Okay, so i didn't take pictures of my apartment. Tough.

I cleaned up Christmas this last weekend, because I knew that it was going to be one of the few when I wouldn't have a billion homework and a tall man to help me put things away. Sorry, guys.
The first week and a half of school has been rather uneventful. Except for one big thing: this is the longest I've ever lasted in a semester being entirely caught up in the readings and assignments for all my classes!!! WAHOOO! Yeah, I should get, like, a medal or something.
Mike's MCAT prep course started last night. I even stayed after work to plan a presentation with my group from ELang for this morning, and didn't get home until about 6:30, and I still had three hours to get whatever I wanted done before husband showed. This is going to be a very long semester. I realized later that I had forgotten to turn the sound back up on my phone, and that Mike's sister, Amy, had called me, but I missed it. Bummer. Maybe you should call me Thursday evening, Amy. I'll need some human interaction. :)
Today for my 202 class (World Literature after 1500), we were supposed to read 1 1/2 acts of Othello, which I have read several times, including for my Shakespeare class last year. Thus, during the discussion, I got all deep on Iago and whatnot, and I have a suspicious feeling that most of it was way over the heads of the majority of the class (they're not English majors). It was fun, though. I felt all knowledgeable.
You know what's fabulous? Having access to a personal computer all day on campus so I don't have to wrestle with somebody for a lab computer. All I have to do is close the door to my office so people don't try to do work with me. It's very convenient. Most days when I come here I do homework, but today I needed to blog.
I feel like I complain a lot on this blog. If you reader types feel the same way, I'm really sorry. To make up for it, I'm going to pull a Sister Nettles and talk about the things I'm grateful for today.
I am grateful for an amazing husband who is authorized and worthy to give me priesthood blessings, sometimes more often than others would think. I am especially grateful for what a good man he is; he's righteous, kind, ambitious, protective, fun, and is always there ready to hold me when I really need him to, even if he should most definitely be studying. I'm grateful for friends around me who are so open and kind and invite us to things. I'm grateful for a solid job, where I'm paid decent money and I feel needed and rewarded for what I do. I'm grateful for (as much as I hate to say it) school, and the opportunities I have here. As much as I hate college sometimes, there are things I am able to do and learn here that I could never do anywhere else, and it will benefit me so much in the long run. I'm grateful for a family who raised me with goals, standards, and an eternal perspective, so I have made these realizations. I'm also very grateful that they love me. That's something I feel really blessed for.
Most of all, I'm grateful for my Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to atone for my sins, die and be resurrected so that I can live again. Not only does his atonement make it possible for Mike and I and our family to be sealed eternally because we can repent of our sins, but he also understands my sorrows, my sicknesses, my broken hearts. He gives me hope even when the only feeling I can find by myself is despair. Because of the Lord, the dark places of my life are made light.
You probably weren't expecting this post to end up as a serious one. But since I'm already on a roll, I'll end with one more thing.
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

I was at work before the sun came over the mountain this morning.

It's sad when you find more things wrong with living right up against the mountain than right. Just sad.
So, finals week is surviving. Mike's stressed beyond all reason, I'm working my life away, and Christmas is just around the corner . . . with not enough gifts for the people we've been assigned. Eeek!
Someday, when I get my camera back, I'll take pictures of our Christmas-decorated apartment. That's right, it's staying up through January. :)

I never thought I would have to run all the music of the ward when at BYU.

