A Heartfelt, if Unwarranted, Open Thank-You Note

Dear HR Department Representatives of the Six or So Companies who have Sent Me Rejection Letters,

Thank you for your note. I very much appreciate knowing that you received my application and reviewed it to some degree before deciding against it. Over the past two months I have sent out upwards of 50 job applications but have only received about ten confirmations that I even did so. While I am of course a little disappointed that I was not selected for an interview with your company, I am absolutely elated that you took the time to tell me. I am seriously not joking. It makes me feel so much better to hear a solid no than to just sit and wait, confident my application probably was discarded without so much as a glance but still nagged by the niggling hope that maybe your office is just really, really inefficient. It took the BBC 4 months to send me a rejection letter--who's to say you're not all like that? And then where would I be if I accepted a job? Weeks after I accepted a job on a sailboat, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I received four calls from other companies--boats, offices, and even the circus--offering me interviews and expressing interest. Not fair! I have no patience for false hope. I have more respect for companies who tell me no in a timely manner than for those who string me along or simply say nothing. It's one thing if they cover their tracks from the outset with a quick "due to the high volume of applications we receive we are unable to reply individually to every letter, so if you haven't heard from us in a week please assume you were not selected for interview." blurb on the job description itself. That's a reasonable stance, particularly if you have over 50 applications for each position. That quick line of text gives an unsuccessful applicant closure. But the ones that just say nothing, particularly in the arts--that can mean anything. Seriously, with flaky artsy types at the helm, no response could mean no, maybe, yes, or even where are you, we've been paying you for six weeks. So seriously, the clear concise and timely rejection letter is a courtesy I appreciate.

warm regards,

One of the Thousands of Applicants You'll Never Meet

Cool Events I've Come Across

What's that? I do believe that's a Thames clipper coming about after having just passed through the drawn Tower Bridge.

Oh, and what's that? I believe I witnessed London Henge.

And that is a very mean swan.

Jardin Entr'Acte, avec les photos

Well, my tulips are pretty much done for the year. The dark purple tulips are still clinging onto solvency, but they'll dry out by Wednesday I'm sure. I've cut the stems back but left the foliage so hopefully they'll be strong for next spring. Thanks, Tulips! You really brightened my winter. See you back soon.

The tomatoes are getting bigger but they're not big or strong enough yet for me to stop worrying about them. I probably shouldn't have put them outside when I did but I was tired of hauling watering cans up to the attic, which is now hot and stifling without the skylights open. A fox dug one of the Gardeners Delights up in what appeared to be an aborted burial for a six-inch piece of a mouldy baguette. Bizarre. The plant was uprooted but not damaged and seems to be springing back.

I've had to move my growing operations up the garden somewhat as the huge ugly sycamore in my neighbours' garden now has enormous limbs overshadowing the end of the yard. Irksome, as I already have a big ugly holly doing that on the opposite side. I'm sure my neighbours wouldn't give a flying hoot if I lopped the branch off, but as I have no car and the city does not provide garden waste removal, I have no idea what I'd do with it. The idea of "chop it up and burn it" has a certain appeal, and there's no law preventing me doing just that, but I'd like to get a chiminea or sturdy metal trash can before I tried that. The idea of chopping both of those trees down and burning them is even more appealing, figuring I swept the garden yesterday and it is already again covered in nasty sticky tree pollen sacs and pointy painful stupid ugly holly leaves.

The Big Pink Plant has pink flowers now but it's not as showy as it was last year, probably because I pruned it quite severely after it dropped its blossoms last May. It was scraggly and lopsided and kinda sad-looking without the flowers, but I guess that's the trade-off. It also appears to have two cousins in the garden that are also blooming, but with white flowers of the same shape. Pleasing. I dug up some photos from 2010 to demonstrate just how much less floofy it is now.

