Soapbox: Feminist Equality Colors Rant

Today in french class we were playing Hangman. Hangman is difficult in french, because every word basically ends with "e."
That is not what this rant is about.

If you didn't already know this, my French class is an online one, so the students comunicate mostly via chat box and microphone, and our teacher has a webcam. It's pretty cool.

One of the students, Monique I believe, (This is her "French class name." We all have one basically. Mine is Déesse.) was picking the word, so she got to use the whiteboard application thing to do it.

She drew the little hangman thing, and seven letter places. The first person guessed a letter, and she filled in a letter space in a different color. Then from the chat box  one of the boys said "Woah those are girly colors."
She was doing it in purple and teal.

It's not that I have a problem with being girly. Often people think feminists are man hating tomboys in pantsuits and tight buns. We aren't. I'm a multicolored haired, long skirt wearing, teenager with an awesome boyfriend. I only have a problem that he was using girly to describe colors.

People don't seem to get that colors are not inherently connected to a specific gender. Not purple, not pastell teal, not pink, not blue, not rainbow. None of the above.

I mentioned this, and somebody else* said that I was right, but pastell colors are calm and relaxing and welcoming. Like women I guess was the point he was trying to make.
Women aren't inherently calm and relaxing either. I mean, just look at me!

Of course I got kind of angry. I do that. I will freely admit that it pisses me off when color and gender based (or really anything based) stereotypes are called in as a good argument. But you know what's better to do than shouting angrily in all caps into a chat box? writing a reasonable blog post.

The issue kind of disappeared before the end of class, drifting away into the back of our minds. But it still bugs me, because this was something I've brought up before in class. I guess it's no wonder her word was "mauvais."

PDS, Lady E

* I would like to point out that not all the guys in my class were on the other side of the argument. I have mad respect for the guy who changed his chat color to bright pink after this conversation. Good on you, B.K.

Weekly Obsession: One. Tiny. Flaw.

I'm going to try to post these weekly, just an insight to my thoughts.


I do karate.
It's amazing, and I would have to say that it's my release. Once I put on my uniform and step onto the mat, suddenly my mind... empties.
Well, that's the wrong way to say it, it's more like my mind simplifies until there is nothing but my own sweat, tears, and determination.

I would say that its the best feeling in the world. Except when something isn't working.

I have no upper-body strength whatsoever, and I melt at things like pushups. I accept that. Okay, I don't accept it, I just know my limits, and I bend them a bit more each time.

What I am really proud of, are my kicks.
I'm tall and (relatively) flexible, so usually kicking is fairly easy, and the more complicated, the more I like it. (For example I adore jump inside roundhouse kicks, where you spin around, jump and do a roundhouse kick in midair, landing gracefully.)

Today, I was working on a combination of kicks, and I had been practicing it a home. I had it. I was exploding into the jump, my kicks were high, and I was hoping my teacher would give me my stripe (literally a stripe of color coded tape meaning I had mastered a specific thing) for it.

He came over to see what I was working on, and said, "Good, but turn your toes down more, it's a side kick."
I flushed. It's a simple pop side kick, and a mistake I make often, but today I felt like I had shot myself in the upward-pointed foot.

I ran through the combination twenty times, trying to fix my imperfection. I didn't just want to get it right, I needed to get it right.
Each time, my toes were an inch off at least.

We moved on to working on something else, and the end of class came.
He didn't give out any stripes.

My mom reminded me that it's an adult class, and my teacher doesn't give out stripes until the testing for the next belt level is coming up, and she's right.

But I still can't help thinking, What if  I had gotten my foot in the exact right position? Would I be one green stripe closer to a brown belt?

Biology "Notes"

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because of school.
I've started taking biology this year, and it's really cool!
I really am not great at sitting still though, so i doodled on a piece of paper while i learned the difference between chromosomes, and chromatids...
It was a work of art.