Some of you may already know this, but I'm a big idiot. It had been a while since I posted last, and I logged in to blog, and they asked me for all this crazy information and wanted to know how I wanted my background. I thought maybe they were just verifying that I am who I say I am, but as it turns out, I had just registered a new mosifer blog, and now have two.

I'm finally doing laundry today, after god knows how long, but I ran out of underwear, and my last clean pair of jeans were dirtied by a crazy South Korean who thinks he's Fred Astaire. This gave me the chance to watch Legend, starring Tom Cruise, which I am convinced is the best movie I have ever seen. Ever. Seriously, I don't know how it didn't win at least 12 Oscars. This brings my total number of cheesy movies for the week up to two, since I finally (FINALLY) watched the Goonies for the first time Thursday. I thought it was overrated, but at least now I get the "Hey you guys!" reference.

Stop Bothering Me, Here's an Update

So I moved in to a new apartment, alone, which is great because I can eat lunch in my underwear while listening to cheesy music as loudly as I want to EVERY DAY. It's very small and very messy, but I love it.

Classes are alright this semester, but I'll give a quick run-through:

STAT 320: Statistics for the Social Science Major
Cake.

FSHS 400: Family and Consumer Economics
I think I took this class in high school, but I can't be sure, because I never really go.

FSHS 506: Middle Childhood and Adolescence
I love it. I love it so much I want to marry it. My instructor wears the coolest bow ties and gives bonus assignments after each exam. Also it's very interesting and it's no problem staying awake the entire lecture.

FSHS 550: The Family
Not nearly as cool as 506. Actually, not cool at all. No first name usage, no swearing, no fun. Also no learning. It's kind of like when you get cornered at a party by that drunk guy that wants to discuss social issues, only there's a facist attendance policy and halitosis involved.

I'm also trying to find a second job, one with experience relevant to my major, so I can put something halfway decent on my grad school applications. Or maybe, fuck that. I'll just go back to secondary education.

I'm going to volunteer with the Red Cross as a case manager for hurricane families, and I really think this is a good thing to do. I mean, up to this point I knew what was happening, and abstractly I was thinking how horrible it was, but never really knowing what I could actually do to make it better, besides donate some money at Dillon's and the odd hurricane relief effort. But it's really heartbreaking to see these people and hear their stories. I was talking with Chuck Smith, who's coordinating the volunteer program, and he was telling me that many people are enlisting in the military just because they see no other option. And there are people who have just lost everything. That aren't even going back to their homes because there is just no point. One family I met with yesterday was living on a rental property in Mississippi and the entire thing was just destroyed. Their home is gone, their jobs are gone, and they are just going to move in to Manhattan because there is nothing for them to go back to. And the mother doesn't want her children to go home because there are a lot of missing children and she thinks it would be better to start fresh than to go back to a place that holds so much horror. And, you know, you give someone a care package with shampoo and soap and frigging kleenex and it's like you've given them a thousand dollars. Because up to this point they've been using someone else's soap and kleenex and they're probably even wearing someone else's shoes because they just have nothing. Absolutely nothing. And the whole thing sucks.

The Pants

Ever seen that Seinfeld episode where Jerry's girlfried wears the same dress on every date? Yeah, well I have, and now I'm living it. The same pair of jeans (bad jeans, by the way) have made an appearance five times in the past eight days, and I just don't think I want to deal with this. Of course, now I feel like I ought to keep seeing this guy, because I don't want to be the girl who stops seeing a guy because of his pants, but seriously. Either I'm going to have to tell him he needs new pants (and then he'll tell me I'm superficial, and want to stop seeing me, so problem solved) or I'll just have to stop calling him and make heavy use of the fuck-you button, or I could say "let's just be friends," which, while true in this case, is such an often-used line (especially with me) that it will seem like a cop-out.

But let me describe the pants. They're denim, with some crazy wash straight out of the nineties, and they're cargo. Cargo jeans. I believe the equivalent female choice would be leg warmers. The only thing that could possibly make these pants worse is if they zipped below the knee so as to be convertible into shorts should the weather change.

SHAPE improvements

Today was the first annual(?) Peer Health Educators Conference at KU, and while it was not quite what I expected (and also not just about sex, contrary to popular belief) I still came away from it with some great ideas, although it could definetely use some development for the following years.

For a first-time effort it was pretty good, but it was lacking in structure and focus, which are pretty important things for a conference. The timetable was pretty vague, most groups weren't sure what exactly they needed to bring or to be prepared to discuss, there were some issues with parking, and a lot of the "discussions" were less discussions and more "listen to me talk about KU."

We got to the conference to discover that SHAPE was the only really developed peer education program there, and the rest of the people were from schools who had just implemented peer education programs or were looking to, and so SHAPE was treated sort of as a blueprint for a sucessful program, which nobody realized was going to happen, and we weren't quite prepared for. However, thanks to a photo CD, a powerpoint presentation, and some kick-ass ad lib from the group, we managed to pull off a pretty impressive presentation.