Big Pink Plant Whole 2010

Big Pink Plant Detail 2010

Big Pink Plant Whole, 2011

Big Pink Plant Detail 2011

Just this morning the Azalea has begun to bloom, and the peony is about to. Yay! Also as of this morning I have visible seedlings for my bell peppers and beefsteak tomatoes. Go little plants!

Peony bud! Eeek!

Azalea! White flowers are hard to photograph.


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I have an interview with another temp agency on Tuesday, so hopefully I'll start getting somewhere soon.

The couple that bought Malcolm and Simon's house sounds like they're installing shelving. They smoke some stinky brand of cigarettes, which is disappointing--the Polish woman on the other side smokes something that smells nice after it has diffused a bit in the night air. Yesterday we happened to see the new dude bring in a set of golf clubs. There goes the neighbourhood.

Ancient Wisdom, or Fear of Change?

Why do people feel the need to justify the actions and attitudes of the present against documents from the past? The Bible, the Qu'ran, the Constitution, the company mission statement...all referred to constantly by people to prove that they're right, that they're good, that they're striving to attain some well-established ideal. I don't understand.

The Constitution is a big one for me. I don't understand the reverence afforded the Founding Fathers, a bunch of frustrated men whose primary goal was to set up a country that would be Not England after years of colonial oppression. I don't get why people hold up the Bill of Rights as though it's some sort of scripture, perfect and unthinkable to modify, despite the fact that it is comprised of the first ten corrections to a distinctly flawed original document. Why do we hold old writings and rules in a better light than contemporary? Why do we convince ourselves that the values of the ancients are somehow superior, nobler, despite the fact that society has been constantly progressing since the time of writing?

I think the Constitution should be reviewed every year by a randomly selected body of poli sci professors. Once a year they sit down and read the rules and say "okay, does this one still make sense? Is this still a good idea? Could we rephrase it to be more clear? Could we replace it with something more applicable? Should we change this to something that more accurately reflects the best interests of everyone in the nation, not just the white christian ones?" The good ones, keep. The ones that have already been amended, or the ones that are discriminatory or perpetuate inequity get struck. Like the 18th Amendment--it was repealed. Surely that means the 18th should be kicked out and women's suffrage should move up a space. Indeed, why can't women's suffrage just be added to the 15th? What's wrong with modifying the document itself, instead of eternally adding to it? If you're amending it, clearly the document is not sacrosanct. Why do you wish only to fill in the white space at the end? You can keep the first one on file, but don't use it if it's no longer useful.

As for laws that may suck, why should people have the right to wave guns around or not have to give evidence against themselves? Why should the government reserve the right to quarter soldiers in people's homes in wartime? Is it really a good idea to not re-try acquitted cases if new evidence comes to light?

(I'd like to take a moment to consider the right to bear arms. Regardless that its original phrasing intended to state that the people have the right to form militias and defend themselves from tyranny, the right to have a weapon doesn't actually give you the right to use it. If you use your gun on someone in a non-defensive act, it's a crime. Likewise, if you use your gun on someone in an act that you believe to be defensive but turns out to be unnecessary, it's a crime. The only time it's okay to use your gun for its designed purpose is if someone else is using their gun for its designed purpose on you and you'd prefer they didn't. That's just weird and pointless. Kinda like the christian "god is three distinct people at once while at the same time just one dude" argument. Weird, bullshit, and pointless.)

But why do we constantly re-interpret the presumed-noble intent of the written edict, when we could just write something better? We give new meanings to the Constitution and scripture all the time to reflect current thinking, despite what it actually says. Like the current dispute between godbotherers and halfway intelligent people over the first amendment. The godbotherers like to construe it to mean that the government won't dictate religion, but may still behave in a religious manner. Whereas sane people figure it means that the government is a secular body that must not have anything at all to do with religion. If the law as written can be misconstrued, and in particular if it may be misconstrued to repress people or impose discriminatory values on them, it must be re-written. More specifically, if circumstances progress and the world grows up and we realize that a particular law is outdated or represents a view that is no longer universally viewed as just, laws must be updated to reflect--not just the views of the vocal, but the logical, objective truth.

