On experiences and stereotyping

Something I find really interesting is that this week, very little has happened to me personally.  I've watched a lot of YouTube videos, moved to the dorm I'll stay in over the summer, played dumb flash games on the Internet, applied for a few jobs.

Outside the walls of my dorm room, however, bigger things have happened.  The shootings in California happened last week, for instance; this has sparked a lot of controversy and discussion that I'm sure you can find online if you look up 'Elliot Rodger.' You can probably find his manifesto somewhere online as well. I've only read a few pages; I may read a bit more, but I think I'm getting the gist of it - he hates women and he needs to stop writing with disagreeing verbs. (For the record, I'm reading a copy of it here.)

It's an interesting read, I'll give him that, but I think part of Rodger's issues come from lack of apology. He stumbled into a girl at summer camp and she pushed him and swore at him; she hung out with the popular kids and didn't apologize later. Rodger didn't say he was mad because she didn't apologize - he was mad because a popular guy he had hung out with was now fraternizing with this mean girl.

I'm no expert in the field, so I'll leave the psychoanalysis to any psychology major willing to take it up. It's probably a fascinating topic.

I think that it's important to remember, though, that a few negative instances should not define one's views on an entire gender. For example, my girl scout troop took a trip to New York City near the end of eighth grade. We did a bunch of tourist-y things, including seeing a Broadway show. We took the metro back; since it was late, there was at least one person who was visibly not sober. To make a long story short, every female on our end of the car - even the six fourteen-year-olds - was offered a bouquet of flowers by a man who was clearly high.
The important thing to remember is that this is an isolated incident. That remains the only time I have been offered anything by someone hyped up on drugs; that is not the only time I have been offered flowers. Should I be wary of every man bearing flowers as a possible drug addict? Should I avoid going on the New York Subway? Should I be bolder about going on the New York Subway at night? After all, the worst that's ever happened to me is that an inebriated individual tried to relieve himself of a bouquet. They seemed to be nice flowers.

Experience is relative.

Day 6: on gender and stuff

Current Page: 39
Target Page: Please, no.
What's been happening: Second encounter with the villains. They have got a trace on the ship that a pirate captains, and which is harboring a 'fugitive' (and by 'fugitive,' I mean 'a prince who was being used as a pawn who has escaped from his cell and onto an escape pod and just happened to wind up on the King's Stiletto because that's where the other escapee was going.')
The trouble with going so slowly (and procrastinating so much) is that I can't get anywhere. It's royally frustrating. I'm going to try to boost my word count over the weekend, but I'm going to have to apologize for my lack of substance on the novel front today.

So, in other news, I'm going to do a Wild Card's Life Update today.
In the front of classes, I'm taking five next semester (six, if you're counting choir): two honors courses, a course in journalism, advanced Ancient Greek (eek!), and history 101: the sixties. I'm not sure whether to be excited or terrified. Maybe both?
In the juggling front, I have finally found success. I'm hitting a point that most people found a few weeks ago, but AS LONG AS I CAN DO STUFF FOR THE FINAL PERFORMANCE I'LL BE FINE. This point is the one where I'm not getting an epic workout from chasing my errant bean bags for half the class, and also the one where I can regularly catch more than ten times.  I also learned how to do cool things with a diabolo (photo here), which you spin really fast; one of the tricks I'm working on is to tighten the string so the diabolo goes in the air and then catch it on the string again.  I learned a cool way of starting it yesterday, as well as started (and by 'started' I mean 'tried a few times in the last twenty minutes of class and probably can't manage again because my teachers' son won't be there tomorrow') working on throwing it to a partner. This only works when we're facing each other because I'm left handed and he's right handed.


On Saturday when I was working at Train Day (because this small college town started out as a train town). For the last hour and a half I was there, I was giving a little talk inside a fake caboose - what happened where, who stayed back there, why the seats were elevated (so, when checking to make sure the cargo hadn't fallen off, the crew's heads wouldn't get lopped off by a tree branch. Yes, really), that kind of thing. I started off one group of people by asking if they had any questions. One girl asked if I was a boy or a girl.
I'm not surprised she asked that - I have short hair and I'm not as well-endowed as some girls (I'm just fine with my cup size, thanks), and my style can be very boyish at times. That day, my loose green jacket hid my v-neck shirt and orange hi-tops tend to be gender-neutral. Also, my voice was probably in a weirdly ambiguous range after talking for an hour and a half.
At the same time, I'm glad she asked. She could learn to phrase it better - 'what pronouns would you like?' rather than a question that directly correlates to the gender binary - but I'm willing to concede that point on account of the fact that she looked to be around seven. At age seven, girls can be 'tomboys' and boys can be 'girlish;' the terms 'agender' or 'genderqueer' aren't really in the common vocabulary when a kid is seven. I'm glad she asked because it meant that she knew to ask questions if she wasn't sure about something, and asking about gender is something that's important. Why? There are people who don't strictly identify as male or female. This is different from trans* individuals; in the case of trans* individuals, they tend to identify as gender A when their birth certificate and chromosomes tell the world that their sex is B. Someone who is genderqueer can be assigned the sex of A or B, but can identify as the gender AB, A+B, AAAAABBBABABAABA, or 0 (or any combination).

So that's my tangent for today. The only reason I bring the last point up (aside from the fact that it's something I've been thinking about in regards to my own life) is that I've noticed that the two leads in the Novel-Ception (the Star Wars type novel, which is turning out to be the primary story line here) tend to follow interesting gender lines. The captain of the King's Stiletto is Spencer Watkins, who runs the show now that the old captain has officially given her the title; she's probably gotten laid more times than anyone on the ship combined (her standards: 1. your gravity must not kill me; 2. you must not have any deadly viruses or bacteria; 3. you must ask politely and accept a rejection, should Spencer choose to issue one). On the other hand, the love interest, Prince Art Pennington (SHUT UP ABOUT THE PRISSY SOUNDING NAME) is... okay, he is kind of prissy. His first impression of the ship was that the cockpit needed some decoration. In his defense, it's a cramped pirate vessel and he's used to, like, palaces and stuff.

Anyhoo, that's all for tonight. Need to go to bed. Farewell.