Things lately

I seriously can't wait to go back to school. Is that crazy or what? Not that I don't love being home (because I do), but I'm really excited about my classes and everything with the Vegetarian Club and my blogsBYU project I'm starting and getting accepted to the communications department (I know I am) and a whole bunch of other crap. I feel like my sophomore year was exponentially better than my freshman year, and I'm hoping my junior year will follow that trend.

I've been buying a lot of crap lately. I got my eee pc in the mail yesterday. It was only $250 and I wanted a computer to take to campus with me because my hp pavillion makes my backpack weigh about 200 pounds. I also had to completely restore my system because everything crashed, but I upgraded it to 2 gb ram and 320 gb hard drive. So my computer(s) are pretty much awesome.

I need to save an additional $500 for clothes before I go back to school.

Also, I'm finally learning how to drive. It's about time.

I wish I still got paid for good grades

but I did get to pick a restaurant to eat at with my parents in Austin.

A in Principles of Journalism, A in Mass Communications and Society, A in News Writing, A in Doctrine and Covenants, A- in Philosophy of Religion, and A- in Mormon Women's History.

Next semester is four philosophy classes (Kant, Metaphysics, History of Philosophy II, and Philosophical Writing), Psychology of Gender, Flexibility, and Career and Grad School Prep.

And, by the way, we ate at Mother's Cafe and Garden. Go there. Seriously. Long-haired hippies play the harp for you while you eat delicious vegetarian food.

Sarah Haskins

So I recently discovered Sarah Haskins. She has these hilarious videos where she talks about the ridiculous ways companies target women.

My personal favorite?

Yogurt.



So good.

What I don't understand

I do as much feminist interpretation of scripture as the next person, but so much of the creation and fall, I don't understand.

"thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

I don't understand why I was put into this situation.

Where is justice.

Dichotomy of Culture in Provo

So after discussing this with a friend on Friday night and with a group of people in my principles of journalism class tonight, I realized that I'm not the only one who thinks a certain way about this.

There's a huge dichotomy in college student culture in Provo. On one hand, you have the "Zoobie" culture, which includes BYU students who live in the BYU Bubble. They go to all the BUYSA-sponsored events and dances, and find their identity on campus.

On the other hand, there's the Hipster culture in Provo. This culture seems to try to distance itself as much as possible from the Zoobie culture. Think downtown: Velour, Sego, Coal Umbrella, etc. I even have a name for how people who identify with this culture dress: DI Kitsch.

I've felt like, since I've come to BYU, I kind of have stakes in both cultures. However, it's hard to be in both because they seem so polarized. I always feel really, really uncomfortable when I wear a BYU shirt or jacket to a show at Velour or Muse Music because then I won't fit into that too-cool-for-BYU Hipster scene.

I love the school I go to, but I also think Provo has a great downtown culture. But since I think the former, I never feel welcome in the latter.

The next two weeks...

...are going to kill me...

...from how ridiculously stress-free they're going to be.

Seriously. I only have four actual finals to take, and one of them is writing a 4-page paper in class. The other three are actual tests. One of my classes has a final paper, which I just need to tweak my rough draft and I'll be done with it. And the other two simply don't have finals.

How awesome is this?

Re: Idealist, Pragmatic, and Cynical Feminists

So a post over at The Exponent II Blog is discussing three different types of feminism within the framework of the LDS Church. I think this topic is fascinating and would like to expound on it.

I think there are times when I fall under each category, but I feel I balance most in between pragmatic and idealist feminism. I'm pragmatic in the sense that I understand change needs to be slow, and specifically regarding church, I learn to pick my battles when someone says something I disagree with in Sunday School or when someone claims that Mormonism and feminism and mutually exclusive. I tend to compromise, especially on issues regarding family and woman's role as wife and mother.

On the other hand, I'm definitely an idealist. There have been very painful times in my life where I wished, more than anything, that we could all just understand that men and women have the exact same divine potential and that our differences are only temporal in nature.

My idealism is what keeps me faithful; my pragmatism is what keeps me going to church.

However, I can be a cynic. There are times when it seems to make more sense to believe that women are some how inherently inferior to men, and that I some how need to find a way to be okay with eternal subservience. I've been thinking about this a lot lately within the context of man and woman's intelligences and genders being coeternal with God. If gender is a law that God Himself can't transcend, then how are there differences? What in the beginning (for lack of a better, non-temporal term) caused women to be so different from men that we're inferior?

I have an analogy about my testimony in that it's like a bookshelf. I have lots of books, and some of them I really like and will read them over and over again because I understand them (like Christ as my friend, or Joseph Smith as a prophet). Other books, however, I've glanced at the table of contents or flipped through the first few pages of each chapter and realized that there's no way I can understand them. So I put them on my shelf for a future time when I'll be able to understand them. Women's seeming inherent inferiority to men seems to be growing by volumes, but perhaps one day I'll be able to pick it up, read it, understand it, and be okay with it.

Here's to hoping.