Hey everyone! It's that time of the year again - holiday card time, to be precise. :D

So, would you like a card from moi? Then leave your name and address. Also make sure to specify what holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Solstice, New Year's, etc) or if you'd just like a winter card.

Comments are locked, of course, so only you and I can see the comment you leave.

~~RA

NONE ZERO ZIP ZADA ZILCH ZIPPO. just - no. ok? no. Censorship is baaaaaaad. Got it?

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

from MSN Lifestyle:

17 Things You Didn't Know You Could Rent
From the wacky to the practical, renting instead of buying can save you serious money, as well as benefit the environment.

12. Rent a Wife

A number of companies offer "wives" for rent; Rent A Wife Ottawa has been doing it since 1987. "We provide full services in cleaning, organizing, party services and minor household repairs. 'Because every working person deserves a wife,'" explains the company.

A Belgian wife rental firm allegedly offers more racy services as well. At least one site will only rent to men, complaining that women clients are "too fussy," although others don't discriminate.

source, but go forward to page 12

WHAT. WAHT. WHAT.

MY FACE:


let me explain: WTF???????? Hiring a cleaning woman or a party planner or a repairwoman, fine, go for it. But calling that woman a "wife" is just so fucking wrong. Nice job, there, MSN, helping out these companies that perpetuate gender roles and continue this trend of making women seem like things instead of people. No, seriously, they've got rentable "wives" listed right between solar panels and caskets. Oh, and the comments? Of the ten on there currently, one is just full of spam and the other nine are all about how terrible the concept of renting DOGS is. Yeah, lots of men are upset about renting DOGS, BUT NOT WIVES. WTF, PPL? W. T. F.

/feminist disbelief

~~RA

P.S. can't wait for tomorrow so I can post this on the Shenanigans Friday post at ONTDP.

P.P.S. can't believe I don't have a "wtf" tag. Well, now I do!

Please try to understand why I'm so fucking frustrated right now.

"A theoretical prerequisite of qualitative analysis was the acceptance of a corpuscular philosophy: for if the theory of chemistry is epigenetic and permits real transformations of forms and qualities, then analysis is meaningless. The adoption of a preformationist corpuscular hypothesis implied that chemically invariant candidates were available for identification routines."

I'm a fucking theatre major, ok? and I do women's studies and gay studies. I just want to go to bed.

EDIT: "At Bonn and Erlangen...Liebig plunged into...serious study...as well as entering fully into the social life of student fraternities and their politics, and having a passionate, and possibly homosexual, friendship with the poet, August von Platin."

...WELL. YOU HAVE MY INTEREST, SCIENCE BOOK. GO ON.

Kelsey Foster
Weiss reading response assignment
GWS 101, sec 301
10.29.09

The six main reasons Weiss gives that people resist being labeled feminist are as follows: feminists are perceived as radical, worry about societal rejection, feminists are called lesbians (whether or not they actually are), social norms of femininity and masculinity which do not allow for feminism, feminists as man-haters, and feminists having negative behavioral characteristics.

I feel like I am an exception to the rule. I have been fully aware of these negative ideas about feminists for a few years now. Throughout junior high and especially high school, I quickly and proudly identified myself as a feminist because I believed in equality for women. I didn’t necessarily know the full extent of what it meant to be a feminist, but I knew I was one. Part of me has always been the type to rebel for the sake of rebelling, so the fact that feminism is often seen as negative was a bonus for me. Even my own mother and older sister, the latter of whom identifies as a feminist, still buy into the stereotypes. When I told them I was signing up for the Gender and Women’s Studies certificate, they both reacted negatively. My mom has even asked me if I’m going to start coming home with my armpit hair braided or if I’m going to become a radical lesbian.

I’ll admit I do sometimes find it hard to believe that a feminist man isn’t gay, bisexual, or queer in some other way. When it comes to women feminists, however, I don’t necessarily have a picture in my mind of her being butch, like the article talked about. I do think that plenty of feminists are louder than many women, more outspoken and aggressive, and definitely more liberal. I feel like feminism in itself is a liberal concept. The idea of a conservative feminist is absurd. Plus, some of these supposedly negative characteristics of feminist women – like being outspoken – I think are actually positives.

The stereotypes of feminists being gay or lesbian show just how closely connected misogyny and homophobia are. People wouldn’t balk at being called gay if being gay wasn’t seen as a bad thing. Much of this and other stereotypes relating to ideas of femininity and masculinity come from the media. We need to see more outspoken, aggressive women and more feminist men on TV and film, and then as a whole our society will begin to be less sexist.

Everything Weiss wrote about feminism equaling societal rejection is so true. Identifying as a feminist can open you up to so much name-calling and derision, which – often effectively – shuts down discussion. When I was a freshmen in high school, my civics class held a mock presidential election. I was selected as the Democratic Party’s candidate, with my friend Ellie as my running mate. Whenever I talked about women’s rights or gender equality, the boys running as the moderate and Republican candidates would yell about sexism. No matter how we tried to patiently explain that feminism does not equal sexism, how it is in fact the opposite, we were shouted down or waved off and laughed at as radicals. (I think it’s interesting to note that our male teacher did nothing about this.)

