Archive for the “Culture” Category

I just remembered something. See, sometimes I pick up my three-year-old sister from daycare. One day, I picked her up and when we were going to the car she was telling me about one of her little friends. His name was Andrew. She said, “Andrew doesn’t wear panties because he’s a boy. Boys don’t wear panties. Boys wear underwear.” Now, since I’m not her mother and I’m not raising her, I just let it go. Besides, she’s three. They’re just trying to teach her the basics of life.

Can you imagine if it was my kid, though? You know I would immediately walk back into that daycare center and bitch them out. Something along the lines of “why the hell are you teaching my child that boys don’t wear panties? Boys can wear whatever they want. Why are you differentiating between boys and girls anyways?”

The world is probably glad I’m not a parent.

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Apparently you’re out to get me. You and every other non-hetero-normative thing I can think of.

Last night I was out with some group members working on a project for class. At the end of the night I got a phone call from Christoph saying he was ready to pick me up. As soon as I got off the phone, one of my group members said “Oh you have a boyfriend?” I cringed a little, quite a bit actually, and then responded “yeah.” The group responded with various “aww”s and “cuuuuute”s, which basically killed me inside.

Who said I was straight? You guys don’t know me. I specifically haven’t mentioned any of that because it’s not any of your business.

Also, why do we need to use such gender-defining terms? WHY “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”? I do NOT like these at all. Why can’t everyone use terms like “partner”? Not everyone conforms to society’s labels for male or female. If we eliminate the constricting terms, we can create an environment so much more conducive to exploring of the self and identity expression. If the words being used to pigeonhole people are gone, the negative feelings won’t have words attached to them, and the thinkers will be forced to re-evaluate the way they are reacting. As it is, it’s easy to say things like “you can’t act that way because you’re a girl and that’s not how girls act. No one will want you to be his girlfriend ever.” Instead of living up to the expectation of being someone’s “girlfriend,” one should try to find a relationship where each participant is a partner – working together.

I almost said something last night. What would I have said? Could I really go off on this rant to people I barely know? I’m not sure I have that kind of courage. I’m also not sure I could have rationally expressed my thoughts – I was much more likely to get angry and defensive, and not present a convincing argument at all.

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This is the first article in the series on normalcy! Article written by Bes.

Recently, while pondering over the idea of what the society dictates for others to follow, Marie Lianne and myself were discussing the idea of what “normal” means in the society. The concept of normal applies to most of the things in our daily lives, even when we do not use that word. If people consider something to be acceptable by the majority, it seems like a normal thing to do, or a normal phenomenon. If there is anything that many people would consider irregular, or not a naturally recurring phenomenon that can be accepted easily, people consider it to be something far from normal.

Look at the picture in this paragraph for a very gentle example. Would you consider what the guy in the picture is doing a “normal” thing that guys his age and size do? I do, because I would want to do that and more myself. How about you? What do you consider normal about this picture? What do you consider abnormal about this picture?

This is the first in a series of articles revolving around the concept of normality, and what “normal” is considered to be. Today, this article will briefly focus on thoughts that revolve around the meaning of the word “Normal.”

Please continue reading this article at TheReasoner.com!

I will be writing an article in response/bouncing off of these ideas that should be published in a while! Please leave your comments, as input will be considered when writing future articles!

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So the other day I sent an instant message to Bes, who I had come across about a year ago when looking through random blogs in hopes of finding something interesting. We had a nice long conversation about things like Normalcy and the concept of Deletion.

Now, I’m going to get to write an article or two to put on his site! I’m pretty excited.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/fashion/02voicemail.html?pagewanted=1

This article reminded me to check the messages that I’ve been putting off since the beginning of April.
While I do agree that voicemail is annoying and I would rather not have to listen to it, there is a specific reason most of the time when I put off listening to my messages. There is one specific person who always leaves voicemails that make me cry. Once there’s a message from this person, I will put off listening until another one that could have content comes in. In April, this person left a message, and the next two messages were left by my grandparents. I called my family back and told them that I hadn’t listened to the messages yet, but what did they need?
Just now, I finally checked the messages. It turns out the message I had been avoiding listening to was just a couple seconds of silence, and then a click. How was I to know?
After listening to the messages from my family, I went back and listened to all the messages I had saved. There was a comical one from a friend, many cute ones from my significant other, and birthday wishes from both friends and family. There was even an adorable message from my two-year-old sister, where I could hear my mom in the background saying things for her to repear. These saved messages remind me why I used to love getting voicemails.
In the article listed above, mention is made of products designed to transform voice messages into text. For messages that are simply about the transferral of information, this would be a lovely innovation. My emails go to my phone already, so I would be able to easily address the problems at hand. However, reading a message from my mother’s cell phone that says “Hi Re, Love you Re, Bye Re” would not have nearly the same effect as hearing my baby sister’s voice. There’s a reason I have these messages saved, and that’s to listen to the voices of people I care about when I’m feeling down. For the past two months I’ve been unable to do this because I was afraid of that one message. I actually forgot about all the wonderful messages I had saved.
So, while voice-to-text services would be great in some situations, the majority of the voicemails I receive are these fun ones. I like the idea, but am unsure of practicality. 

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