.

but what has always really caught my imagination and made me question my home state is the contradiction between its image and its reality. i still think of myself as a californian, even though i moved away from there five years ago and there's not much chance of us moving back there any time soon or ever. ever since moving away from california, to utah and then to north carolina, i've gotten reactions from people when i say i'm from california, from orange county, of all places. the positive reactions: "cool!" "i'm so jealous!" "do you spend all your time at the beach?" and the negative: "just like everyone else" (and the other thoughts they keep inside--judging all californians as being shallow and worldly and all those other negative traits). very few other places get such visceral and strong reactions as california (other than texas, maybe). these reactions--and my own reactions to the other californians i've met outside of california--have made me start to think.

on the one hand, i can see why people think california is all just "cali". look at the media--i was in high school when shows like the o.c. and laguna beach and real housewives of orange county began and became countrywide phenomena. it really does look like all we do in southern california is party and lay out at the beach. when people talk about "cali," that's the california they're talking about (let me assure you, real californians do NOT call it "cali").

but then again, on the other hand, i don't get why people think california is cali. because guess what? california is not just the beach. it's not just disneyland. orange county, even, is bigger than the beach and disneyland. living in california is 99% the same as living in any other state. my life in north carolina--my everyday, real life--consists of the same activities and places as it did in california. i go to school. i go to the grocery store. i hang out with friends and i hang out with my family (just tommy here, but same idea). sure, we never had tornadoes trample through irvine, but i don't know when there's last been an earthquake in durham. the beach is twenty minute away, but nobody really spends all their time at the beach. (okay, very few people really spend all their time at the beach.)

but california can't be, isn't, just a place like every other place, as much as i like to act like it is. that's why people think so much about it. those shows, and those people, have turned it into more than the place where i used to live. and i don't like that part of california--the cali part.

my feelings towards california are like those i used to feel towards my siblings when i was living at home: i might complain about them and fight with them, but when outsiders make fun of them, i want to beat them up. it's really just like that. i love california. i hate california. i love californians and i hate californians. it's all mixed up and it all depends on what part of it you're talking about. (but i know i don't love the outsiders who hate [or love] california without really knowing california.)

i'm a nerd and i love it (and middle school stinks)

the fact that i am a nerd should be fairly obvious to everyone who has read this blog for any length of time. tommy and i don't own a tv, we don't have (or want) smartphones, we get most of our entertainment from the library, and we spend nearly every night doing homework.

but i like it that way. i am happy being a nerd. and i am proud of myself for being, finally, truly, reasonably comfortable in my own skin. i say reasonably because of course, i'm a twenty-first-century female with all of our inherent insecurities. (and really, the only reason i am comfortable writing about myself being a nerd is because i am deep-down-inside confident that i'm not REALLY a nerd. if i were, or if i really thought i were, i'd be too insecure to write about it. but that's besides the point.)

i was thinking the other day about how i used to feel about myself in high school--and worse, middle school. i remember painful, PAINFUL hours spent during PE being self-conscious about my legs being hairy because my mom thought i was too young to shave my legs. (remember that, mom? it was painful for my eleven-year-old self.) and then later, even more painful hours when i would forget to shave my legs once i was allowed to do it.

i remember being so embarrassed because my socks were showing. and because my shoelaces wouldn't stay tucked inside my shoes and would come out. and because my pants were a quarter-inch too short and looked like floods. and because my shoes weren't etnies and my shirts weren't from tilly's and my jeans weren't roxy. because i sat on the wrong side of the lunch area and didn't talk to boys. because i had braces later than everyone else. because after i had a huge fever my freshman year i got a fever blister on my face for a few weeks and it scarred (my face and my feelings). and because my hair was frizzier and curlier than everyone else's (i especially loved it when people would tell me, "i would kill myself if i had your hair." why, thank you! how kind.) because i was convinced my deodorant wasn't working or because my legs were too fat. because i wasn't wearing the right type of underwear and didn't pull my hair back in the right way.

how grateful i am to be PAST that stage! where i can sit and reminisce without bitterness (even about the hair comments) about those things that were so incredibly painful then. and wonder--why did i CARE so much? if my middle-school self could have seen what i would be like now, i'm sure i would have been astonished by what a nerd i am--and how much it doesn't bother me. i own basically 1.5 pairs of shoes, my hair is still frizzy and fluffy, and my legs are in an almost constant state of hairiness. and i could care less about it. i'm even blogging about it.

so there, sierra vista middle school. I HAVE GROWN PAST YOU.

i'm probably way less cool than i was back then--wait, no. i think way less about being cool than i did back then, but i love myself a whole lot more.

judgmentality

do you ever meet someone and instantly think, "yeah, we're not going to be friends"?

there are several types of people who i think that about.

