ow.

Disclaimer: If you don't want to read my whining, I recommend you skip the following paragraph.

My eyes hurt. My back hurts. My skinned knee hurts, and so, dully, does the ankle I twisted repeatedly in high school volleyball. I don't want to do homework, I don't want to do laundry, I don't want to shower, I don't want to go to bed. I just want it to be tomorrow, and all of this to be better. Nobody loves me. Wah. Except, of course, for the people who do...

La vida es dura, say the interviewees in an anthropologist's account of contemporary Nicaragua that I read last semester, and contextually, se me hace sentir como una mierda (using the passive construction in Spanish, where it is more common, makes me feel like less of a shit - hence the bilingualism). I am so lucky in so many different ways that, like all of the offices in the campus center, it's really difficult to remember them all at one, but really tedious to go through them one at a time. And being in the mood for neither difficulty nor tedium, I may just sign off here and convince myself that it is, in fact, time for bed.

Oops... check laundry first.

hurrah for discrimination!

So. This is appalling.

EDITORIAL: Discrimination is necessary - Washington Times

Forget the message and opinion of the writer for a second - only a second, I promise - and look at the sentence structure and use of terms like "sex-changers". I'm so glad that the (thank God!) completely gender congruent people who taught this (unnamed) person instilled in him or her such a grasp of the English language. As user osamaobama commented: Amen.

Okay, now back to the argument.

Phrase 1: "States have a sovereign right to set standards governing behavioral - as opposed to immutable - personal characteristics." State sovereignty... so glad that tension has been resolved in the last 150 years since - you know - we spent a few years shooting each other over the issue. Also, characterizing gender identity as a behavioral personal characteristic" without qualification seems a little blind, given the research that points to gender identity as a biological trait. And perhaps I just haven't thought this through all the way, but it strikes me: what is an immutable personal characteristic?

Phrase 2: "Even religious organizations, under the standards cited [in ENDA], are prohibited from making employment decisions based on the worker's sex." Not to be too simple about this, or anything, but as a female, this is something I'm really happy about. Wait, you mean legislature is supporting a movement towards some kind of gender equality? Shit, son. Oh, wait. This actually means (thanks for the translation from plain English to prejudice): "that even parochial schools [oh no, don't hold them to the same standards as the rest of us irreligious heathens!] must hire she-males to teach their kindergartners." Oh no. Not the She-males.

Phrase 3: "ENDA purports to 'prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.' Clever politically correct wording aside, this is a direct attack on common sense. On some matters, it is good to be discriminating. It is right to discriminate between honesty and dishonesty, between politeness and impoliteness, between right and wrong." Thus, it is honest and right to discriminate against people who won't sacrifice the truth of their identities to comply with strictly defined social gender norms. This argument strikes the bell of historical familiarity. What do we do with these Others? Starve 'em, shoot 'em, burn 'em, gas 'em...

And I haven't even mentioned some of the viewer comments attached to this wonderful piece of journalism. Feel free to check those out on your own.

I should have spent all of this time doing my reading, but instead, I got upset, disturbed, and ultimately had a good ridicule sesh with an awesome friend.

Now: homework.

sunshine

It's really hard to be grumpy and unsure of things when the sun is shining. Now while that may not be an entirely truthful statement, it certainly communicates the correct sentiment: that the world is brighter, both literally and metaphorically (haha) when the sun is out.

As well as making me want to watch Remember the Titans, sunshine highlights the unnatural beauty of organic beings as when as the natural rhythm of some of man's creations. The grass on the field is an unrealistically potent green, and the shape of the belltower rising behind the trees echoes their shape with grace. Clearly, sunshine also distracts me from the productivity to which I must return, but its also a reminder of the value of a life beyond the black marks on the page, or the sparsely decorated walls of a classroom.

So here I am, trying to remember what the order of things should be in my mind. Spanish reading after Spanish reading, comments on a poem or two. Start outlining an ensayo? Send some emails. It all seems so mundane and colorless in comparison to the blue sky and green grass and the amber-colored leaves of the tree in front of me.

futures

I have to register for yet another semester of classes tonight, and per usual, its making me nervous by virtue of the sheer concept. I'm taking another irrevocable step onward. The unknown future is looming. Something like that.

And through absolutely no fault of their own, my friends aren't helping. One of them has is all figured out. One of them has an idea, and had the guts to pursue it. One of them has almost no idea - something more like a dream - and she took a gaping courageous step into space and is waiting for the answers. In this moment, I am feeling neither decisive or passionate enough to echo the former, nor courageous enough to be the latter. But I have to register for classes. So I feel like Future has me by the wrists and is dragging me forward, not kicking and screaming, but sullen and passively resistant.

After all, I have (4...3...) 2 years before I have to leave the safety of this institutional bubble, and the sun is shining.

vocab

I learned a new word today while doing my Spanish reading. That happens often, but it's less often that the word I learn is an English one.

Metonymic: characterized by the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive.

That's something I really enjoy about Spanish: learning new words for things; and it happens so rarely in English now, that when it does, I feel thrown for a little bit of a loop. There's also reassurance in the reminder that I really do have so much left to learn. (Plus, I've always liked the term "suit". It sounds like something Ethan Hawke's character would say in Reality Bites - good movie. Watch it.) But seriously, it's nice to have revelations about things that you've taken for granted for so long, like the language you speak every day.

It's also a welcome reminder that no matter how I may be feeling about academia, learning something new still makes me happy.