Adulting

I realize that it's been a while since I've posted anything here, because, in part, I've been lazy and writing takes energy, but mostly, I think, it's because I've had a pretty good summer, and I have found that I have less of a compulsion to write when I'm doing well and feeling good. For the most part, this summer was good, one of the best summers I've had in a long time in fact. Both [Totally a Cat] and [Keeper of All Knowledge] were in town for the majority of the summer, so I had people to do things with, and I had positions in two labs which gave me something to do during the day. Even if it was annoying to have to get up early, walk a mile to the bus stop, and then take the bus to campus every day, it was worth it, because more than anything, I need something productive to do with my time, or I get restless and depressed sitting at home doing nothing all day.

That's the trap I often find myself in during the summer, and I was glad to mostly avoid it this year. But that doesn't mean that I haven't had things on my mind, which now, with the semester fast approaching and more and more people leaving to go abroad, combined with some recent events that have brought some stuff I thought I had dealt with back up, are starting to trigger that old anxiety that eats away at me during those quiet, boring times. More so than anything, I've been thinking a lot about my life goals and such, what I actually want to do with my life, and who I want to be. I'm old enough to be considered an adult by pretty much every culture in the world, despite the fact that my government doesn't yet trust me to buy or consume alcohol for some reason. But I don't really feel like an adult. I've always thought that  I would have things figured out by the time I was 20, but I'm starting to realize that I may never really have things fully figured out.

I realized recently that I have no end goals. The innocuos enough question of what my dream job is left me stumped. I've never been much of a planner, dreaming of who I would be. I was never the kid who dreamed of her wedding or anything like that, because I can't really picture a future that is any different than the present, and the few times that I have allowed myself to picture things farther out than a couple of weeks, I've built up hopes that only came crashing down around me. I don't know if it's because I lack a sense of whimsey or creativity like people often tell me ("you're just too science minded to understand this art/feeling/existential thought") which I don't really believe (I am fully capable of understanding art and philosophy, I just think that a lot of it is dumb, and I get frustrated by people who deny reality in favor of fantasy; I have a hard time truly suspending disbelief) or if it's because I have learned to embrace the status quo as a defense mechanism (if things are fine the way they are, why risk getting hurt on only the off chance that things might get better?). I'm generally a fairly conservative person when it comes to my words and actions. It takes me a long time to get comfortable with people or situations, and even with my closest friends, I still often go over things in my head several times before saying them, particularly anything with any emotional weight, because I don't want to offend or be misunderstood, which is not to say that I'm articulate or at all a successful communicator. Why upset the status quo when things are going fine?

Regardless of the reason, I realized that I don't know where I want to be in ten years, or what I want to do with my life. I know I want to go to grad school and get a PhD and I know that I want to be interviewed on NPR, which is my person metric of success, but I don't know what I want to get a PhD in, or what I want to do with that degree, and as I was so kindly reminded, that is not an actual end goal. That is a stepping stone to something else eventually. It is a way of insulating myself in school, where I'm confortable, embracing the bubble, and avoiding the real world for five to seven more years. I mean, what other reasons do I have for wanting to go to grad school, when I really think about it? Outside of the fact that I can't let myself not pursue the highest degree available in my field, or that I need to prove to myself that I can do it, to banish the gnawing fear that I'm not actually as intelligent as I seem, but just am good at memorizing and parroting back random, somewhat useless trivia that sometimes overlaps with course requirements. But that's probably just my insecurities talking.

When I really think about it, despite a few brief forays into wanting to be a writer or an artist, I spent most of my childhood wanting to do something that related to science. When other kids were busy wanting to be giraffes when they grew up, I wanted to break the laws of physics, whatever that meant. On career day, I would go as an inventor or a superhero/villan when everybody else was busy dressing up as the president. I watched the PBS science show Nova for fun, and once forced my parents to take me home early from some event because I wanted to watch the special on the Human Genome Project. I duct taped a lawn chair to a skate board and used the handles of croquet mallets to propel myself around the neighborhood, because I was inventing things, dammit, never mind practicality!

I'm happy with my major, and I do want to go to grad school truly, but sometimes I wonder if I should have more of a plan for myself. If I can't picture myself in a situation that is at all different from my current one, will I ever be able to change where I'm at? Will I ever be able to see and take the opportunities that are in front of me? Or will I only be able to maintain the status quo, for better or for worse?

Geeking Out

I know I've been bad about posting things lately, Imaginary Readers, and I don't really have an excuse, other than a week in the North Woods without internet access, but I'm okay with that. Frankly, as I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to use this space as an outlet for my angst, which works, but means that I post more when I'm not doing so well, and, almost surprisingly, I've been feeling pretty good so far this summer. Having something productive to do every day (lab work) is good for me, as it keeps me from wallowing in self-pity at home all day, and when you add in having [Keeper Of All Knowledge] and [Totally a Cat] in town for the summer and hanging out with them, it makes for what is probably the best summer I've had in a long time, so far at least. Don't worry, Imaginary Readers, I am trying to still post things here, but I just haven't had much to say lately that isn't super repetitive of my previous meanderings, and I think it is better for now to only say things when I have something to share, rather than to force something more frequently. Anyways, on the the main event of this post.

Us with Tamora Pierce (middle)

This past weekend, [Keeper of All Knowledge], [Totally a Cat], and I went to CONvergence, a local sci-fi/fantasy convention here in the Twin Cities that serves pretty much the entire upper mid-west outside of Chicago, and it was awesome! While we had thrown around the idea of going when we were idly planning stuff to do this summer, we decided that we had to go when we found out that Tamora Pierce was one of the guests of honor this year. Sometime last year we all discovered that we had a mutual love of her books, to the point that we had a Tamora Pierce reading group last summer lovingly named "Ladies of the Knight" because we are just that cool, although I only made it through Song of the Lioness, the first quartet, and the first two books of the Wild Magic quartet before giving up on my reread. One thing that was quite apparent from the panels that we went to on her work and just our experience with it in general, is that she seems to have the quietest fandom ever. Over and over, people said that they thought that they were the only ones who liked her books, and they were pleasantly surprised to find that they had a decent sized following. This is unfortunate, because it's always better to have people to talk to about the stuff that you love, but understandable to me, in that, although she is one of my favorite authors, and the Tortall books were an important force in my adolescence, I rarely talk about them when discussing things like favorite books and fantasy series. I'm not sure why this is, other than an inherent assumption that no one else has heard of them, which perpetuates the problem. Her books are awesome, particularly for young girls who are into fantasy, because they are populated with strong female characters, who are sorely lacking in YA books, and I strongly recommend them to anyone who hasn't read them before.

Two Caps and a bunch of War Bond girls

Also, Tamora Pierce is hilarious to listen too. She's a great speaker, and can only be described as feisty. She never shies away from controversial topics, and makes her opinion quite clear. We were super excited to meet her, and managed to be the first ones in line for the book signing, without getting their ridiculously early or anything. I got one of [SisterBot]'s books signed, as well as one of my own, which pretty much means that she can never be mad at me again. We also got our picture taken with her after a panel on her characters, which was equally cool, and had the mystery of how to pronounce her name cleared up: the emphasis is on the first syllable, not on the 'o.'