As logic stands now, so long as adults of sound mind consent to an action, provided that action does not affect non-consenting parties, it is no business of anyone else to intervene or even regulate it. But back-assward busybodies nevertheless believe it is their right and obligation to impose their narrow world views behind everyone's doors, so laws remain on the books--some of them utterly unenforceable because federal laws contradict them--that ban perfectly reasonable behaviours because religiosos are holding out for the day the federal ban will go away.

Just as it is unacceptable for religion to control private behaviour and thought by scaring children into believing they are always being watched and their minds are always being read, it is not acceptable for the state to pass laws against doing as one pleases provided it doesn't harm anyone else or break or take their stuff. This is reasonable and just and appropriate. But it would require a complete re-write of everything. I'm okay with that. I don't hold the law as sacred. I believe history is recorded to be learnt from, not to be repeated or maintained. Yes, we know how things were 200 years ago in this country. That doesn't indicate that that's how we need to stay. The People at large don't give a whoop what we used to be. Standing up in front of Congress and saying "well for 200 years the US was ruled by and for christianity so we better keep it that way" is akin to a representative in Israel standing up and saying "well for the past thousand years we didn't have a country here so we better give it back." History is not a mandate. What things were is not necessarily what things oughtta be.

The decline of the prevalence of religion in the developed world (i.e. Europe) crossfades clearly with the advent of useful medical science. Religion has been steadily losing its grip on government, education, nursing, and daily life ever since the discovery of penicillin. As soon as it was discovered that antibiotics and sanitation were far more reliable than prayer people became disillusioned, and rightly so. (Every time someone's life is saved by a complicated surgical procedure and it's called a 'miracle' a skilled surgeon sheds a tear.) It's downright rude to attribute to your imaginary friend what was clearly the work of human beings--human beings who, incidentally, only became able to develop surgical techniques and medicines by disobeying the directives of the church. Indeed, George Eliot mentioned in Middlemarch that even at her time in small country towns the populace was disinclined to trust a religious doctor.

But it goes beyond that. Now that we have video and audio recording technology, quick and easy transport connections around the globe, and instantaneous news coverage of all planetary events which affect people, it's become incredibly difficult for anyone to insulate themselves from the fact that bad shit happens everywhere. How can a sensible person thank Jeebus for curing them of a nasty stomach bug while simultaneously aware that 28,000 people were wiped out by a tsunami--some instantly, but many slowly and in pain, while others are now left to deal with the loss and the battered survivors? Who besides a narcissist can honestly thank god for curing them of anorexia while millions starve due to farm subsidies and trade agreements on top of changing weather patterns? What arrogant freak still thinks there's something out there, in control of the universe, who loves them and gives a flying shitball where their puppy is? How Dare you be religious?

Every catastrophe, every plague, every public outcry is not a time to question the motives of your imaginary friend of choice, but an opportunity to fix something--namely, the structures, traditions, and protocols that were in place that allowed this to happen. Religion exists to restrict the functionality of the state, education, love, science, and medicine and its finally dawned on people that it's costing lives, jobs, equality and happiness. Government is likewise hobbled when its base laws, which may have appeared clear, fair, and appropriate in the religion-crippled culture of 200 years ago, were written for a different, larger world--a world where you could pretend that your way of life was the best and didn't need to change the rules just because they were wrong.

"Because that's what the ancients did" is not a justification for any action. "Because we've always sold Walkmen" does not keep your electronics shop open, even if it was founded in 1987. "Because they thought it was a good idea in 1787" does not justify the US's continued use of the inherently-undemocratic electoral college voting system. Times Change, and old documents and old ways of doing things must be respectfully put aside. Filed, stored, not lost, not forgotten, but not perpetuated. That which we do must be tailored to the world we live in Now, and when what we're doing now is no longer relevant, it too must be archived.

