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.

A rambley post about everything.

Hi there. So I realized that there was a whole bunch of stuff I meant to tell you about last week and forgot, as well as the disaster that is my April fools.

So this post will probably be long and meaningless, with no discernible segues, but bear with me.

So last weekend I had the almost imponderable joy of watching Jayne dance in her ballet school's spring showcase.

But I also got to help out, because I'm a helpful volunteer. And also the only volunteer who isn't a parent, but I don't like to brag.

So I was promptly put to work at watching the younger kids and making sure they don't wander off.

I helped with three different age groups:

4-6, "the tinies." these are the hardest to watch, because they're really little. The plus side is that as a fifteen year old, I'm the most exciting thing ever.

10-12, "the easies," are exactly that. They simply read their books, and occasionally ask to go outside. The only problem is that they can be kind of boring, because you're pretty much ceremonial.
Although one of my easies gave me a friendship bracelet. Thank you Isabelle. I hope that's the proper spelling of your name.

And finally,

8-11, "the goldens" my favorite to watch because they're old enough that you aren't herding cats, but they're young enough to find you interesting.

That was a really final and super exhausting weekend, and I wasn't even the one dancing.

Ok, now let's fast forward a bit to the Hunger Games, because I totally forgot to review it.

I liked it in general. I was right that Jennifer Lawrence was a good Katniss, although she's waaaaaay taller than Josh Hutchinson which was hilarious.

They cut to Gale a couple times, which I found kind of cheesy. Plus it incited the people behind me to say "omg, Jacob!" This made me almost throw my straw at them. Fun fact about Liam Hemsworth: his brother plays Thor. Also he's dating Miley Cyrus, but I really don't give a crap about that.

I really liked Amandla Steinberg as Rue. She was excellent. I just wish she'd had more screen time.

The wolves angered me. In the book I imagined them sleek and and graceful, with human eyes. In the movie they were mangy cats with human ears.
No.

Peeta was perfectly captured, although he had one slightly creepy "Cullen-esque" line, where he said that he watched Katniss walk home from school everyday.
Potato's little sister and Jayne agree that that's creepy, even though they aren't allowed to read/watch.

I think that's the best film review I've ever written. Maybe if I show my film teacher it'll make up for the really crappy ones I've given him all year...

You may know that it's April fools day. I had this great piece planned that involved me handing out festively wrapped lemons to random people.

If I have learned one thing today, it is that nobody trusts a really polite teenager giving out gifts.

WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?
You're all good with telling your children that a fat man watches them sleep, and rewards them for being good, but you're not at all cool with a friendly stranger giving you a gift???

Why?

Do you think I'm a terrorist? (This is America so I wouldn't put it past you...)

Do you think I want money? Because people who want money TOTALLY give stuff away!

Sigh. I'm going to go make some lemonade. Yay irony.

Safeway.

So yesterday, my mom was sick, and Jayne was depressed. I was neither, and we needed milk, mac and cheese and ice cream, and vanilla extract. Also Suburbia has lots of sidewalks, and a Safeway within walking distance.
So my mom gave me twenty bucks and I left.

The walk there was pretty uneventful (although I did get honked at and given a really creepy smile by a construction guy...) and then I got there.

This is where the weird started happening.

First I got the milk, and the milk we get looks like this: (my dad's lactose intolerant.)

So I picked up a thing of milk, and put it in the basket. Then I realized I got the one that has lactose, which looks like this:

This is not the right milk. So I tried putting it back on the shelf, but Safeway has one of those spring loaded shelves that make it really hard to put stuff back. And the milk was off the top shelf. Oops.
So I'm jumping and pushing on this milk, trying to put away this unwanted vitamin enriched milk, and this old lady who could have win a "really grumpy Betty White lookalike contest" just stares at me.

I can almost hear the "Stupid ass kids ruining our neighborhood" running through her brain.
Finally I got it back and grabbed the right one (It was by the soy milk), and ran to the ice cream isle.

I knew what Jayne wanted (Ben and Jerry's Whirled Peace) so I ran to the Ben and Jerry's section... and it was the only one they didn't have. And I 'm banging my head against the glass, when I remember, "I HAVE MY PHONE!!!!!"

So I called the house, and longer story shortish, I got her the Steven Colbert's Americone Dream.

Then I had to find the vanilla extract, and realized that I have no frickin' idea where vanilla extract is.
Crap.

So I ran around the whole store trying to find a helpful Safeway employee, and I finally found a nice guy named Jun in produce, who conveniently knew that extracts are in baking. I guess that makes sense...

So finally, I had everything!! Yay!

So I headed to the checkout, and the guy rang me up. And then I remembered that the Safeway is in Generica, not Suburbia. And in Generica, they charge ten cents for a bag.

And of course, Friendly Safeway Guy didn't tell me this. Thanks FSG.
And double of course, I had every stinkin' coin besides a dime. Crap again.

So finally I just give him a dollar, and while he was giving me my change, I found a dime in my wallet.
But I got the bag, and that was a small victory... except that it didn't have handles.

So I walked home hugging a freezing bag for maybe half a mile (but it still wasn't fun) in my high heels, because I had forgotten that their higher than my old ones.

I finally get home, and put away the perishables, and my mom asks,
"How was it?"