These immature reactions are reflected in the right-wing politicians’ and conservative commentators’ rhetoric about feminists today. Perhaps they use bigger words and have a wider audience, but the idea is still the same. Feminism is bad because it hurts men in some way. When women aren’t submissive to men, they apparently undermine men’s masculinity. When a woman talk about equality between men and women, you really just hate men and are a lesbian.

This is why “gay” is a derogatory term. “Gay” equals rejection of male privilege. Either men are giving up their privilege by not taking the opportunity to dominate women, or women are rejecting dependence on men and the idea that men are superior.

My ideas and beliefs about feminism have not changed much through this class so far. I now notice more sexism in the world. If anything I even more strongly identify as a feminist because I now have a stronger and richer understanding of what feminism means.

Reasons Today Has Been A Good Day:

1. I was going to get up at 8 AM today to go to the library to catch up on readings for my theatre for young audiences (TYA) class. Instead I put my alarm on an hour snooze, got up a 9:15, and still had time to shower, eat breakfast for once, go to the library, do today's reading, and be at class on time.

2. The weather was lovely and sunny and not too cold. A beautiful fall day.

3. Three big projects/assignments have been extended! A paper due Thursday and a group presentation on a similar topic for my feminist theatre class also to be done Thursday have been put off 'til next week Tuesday. The talk with my TA and lab partner about our lab for my drama in education class was supposed to happen today; instead we have to e-mail our lab plan by midnight tomorrow and talk with him Thursday.

4. I've figured out my Halloween costume - or should I say HalloQueen. I'm basically just going to butch it up/dress in drag: tennis shoes, men's jeans (which I have to get, I'm thinking Goodwill on State Street), white beater, a plaid shirt of Jon's, and a bandana.

5. I got to watch most of Rachel Maddow tonight. :D

Now I'm going to do some homework and eat banana bread, watch TDS and TCR, and then either go to bed early for once or do some more homework. Look at me, getting my shit together and everything.

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

OMFG fangirling silently right now because CHRIS COLFER JUST ADDED ME BACK AS A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK!!!!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I'm in the RLO, so I think shrieking in delight is a tad out of the question, but OMFG JOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. :D

Not that it's any particularly special thing, you know. He's got over 1800 Facebook friends. BUT STILL.

IT'S NO COINCIDENCE THAT "GLEE" RHYMES WITH "SQUEE!"

TV meme from colbertobsessed

( don't stop believing )

Updated my userinfo yesterday. I feel like I'm more organized in the digital world than in the real world sometimes. I try to keep all my iTunes music clearly labeled and have all the little boxes filled out: artist, track title, album title, rating, etc. And I regularly go through my documents and pictures folders to clear things off my hard drive. Yesterday I also deleted some spammy Twitter followers and left LiveJournal groups I don't really have anything to do with anymore.

And just now I got a new layout. It's very springy and summery, which I really enjoy, especially since it's now fall. Well, it's still kinda too hot here lately to truly be fall, but the nights are cool. This heat won't last too much longer.

Speaking of which I think my A/C might be broken. I've had it going constantly these past few days, but it's not really that cool in my room. It was making weird noises a few days ago, so I turned it off and back on again. It stopped making noises, but since then it's not so cool.

So I got an account on last.fm, and I'm listening to it right now, but I really think I prefer Pandora. I like how Pandora's stations can be varied, but this is, like, all the same genre per station. I like randomness. I like my music to be all over the place. Irish punk/folk rock song after Irish punk/folk rock song gets boring after awhile, unless it's really good stuff like Flogging Molly.

Anyway, my open door hours are done, so I'm going to ... I don't know, do reading I suppose. And make some flyers. And ... other... things. Possibly constructive things.

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

So I went grocery shopping last Friday with Nelson. It was great. We got tons of stuff, and I spent less than I thought I would. HOWEVER, I also fail because of the following:

1. No ranch for my carrots.
2. No lettuce or butter for sandwiches.
3. No ketchup for hotdogs.
4. The hotdog buns I bought are not pre-sliced. I have no serated knives.

However, if you get good hotdogs - which I did - they're good even without ketchup. I'm making due with a butter knife. I'm also making a new shopping list. That was my problem: no shopping list on Friday. LESSON LEARNED.

~~RA

Let them suffer!

Hey, this meme is still open if you've got any ideas of pics you want to see.

~~RA

A meme borrowed politely from polvodestrella:

Ask me to take up a picture of any aspect of my life that you're curious about. Then I'll post the pics in a LiveJournal entry.

It can be anything of my life. If you ask me about people, I'll probably give you an artsy shot of someone's leg or something like that. :)

Hi, there!