If it's old enough to be sacred, it's clearly out of date.

Southeast London Buttermilk Biscuits

My adapted recipe. Doing dry measures with a scale just makes so much more sense than with cups.

Start with a cup of milk. Add a tablespoon or so of chardonnay vinegar and let it sit for about five minutes. If you don't have chardonnay vinegar, use regular vinegar or a slightly larger amount of lemon juice, but chardonnay vinegar is best. Steer clear of balsamic or apple cider vinegar, and whatever you do, don't waste your time looking for buttermilk in London. It's not there. Then give it a quick stir—it should be thick.

Then:

Single recipe. Doubling may or may not require exactly the same amount of buttermilk, depending on whether or not Mars is in retrograde.

250 g plain flour
85 g butter—frozen, grated like cheese.
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Tools:
cheese grater
big bowl
sieve for flour. Sifters are dumb.
scale and other measuring devices
whatever baking pans your landlady left you
clean wooden counter-top. If you have Formica counter-tops, have your kitchen re-appointed before continuing.

See what I didn't include there? A spoon. Yeaaaah.

Preheat your crappy-ass oven to gas mark 8, otherwise known as the “who needs eyebrows?” setting. Due to the nature of your crappy-ass oven, you'll have to rotate your ungreased cookie sheets at least once to ensure the ones in the back don't burn and the ones in the front actually get cooked, so you'll let all the heat out and they won't rise properly. If your oven has a window, watch the ones in the back rise beautifully for the first five minutes, then start to fall when the temperature drops. How like life.

If you'd rather have biscuits that rise nicely, buy an electric oven, install it, and set it to 450 F, 230 C, or self-cleaning mode. Or try to jerry-rig some sort of lazy Susan type device on the top rack. Might work. Refrain from using duct tape or plastic components, particularly if you're baking at night, so as to avoid waking up the whole damn neighbourhood when you burn your kitchen down.

Working with your hands, mix the dry ingredients. Add the butter last, in small handfuls, breaking up any clumps that form as you go. Make sure the butter is nice and incorporated throughout the flour mixture before you add the faux buttermilk but pull your hands out while it's still cold. Add only as much buttermilk as necessary—this amount will change based on the humidity and the movements of Saturn—to make the dough stick together without becoming gloppy. Incorporate only as much as you have to. Do not knead. Scrape the biscuit-worth of dough off your fingers. Dump out on a hella well-floured countertop—use your sieve to snow out a nice even layer—and pat into something resembling a circle, a little over half an inch thick. Do not roll out or pat to less than a half inch in thickness, as the biscuits will come out flat and lame. Pressing straight down, use a 2 inch-diameter biscuit cutter to hack the dough into rough circles, or whatever shape they wind up as. Instead of re-forming the offcuts into another cut-able disc, just throw them on the pan. You're not gonna serve them to the f'ing queen and everybody loves offcuts. Bake for 10-20 minutes, depending on the lunar phase, and remove when most of them are golden brown on top.

Yields about 8 good-sized biscuits, plus another biscuit or two worth of offcuts. I promise this is preferable to 10 biscuits, 2 of which are puck-esque.

Serve with apricot jam, orange marmalade, mozzarella and sliced tomatoes, eggs, baked beans, black pudding, or whatever you have laying around. They'll probably go well.

If you get a chance, serve them alongside a basket of scones and thumb your nose at your friends and family by proving that no, they are not the same. There's nothing particularly wrong with scones, but biscuits they ain't.

Thoughts, Tulips, and new desktop background

Since I began painting my house back in October (or was it longer ago? Did I paint my dining room so I wouldn't have to write my dissertation? Oh memory, you fail me so speedily these days.) I've been addicted to audiobooks. While I'm still just as literate as ever, and my eyesight has not failed, I have found a joy in taking in a story with my ears that I never before knew I could. I started with the light and silly Sookie Stackhouse novels, perfectly narrated by a delightfully southern professional voice actress, but I ran out of those before the painting bug left me so I sought quickly for something else.