During the question-and-answer session, a lot of issues were brought up dealing with effective peer education, and while SHAPE is doing a lot of things well, it's quite clear that there is a lot we could do better. I think a good starting point for this do-things-better campaign is to train our first-semester SHAPErs a little better and a little sooner. The way the program works now, first-semester students do pretty much 100% classroom work for the first six to eight weeks. The book we work from is a little dry, to say the least, and while learning the facts and the bare bones of the program are undeniably important, I think it would be great to send out new students to observe presentations from the very beginning. That way, they can see how the presentations are scheduled, how they're done, and start to learn the works right off. Plus, it might combat discouragement when students come in expecting to jump in to the action right away and then study Red Cross manuals and look at infected genitals for two months.

One great program we're discussing as an idea for next semester is Healthy Willie Week as sort of a kick-off for the year (credit for the name goes to Lindsay Hicks, genius). We'll do presentations in the res halls and for the new greeks and blatanly plug SHAPE while also giving the kiddies free condoms, because after all, what's SHAPE without free condoms?

In the coming semester, we'll probably be bringing applications to all of our presentations, because I've observed that there's a lot of interest immediately after seeing the program, but when you don't have an app, and the student has to go get one, there tends to be a lack of follow-up. This way we might see more numbers and a larger selection pool for the following semesters group.

We also discussed sending some SHAPErs to Orlando in the fall for the national Peer Educators conference. SHAPE students have attended in the past, but they were usually third-semester students, so they got a lot of ideas, but didn't stay with the program long enough to implement them. This fall, we'll probably take one or two second-semester people and possibly one or two promising first-semesters, that way we'll hopefully see some of the great ideas they'll surely glean come to fruition.

All in all, I'm pretty fucking excited about new SHAPE ideas and developments, and a lot of the peers are too, which is just so cool. But not as cool as the free t-shirt I got.

Reckless Sex: Seriously Criminal?

Surfing the net this morning, I came across an interesting article by Ian Ayres and Katharine Baker, professors of law and Yale and Chicago-Kent, respectively. This article was entitled "A Separate Crime of Reckless Sex" and attempts to "make progress on both the problems of sexually transmitted disease and acquaintance rape by proposing a new crime of reckless sexual conduct." A defendant would be guilty of reckless sexual conduct if, in a first sexual encounter with another individual, the defendant had sexual intercourse without using a condom. Proof of consent to unprotected intercourse would rest on the defendant, and if found guilty, the punishment would be a six-month prison term. Reason: "As an empirical matter, first-encounter unprotected sex greatly increases the epidemiological force of sexually transmitted disease and a substantial proportion of acquaintance rape occurs in unprotected first encounters. The new law, by increasing condom use and the quality of communication in first sexual encounters, can reduce the spread of sexually transmitted disease and decrease the incidence of acquaintance rape."

Notwithstanding my firm belief in first-encounter condom use or denying that rape is a heinous and disgusting act, this article got me thinking. At one point, Ayres and Baker state that a correlation has been established between uprotected sex and coercion, and therefore unprotected sex should be prosecuted. I find fault with this reasoning on a very basic level.

Correlation does not establish cause/effect. Because variable appears to rise when variable b does, we cannot conlude that a rise in variable b is causing a rise in variable a. To demostrate this, let's make variable a aspertame and variable b brain tumors. After the approval of aspertame sometime in the 80s and it's subsequent use in various food products, there seemed to be an increased incidents of brain tumors in the US population. Wolfcriers and alarmists would have us believe that aspertame was causing brain tumors (gasp!). Upon objective analysis of this claim, it was discovered that increased incidents of brain tumors was due to increased quality in the tools used to diagnose brain tumors, and had nothing to do with artificial sweetener. The two had a correlation but changes in variables a and b were entirely independent from each other.

More than a correlational study is needed to establish a cause/effect relationship. I think it absurd to establish a law prohibiting one thing that does not necessarily result in another, although it can be reasonably assumed that in some cases it may. In this case, as in so many others, sexual choices made by individuals are just that: choices. Made by individuals. Not fodder for bedroom legislation. As long as two adult individuals are consenting, there should be no crime.

Human relationships are perhaps the most variable thing in the universe, and attempting to establish regulatory legislation making all first sexual encounters adhere to a set of preset rules is not only unreasonable, I would go so far as to say that it is wrong. I would agrue that coercion by organization is worse than coercion by an individual, because the coerced has vastly inferior resources. This is a clear-cut case of compelling a person to do, or to abstain from doing, something by depriving the person of the exercise of his or her free will, particularly by use or threat of physical or moral force. The key here is the excersize of free will. The use of protection is a very individual choice and should be left entirely up to those involved. Yes, protection can prevent the spread of infection, but so can handwashing, and nobody's legistating public handwashing laws. Yes, many rapists don't use condoms, but I think it's a dangerous thing to begin to equate unsafe sexual contact with the enforcement thereof.

