was talking to rip the other day about marriage and our motivations or lack thereof for it. i asked rip why he wanted to, and he said that it would provide him a sense of security. i said that i wasn't into marriage because i felt like it would make me feel like it was trapped. which, if you think about it, is really just another word for security. he's apparently a glass half full type of guy. while i am, wouldn't you know it, the opposite. =\
btw, i read this article the other day: An Anti-Marriage Feminist Gets (Happily) Married. and it totally reminded me of this too. haha.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
prom project bust
over the years the girls and i have collected quite a few formal dressed that we don't really know what to do with. it's not like good will won't take a poofy bridesmaid's dress but you kind of want your special dress to be someone else's special dress too. anyway, after a few years of talking about it, g and i finally got off our asses and donated them. she found an organization in north oc affiliated with the ywca that would take them.
i thought this seems like a pretty great project so i wanted to volunteer with them too, so before dropping off our dresses i called them first. i left a detailed message and didn't hear back for a week. ... called back again and this time she picked up. talked to her for a bit about donating and volunteering. she took down my name, number, email address and said she'd pass the info along. i told her i was waiting on dresses from my friends still and would come by her office in a week or two to drop stuff off. she said great.
a week later i'd collected dresses and accessories from t and annie and took photos of our stuff. i called her back and left a message to say i'd be by in a couple days on tuesday morning at 11am (or whenever it was) to drop off my stuff and i hoped to see her then. this was mid december.
on tuesday i showed up when i said i was going to, and of course she wasn't there. didn't leave a note for me either, which i thought was pretty rude. her office people said that she sometimes didn't come in but that i could wait for her for a bit. i decided to do so since i had given her advance notice that i was coming in. hoped she was running late or whatever. waited about 15 minutes when her co-worker came by and told me that she had missed an email from her earlier saying that she would not be in. ...
after a day or two i called again and left a message saying that i'd brought the stuff by and was still waiting to hear back about volunteering. the day i went, her co-worker gave me her business card so after another couple weeks, now in january, i emailed her reminding her that i'd talked to her, dropped stuff off, and still hadn't heard back about volunteering. "At the very least I'd like to work at Boutique Day, though I would need to know the date first." a full two weeks later she writes back apologizing for the delays and says she'll submit my name the volunteering committee (tho shouldn't she have already done so?). she doesn't tell me boutique day date or give me anyone else's contact info tho that's the obvious next step. i responded to her two days later with my schedule availability and ask again for boutique day date. i don't hear back.
the email i wrote her was on jan 24 and i've been wondering about the project ever since. so on march 15th i wrote another email:
i'm just sooo disappointed because oddly enough, this isn't even the first organization i've contacted about donating prom dresses. a couple years ago i had found another organization in mid-oc that i emailed a couple times and never heard back from either. it's really strange to because i've contacted other organizations about other donation drives and volunteering and stuff and have NEVER run into any problems. gah! no moral of the story. just wanted to vent.
(no website links to help people save face or whatever, but you really want to know who not to work with, email me)
a week later i'd collected dresses and accessories from t and annie and took photos of our stuff. i called her back and left a message to say i'd be by in a couple days on tuesday morning at 11am (or whenever it was) to drop off my stuff and i hoped to see her then. this was mid december.
after a day or two i called again and left a message saying that i'd brought the stuff by and was still waiting to hear back about volunteering. the day i went, her co-worker gave me her business card so after another couple weeks, now in january, i emailed her reminding her that i'd talked to her, dropped stuff off, and still hadn't heard back about volunteering. "At the very least I'd like to work at Boutique Day, though I would need to know the date first." a full two weeks later she writes back apologizing for the delays and says she'll submit my name the volunteering committee (tho shouldn't she have already done so?). she doesn't tell me boutique day date or give me anyone else's contact info tho that's the obvious next step. i responded to her two days later with my schedule availability and ask again for boutique day date. i don't hear back.