Relief from the silence (and constant shrick-shrick of the roller) came in the form of LibriVox.org, which provided me with classics read by such an interesting variety of volunteers that I felt I might never grow bored with even the dullest of prose. I started to seek out texts read by my favourites, regardless of what they were, and discovered that I actually could tolerate Jane Eyre, and Finished it this time. I've completed more of Jane Austen's canon than I ever knew existed--I started with Sense & Sensibility, revisited Pride & Prejudice, and clomped through Persuasion before enjoying some of her short stories and hilarious essays. (Give The History of England a go--it's just a short thing and I think she wrote it while still a teenager. It's great.)

I'm currently halfway through Middlemarch, though I nearly gave up after a series of unfortunately-voiced readers left me bored and annoyed. (thick Italian accent with confusing phrasing, followed by thick Indian accent with guesswork inflection, followed by thick Ohio accent with inexcusably poor pronunciation. urgh.) So I'm taking a quick break from that and enjoying a professionally-read version of Brideshead Revisited from the library. As Brideshead was not published until 1945 it's got another 22 years before the LibriVox team can get their claws on it. I hope the internet hasn't gotten mouldy before then.

Anyway, some pictures. I think the hosta would make for a good default desktop background.

Two peppermint-flavoured double tulips. The pink stripes turned purple before they passed.

Bluebell with evergreen flowering shrub.

dark tulips with sunshine. mmm.

peppermint-coloured tulip beginning to curl up.

Chive flower beginning to emerge from bud. Yes, I take pictures of my onions.

Hosta, leaf almost entirely unfurled now.

More of the same.

Invasive tulip peeking, with aphid. They just seemed to hang out in them without actually hurting anything. Odd. I still smushed them when I saw them, as they were a nuisance to my tomatoes all last year.

I thought this looked like a supernova against the night sky.

The last flower-leaf of this plant to open, surrounded by older leaves that have faded to yellow. As of now they're all green, save this one, which is yellow.

Tulip Time!

So today is the warmest, sunniest day yet of the spring, and my tulips sure realized it fast. I came out this morning and the soil was parched and everything was drooping, which was surprising as it rained on Monday and even some yesterday. But whatever. Onto the flower show.

Just found this tucked away in my email archive

This is a response to an email I received from a USC student who was interested in applying to study abroad at Kent in 2006. I just stumbled across it and figured I'd share. Enjoy.

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Dear kristen,
I am an anthropology major here at USC. I am thinking about studying at the University of Kent for my study abroad. I found your name listed on the study abroad office’s virtual advising network. I was hoping to ask you some questions about your time in England.
Did you enjoy studying in Canterbury? What was the university like? Was it easy for you to find your way around campus? What were the classes like? Was it expensive to study at the University of Kent? Did you live in a dorm? How did you find the people there? Were they friendly? What did you like to do on and off campus? How was the weather in Canterbury? Would you ever like to go back there again one day?
I would really like to know what you thought about the University of Kent and England. It will help me to make up my mind. Thank you so much for your time.
A----

show details 6/30/06

Hey A----,

You may want to take a deep breath and make a sandwich before you start reading--i tend to be a bit verbose in my praises of Kent. My year there was hands-down the best year of my life thus far, and I'd recommend it to anyone with enough guts to get on the plane. That said, i'm also aware that studying abroad is not for everyone, and some people have a seriously lousy, homesick, put-upon, offended time in the UK. It really depends on how you approach it.

Let me first cover my ass by stating clearly and directly that people are going to dislike you for being American. I've had many friends study abroad and come home screaming and yelling that they didn't make a single friend abroad because the moment they opened their mouth they alienated people with their accent. Nobody, in any country, likes Americans these days, so travel with that in mind. (Its not just the Bush administration's fault, though they've certainly helped. Americans have a penchant for being loud, bossy, impatient, rude, and ignorant in foreign countries, and if you pair that with our reputation for having money and power you'll breed a resentment streak a continent wide.) The easiest way to avoid the evil eye from your classmates is to say "i didn't vote for Bush." (even if you did--if you want to make any friends, do not associate yourself with the Republican party, support for the Iraqi war, or Christianity).