Just some of the many Avengers present

While all the Tamora Pierce stuff was super awesome, the rest of the weekend was pretty amazing too. We went in costume, because it's more fun that way, with [Totally a Cat] going as first the Eleventh Doctor then as Liz X from that one episode of Doctor Who, [Keeper of All Knowledge] going as Zoe from Firefly, and me as Kel from Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series. People really get into the costumes, and there were some amazing ones, like the Madam Vastra costume that definitely made [Totally a Cat] and I squeal for about 30 seconds, and the super awesome Captain America who looked strikingly like Chris Evans, and spent the entire time in character as Cap, telling people to buy War Bonds and saluting people when he left. The main thing that struck me about the costumes was the sheer abundance of boobs. I really shouldn't have been surprised, given the types of things that female characters tend to wear in comics and other media, but the sheer number of corsets and what can only be described as bikinis on display was quite impressive, if somewhat distracting. There were some truly impressive displays of boobs defying gravity itself, as well as many other examples of somewhat questionable costumes, where I was left wondering if they were really a character from something or had just elected to wear bondage gear. Also, furries. This isn't to say that I have any particular problem with bondage gear or furries or any of the other somewhat strange things that people did, as CON is a safe place to let all of your particular geek flags fly, including some of the kinkier ones, and geeky and kinky do tend to go hand in hand, but there were times when I was left wondering about whether people had just used something like bondage gear to approximate the leather straps on a particular character's outfit, or if they had just decided to eschew costumes for their leather codpieces, because sometimes it was confusing.

The aforementioned squeal worthy Madam Vastra (from Doctor Who)

We also ran into [Nice Vest] and [The Cool CA] there, and we hung out with them a bunch, because we really haven't seen them much this year, and they're pretty cool. They had come with a whole group of people, and had at least three different costumes each, so they didn't repeat day to day. The panels and events were fun, and [Nice Vest] directed us towards an unscheduled sing-a-long screening of Once More With Feeling, the musical episode from Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, which was awesome, and at night the place basically turned into one giant party, with sketchy bottles of what was presumable mostly alcohol being passed around freely, although we didn't end up staying all that late. It was totally worth the ticket price ($60 because we bought them early enough) and the price of the hotel room we split, and they provided enough real food that outside of the ticket and the hotel, there was no need to spend more money unless you wanted to buy something in the merch room, where the wares were both high quality and reasonably priced. It was a super fun weekend, and we have already begun to come up with ideas for costumes for next year, because planning is necessary. Everybody was super nice, because when you put geeks in Minnesota you can't really have a nicer group en masse, which definitely enhanced the experience. I can't believe that I haven't gone before, and I'm super excited to go again. Really, if you haven't already, you should definitely check CONvergence out if you're in the Twin Cities area, because it is super awesome. Okay, I'll stop gushing now.

Re-Writing

I hope this is legible. Click to enlarge.

Many Happy Returns

First up this post we have a little bit of business to take care of: I now have a tumblr blog because I was literally so bored on the internet that I needed yet another black hole of procrastination to be spagettified by, and also, I do quite enjoy funny pictures and gifs and so it was tumblr or pinterest, and I just couldn't bring myself to tacitly approve of a pin board themed social networking site by using it, so that left tumblr.  If you are interested, Imaginary Readers, in a pictorial depiction of my psyche, or are just so inclined, you can view/follow it at blackholesyposium.tumblr.com. And yes, it does have the same name as this blog, because I am nothing if not creative, and I am attempting to cultivate a vast online empire in ten to fifteen years, so I need to sow the seeds now by keeping things consistant.

Anyways, it was my twentieth birthday this past week, which means that my age is no longer a prime number, but rather a nice and round one. I generally enjoy birthdays, except for the way that everybody tries to force me to decide what I want to do, and this one was pleasant, but I find the whole getting older thing kind of weird. It's probably that whole gradual change thing, but I never feel any older, just the same as always, yet whenever I picture myself at a given age that is greater than my current age, I always assume that I'll be different somehow than I am now, but, inevitably when I reach said age I end up feeling the same. That's not to say that I haven't changed at all, because a lot happened in the last year, and I know that I have changed quite a bit just in the last twelve months and even more in the last two years since I started college, but I feel somewhat static. It can probably just be chalked up to the fact that my base personality that makes up who I am hasn't really changed, as I don't think most people's do substantially over the course of their lifetime, but it is something that has always struck me.

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I've started to really feel the rhythm of the summer the past week or so, and despite the fact that I've established a decent routine for myself of going to campus into one of the two labs I work in each week day, I have started to feel the listlessness of the summer sneaking up on me already. I know that a decent part of it right now has to do with the sheer boredom that comes with these dead couple of weeks before summer classes bring people back to campus and the cities. This week in particular has let the lonely boredom turn into lonely sadness as it is wont to do when I'm at home, because [Totally a Cat] is in DC for the week, [Keeper of All Knowledge] has yet to return to the cities from her time at home for her brother's graduation, and [Львица] just left for Russia for the summer, leaving me with minimal options for people to use as a distraction. [Totally a Cat] and [Keeper of All Knowledge] will both be back by the end of this week and we will hopefully start actually checking things off our list of things to do this summer, and then I will have somewhere to go when I need to get away from my family for a while, but I'm really going to miss [Львица] this summer. Especially since she's also going to be in Russia all of next year, leaving only August for me to see her at all for the next year. One of the best parts of last summer for me, Berlin notwithstanding, was hanging out with her, and I'm going to miss that. She's probably tied with [Keeper of All Knowledge] for my closest friend, and I'm going to miss her.

It doesn't help that because I am insecure about my ability to make and maintain friends, particularly close friends, I am paranoid that when people leave for decently long periods of time I'm not going to be able to stay in touch with them and will ultimately lose them. I know that I can stay in touch with people when they go abroad, particularly because of the wonders of the internet, but because I already feel weird about simple things like texting people for no other reason than I want to talk to them, doing things like sending someone an email makes me more uncomfortable than I care to admit. It's something I am aware of, and need to get over, but that doesn't make it any easier. I guess I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because all of my close friends are going abroad next year, which makes me anxious because in my head my relationships are a lot more fragile than they probably actually are. As previously mentioned, [Львица] is going to be in Russia for the better part of the next year, and I am going to miss her a ton, and [Keeper of All Knowledge] is going to be in Argentine in the Spring, which is going to be difficult because I've gotten really close to her over the past year and she is one of the few people I feel totally comfortable with and with whom there has never been any weirdness, and finally [Totally a Cat] is going to be in Copenhagen in the fall which means I won't have anyone to stay up pointlessly late and snuggle with.

Everybody's talk of going abroad also makes me wish that I hadn't wasted a year and a half on engineering so that I would have time to go abroad for a semester, but because I didn't make plans soon enough, because I didn't think I would have time, I missed that boat. Maybe I'll look at grad programs abroad or something. I just need to spend some time away from Minnesota eventually. I can't go to grad school here, because I'll be in grad school for the better part of five years, and wherever I go is going to impact where I end up living and working after school, and I can't stay here forever, always within ten miles of where I grew up and where my parents live. I need to get out of the midwest for a decent amount of time, even if, like all of my cousins who move away, I end up coming back eventually. The world is too big to stay in Minneapolis for my entire life.

May Days

The semester ended a little over a week ago, and I've been home since then, as the dorms closed eight hours after I finished my last final. Finals were stressful, as always, but I did finally manage a 4.0 semester, which I was happy about because it means that the trendline of my GPA has a statistically significant R^2 value. I made a graph of my GPA since I started college, not including summer term or the CIS German classes I took in high school, to illustrate this point, because I don't think people have really understood exactly what I mean when I say that my grades were trending towards a 4.0 this semester, although I'm not totally sure what this observed trend means with regards to my remaining 4 semesters. I'd like to think that my GPA will max out and achieve steady state at 4.0, but I highly doubt that as all of my Chemistry electives from here on in will be courses designed for graduate students that they allow undergrads to enroll in for major credit. Also, advanced labs.