I felt like I needed to tell you that I am very disappointed with you and your organization. I've contacted you multiple times through varied mediums about volunteering and have not heard back. Being part of a non-profit, fully volunteer-run organization myself, I'm surprised that you would not take more care in handling prospectiveand wouldn't you believe it, but two days later she actually wrote back:volunteers who have repeatedly shown an interest in your project. Although yours is still a cause I believe in, I do wish I had donated my and my friends' dresses and accessories to someone else.
The YWCA of North Orange County is a very small grassroot organization with a very small staff. I am sorry about the inconveniences of the missing replys and apologize. Please feel free to donate to other organizations such as Orangewood. They have a prom project too. The YWCA's contact for the Prom Project is C----- M----- should you want to continue your interest in volunteering for the Prom Project. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.i haven't bothered to reply because who the fuck cares anymore and she is clearly an idiot who doesn't know how to read properly, doesn't know spelling, definitions, common courtesy, how to treat volunteers, or any number of other things! and i'm still even more upset because after all this i still don't know when boutique day is, and i don't have anyone else's contact info to find out when boutique day is even if i were still interested in volunteering! goddamn i wish i'd given the dresses to someone, anyone, else!
i'm just sooo disappointed because oddly enough, this isn't even the first organization i've contacted about donating prom dresses. a couple years ago i had found another organization in mid-oc that i emailed a couple times and never heard back from either. it's really strange to because i've contacted other organizations about other donation drives and volunteering and stuff and have NEVER run into any problems. gah! no moral of the story. just wanted to vent.
(no website links to help people save face or whatever, but you really want to know who not to work with, email me)
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
great park balloon
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| yup, i rode the carousel too! |
since it's a tethered helium balloon, the ride is actually completely quiet. and you can't look up into the balloon like how you can on a hot hair balloon. from getting on to getting off , the whole ride is only about 10 minutes with about 7 minutes at the top. so it's a very short ride. you get up to 400 ft up tho, which is pretty high (tho not nearly high enough for me!) and you can see views for miles and miles around. rip and i were very lucky because we were on the first ride with a big group coming after us, so on our trip were only had 10 people with us, though it can hold up to 30 people at a time.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
food for the... soul?
in life group we talked about local vs global church. they were talking about how great it is that missionaries go to spread the word of god to third world countries. they talked about how crazy it is that we have so much yet also complain about so much when many others have barely anything at all, not even food. and how great is it that all these people are now saved! they may not have a second pair of pants, but it's so inspiring how when even two weeks ago they hadn't even heard about god, now they're singing worship songs!
i'm of course sitting there thinking "are you serious? who cares about god when you're starving?!" they're talking about how important it is that we donate money so they can buy bibles, bibles for god's sake. "a bible can help 10s of people. they pass it around so everyone can hear about god." um... yeah... i get that maybe sending money so starving people can buy food is maybe a waste since you can only eat it once but...
i guess our priorities are really different. one's afterlife is forever. human life, especially if you die young from starvation, is temporal. yet... how can you love, honor, worship, and respect a god who doesn't save people who don't know about him, and give them pretty terrible lives to boot? it's different if i go to hell, having heard about god but not believing him in anyway. (tho i would argue that it's also not fair since one cannot command belief) but these people who are dying from diseases that we just don't have in 1st world countries because we have basic medical treatment and sanitation, these people who haven't heard about god because the missionaries haven't gotten there yet, these people people have to spend an eternity in hell? why?
most christians ask, at some point or another, about the people who haven't heard about god yet. or the ones born in china a thousand years ago, or the egyptians from even before that, you know, before christianity was even "invented." somehow they don't think to blame god or question his omnibenevolence. he has a plan, they say, we just don't understand it.
well, no, i don't understand it. i can't understand it. i can't understand why you think giving someone a bible is better than giving them a well so they can have clean water. i understand that christians do both on missionary trips, but to place a higher value on your afterlife rather than your current one is surely a sign of arrogance. you know you're leaving india in a week, to come back to your wifi and $4 cups of coffee. when they don't even have 50cents to protect themselves from NTDs.