On with the answers to your questions:

I Loved Canterbury. The town is adorable--its an ancient walled, moated city with cobbled streets and more historic buildings than you can shake a stick at. Your Kent student ID card will get you into the cathedral for free at any time, and its always worth a wander. (Tourists have to pay anywhere from 8-13 pounds for admission and tours except during services) Its also crisscrossed with parks and paths that are so pretty you can't avoid picnicking in them. The town is always packed with tourists and shoppers, particularly around Christmas. C-town's proximity to Dover allows it to be a very inexpensive field trip destination for French and German school groups, so you'll do well to avoid large groups of children with giant backpacks. (There are hourly ferries from the Port of Dover to Calais, France, and foot passage costs 7 to 11 pounds. Always good for a booze cruise--beer and wine are much cheaper in France! And its only a 20-minute train ride there from central Canterbury.)

Canterbury has more bars and restaurants within its city limits than there are days in the year. Most of them are far out of the average uni student's budget, but there are a few that are worth your while. I recommend the Old Buttermarket (in the square across from the entrance to the cathedral) and the Cherry Tree (on a side road off the high street--its just a little ways down from Methven's bookstore on the right. the canterbury whole foods store is visible at the end.) Cherry tree has happy hour every day from 5-8--most pints are 2 quid! (best deal you'll find off campus.) It is also a haven for overpriced designer shops and boutiques (hence the Christmas shoppers) so if you want to shop, be sure to save up for a couple of years.

Erm...where was i. Canterbury's night life is so small its laughable. All bars close at 11pm, and the city's 4 private clubs stay open until 2am but have a cover. What most uni kids do is drink at the bars until closing, then stumble home and keep it going there until the neighbors call the police. So if you like the club scene you're going to be disappointed.

All university buildings are hideous at Kent. I think its actually a requirement written into the school's charter. The ugliest buildings by far are Eliot and Rutherford colleges (they're mirror images of each other), though Darwin runs a close second, and wins the "most contorted and difficult to navigate" award. The campus is layed out very simply and in a linear fashion, but the academic buildings resemble Escher drawings when it comes to getting around them. Eliot and Rutherford in particular are famous for having floors halfway between other floors, stairways that lead to nowhere, hallways interrupted by courtyards, and no semblance of a coherent room numbering system. The only times i've gone into Keynes college were to go to the bar on the main floor so i haven't really looked around the rest of it.

The university is by itself at the top of a big hill--it is a good mile's walk to town, so there's no non-university buildings around. The view from the library is stunning! The campus is very self-contained--you actually don't have to go to town ever if you don't want to (though where's the fun in that?). The school has 2 restaurants, 9 bars, a nightclub, 2 small grocery stores, a theater (for touring shows and movies), playing fields, and religious centers for students (the catholic student center has its own bar). Sports are not a big deal--most are just intramurals and never compete outside of town. The biggest student gatherings are at the Venue (the nightclub) on weekends and Pound-A-Pint night at Woody's bar in Parkwood.

Concerning housing...this is where it gets confusing. Kent offers two styles of housing: catered and self-catered. (i.e. we feed you or you feed you.) Catered housing is dorm-style in one of the four colleges, or self-contained school units. Darwin, Rutherford, Eliot, and Keynes colleges are massive, ugly buildings that contain classrooms, bedrooms, department offices, restaurants, ballrooms, bars, courtyards, theaters, lecture halls, lounges, shops, and game rooms. I've actually known students to not leave their college for weeks on end. Anyway, in these situations, you generally live on a hall in a small bedroom by yourself and share a potty and a shower with 5-6 other people. You have a sink in your bedroom. The residence hallways have doors at each end to block out some of the noise from the rest of the building--not that it matters 'cos they're party central 24/7. Residence in the colleges includes breakfast and lunch every day in the central ballroom, though breakfast is very early in the morning and the food is...urgh. can we say rubbery eggs?