There's something to be said for computer literacy

Well, all of the taunts from the Bunker cominbined with the fact that I clearly hadn't figured out italics on my last post like I thought I had has finally led me to the following conclusion: I am completely computer inept, and something must be done. Travis keeps telling me he'll teach me how to use a computer, but I've been resisting, since being taught how to use a computer seems a bit juvenile. However, since my skills don't even aproach the juvenile level, maybe that would be the best thing for all involved. So, please disregard any weird things the fonts might be doing, it's probably not intentional.

New updates regarding work and HN132: I won't be working in the Spanish department much longer. I'm going to go in for a few more afternoons to help Silvia finish some stuff up, and then I'm saying adios, trabajo, and taking my afternoons back. I won't be taking back tonight though, because I have to go to the grocery store and write down nutrition information for comparison purposes, since comparing similar products is a college-level endeavor. I went in the other day to do it, but they didn't have the right products in stock, so now I have to waste another chunk of time. If I hadn't been skipping class so much, this wouldn't be an issue, but I know I've lost points for not showing, so now I have to make them up. Grrrrr.

The Vagina Monologues

I had an interesting discussion with Travis about The Vagina Monologues the other day, which sparked an interest in reading the book. After being unable to find it at Hale or the Manhattan Public Library, I requested an interlibrary loan, which is supposed to take two weeks. This morning I had some time to kill and went for a wander to the student union where I noticed several copies of The Vagina Monologues for sale in the union bookstore. One word: sold.

I must admit while reading the book I did wish I had someone to discuss it with, and since I was sitting alone in Justin at the time, my blog will have to be the lucky recipient of my wandering thoughts. Although I have not yet finished it, I do have some early-stage musings. I don't really like stream-of-conscious writing, and at some points I feel the book can best be described as an overcompensation, but I have found some of the essays to be quite enjoyable. However, I can't find myself - despite my feminist leanings - able to extoll its virtues or call it a "compelling rhapsody of the female essence."

Let me start with one issue I do take with the book. At one point Ensler makes the statement that she understands that women's discomfort with the vagina is merely an internalization of the outward discomfort that has been historically expressed by a patriarchal society. So, if one were to generalize this statement (and as generalization seems to be a trend in this particular brand of feminism, I'm assuming it to be acceptable) one could say that as a woman, my feelings about myself stem from my interpretation of the masculine viewpoint of my femininity. "I don't like myself because you don't like me" is a cop-out. It's an easy way of validating the criminalization of an entire gender.

Then, upon reading an essay later in the book, I found the following passage: "I never separate a woman from her vagina. It is who she is." Hmmm. Well, I am a woman, and I do have a vagina, but my vagina is certainly not who I am. Who I am, who any woman is, is a complicated combination of so many traits that embody real femininity, and to say that a woman is her vagina is, well, bullshit. Imagine the response to the male equivalent of The Vagina Monologues. "I'm a real man, and to prove it, I'm going to talk about my penis, and other mens penises, all the time. Men are penises." Well, actually, we would agree. We would call them a dick or a prick, an ignorant asshole, snub our noses and move on.

Turns out, that may not have been thirteen dollars wel spent.

Busywork, the second marker of a worthless class (the first being attendance points)

Having arrived at work to find my boss MIA, I am searching relentlessly for something to do to fill up the time until she gets here and I can get started on whatever it is that caused her to call me in on a Sunday. My hope is that she'll only have a couple of hours worth of stuff to do, because already I'm mulling over the various homework assingments that could be better occupying my time.

This is the first semester when I have really had any homework that's time-consuming, and the class in which I will probably spend the most time on homework (busywork, really) is HN132. The thing that bothers me about this whole situation is that the class is ridiculously easy, and yet I have to devote so much time to jumping through hoops in order to pass it. I don't like busy work anyway, and I especially don't like it when it takes away from time that could otherwise be used in a valuable pursuit, like a nap. The project we're working on right now is a nutrition comparison of various fast-food joints. Doesn't sound too bad, until you look up the questions on the internet and discover that each answer requires that you search and compare information from several different sites. This means that each question takes between 3-10 minutes to answer. At 25 questions, that's 75 minutes minimum, with a potential for 250 minutes being wasted on what I feel is a ridiculous assignment. However, I got lazy last semester, and my GPA took a dive, so this semester I have to follow the ridiculous requirements so I can bring it back up.

On the plus side, it's fucking gorgeous outside today, so all you lovemongers should have a wonderful Valentine's day. Just remember to tip your sever well, so he or she can at least make some money on a day designed purely to remind him/her of his/her loveless status.

crazy

Dude, my older sister used to date Matty Mulnar. That's fucked up. Image dating a guy that later decided to take vow of celibacy...