(no subject)
I feel like I keep giving people the impression that I'm depressed. I'm not, really. It's just that a) I've been thinking a lot and b)I don't have a niche here yet.
Addressing a):
I've been trying to resolve a desire to be more observant jewishly with issues of gender and sexuality. Orthodox Judaism very much embraces binary gender, and I was very much raised with a "men and women are equal" idea. I'm not sure to which I subscribe.
This difference in perspective is also present in the feminist and transgendered movements. Examples: Should women have the right to vote because we're purer than men or because men and women are equal and therefore both should be able to vote. The idea of a woman trapped in a man's body (or vice-versa) only really makes sense if there are concrete ideas of women and men -- if gender is binary than there's no reason for a butch woman or an effeminate man to change his or her biology.
Addressing b):
I don't really expect to have good friends here yet, I've only been here 1.5 months, but I don't even have a group with which I can comfortably hang out. That's slowly changing, but I hope to accelerate the process by choosing a more social dorm for next year.
All of that (plus stress from classes and lingering transfer-paperwork) means that, if asked how I like WM so far, I'm not going to give a very positive response.
Actually, I don't think that I've given the impression of being depressed to any of the people who read this regularly, but eh, it's my journal so I can write about this subject if I want to do so. :P
Oh, and I FINISHED MY PHYSICS PSET! They're always due midnight Friday (Thursday night), and I'm usually doing them at 11:30pm Thursday. We have a test Friday, though, so I wanted to get the pset out of the way to give myself time to study (not to mention sleep), and it was relatively painless. I'm a little p.o.-ed because two of the problems, in order for the computer to register them as correct, had to be answered with the wrong number of sig.figs. I don't appreciate the unnecessary stress of having to guess whether I somehow made a mistake or whether the computer is just dumb. Ahwell, I got it, the problem set is done, and this unit actually makes a decent amount of sense to me (possibly due to the fact that so far we haven't really gone into much more depth than with Mr. Rose :)).
Oh, right, chemlab for the rest of the semester should involve pretty colors, and that's spifferific. The semester is divided into analytic chemistry and synthetic inorganic chemistry. We're now in the later. One of the things we made today looked kinda like V8 (prior to filtration)...
If any of you were wondering, this entry is largely my unwinding before going to bed.
I need to remember to ask Adler about the MD Shabbaton -- I think it's the same weekend as the March for Women's Lives (for which Laura is coming to DC). Either way I should be able to go (and thereby see Laura), but the details of transportation will depend on whether I'm already in CollegePark.
Addressing a):
I've been trying to resolve a desire to be more observant jewishly with issues of gender and sexuality. Orthodox Judaism very much embraces binary gender, and I was very much raised with a "men and women are equal" idea. I'm not sure to which I subscribe.
This difference in perspective is also present in the feminist and transgendered movements. Examples: Should women have the right to vote because we're purer than men or because men and women are equal and therefore both should be able to vote. The idea of a woman trapped in a man's body (or vice-versa) only really makes sense if there are concrete ideas of women and men -- if gender is binary than there's no reason for a butch woman or an effeminate man to change his or her biology.
Addressing b):
I don't really expect to have good friends here yet, I've only been here 1.5 months, but I don't even have a group with which I can comfortably hang out. That's slowly changing, but I hope to accelerate the process by choosing a more social dorm for next year.
All of that (plus stress from classes and lingering transfer-paperwork) means that, if asked how I like WM so far, I'm not going to give a very positive response.
Actually, I don't think that I've given the impression of being depressed to any of the people who read this regularly, but eh, it's my journal so I can write about this subject if I want to do so. :P
Oh, and I FINISHED MY PHYSICS PSET! They're always due midnight Friday (Thursday night), and I'm usually doing them at 11:30pm Thursday. We have a test Friday, though, so I wanted to get the pset out of the way to give myself time to study (not to mention sleep), and it was relatively painless. I'm a little p.o.-ed because two of the problems, in order for the computer to register them as correct, had to be answered with the wrong number of sig.figs. I don't appreciate the unnecessary stress of having to guess whether I somehow made a mistake or whether the computer is just dumb. Ahwell, I got it, the problem set is done, and this unit actually makes a decent amount of sense to me (possibly due to the fact that so far we haven't really gone into much more depth than with Mr. Rose :)).
Oh, right, chemlab for the rest of the semester should involve pretty colors, and that's spifferific. The semester is divided into analytic chemistry and synthetic inorganic chemistry. We're now in the later. One of the things we made today looked kinda like V8 (prior to filtration)...
If any of you were wondering, this entry is largely my unwinding before going to bed.
I need to remember to ask Adler about the MD Shabbaton -- I think it's the same weekend as the March for Women's Lives (for which Laura is coming to DC). Either way I should be able to go (and thereby see Laura), but the details of transportation will depend on whether I'm already in CollegePark.