1. people who list "playing video games" as one of their main hobbies. if you really have nothing better to do than to world of warcraft all day long, i don't think i have much in common with you.

2. people who are obsessed with their pets. i JUST DON'T SEE THE POINT.

3. people who are violently anti-reading. (self-explanatory, i think.)

there are definitely more, but i can't think of any right at the moment.

i have recently met people who fall into all of these categories. like the girl in one of my classes who spends her time looking up pictures of "cute cats" on the internet as she sits at home with her own three cats. yeah, we're not going to hang out outside of class any time soon.

no offense if any of these describe you. i probably still like you. i just might doubt your sanity.

too much education, maybe?

when i was in high school (or maybe a freshman in college), i saw the dead poets society. being the english major that i am (even though i didn't know that's what i was for sure at the time), that movie SPOKE to me. robin williams opened those kids' minds! they love poets and shakespeare and he taught it to them! so much that neil is willing to sacrifice everything for art! exclamation point! i wanted to be a teacher like robin williams--electrifying my students into loving literature and loving writing and loving art.

then in one of my classes last semester, we were learning about teaching composition and the debates surrounding the field. we watched freedom writers (another movie i saw freshman year and loved) and discussed how teaching writing is portrayed in the media and film.

and during that discussion, we smashed dead poets society to bits as unrealistic, dramatized, and ridiculous. because it kind of is.

when i was a sophomore in college, i read extremely loud and incredibly close. and again, it opened my eyes to this incredible story about oskar trying to deal with his father's death during 9/11. the new techniques jonathan safran foer used! postmodern writing like i'd never seen before! and oskar searches the whole city of new york and ends up being okay at the end!

then in my senior seminar class at byu, we read that book and a lot of the critiques written about it after it was published. and we discussed how it was sentimental, annoying, and overall, all the techniques he used (like the pages full of nonsense words or random pictures thrown in everywhere) were gimmicky. and you know what? i kind of agreed.

i mean, i still like both dead poets society and extremely loud and incredibly close. but not like i used to, and not for the same reasons. but this just makes me wonder: can you really ever LOVE anything when you study it from an academic perspective? am i going to end up totally dissatisfied and disillusioned with the books and movies i currently love? if you know too much, can it ruin your ability to enjoy things for their emotional value instead of their academic correctness? i think you just have to be able to keep your emotional response and your intellectual response to things distinct from each other. but it's hard to keep liking something when you know that there are people out there rolling their eyes at how stupid it is. particularly when those people are better trained and more knowledgeable than you are.

this is why i would be afraid to name a child after a character in a book that i love. somebody who hates the book would hate me (and my poor child) for doing that.

maybe this is why people major in biochemistry: it won't affect their everyday pleasures so much. (i don't know why else anyone would want to study biochemistry.)

morbid.

i have a morbid imagination. it stinks.

it's not rational. usually i think of these things when my mind is at its least busy, such as when i was in my ninth grade science class or, more recently, driving to and from school. it's awful--sometimes i'll get so worked up about it i'll be teary-eyed with fear of my imaginings coming true.

the most common one is that i always imagine getting a phone call from an unrecognizable number and hearing 911 tell me that [insert loved one here] is in the hospital after a horrible car crash.

sometimes i'll imagine someone breaking into our apartment when i'm alone and having to stave them off with nothing but our extra-heavy frying pans.

one time i watched this freak-documentary thing about people who did horrible things while they sleepwalked, like killing their family members, and didn't remember it in the morning. that gives me a lot of morbid-imagination time.

i'm always slightly nervous being in the bathroom when the shower curtain is closed, because what if someone is hiding behind it?

seriously. what is wrong with me?

embracing mediocrity

i'm in a bunch of classes with phd students. it's funny to listen to them and hear how stressed they are, saying "what is free time, anyways?" and trying to schedule their comprehensive exams and write their dissertations all at the same time. they wonder about how they're going to publish and be accepted to conferences and how that will help them get the jobs they want at a top-tier research university.

meanwhile, i'm sitting there, feeling pretty good about myself. because although i don't know what job i want after i graduate, i don't really care. i have passed the point where my grades matter. if i present at a conference (like i will be in february--but it's just at my school, so nothing very interesting) then it's an extra bonus, not something to worry about or stress over. i figure that i'll teach freshman writing after i graduate--and i don't even care if i don't get a full-time position like everyone in my program stresses about. DON'T EVEN CARE!