So far, being home for the summer hasn't been as bad as I expected, but it's only been a week and the [SiblingBots] have yet to finish school, so it's been quiet around the house on the days I'm home. I have also successfully managed to be out of the house most days, as I have been going to campus nearly every week day to work in the lab, which is nice because it gives me something productive to do, and gets me out of the house at a reasonable hour. I like being on campus during the summer, because it's quiet and it's possible to enjoy the mall without there being several thousand people around, which also makes it significantly easier to find seating in Coffman. Campus during the summer is green and peaceful, and so far the weather has been nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the sun without significant amounts of wind or exorbitant heat.

This pretty much sums up how I feel when I'm at home (via)

It has been kind of weird being home though, because, to a certain extent, it feels exactly like last summer, when I was going to campus for summer classes and wandering around feeling sorry for myself when I wasn't in class. A couple of times now I've been driving and a song will come on (yes, I do listen to music when I drive, Imaginary Readers, as crazy as that seems, I just don't listen to the radio) and I'll have this flash of feeling, like absolutely nothing has changed in the past year and I'm exactly where I was last summer, which always leaves me kind of thrown. I know that it's just that I'm at home, and I spent all of last summer having lots of strong feelings about some things, so I'm bound to associate some of the patterns I have fallen back into with those feelings, but I don't really like it, because, in fact, a whole lot has happened in the past year and I don't feel the same way now that I did then, despite the fact that I'm having (different) feelings about some of the same stuff/people. It's weird to all of the sudden be experiencing old emotions, especially ones that aren't all that great, because for the most part, I've been feeling pretty decent lately, and when that happens, it brings up a lot of old insecurities and issues that I don't really want to be dealing with right now, because they aren't actually relevant to my current situation, and are generally bringing my down.

Despite all of my whining, there are some nice things about being home, including getting to spend time with [SisterBot] who I've gotten fairly close to recently. It's nice to talk to her, particularly since we both have the same issues with the [ParentalUnits] and [BrotherBorg], and it's nice to be able to talk to her about stuff that other people don't get because they didn't grow up in my family. Like about how [MaternalUnit] saw the Marvel comics shot glass set [Львица] gave me for my birthday and automatically assumed I would be using them for storage, because I don't ever do shots or drink when I'm not at home with my parents (which I totally don't if you're reading this [MaternalUnit]).

Anyways, this summer has started out okay, and I hope that it continues that way. Mostly, right now I want [Keeper of All Knowledge] to get back from Wisconsin so I don't feel so pushy about asking [Totally a Cat] to hang out, but there is a strong possibility that any weirdness between [Totally a Cat] and I recently is completely in my head. I should probably also stop reading books about fundamentalist Christianity, because that just doesn't seem healthy, and several people now have thought that I meant I was thinking about converting when I told them about said books. (Rest assured, Imaginary Readers, I am not going to convert to fundamentalist evangelical Christianity because that just wouldn't end well for anybody involved, and if I ever do, I give you permission to kidnap and deprogram me because it really would be for the best).

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Stressing Out

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Not sure which I like more...(via)

Yesterday was the first day of finals, which meant I had my calc test Monday afternoon as all the calc finals are always from 1:30-4:30 on the first day of finals. It's kind of weird to think that I am now completely done with calc, after four semesters, given that I've always had a math class. I like math, especially calculus, but there's no more for me to take without it being scary math major classes that require proofs and other annoying bits of abstract thinking. Granted, I will eventually have to take Quantum Mechanics which is mostly math, and there will be plenty of math to do in my remaining classes, but none of them will be actual math classes, and that makes me kind of sad. But not sad enough to be a math major.

Anyways, finals always bring an inordinate amount of stress with them, and this iteration is no different.
I just want this week to be over so I can be done with what has increasingly become a very long year, but I also don't want it to be done, because being done means going home for the summer, which is something I'm not particularly looking forward to. It's not that I don't like my family or anything, it's just that I don't like being home, and the fact that every time I talk to [SisterBot] she tells me how much this summer is going to suck doesn't help. Apparently [MaternalUnit] and [BrotherBorg] have been at each other's throats lately, and when they fight, there's no where in the house where you can't hear then scream insults at each other, which is, needless to say, rather stressful, particularly because they then tend to both be in foul moods for the rest of the day, which they have no problem taking out on everyone else. That, and I just found out that my parents are in marriage counseling, which I know probably means nothing or is a good thing, but I would rather not find out about it via a text from [SisterBot], who figured it out because they kept going to 'appointments' together. I generally don't like to find out about such things from my 15 year old sister when she asks me if I know anything about it. Regardless, things have just been tense lately whenever I go home or see my family, and I am not looking forward to the better part of three months of tense when I'm home and guilt about not being home enough from [MaternalUnit] when I leave to avoid the tense.

All of that added to the fact that when I'm home for any extended period of time I tend to get restless, anxious, and a little bit depressed mostly from having a lack of anything productive/constructive to do, and I am not looking forward to spending this summer at home. In a effort to rectify the situation I'm trying to figure out a way to not be home much this summer, which seems like it will be feasible as I am working in two labs on campus and [Keeper of All Knowledge], [Totally a Cat], and [Who Needs Sleep?] are all going to be in town for at least part of the summer, so I'll actually have people to do things with. There is already a fairly largest list of things we are planning on doing this summer, but we'll see if any of them actually get accomplished. They range from the fairly easy to accomplish like bra shopping and going to various restaurants around the cities that we have been talking about for a while, to the more ambitious, such as going to a strip club, to the oddly specific, such as getting drunk on champagne and jumping off relatively high things with umbrellas (I think this is refering to something that happened on Gilmore Girls, but I'm not sure).

More relevant to a previous post, but rather perfect (via)

Anyways, the last two weeks have been fairly stressful, what with the standard end of the semester fair such as exams, papers, and finals, but also because of some interpersonal things that have happened lately which are far beyond my control but still rather unpleasant and not helping. And stress, I have found, is highly correlated with my mood and how I am feeling in general. The more stressed I am, the more ground my insecurities gain, and the more I have to struggle to not hate myself constantly. It's a vicious cycle wherein the more stress I feel, the less I sleep, and the less I sleep the more tired I am, which makes me more stressed because I can't focus on the work I need to get done, and the more stressed and sleep deprived I am, the harder it is to quiet that part of my brain that is constantly spinning down the rabbit hole of my various insecurities. And it doesn't help that stress makes my face break out continually until well after the stress has ended, and my somewhat persistant acne is one of my big body issues along with my weight.

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For a variety of reasons, I was feeling rather bad the other day, worse than I've felt in a while, and I had to remind myself that it was mostly because I had two finals that I hadn't really studied for coming up. Stress has a tendency to sneak up on me and manifest itself as really insecure days and insomnia rather than as the sinking feeling of dread or twitchy nervous energy that I generally associate it with. Sometimes I don't even really realize just how stressed out I am about something until I can't sleep for several nights and/or hate myself for a day or two, but generally once I identify what it is that is causing me stress, or just that it is stress rather than genuine self hatred that I am feeling, it abets to the point where I can deal with it normally, usually by studying if it's about exams, or doing whatever it is that I've been putting off. It's one of the few emotional things that I am able to really handle in a healthy way and suppressing it isn't my default setting, so I guess I've got that going for me. I've taken two of my three finals already, both of which went well, and I'm not worried about the third given I actually study for it at some point, but I would like to actually be done, because like I said before, this has been a long year, and I am so sick of dorm food that I may just live off pretzels and hummus for the rest of the week.