So I know that getting mail is really fun. Snail mail doesn't seem as common, what with the Interwebs and all. But it's still fun to get mail, especially at college.

Regardless of your current living situation, if you would ever like to get mail, leave your address! I'm going to lock this so only I can see the comments for safety's sake.

I'm not going to guarantee a schedule or anything, and it might be cards or it might be postcards, and it might be really random, but anyway. I have stamps and they need to be used.

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

Hi, there! I need your help. As many of you know, I'm going to be a House Fellow (also called Resident Assistant, CA, etc) in a dorm at UW-Madison. For those of you heading off to college this fall or for anyone who is in or has been to college, can you tell me what are you or were you worried about? What about living in the dorms were you excited about? Scared about? Worried about? Confused, happy, unsure about?

Even if you didn't live in the dorms, what did Freshmen you or even Sophomore you have on your mind heading off to school? If you did live in a dorm, even for only a semester, what did you like and not like about your RA? What were you thinking when you moved in?

Possible topics: roommates, bathrooms/showering, classes, books, food, other residents, exams, the party scene, alcohol, sports, weekends, jobs.

Thanks for your help, guys! I really want to make this year great for my residents - all 75 of them! - and it's good to get other people's perspectives on college and dorm life.

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

[ETA] About the previous post: I did get Simba back. :D

Justa quick note to say that at 8:30 a.m. I will be LEAVING PORTAGE FOR MADISON! YAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I'm so excited! I can't wait to move in to my new, SINGLE room and see all my friends and start training and have a more comfortable bed and be out of Portage and and and and and OH MY GOODNESS I AM EXCITED.

Okay, really got to get to bed.

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

By order of Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, I am doing my part to BURY THE LEDE.

The Lede

HI THERE. So I'm still kicking, and I have internet access! I promise I haven't given up on LiveJournal or all of you. Seriously, once I'm back at school, I'll be updating so much, it'll make up for this. I'm just here to say

OMFGI'M SO EXCITEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!! So my AMAZING WONDERFUL SPLENDIFOROUSLY FABULOUS friend Caissa from Madison is an intern at NBC 15. The other day we were talking on Facebook, and I told her about the children's theatre workshop, and she said she might mention it to the people at the station. Well, she DID, and Chris Papst e-mailed Ann who gave a note to Patrick who talked to me today during dress rehearsal, and GUESS WHAT. Saturday morning me and one of my students, Kayleigh, are going to be interviewed ON TV about the workshop!

YAYAYAYAYA! Only bad part of this: the interview is at 5:40 in the morning. :O We have to be there by 5:25am. Ah, well. It's a small price to pay for how fricking awesome this is!

I'm guessing it'll be up on the website sometime on Saturday, so I'll definitely post it here so y'all can see me hopefully not talking like a moron. EEEEEEEK! I'm excited!

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

The Twitter stream for #IranElection Shows all tweets that have "#IranElection" in them.

Twitter reschedules maintenance around #IranElection controversy This way the maintenance downtime will be around 1-2am in Tehran. It's going to mess with peak hours in the U.S., but it's worth it to keep Iranians online during their peak time.

From The Guardian: Iran: 12 students reported killed in crackdown after violent clashes

Vaclav Havel Expresses Solidarity With Iranian Demonstrators He also warns them to not "fall prey to skepticism if they do not achieve immediate results in spite of their efforts." So true.

From The Boston Globe: The Big Picture: Iran's Dispute in Pictures Some graphic stuff can be seen there. Also a picture of protestors trying to keep things calm and helping a hurt riot police officer. Those pics make me hopeful that things can be peacefully resolved, at least eventually.

A quick BBC video report on Iranian protests

This has been very much on my mind all day, even during the children's theatre meeting. I've been following the Twitter #IranElection stream and retweeting a lot. The latest: Users around the world are changing their timezones to Tehran and location to Tehran or Iran to mess with the censors. Also, people are no longer using Twitter usernames when retweeting from an Iranian's account. Instead, they're just doing "from Iran" or "RT Iran" to keep those users safe.

I've been telling myself to relax, breathe. There's not really anything constructive I can do right now besides stay informed. I've been getting angry with the mainstream media for not spending more time on this subject. I changed my Facebook profile pic, my Twitter userpic, and my default icon here, and I also put up a new, all-green layout. It's really all I can do to support them.

And lastly, joy: Rachel Maddow is wearing a green shirt tonight. :D

Peace and love,
~~RaggedyAnndy~~

PLEASE wear green tomorrow to show support for the Iranian protestors and Mousavi.



Twitter trending topic: #IranElection to stay abreast of the latest.

STAY STRONG!

hi. back in portage. sucks. not working all week b/c didn't change my availability for the summer in time. ah, well. picked up a few hours tomorrow night. not much time to be online, but i'll be here when i can.

much love
~RaggedyAnndy