i've never really been in the position where i wasn't trying as hard as the next person to do well. or where i didn't have goals that were at least as high as theirs (at least, academically). but that's where i am now.

and i kind of like it. i am fully satisfied with graduating with as good of grades as i can get and doing nothing spectacular in the field of rhetoric and composition before or after i graduate.

i think i've come a long way.



but, p.s. my classes are looking far more promising than last semester. i am very much more happy about this semester. great news!

also, i'm learning html, and css, and xml, and a billion other languages and things (that i don't know what they're called) for a class this semester. can you tell? cue the hopefully many changes on this blog so i can practice my newfound skillz.

chivalry

last night i woke up at 4:05 and was wide awake. just sitting there, letting my mind buzz around and get over the very stressful near-nightmare that had woken me up. (it involved a shoot-out with some mafia-looking men and hiding in a barn, trying to protect bethany from them and waiting for them to find us.)

and i decided this:

i'm okay if chivalry is dead.

i don't want men to get my door for me everywhere i go. believe it or not, i am capable of doing it myself, and so are all the other able-bodied women out there. unless i'm carrying a huge stack of books or a very jell-y jello salad, i don't mind getting the door and i don't think a man is rude if he opens the door for himself and walks through first. not that i'm ungrateful when someone DOES open the door for me . . . it's just not necessary, you see?

one time we were with a couple that felt differently. the man would open the door for the girl when she got in the car (which is all well and good . . . tommy does the same for me) but then she would wait in the car while he walked all the way around the car to open the door for her when they were getting out. and that just seems a bit excessive to me. do people really do that?

the one date i ever went on with someone who wanted to do that, i got out of the car (not knowing his chivalrous intentions) and he made me GET BACK INTO THE CAR so he could open my door for me.

seriously.

so i'm okay if chivalry is . . . decrepit and aged. it's nice to have it sometimes, but an excess of it is just as annoying as none at all.

(i don't know why i thought so much about this at 4 am.)

but i eventually fell back to sleep.

90% work

before class yesterday, this guy in my linguistics class said,

"one time, i met an architect. and i told him, 'wow, i've always thought it would be fun to be an architect.' and the architect said, 'yeah, i thought it would be too--but it turns out that just like everything else, it's about 90% work.' and that's what i've found out about everything--i took this class because i thought linguistics would be fun, but turns out it's about 90% work."

i keep seeing these cool and amazing opportunities for education everywhere that i want to do after i graduate. (a master's in publishing? cool! a master's in library science? isn't being a librarian what i'm totally cut out to be anyways? cool!) and then i have to remind myself that i'm only just barely getting myself to care about and do all the work for the master's that i'm in. and even though they look like they'd be a lot of fun--they're probably just 90% work.

you just have to decide if all the work is worth the 10% fun you have left.

prop 8

i don't usually write about things like this on this blog. i don't usually want people to take me seriously (eg, the blog title, no capitalizing, etc.). but now i'm going to school at a non-lds university, and the topic of gay marriage comes up weekly, and i sit trembling every time in case a pointed jab comes up that i have to respond to, knowing that i am the only person from california, the only person who voted on prop 8, and probably the only person who would have voted (and did vote) for it. i figured i needed to write this down (so i could know what i thought and so that i could be like my good friend sarah, who wrote about this a while ago and has made me think about it ever since). and something like this, in order to be honest, needs an audience. i'm not writing this to try and convince anyone that i'm right, though--don't take it that way. this is for me to establish what i believe, for myself and for anyone who cares. so you know, any responses (positive or negative) will be appreciated. as long as they're not hating.

it's been plaguing me for months. really, ever since we moved out of happyland provo and into the real world (like i'd been wanting to for months and years). i knew it was going to come up eventually (and again and again)--and i didn't know how to explain it. how can you explain the church's standpoint on gay marriage to a non-religious person, or to someone who stands squarely against you, firmly convinced that they're right and you're wrong? and personally, i haven't always been convinced that i'm right. i still don't even know. i've always been bad at taking responsibility for my political beliefs because i never think i'm informed enough and could never withstand close questioning or attacking. and this issue is particularly difficult for me for a number of reasons. i've ignored and avoided, protested and deliberated, and finally pondered. this resolution is not a matter of blind submission on an issue i know nothing about, but a conscious decision balanced on my intellectual beliefs and faith.