The Science of Religion

At the risk of accidentally making this into a Catholic blog, I am going to once again explore themes relevant to today through the lens of the Catholic Church. I know I've been writing about the Church a lot lately, and it seems to have become April's theme, but this will probably be the last post on that topic for a while, Imaginary Readers, and I will return to exploring my neuroses and insecurities shortly. But for now, I think it's important to talk about the Church, because I have a deep and abiding reverence for it as an historical and cultural force in the West, and am a total nerd about it for some reason, despite the fact that I completely and utterly disagree with it's social policies and don't really believe in the whole Our Risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ thing. In fact, sometimes I worry that someday I'll have some sort of religious experience tied to my reverence for the Church and end up back in the fold totally against my will, which may be the most truly neurotic and weird of my anxieties, but whatever happens happens I guess.

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Anyways, what I was intending to discuss today is the relationship between religion and science, because I currently doing research for a paper about the Church and evolution and so I've been reading lots of things various Popes have written about evolution and science in general. The Church had a rough start with the whole science thing, what with Galileo and all, but in the past century, it has been one of the most progressive religious institutions when it comes to integrating scientific discoveries and theology, and the way that it expresses this integration and the reservation it has about it, are some of the most poignant reflections about science that I've read in a long time.

Let's start with the "Letter of his Holiness John Paul II to Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J. Director of the Vatican Observatory" (1987), (and no, Imaginary Readers, I don't expect any of you to actually read this, although it is really interesting if you enjoy Papal writings about science). The letter stresses the need for a new era of critical openness and exchange between science and religion, as it consideres both crucial to the understanding and appreciating "our universe as a whole." It touches on some really important concepts when dealing with the relationship of science and religion in ways that are much more open and understanding than you would necessarily expect the Church to be. For example, it stresses that "[t]he Church does not propose that science should become religion or religion science" something that I think people in the pro-science camp sometimes forget is an option. They seem to think that any religious involvement or discourse with science means that religion is trying to take it over and impose it's own pre-conceived notions upon science, which some do, particularly Christian fundamentalists, but, as demonstrated here, that is not the only way to interact with religion, because "religion is not founded on science nor is science an extension of religion...Christianity possesses the source of its justification within itself and does not expect science to constitute its primary apologetic." Religion should not expect to find any justification for its existence within science, because religious tenets are outside of the purview of the natural; any divinity is by its very nature supernatural, and thus, no direct evidence for it occurs in nature, which is exactly what the Pope is saying here. Religion is free to interpret scientific findings to suit its theological tenants, but it cannot expect science to prove or disprove those tenants. This is again something that people on both sides misunderstand I think. Science is in itself not an argument for atheism, because you cannot prove a negative, thus you can never prove that God doesn't exist, nor can science be twisted to prove pre-conceived religious notions as the Young Earth Creationists like to do. The important thing to take away from this discussion is that "science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purity science from false absolutes." I do believe that an honest dialog between the two camps is needed to do just that, so people can see that they aren't mutually exclusive and not all religious people are science deniers or pseudo-scientists nor are all science advocates rabid atheists who believe any sort of faith is stupid.

I think it says a lot about the theological maturity of the Church that it recognizes the need for honest dialog between science and religion, and that science is the medium through which we understand the world around us. It means something that one of the largest organized religious bodies in the world, one which is notoriously resistant to change, recognizes scientific truths such as human evolution and quantum physics, and that religion itself is not infallible. Here the Church is willing to meet science half-way, without compromising its belief system, so long as the scientific community is willing to do the same. This is not to say that religious beliefs should inform scientific inquiry, rather that while they occupy separate sphere, as it should be, they should be in dialog with each other, because both can grow from attempting to understand where the other is coming from and what values inform each.

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I know that many people don't think that religion has anything to offer science, but I think that John Paul II makes a good point when he claims that religion can help science to "not become an unconscious theology."The reason, I think, many people see science and religion as incompatible (the actually incompatible Young Earth views notwithstanding) is that I think there are some within the scientific community who propagate the idea that they are mutually exclusive, such as the hard core atheists. I want to clarify here that I'm not talking about those people who just don't believe there is a god for reasons of their own, but I am specifically referring to those who yell really loudly about how science makes a god impossible and how atheism is the only logical, reasonable conclusion, and that if you aren't an atheist you are stupid, gullible, and deluded. Those people can stand to benefit from the realization that they are using science as a justification for their own system of beliefs, which is as valid as any, but not inherently better or more reasonable than any other. They have turned science into a basis for their own brand of theology, because they are using it to make claims that it in itself cannot make. Like I said, you can't prove a negative. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, no matter what anyone claims. A dialog between science and religion wouldn't force anyone to believe or disbelieve in God, and might in fact help to open minds on both sides, which I think would be a good thing all round.

Science-y Goodness

It occurs to me that I've written a lot about the Catholic Church and it's politics of late, which is because it's been really active of recently, and because I'm working on a paper on the Church and it's policies on evolution, so I've been thinking about Catholic doctrine a lot lately. In order to make up for all of the Church stuff, here's some enjoyable science pictures, because this is the Black Hole Symposium after all, and science is awesome!

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is amazing, and succeeded in making me want to be an astrophysicist for about a year in middle school. Then I realized that astrophysics involved physics, and fuck physics.

This is funny, because science is all about change rather than dogma, which many people who are opposed to actual science, such as creationists and pseudoscientists don't understand. There is no dogmatic scientific conspiracy to keep your pet "theory" down, there just isn't any evidence supporting it.

I don't quite 'see' all of these, but that may be because I know too much about organic molecules that I just see oxygens and bonds. Also, I'm pretty sure 'self masturbation' is redundant and technically only one of these is a polymer, but whatever. And Organic Chemistry is awesome, so I had to post this. 

Get Thee To A Nunnery! Pronto!

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So, apparently the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the US, specifically the US Council of Bishops, hates everything fun, exciting, and awesome (to be fair, I already knew they hated everything fun and exciting, but they have now extended their hatred to awesome things as well). According to this article, which you should most definitely read (seriously, it's from the New Yorker, which is a step up from the Star Tribune or the Creation Science Association for Mid-America's news letter; this is a quality article that you're ignoring, Imaginary Readers), they have now decided that they don't just hate lay women and their issues like birth control, abortion, etc., but they also hate their own women, specifically nuns. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to investigate the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main organization of American nuns, for not being conservative enough on social issues. Basically, they seem to think that American nuns haven't been doing enough to discourage marriage equality, abortion, and the use of birth control in their ministries. Because apparently, respectfully not supporting something and advocating against it aren't the same thing, and in order to be against something you must yell about it all the time.

The shame in all of this is that nuns are really awesome, generally speaking. They are the members of the church who are really affecting change on a grass roots level, much more so than any other group within the church. It's nuns who are really helping the poor and disenfranchised, and who administer hospitals and teach in schools. They are the ones who are out in the community, who are getting arrested for protesting and advocating for those who can't themselves (yes, including fetuses, but I guess if you really believe that abortion is murder (which I don't, but that's a discussion for another time) do you have any choice but fight against it?). Nuns are the real agents of social change in the Church. Bishops sit in judgement of society and act as social commentators, but they rarely do anything other than that to change things (other than give gratuitous sums of money to political causes that promote discrimination, but I've already talked about that). And I don't think that the Church hierarchy respects the work that they do. They are actively discriminated against, as they can't rise in the ranks of the church above heading their own order, and they are treated much harsher than monks or priests (granted, when was the last time a monk did anything but read and sing?).