Seriously. When I first came, I discovered that a majority of the student population sings and plays the piano, and I got out of playing the piano in my ward almost entirely. I had to consciously go over to the central building in my apt. complex to practice the piano because I had no other opportunity.
But it appears that is not the case in my current ward. I know for a fact that a majority of the ward, just like in my other wards, is musically gifted and perfectly capable of playing in RS, doing musical numbers, etc. Unfortunately, fewer people admit to it.
Thus: I am part of BOTH musical numbers tonight at the Relief Society Christmas Dinner (one in a singing group and one as piano solo), I'm playing the organ on Sunday, we're singing in the choir for the Christmas Program the week after, and Mike and I are doing something musical for a Variety Show at the ward Christmas party next Friday. We're like, ultra-involved. It's crazy.
Most of these are not too stressful. Churchy musical numbers are easy to come up with (thank you, Sally Deford!!!) and playing the organ is just a matter of practicing enough before you get up there. Unfortunately, for the variety show, Mike and I want to sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which requires a rather jazzy accompaniment. I could sing and play, but that would make it LAME, and I also don't want to sing to a CD Instrumental recording. That is also LAME. Thus, we need to find an accompanist who can play jazzy piano. I even have the sheet music, so it's not like improv or anything.
*sigh!* We'll see, I guess.

Heavens, no. No no no.

The subject of this article is cougar fans of Twilight. And I don't mean BYU students.
I'm going to let the article do the rest of the talking.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/16/older.twilight.fans/index.html
Okay, I lied. I'm going to talk about it. But only briefly.
Now, there is a significant difference between reading the books, liking the books, and having racy fantasies about the books and indulging them.
We talked about it in my 365 class today, just because we were all disgusted with the people who are slobbering over the New Moon premier tomorrow. It seems one girl in my class went on a date to Olive Garden, and there was a long table full of women in their mid- to late-40's, talking about Twilight . . . and they had a full-sized cardboard cuttout of Robert Pattinson (Edward) with them, talking to it as if they were having dinner with him.
I understand needing an outlet, but sometimes it gets a little excessive. No, that's a lie. The teen and twenty-something girls whose relationships are ruined because of the impossible expectations they have gained as a result of Twilight are excessive. 40- and 50- something women who become drooling, lustful fans of Twilight are just plain creepy.

I am about to be rebellious. Muaha.

Tonight, I believe our family home evening activity is going to be decorating the apartment for Christmas. Now, I know what you're saying. It's not even after Thanksgiving, right? We shouldn't even be thinking about Christmas carols yet, right? Well, let me ask you this: what would you rather celebrate, the birth of the Savior of the World, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, or some indignant Calvinists who took a boat over to the Americas and thanked the Indians for teaching them how to plant corn before promptly killing them all off with smallpox and bayonets? Hmmm? Besides, neither of them actually happened on the days we're celebrating anyways!
I'm decorating for Christmas. Now. So there.
So, I'm writing this long paper for my 314 class (see the very scrambled post before this one), and I have been under the distinct impression all semester that it was due the monday before Thanksgiving. So I was planning and drafting accordingly. Let me tell you now, I was wrong. Last Friday, my professor gave out a revised version of the syllabus with new dates on it, because she had to move the due date. It is now the Monday after Thanksgiving. But it was moved from this Wednesday, November 18. If she had not changed the due date, I would be sitting in a very unfortuante position right now. Let me tell you, I'm very, very grateful for the syllabus change.
Funny story #2: For this aforementioned 314 class, most of the class periods for the last few weeks have been cancelled, to give us extra research and writing time. This class is from 12-1 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Well, after all this time, I just barely found out that Mike's 12-1, MWF class was first block, which means it got over two or three weeks ago, and he's had a free hour since then. We've just been hanging out, eating lunch and studying on campus, not knowing the other was doing the same. Isn't that just plain ridiculous?
Oh well. I hope that makes up for my insanely confusing post about weird literary theories. 'Tis the season, after all. :) 39 days until Christmas!!!!

Do you ever get tired of the looks of vast confusion on people's faces when you try to explain your poststructuralist papers to them?

I'm actually quite impressed by Mike's ability to comprehend my rough description of Derrida's argument in Structure, Sign and Play. Although I think I spent more time talking abjection like Kristeva . . .

So yesterday in my Psychology 111 class (I know - I'm seriously in like a quarter of the class that's not Freshmen) we were discussing Freud, and we were just hitting the part about Freudian slips when someone made a comment about last week's lecture on homosexuality, and my teacher said something about the two camps, those who consider themselves "pro-tolerance," and the "rabid anti-sexuals." I will admit, I chuckled. It was quite appropriate for the times. I'm not saying I hold to Freud and think that Dr. South has some deep-seated issue, but it was pretty funny.