but as far as i can tell and as far as i believe, my views on the issue (not saying that this is the whole LDS church's view) stand like this: like the proclamation on the family says, marriage is ordained between a man and a woman. God created us, his children, to procreate and have families--and that can only happen between a man and a woman. i don't know why there are people who are gay, lesbian, bi, or transsexual. i know that a huge part of this issue is whether queer people choose their sexuality or whether they come out that way--i don't have the answer to that and i'm not going to try. however, it remains that in the scriptures and in modern revelation from our prophets and apostles, homosexuality is a sin and against the commandments of God. and, like in nephite times in the book of mormon, we need to guard against the laws of our country becoming corrupted and condoning sin (helaman 5:2). so, as a church, and for me as an individual, we voted to keep the definition of marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.

i am well aware that such an argument would hold little water with someone who is not religious, and that it would infuriate and convince others that i am as full of hatred towards gay people as some of those horrible, evil, twisted people who protest at gay soldiers' funerals. but it's simply not true--i absolutely do not hate any group of people, especially one who is so unfairly maligned as this one. i don't want to deny anybody the chance of the happiness that marriage brings and i don't find joy in the trials that LGBT people have in attaining the same goals that i have. it hurts and sickens me to have to make this distinction. (that's why it's taken me so long, really.)

but as much as i firmly believe in equal rights for everyone, and as much as it hurts to be classed with the ignorant bigots who hate LGBT people and who would define them as a lower class of people, i also believe in revelation from our prophet today. i believe that this issue is so difficult because it is so important--the LDS leaders would not have spoken out about such a political issue if it weren't. as tommy said the other day as we were discussing this, if we (as mormons) really believe that our church is the one true church on the earth, led by God's one mouthpiece, isn't that really all we need to know? (although, disclaimer: i don't think that should be an excuse to follow blindly without deciding what you believe for yourself.)

so i've really decided which side i'm going to stand on. finally.


edit: kylie sent me this link to the church's response to the human rights campaign after elder packer's talk at gc. it is awesome. and says a lot of what i was trying to say as well.

writing

sometimes i hate school. i hoped that starting grad school would mean harder/more interesting classes that would MAKE me like them, but that really didn't happen. (maybe next semester? i never give up hope.) it's times like this that make me really really glad that i'm not signed up for a six- to seven-year phd program and just a two-year master's instead. (i just know i'll be glad i did this master's someday. even if i sometimes hate it now.)

BUT I WILL SAY that i am very. very. VERY appreciative of what i have learned at school. and the best things that i've learned (in a very general sense) are

1. how to think
2. how to write.

a few weeks ago, i was contemplating what would happen if i decided not to finish this masters (relax, i'm not dropping out, it was a hypothetical question on an evening of procrastination and school-loathing). and i realized i had NO JOB OPTIONS. then i began to appreciate (just a LITTLE TINY BIT) grandpa murphy's constant warnings and jabs about my useless english major over the last four years. (but don't tell him; i don't want to give him the satisfaction.) because i realized, wow, an english major actually IS kind of useless.

but then i thought, no. it's really not. it may be useless in the whole i-know-exactly-what-job-i'm-getting-after-i-graduate world, because of how broad and non-directive it is. but it has NOT been useless because of these two incredibly, extremely useful skills that i've learned and honed and perfected (ha) over the last 4.5 years of my life. of course you learn these skills in other majors. but this is the way that it worked best for me.

anyway, the whole point of all of this is that I AM SO GLAD THAT I KNOW HOW TO WRITE. and no, i don't mean creative writing (i don't do that, not even a little bit)--i mean, real, real writing--expressing myself and arguing something and organizing my thoughts and backing up my ideas and coming to a solid conclusion. i can't make a good argument or explain myself very well in person or through talking, but i can, i really can, when i write it out.

example: a few weeks ago, i wrote an email to a friend. it was a very long email about a very complicated subject. i didn't even know how i felt about the whole topic before i started. but as i wrote and wrote and wrote, the writing figured out my ideas for me and after i finished, i knew what i was thinking. i know there's a quote somewhere that's something like, "how can i know what i'm thinking without seeing what i write?" and it is very. true.

so i guess that's the real reason why i have this blog. and why i've (very recently) started writing in a journal again. and why i'm glad i was an english major. and why i'm going to stop procrastinating and start writing this stupid paper. maybe i'll come up with some ideas as i go.

feminist.

i've been thinking a lot about this lately. clearly.