For example, in 2009, according to the above article, which you should totally read to understand what I am talking about, a nun who was an administrator at a Catholic hospital was excommunicated because she allowed the doctors at the hospital to terminate the pregnancy of a women who was about to die in they didn't. This means that the Church puts a higher value on the life of an 11 week old fetus than on the life of a 27 year old mother. Priorities people. And excommunication isn't the quaint antiquity that most people think of it now as. For someone who is truly faithful, like a nun or priest, being excommunicated, or not being allowed to receive communion until you repent, means potentially not being allowed into heaven, which is kind of a big deal if you believe in all that. This is from a Church that didn't do anything to punish priests who abused children, and just shuffled them around and covered it up. They excommunicated a nun for doing the right thing, but when an entire series of priests molested children they just tried to make sure no one found out and allowed them to remain vested. And now they're investigating the nuns because apparently actually living social justice isn't enough these days.

And now the Church is also considering readmitting the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), the super conservative group that split with the Vatican after Vatican II, because the Church was just too liberal for them. This is all indicative of a more conservative turn in the Church of late, precipitated by the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, which is rather ominous considering the conservative swing in US politics recently, and what they might accomplish if the US fundamentalist Christians got over the whole 'dirty Catholic idol worshippers' thing and they teamed up. It would be like Voldemort and Magneto working together. Not a pleasant thought. Anyways, I'll stop rambling about the Catholic Church now, because I'm sure we've all got better things to do...

'Rouge Feminist Lesbian Catholic Nuns' are apparently a thing  (on the internet at least), and I'm not sure how I feel about it... (via)

Exploring the Rabbit Hole

I lieu of ranting at the internet about politics with poor writing and most likely flawed logic, as my last couple of posts have done, I thought I'd return to what makes this blog great*, Imaginary Readers: complaining about my perceived emotional problems. Because there's nothing quite so cathartic as talking about my (probably imaginary) issues on a blog no one reads. (For the record, I am only partly joking there. It is actually incredibly cathartic, and I'm kind of glad no one reads it, otherwise many awkward conversations would occur.)

Lately I've been having a little bit of insomnia, nothing to write home about, but enough trouble falling asleep to annoy me and make it that much more difficult for me to break my current habit of spending too much money on Starbucks. I suspect that it has to do with stress, because I've been super busy the past couple of weeks with my latest round of midterms and inane math assignments, and as the end of the semester approaches, my motivation to get stuff done wanes and the amount of things I have to do increases exponentially. This equates to much stress, which leads me losing ground in my war against my acne and some bouts of insomnia. I have to say, though, that it is very manageable insomnia, because mostly it seems to manifest as my not being able to shut my brain off for long enough to actually fall asleep. This belays a larger issue I have wherein I can never quite manage to shut my brain off. I can't not think, which wouldn't be an issue so much if the part of my brain that I can't turn off wasn't the part that seems to be directly keyed into my anxieties.

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I should specify here that for me there are two distinct ways of not being able to not think, both of which I encounter. The first is the issue of not thinking and just feeling; being in tune with my body. This is a useful skill when doing physical things for enjoyment/pleasure such as dancing or having sex. Considering the former, I continue to attempt to enjoy dancing, because I figure it might be an acquired taste that I just haven't quite acquired yet, like beer which I almost like, but I still only enjoy it for about an hour at most, after which my brain kicks in with a near constant commentary of boredom, foot pain, and a general feeling of awkwardness. Dancing is fraught with self-consciousness for me, and while I try to ignore it, because I don't want my insecurities to control me, I have yet to have an experience dancing that has given me any confidence or made me enjoy the pure feeling of it, as I gather that's what makes it fun. My research into the phenomenon of dancing as a socio-sexual exercise is ongoing; no conclusions have yet been reached. As for sex, in my limited though existent experience, I have yet to be able to separate myself from my brain for long enough to just feel it and enjoy it. Granted, mostly I just end up thinking something along the lines of 'Holy shit, I'm having sex right now,' but that usually (granted 'usually' in this context is about twice) devolves into 'and now I'm thinking about it. Should I be thinking about it? I should stop thinking about it...and I'm still thinking about it.' Drinking doesn't really help with the not thinking, in any context, because when I drink I'm just more likely to say and do what I'm thinking. Alcohol, at least in the moderate amounts that I have ingested, only peels away the first layer of the big ball of neuroses wrapped in inhibitions that is me, but it doesn't actually dampen the thinking aspect of it (at least that I've noticed, but it is difficult to compare, because when you're drunk its impossible to imagine being sober and when you're sober it's impossible to imagine being drunk; and I'm still not sure what counts as "buzzed" and/or "tipsy"; it's all very subjective and relative.)

The second issue of not being able to not think is not being able to shut my anxieties off. Now I understand that nobody, at least that I've talked to, can really decide to not be anxious, and I am somewhat of an anxious person, and I'm not saying that I strive to never be anxious, because anxiety is evolutionarily beneficial and as a human being, I will always have some anxiety. I would also like to clarify at this point that I don't think that I'm anxious in an uptight way, but rather in a worst-case scenario/hypochondriac way. I also recognize that I also probably don't have an actual anxiety disorder, because I don't think that it is so severe that it controls me in any way that I can't deal with, but I do have a tendency to fret about things and I have anxious moments, where I worry about something that has very little possibility of actually happening and I realize that it won't happen, but I can't help but worry about it. It seems to be related to how much sleep I get.

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Anyways, the frustrating part of it is the way that the part of my brain that is always on is also the part that will go down the rabbit hole of worst case scenarios at the slightest provocation. This seems to manifest most often lately with respect to social things, and my friends in particular. I'm not used to have close friends, as outside of sort of/kind of [Princess Leia Vampire] in middle school I've never really had any close friends before. And now, all of the sudden (as of the last year), I have about three different people who I would consider myself really close to (for me at least), and I have no frame of reference for how to deal with that. Because of that, combined with my general feeling that I lack basic social skills and the fact that now that I have friends I am terrified of losing them, every encounter with a friend that leaves me feeling less than stellar for whatever reason is immediately spun into a narrative of how this is going to destroy said relationship. And sometimes it's not even a valid reason, for example, a text that doesn't get answered because it doesn't need to be, or I say/so something that later I worry came off wrong (this is somewhat common because I have yet to figure out that I can't actually convey tone via text message). Usually (probably always, but I can't be sure) it's not a big deal, because either it's completely in my head or they know me well enough to know what I meant or not care. I'd like to think that the relationships I've built in the last year or so are stronger than the sheer force of my perceived idiocy, and given what some of them have withstood I have fairly good evidence that they are, but I can't help but worry about it. Every time I don't hear from someone for a while, or I we have a truncated conversation for whatever reason, or there's an uncomfortable silence it must be my fault for some reason I don't yet know, or some horribly stupid reason that I've managed to come up with, and it must inevitable lead to us never speaking again or something of that nature. I know that none of that is true, because I do realize when it is just my anxiety speaking, but that little irrational part of my brain usually wins the argument and I have to force myself not to freak out because I'm being an idiot and of course it's not a big deal. That's how friendship or any interpersonal relationship works: while you hope that it's generally good, it isn't always, but hopefully an awkward moment or someone being in a less than stellar mood doesn't matter.