I have quite an affinity for Regina Spektor today. Particularly her songs "The Call" and "Samson." Also Ingrid Michaelson's "The Chain."

As you can probably tell, my thoughts are a little scrambled tonight. I'm writing two very large papers. One, for my 314 class (which is forcing me to think critically about Great Expectations . . . blegh) is on the Victorian Feminine Ideal (i.e. Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House") and its devastating effect on our dear Miss Havisham, and I'm not particularly involved in it. It's like a glorified version of those assembly-line papers I used to write in high school. Just 15 pages longer and with more elevated vocabulary and lofty-sounding sources. The other, however, is going to be titled "Black Mothers: the Doubly-Abject." Doesn't that just sound delicious? I'm so excited! I began when we read The Feminine Mystique and Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, and I started to wonder: if the constructed ideal for mothers and wives was so destructive to the psyche of middle-class white women, what could it possibly have done to black women, who already faced such impossible expectations by not only white society, but their male counterparts as well? Oh man, let me tell you. My research has been SO fun. I have a giant pile of library books on our rocking chair, and I've already invested in some of the books that I totally love and can justify buying because they were like 4 bucks on Amazon. :)

That's my life right now.

Oh! Right now I'm listening to "I want you to" by Weezer. Let's add that to the list of approved songs. Kind of off of the general mood of the others, but still appropriate, somehow.

I am very slightly incensed.

One of the most frequent things that get complained about at BYU is the high standard. When I lived in singles' wards, it was quite a common occurence to hear some guy whining about not being able to take a test in the testing center because he didn't feel like shaving, or we hear stories about the girl with pink hair who was denied service by the library employees, or the girl whose female professor told her to change into a less revealing shirt (if a male professor had done it, she'd cry "harrassment"). All of these cases? covered in the HONOR CODE. You signed it when you came, so you have absolutely no right to complain.
But this particular action is a genuinely bad move for the University, as far as I know. You see, effective January 2010, the Women's Research Institute here on campus will be dissolved, the funding for the Institute will be given to individual research projects (mainly ORCA grants, which means science--not humanities--students) and the Women's Studies minor will now be under the jurisdiction of the School of Family Life. Excuse me while I go gag for a minute.
Not that I have anything against the good 'ole SFL. There are great things that happen there, like child development and psychology and family counseling. But as an English major who is familiar with the horrible things that have happened because of unjust inequality and classifying of the feminine ideal, not to mention as a self-proclaimed feminist, I cannot stand for the message that this sends.
You see, BYU has kind of a bad rep as far as gender equality. I mean, who hasn't heard the stereotype about girls coming to get their 'MRS' degree? Heck, I'm married. Doesn't that say something?
The Women's Research Institute was created to promote Gender Studies and equality, and to help give women - LDS women in particular - a voice in the world. I mean, I believe as much as the rest of the church that a wife and mother's place is in the home, but what about as a woman? She has just as much intellectual potential as any man, and the WRI wasn't studying how to be better wives and mothers. It was studying the place of woman in the world, trying to help her find it. That's history, political science, sociology--NOT family life.
The university keeps saying things like, "this will not diminish the strength of our women's studies program" and "we are trying to strengthen the program, not save money" but even without my feminist rantings, this is a horrible PR move. Scholars all over the country have noticed, and dissolving the WRI is particularly bad in a year when race and gender issues have been boiling back to the surface again. Probably just because they want to give the money to "useful" projects like my husband's research on Osteoarthritis. Not that they're not useful, but aren't we?
There's a meeting tonight of the gender equality club on campus, called "Parity," (at 7 in 270 SWKT if anybody in Provo is reading this!) and they're going to discuss respectful protests and petitions to take to the University. I would go, but maybe it would be more in accordance with the new Women's Studies program if I went home and cleaned the bathroom. Seriously.
Sorry this sounds so angry. I'm just a little bit upset. What they're doing doesn't sound to me like "strengthening the program." They're just creating more angry feminists.