as a kid, i never doubted that i was allowed and encouraged to become whatever i wanted to be. i always felt like i was capable of doing anything. if i wanted to be a doctor, i could. if i wanted to wanted to be a stay at home mom, i could. i always knew i had the choice and that i should do what i wanted to do. i never felt restricted in my options because i was a girl instead of a boy. it was never a question in my mind that i was equal to the boys that were in my classes--i might not be able to beat them in the northwood jog-a-thon, but i for sure could beat them in a spelling test or our next math quiz. i'm really grateful to my parents for always fostering that self-confidence in me, because since i've moved away from home i've met too many women who never had that knowledge given to them.

so i've always thought that women are equal to men. this doesn't seem quite that radical to me. i recently read feminism defined this way: "if you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist." this actually seems quite logical to me--i strongly believe that this is true. and i think this goes right along with the doctrine of the church. we are all sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, and i have a hard time believing that He would favor his sons over his daughters. or vice versa.

so i guess i'm a feminist, and i like that.

but i mean, seriously, why shouldn't men and women be equal? we may be different, but we are quite capable of doing (almost) all of the same things (excluding birthing babies and other specifically physiological abilities). it seems strange to me that people today would disagree with this idea. and i don't think a lot of people today would, at least out loud or consciously.

but too many people at byu, both men and women, don't actually believe that. too many girls come to byu saying they want to go to college but actually just wanting to get married as soon as they can so that they don't have to actually work for themselves after they graduate. too many guys expect the girls to feel that way and get offended when they don't. it's okay if you feel that way--but not if you force it on other people who don't.

i've had people tell me that they thought it was a waste of time and money for me to go on to graduate school, that i should just get some kind of job to pay for tommy's grad school. because i'm a girl. (don't worry, tommy doesn't think that. at all.) i've had someone else tell me how he broke up with his girlfriend because she wanted to get a phd. because she's a girl. i have a great lds friend who's going to usc, who's cute and funny and spiritual and downright amazing, and the lds boys there don't date her. because she wants to be a doctor. and she's a girl, so who wants to support their wife going through med school? a girl in my english class had her advisor (a man) say to her, when she signed up for the english major, "oh, so what are you going to do? be a mom?"

because she's a girl. so what else could she want to do?

this is not okay. this is unfair and unjust and wrong. maybe she does want to be a mom. but how can you limit her to only one role? when a boy applies to a major at byu, i guarantee you no one, no one in the history of BYU, has ever asked, "oh, what are you going to do? be a dad?" if men and women are equal, then shouldn't women be able to go to graduate school without that kind of response? shouldn't people be celebrating that women want to go to graduate school and that they can go to graduate school? we aren't forced into doing anything we don't want to unless we limit ourselves. shouldn't people be celebrating that we have options?

i think they should. i'm not saying that all women need to go to grad school--people should be able to do what's right for them. and if it is more school or working or staying at home or all of the above at the same time--more power to you. i'm just grateful i live in a time when i can choose all of the above--because i want to get more school. and work. and be a mom. i want to do everything. so i'm going to try.

so, what are you going to do with that?

one of the worst things about being an english major is that everyone asks, "so, what are you going to do with that?" i usually just say, "no idea," because it's true. they say the same thing about how i'm applying to grad schools: "so, what are you going to do after grad school?" still, no idea. i didn't choose this major based on what i wanted to do with it. i chose to major in english because i LIKED it. and i still do like it. i didn't choose it because i thought i would be able to start making money from it as soon as i graduated. it would be nice if i really loved nursing or chemical engineering and wanted to major in either of those, because then i would be assured of some kind of job when i graduated, but i don't love those things, so i'm not studying them. but let me tell you--i didn't choose english because it was easy. it's not, not if you're doing it right.

some people (probably most people) at BYU look at their education as something to get through so that they can get into the work force and start making money. they complain about their GE classes and major in business management so that they look like they're going to become contributing members of society. which really is fine, but doesn't mean that everyone has to do that.

i think that education should not be meant only to increase your earning power in the marketplace. it should expand your mind, improve your ability to think critically, introduce you to new ideas and concepts you never would have encountered otherwise. you should be able to think about moral, ethical, political, social issues and decide your own stance on them, based on all of your available information. education should help you to not only be a monetarily contributing member of society, but also a CRITICALLY THINKING and ETHICALLY INDEPENDENT member of society--someone who can make their own decisions based off of what you believe and you alone.

but most of all, you should love your education. if you don't love it, you're probably not studying the right thing. that's why i'm majoring in english and (hopefully) going to grad school to study it some more, not so that i can "do" something with it.