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Also, sometimes I decide for no apparent reason that something has happened to someone and I worry about it until I have verification that they are fine. It's never that specific, nor is there usually a reason, and I don't ask if they're okay because then I would sound crazy, because it's crazy. 'What if...' is possible the worst thought I can have because it usually means that my imagination is about to take me down an insane path of things that I don't want to think about, realize would never happen, and can't help but worry about. At least it's usually something plausible like car accident or appendicitis and not something completely unrealistic like terrorist attack (at least in this part of the world on a per capita basis) or flesh eating bacteria. When I was little, if my parents went out I would stay awake in my room until they came home because I was worried that they would die in a car accident or something. I still get worried if someone is late by more than a reasonable amount.

The point being that my default setting seems to be to go right to the worst-case scenario, and the best I can do sometimes when it happens is to recognize that I'm being irrational and tell my brain to shut-up because it's being an idiot. It doesn't always happen, and it seems to be tied to my mood/the amount of sleep I've been getting/whether or not it's a Tuesday/what my expectations for said encounter were/a variety of other factors. I don't always want to think, but I can't seem to shut it off, but I shouldn't complain, there are worse things than my mild to moderate anxiety issues. There could be an uncontrolled fire in my immediate (or not so immediate) vicinity, but that's a completely different rabbit hole...

*I really only used the asterisk for visual effect and to make a sarcastic point, but I hate it when people don't carry asterisks through, so I had to put something down here for the not statistically significant number of you that saw it and immediately scrolled down to the bottom to see what it referred to. (If you did actually immediately scrolled down to see it, you win at this blog and have bragging rights until the next arbitrary competition.)

Fuck the Archdiocese

Apropos of my previous post please read this article, from last week's Star Tribune. I'll wait.

Now that you probably haven't read it, Imaginary Readers, let's talk about it. It's about an incident (incident might be too strong a word) that happened at my high school about two weeks ago now (I would've been more prompt by I've been super busy the past couple of weeks) involving the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul sending representatives to talk to the seniors about the importance of traditional families. They've done this at most of the Catholic high schools in the area apparently, and according to both the article, and the little I've heard about it from people current at De (my high school), the brunt of the presentation was about how family is important, etc, etc, but at the end they got into defining family, and talking about how how adopted kids, kids raised by single parents, and kids raised by gay couples are at a disadvantage because they're not raised by their biological mother and father. I'll get back to this later. Anyways, the point of the article is that several of the students didn't take so kindly to this message, especially once it became clear that they were only talking to the seniors because they can all vote in the upcoming election on the Marriage Amendment. Some of them started asking very pointed questions, and defending the rights of non-traditional families.

The coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul (via)

Personally, I think it's awesome that they did that, the students that is, and that the school administration let them, because it brings home just how accepting my high school is, particularly for a Catholic school. The school had to let the Archdiocese say whatever it wanted, because it is under the purvey of the Archbishop, but the administration always made it very clear that it doesn't necessarily agree with our current Archbishop, who is very conservative, even for a Catholic archbishop, and has made the Marriage Amendment his pet project. Archbishop Nienstedt to so passionate about not letting gay people get married that he has given over half a million dollars to the amendment campaign and has sent out several DVDs to every Catholic household in the Archdiocese about the dangers of gay marriage. It's so ridiculous that extents he has gone to that [MaternalUnit] thinks that he is secretly gay, although she thinks pretty much everybody is secretly gay these days.

I don't agree with the Catholic Church on most issues, both politically and religiously, but I do generally respect it, because it's beliefs are consistent. I have no problem with it being against gay marriage because it is against any form of sex that isn't specifically for procreative purposes within a marriage, and it is also against divorce. It has the right to be against whatever it wants, it's a religion. What I don't like is the way that it has been attempting to impose that belief on everyone else by codifying it into law. There is a difference between civil marriage and religious marriage in the US, a fact which many seem to forget because we use the same word for both. All legalizing gay marriage does is making it possible for a gay couple to form a legal contract granting them certain rights in the civil sphere. No one is forcing the Church, or anyone for that matter, to approve of it or grant such unions it's blessing, nor should they. Religions will always have the right to believe what they like and approve what they see fit, but they shouldn't be messing around in the civil sphere. The Catholic Church is not the ultimate authority on morality, even if they like to think they are, and I don't think they should be involved with making laws, but they are, just like every other major Christian group in this country.

[MaternalUnit]'s opinion (via)

But I do think that the position of the Archdiocese is not necessarily the position of many Catholics in the cities. Just that fact that there is at least one Catholic high school that encourages it's students to engage in a dialog about these issues rather than accepting them as rote fact is encouraging. The face of the Church is changing, slowly, but it is changing. The hard line position that Nienstedt is taking is driving away the moderates, who like the community and structure that the Church provides, but don't necessarily agree with its politics, and he may never get them back. For example, this who debacle has caused my parents to decide to officially leave the Church, to the extent that it is possible to leave the Church, after staying for years because they liked our local parish. And there is always the question of whether St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church will end up succeeding from the Church altogether and become Lutheran or Episcopalian or something. Liberal Catholics do exist, but they may not for much longer, because they are being forced out of the Church by Nienstedt's politics.

This election cycle certainly will be an interesting one. Also, as [Honorary Robot] so eloquently put it, fuck the Archdiocese. It's getting really goddamn annoying to read about. Any pride I had left about being Catholic is pretty much gone at this point, as the Church has gotten nearly completely indefensible.

Separating Church and State

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As I've mentioned before, I'm taking a class on the Creationism Evolution debate this semester, which has generated some interesting discussions and readings and is also the reason that I'm convinced that Google thinks I'm a creationist. There is only so much time I can spend on Answers in Genesis before the fact that it is for research stops being a good reason to be reading about how dinosaurs and people coexisted 6000 years ago, and I surpassed that limit a while ago. Recently we've been talking about the Creation Science movement in the US (which is sort of redundant because fundamentalist Christianity is fairly unique to the US) in relation to various court cases pertaining to the teaching of evolution is public school. This prompted my professor to assign us an article to read unironically titled "Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?" It is from the news letter of The Creation Science Association for Mid-America and it was written in 2008 by Tom Willis, who has also written gems such as "Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Vote?" In case you were curious, he answers both questions with a resounding "no" on the grounds that

"Hard-line evolutionists spend their entire life declaring Christians to be ignorant, crazy and, probably dangerous. But evolutionism is totally contrary to the empirical facts of science. Anyone truly believing evolution is either totally deluded or ignorant. Regarding who is really the dangerous group, in their unmitigated, and totally unjustified arrogance, evolutionists have caused more misery, and killed and tortured more people, in the last 90 years than all the wars of the last 2000 years."

Frankly, both of these articles are so ridiculous from my perspective, that of someone who is well educated, particularly in the sciences, and isn't particularly religious, that it reads as satire, which my professor assured us that it isn't, and in fact, the organization was a driving forced behind the Kansas State Board of Education removal of things like evolution and the age of the earth from their curriculum back in 2000.