some christians have told me that they think god doesn't send people who don't know about him to hell. they're not sure what happens, but surely he wouldn't punish them for something out of their control. he is omnibenevolent, after all. if this is the case, which i'm inclined to agree with, wouldn't it be more humane for missionaries to save lives than to save souls? instead of sending missionaries to spread the word of god, send money, food, shoes, doctors, whatever it takes to make life livable! if you were choking, would you prefer someone to give you the heimlich or to read passages from the koran? i think it's clear.
i'm of course sitting there thinking "are you serious? who cares about god when you're starving?!" they're talking about how important it is that we donate money so they can buy bibles, bibles for god's sake. "a bible can help 10s of people. they pass it around so everyone can hear about god." um... yeah... i get that maybe sending money so starving people can buy food is maybe a waste since you can only eat it once but...
i guess our priorities are really different. one's afterlife is forever. human life, especially if you die young from starvation, is temporal. yet... how can you love, honor, worship, and respect a god who doesn't save people who don't know about him, and give them pretty terrible lives to boot? it's different if i go to hell, having heard about god but not believing him in anyway. (tho i would argue that it's also not fair since one cannot command belief) but these people who are dying from diseases that we just don't have in 1st world countries because we have basic medical treatment and sanitation, these people who haven't heard about god because the missionaries haven't gotten there yet, these people people have to spend an eternity in hell? why?
most christians ask, at some point or another, about the people who haven't heard about god yet. or the ones born in china a thousand years ago, or the egyptians from even before that, you know, before christianity was even "invented." somehow they don't think to blame god or question his omnibenevolence. he has a plan, they say, we just don't understand it.
well, no, i don't understand it. i can't understand it. i can't understand why you think giving someone a bible is better than giving them a well so they can have clean water. i understand that christians do both on missionary trips, but to place a higher value on your afterlife rather than your current one is surely a sign of arrogance. you know you're leaving india in a week, to come back to your wifi and $4 cups of coffee. when they don't even have 50cents to protect themselves from NTDs.
some christians have told me that they think god doesn't send people who don't know about him to hell. they're not sure what happens, but surely he wouldn't punish them for something out of their control. he is omnibenevolent, after all. if this is the case, which i'm inclined to agree with, wouldn't it be more humane for missionaries to save lives than to save souls? instead of sending missionaries to spread the word of god, send money, food, shoes, doctors, whatever it takes to make life livable! if you were choking, would you prefer someone to give you the heimlich or to read passages from the koran? i think it's clear.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
natural woman
First transgender MMA fighter goes public
so here's in interesting story: a man who used to be a woman is now fighting women professionally in mma. yes, she's had gender reassignment therapy and yes, she's been on "hormone therapy long enough to remove gender-related advantages."
now, i don't know any of the science behind this stuff, but can hormone therapy remove all gender-related advantages? this is fighting we're talking about. physically stronger fighters have a distinct advantage over physically weaker ones, training and natural talent be damned. it's one of the reasons there are weight classes. men are, on average, quite a bit stronger than women. and men also tend to have much stronger upper bodies than women. it's just the way we're built. i don't see how hormone therapy is able to change physical differences to the point of us having insignificantly different muscle mass ratios.
i'm not not saying that she shouldn't be able to fight professionally. but i do wonder if there should be other restrictions. maybe she'd having to fight in a higher weight class, i don't know.
this does all bring to mind, tho, the story of hermaphrodite runner Caster Semenya.
so here's in interesting story: a man who used to be a woman is now fighting women professionally in mma. yes, she's had gender reassignment therapy and yes, she's been on "hormone therapy long enough to remove gender-related advantages."
now, i don't know any of the science behind this stuff, but can hormone therapy remove all gender-related advantages? this is fighting we're talking about. physically stronger fighters have a distinct advantage over physically weaker ones, training and natural talent be damned. it's one of the reasons there are weight classes. men are, on average, quite a bit stronger than women. and men also tend to have much stronger upper bodies than women. it's just the way we're built. i don't see how hormone therapy is able to change physical differences to the point of us having insignificantly different muscle mass ratios.
i'm not not saying that she shouldn't be able to fight professionally. but i do wonder if there should be other restrictions. maybe she'd having to fight in a higher weight class, i don't know.
this does all bring to mind, tho, the story of hermaphrodite runner Caster Semenya.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
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