But the fact is, there are people in the US, a not so small number in fact, who actually believe things what Willis is saying. Things like "Evolutionists are largely incompetent" and that "[Evolutionists] are manifestly the most dangerous and destructive people on the planet (Well OK, Muslims are strong competitors)." [Parenthetical part of the original text]. It should be noted that he defines Evolutionists as anyone who accepts the tenets of evolution, regardless of their position about the genesis of evolution. Born Again Christians who believe that God put evolution is place and that the earth is older than 6000 years are just as bad as hard core atheists and Muslims to him. He counts Evolutionism as a religion that is bend on destroying True Christianity (his specific brand of fundamentalist Christianity and Young Earth Creationism), and anyone who isn't a Young Earth Creationist is incompetent and intellectually incapable of anything. Ignoring the blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric he employs as well as the myriad logical fallacies and conflated arguments, these articles are still really frightening, because they serve to remind me that the US is really quite a religious country, and the religiosity particular to the US is one that favors fundamentalism and demands political action in favor of fundamentalism.

The fact that a (somewhat) successful presidential candidate has said that the idea of the separation of church and state makes him sick and it isn't an issue outside of the liberally bend media outlets says something about the priorities of America as a whole. Sometimes I forget that the US is so religiously conservative, because I attend a large public university in a fairly liberal mid-size city in the Upper Mid-West. I am fairly well insulated in a liberal bubble where even people who don't believe in macro-evolution, and I have several here at school, can study science and engineering and are not yelling for creationist to be taught in schools. But that doesn't seem to be the norm among the Christian fundamentalism movement in the US, particularly the farther south you go. They are the moral majority that has been pushing politics ever father right as of late, and not just is a fiscal conservative kind of way (which, for the record, I am totally on board with, fiscal conservatism that is to say). This election cycle has been full of issues that are important to the religiously conservative, which is fine, but they have been manifesting in scary ways that have gotten more support than my bubble would have lead me to believe was possible. The recent spate of highly invasive anti-abortion bills and the way that issues of women's reproductive rights have been arbitrated by conservative white men, as well as the perennial issue to which state is voting on making gay marriage (more) illegal this time. It seems insane to me that it is okay for the Catholic Church here in the Twin Cities to give more than half a million dollars to fund a constitutional amendment making gay marriage more illegal than it already is in Minnesota (it's already banned by state statute).

This is a little more meanspirited than I like, but it's fairly accurate (via)

I forget sometimes that our separation of church and state is already fairly loose, particularly when controversial issues are concerned, which is all the more reason to recognize that there is a fairly powerful group of Americans who want even less separation than we already have. They want school mandated Christian prayer, and they want Genesis taught as scientific fact, and they want gay people to not exist and women to not have rights concerning their bodies. Granted that's the most extreme view, and most Christians are very nice people who don't believe that God is out to punish people or that all of modern science is a lie. This is solidly the case of a very loud and powerful minority influencing policy and making everyone look bad, but they are still getting laws passed across the country.

I know this got kind of ranty, but I feel very strongly that people should respect others beliefs and not try to force their own religious beliefs down others throats via legislation. It frustrates me that the US, which presents itself as a bastion of freedom and tolerance, can be so intolerant to both differences and progress. I shouldn't be surprised every time I realize that Young Earth Creationists are incredibly powerful in some parts of the country, and that conservative Christianity as a whole is a major force in certain realms of politics these days, but I always am. Call me an idealist, but I think that it's just plain fair for real science to be taught in public schools, and for me to be able to marry whomever I choose, and for it not to be a big deal for me to be able to get affordable birth control, and I think these should apply across the country.

This is more political than I generally like to get, because I don't believe in forcing my opinions and beliefs on others or that my opinions are necessarily correct or the only valid ones, and I wouldn't go so far as to say that fundamentalist Christians are crazy or bad people, I just wish they would keep their beliefs to themselves. Having a diverse society is a good thing, because it forces us to challenge our belief systems and expand our horizons, just don't tell me that people who accept scientific fact shouldn't be allowed to vote or should be sent to labor colonies in Antarctica (I'm looking at you, Tom Willis).

Attempting Athletics

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As I mentioned before, I spent several days of my relaxing, if somewhat boring, spring break this year engrossed in Ken Burn's Baseball documentary, because history plus baseball plus documentaries equals awesome and this is what happens when I am bored, have time on my hands, and have Netflix. It was super interesting, because I am a history nerd and I love baseball, if a bit long, consisting of eleven episodes which are each two plus hours long. It really made me remember why I enjoy baseball so much (arguably: because I understand it better than other sports), and it also really made me miss playing softball. [SisterBot]'s first high school softball season just began, so I spent an inordinate amount of time over break talking about softball with both her and/or [PaternalUnit], because she has the same coach I had in high school, and really, softball and school are the two major topics of conversation between [PaternalUnit] and I these days.

All in all, I've really been missing playing it lately, but that could also be due to how I've been feeling fat and lazy recently. I can't say that I every really loved playing, and it's probably mostly just rosy recollection and nostalgia motivating my recent renewed interest, but I played fastpitch for seven years, and it was an important part of my life for awhile, even if it permanently messed up my elbow, gave me shin splints, and generally made me hate running.

I was never super athletic, even when I was young, mostly due my general lack of stamina and an inability to run at a any pace faster than a slow plod, but I tried really hard to be an athlete growing up, for reasons still unbeknownst to me. I played T-Ball, and soccer in the summers  and I ice skated a ton and played Bandy (a Nordic version of Hockey played with curved sticks and a ball) in the winters when I was little, and what I lacked in talent I made up for in spirit (or at least that's what they told me, and I realize now that was just a polite way of saying I sucked). I even made a brief foray into Basketball in middle school, and that went as well as could be expected. I wasn't actually the worst player on the team, but it was close, and I think I scored once during the two years I played.

I wanted to play baseball, but I knew I wouldn't go very far in little league before I was forced out because "baseball is for boys," or something, so I decided to do the next best thing and sign up for the local Fastpitch Softball team, much to my parents' amusement because by that time I was 10, and quickly losing any pretenses of being any sort of natural athlete (really, outside of persistance and decent hand-eye coordination, I didn't have much going for me in that department, I still don't). But I did it anyways, and I immediately loved softball. I became I decent catcher and I could hit fairly well, and the first several years were fun. My middle school team did pretty well in the local parochial school league and my summer team was perennially okay.

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Despite my enjoyment of playing, my problems socializing with the teams I played on arose rather quickly, because most of the girls I played with during the summer went to the same local public school and played on the same school team. I was only one of, at most, two girls who went to a different school, and I was always an odd man out on the team because of that, but that didn't bother me at first, until, after the better part of five years playing together, the core group of girls I played with attempted to form their own club team and asked everybody but the other Catholic school girl and I to be on it. They failed, and we played together again that year for the last time, but I really think that was the beginning of the end for me because for the first time I really realized, or was forced to admit, that I wasn't accepted as part of that team, even though we have been playing together since we were 10.

I played in high school as the back-up Varsity catcher, although I spent most of my time on JV, which I didn't mind because they were nicer anyways and I am not the most competitive person. I enjoyed playing, but I hated practicing every day and the endless running, so unnecessary to a game where at most you have to run 60 feet at a time (yes, 60 feet, because the base paths in fastpitch are 60 not 90 feet), gave me shin splints. My sophomore year things got worse, because, once again, the socialization aspect of team sports gave me problems. That year, I spent about a third of my time on Varsity, filling in whenever they needed a second catcher or a pinch hitter and playing with them when JV wasn't playing or they had a tournament. Despite this, only two people on the team would talk to me, the pitcher who I went to middle school with and was super nice, and the first baseman who I had played JV with the year before. I never felt like part of the team and that made it so that I never had any fun playing anymore.

I was going to play my junior year, and I was pretty much guaranteed the starting catcher spot, but the closer it got to the season starting, the less I wanted to play. Just the thought of playing was giving me anxiety, and it got so bad that I nearly burst into tears at an info meeting about the season. There wasn't any particular reason either, although at other times I have experienced something similar, where, for whatever reason, I just know that have to quit something I used to enjoy and I have a ton of anxiety about it until I do. Granted there were some other factors adding to my stress, like it being 11th grade which is stressful enough to begin with and I was thinking about coming out (which I didn't, but just thinking about it at the time was stressful) which was also giving me a lot of stress. I think maybe it had just run its course and I needed to be done, but quitting the softball team the week before the season started was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was for the best, and I felt a lot better because of it, but I really felt like I was letting people down. I had made a commitment to the team and I was quitting, which is something that is difficult for me. I take my commitments and responsibilities seriously, and I hate feeling like I let someone down. It stimulates my guilt response, which, granted, isn't difficult.

I haven't played since, and I haven't regretted quitting, partially because the teams both my junior and senior years were fraught with drama including, but not limited to, periods where half the team wasn't on speaking terms, seniors getting freshman to flash people, alleged underage drinking, and a captain getting suspended. I cannot express how glad I was not to have to deal with that, but I do still miss playing, especially now that [SisterBot] made Varsity and spring is in the air so early. [Keeper of All Knowledge] has talked about us finding a rec slowpitch team to play for this summer, which would be fun. For the first time since I stopped playing, I actually want to play again, but I don't know if that's a good thing or if I'm just nostalgic for something that I never really had in the first place...

On Television

I should have taken this advise...(via)

Spring Break is finally upon us, or at least me, I don't know about your particular schedules Imaginary Readers, but for me, this is my one week off from classes this semester, or rather, the only days off I get this semester. It couldn't come soon enough, in a way, because the week leading up to it, was my second set of midterms, and although I only had two this time around, they were far more stressful for me than midterms usually are. I'm not sure why, possibly because of the promise of a break afterwords, albeit a boring one of sitting at home, but a break nonetheless, but for whatever reason, this set of midterms was particularly stressful, leading to some stress induced insomnia and my acne edging ahead of my attempts to keep it at bay in the eternal war I am waging against it, which I seem to be losing, but don't tell it that.

This isn't to say that I wasn't partially at fault for my stress last week, because, as usual, television prevented me from getting as much sleep as I could have. That is to say, I got myself immersed in a television show during the week prior to midterms, which, of course, bled into midterms, and distracted me from studying/sleeping as much as I could have, but that seems to be par for the course with me and TV. The culprit this time was the British drama Downton Abbey, which caught my attention and imagination far more than I anticipated, because British period pieces centered around turn of the century property law do not normally interest me, but Downton Abbey is great, not because of the period specific costumes and the historical accuracy, but rather, because it feels genuine and all of the characters feel like real people. Even those who aren't likable at all have their good sides, however small they might be, and ones who don't seem interesting become the most interesting of all. It tells the story of the people it chronicles really well, which makes it really good, but it also doesn't take itself so seriously that it isn't fun to watch.

 (via)

Ultimately, that is what I really enjoy in TV shows, good stories about people. I much prefer character driven narratives to those that are plot heavy, because, while a good plot is always enjoyable to watch, it can often be far to easy to get lost in the details of a complex and convoluted plot, but with a good set of characters, it doesn't really matter what's happening, because the spirit rings true no matter what. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a television snob, or at least I try not to be, because I tend to watch whatever catches my fancy at a particular time, be that an animated kids show, a 20 hour Ken Burns documentary about the history of Baseball, or a campy sci-fi show. I've seen all of Xena multiple times, and quite a bit of various Star Treks, along with quite a few sub-par sitcoms, and unarguable good shows. There are plenty of "good" shows I haven't or won't watch (Lost, Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Wire, etc.), and others that I have watched and even enjoyed or thought were well made but not loved to the extent that everyone else (read: The Internet) seems to (Sherlock, Merlin), as well as plenty of shows that I have loved that even I won't argue are objectively good (Xena, Star Trek, Out of Practice). I can't always tell why I'll like one show and not another, it's all a matter of taste I guess, but it seems to come down to whether or not something about the show really grabs me right off the bat, and if it doesn't, it could be the best made show ever, and I won't really like it.

It probably seems like I watch a lot of television, which I guess I do, but I don't watch TV when it airs, because my attention span is too project oriented to be able to keep up with shows week to week, so I tend to find something to watch after it's either done airing or been on for a couple of seasons and then compulsively watch all of it over the course of what usually amounts to a couple of weeks depending on how busy I am. If I'm watching Downton Abbey, for instance, that is the only show I want to be watching, and I will watch as much of it as possible each day until I am finished with it, within reason because I still have to go to class, study, do homework, and get a reasonable amount of sleep, with sleep usually being what gets sacrificed in my single minded attempts to consume a series.

(via)

I also watch a decent amount of TV because I don't really watch movies, at least not by myself, which I think most people do. There are a lot of reasons that I don't watch movies, to the point that I am nearly culturally illiterate when it comes to movies, ranging from my preference for a longer form of story telling to two hours being a little bit too long for my attention span at times, but I think the main reason is that my family rarely watches movies together. I went to the big releases with my dad, and we would go to, say, the Harry Potter movies when those were first coming out, but for the most part, if we were watching something together at home, it was TV. I have very early memories of watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with my dad, and of watching the first season of Grey's Anatomy with my parents and listening to [MaternalUnit] complain about how inaccurate a portrayal of working in a hospital it was. I never learned how to watch movies from my family because we never did it, and I never got a good basis in classic movies from them either. I got a very good education in classic television from [MaternalUnit] when we would watch the old shows that would air on a local channel in the afternoons, and I have seen a decent amount of classic shows like Green Acres, Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, and The Addam's Family because of that.

I guess you could saw that I never acquired a taste for classic movies, and as such, I don't seek them out. For instance, I haven't seen Casablanca all the way through, much to [Type A, Likes Baseball]'s chagrin, who keeps trying to get me to watch it by putting it on when I'm hanging out with my friends, but we only ever manage to get about twenty or thirty minutes in before whatever else we're doing, such as shelling peanuts, gets in the way, and no one is actually watching the movie anymore. This means that I've seen the beginning twice, but I haven't really seen the movie. This isn't to say that I don't like movies, because I do like most of the ones that I've seen, I just don't seek them out, and television tends to resonate with me more than movies do. For example, I don't think I've ever cried while watching a movie, wanted to punch somebody, yes, but that was less the movie and more the circumstances and also a story for another time, but I haven't actually been moved to tears by a film. Various TV shows have made me cry on several occasions, not many because I hate crying and generally don't have the best suspension of disbelief, but, for instance, Downton Abbey made me cry at least twice in its 15 episode run.

TV is the main way in which I consume culture, in the same way that movies are for a lot of people, and I love the medium of television, because of the way that it can tell continuing long form stories in short serialized chunks, but that isn't to say that I love all of it. I'm not a fan of reality TV because I come to TV for what is advertised as fiction and escapism or PBS documentaries and not voyeurism, but I don't necessarily think that all reality TV is bad. Fake yes, but bad, not necessarily. Genre isn't really all that important to me, but the spirit of it is. I'll give anything a change, but I make no promises that I will enjoy everything or even everything people say is good. Now, I'm going to get back to watching that Ken Burn's Baseball documentary, because I just hit the 1930s and history is fun.