The other housing option is self-catered, which is what I did. Self-catered accommodation is in a large community of townhouses about a half mile from the center of campus. (its a pleasant 10 minute walk down a very nice, well-lit path. the only time it sucks is when the paths get icy.) The area is called Parkwood, and the townhouses have 5 or 6 bedrooms and are arranged into courts of anywhere from 10 to 20 houses. Everyone gets their own bedroom (the idea of shared accommodation is rather foreign to the English) and the 5 bedroom houses have a full kitchen, powder room downstairs, and potty, shower, and sink upstairs. The six bedroom houses have a really big kitchen and dining room, potty and shower downstairs and up, and sinks in each bedroom. (I lived in a 5 br--it was a bit tight but nice.) the residents are responsible for keeping their bedrooms clean, though housekeeping comes through weekly to mop the common areas, clean toilets, and replace tp. The stoves are gas, which rocks, but the ovens are gas too, which sucks. just so you know.

There's a third option available now, which is a couple of big multi-storey buildings just on the edge of Parkwood which have suites, but i really don't know anything about them because they were being built while i was there. More info can be found at www.kent.ac.uk/hospitality.

Near the center of Parkwood is a complex which houses a grocery store, a laundromat, a housing desk (staffed with nice people who'll sell you laundry tokens when the dispenser breaks) and Woody's bar--the best (and cheapest) bar on campus.

Keep in mind that at Kent, as with most British schools, university accommodation is offered to freshers (first years) and erasmus students only. Second years and beyond live in houses all over town, though many are in a large community of townhouses about a mile off campus.

You are likely to find that all of your neighbors are really, really immature--even compared to American freshmen. There are reasons for this, most notably the fact that many Kent students have spent their entire youth education in same-sex schools. While this is not necessarily the case outside of the Southeast, be aware that Kent is a snotty rich kid uni and many of them went to very expensive grammar schools. Hence a lot of people will act like they've never seen someone of the opposite sex before and get really stupid. Disease transfer is rampant throughout the first semester. Be Careful.

Classes. Ah, class. The least significant part of my study abroad experience.

Each department behaves differently, and as I majored in theatre i doubt what I have to say will bear any relation to your experience. But across the board there are certain tendencies--a full courseload is 120 hours over three trimesters. Most classes will be worth either 15 or 30 hours, though i've heard that varies when you get into the sciences. The first two trimesters are spent in class, and the third is for exams. The theatre department did not offer any classes below 30 hours, so it meant that i had 2 classes (modules) each term. yeah. 2. But i had at least 4 class meetings (classes) a week as each module had both a lecture and a seminar. The seminars were the best part, hands-down, as you really get to discuss the course material with your teacher and a small group of classmates and debate or even bicker about how you feel about it. ALWAYS BE PREPARED FOR YOUR SEMINARS.

My grades in the lecture/seminar classes came from one or two short papers (2500 words), one dissertation (5,000 words), one presentation (at least half an hour including questions and discussion--you basically teach a class on your subject matter and lead the seminar), and participation/attendance. Note i did not include exams in that. The theatre department did not have exams. I actually had 6 entire weeks free to fiddle around and have a good time. This is, unfortunately, not the case for other departments.

My classes second semester were weirder--whereas first semester each lecture was one hour and each seminar two hours, second semester i had one class that met two hours on monday without the professor to prepare a performance and seminar for tuesday. The tuesday class was 5 hours long and included presentation, lecture, seminar, performance, discussion thereof, and often a film of the next week's play. (it was Modern European Theatre 2: Beyond Naturalism. DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE.) The other class that term was a 4-hour acting class, but it was fun.

The classes have less, but harder work than American classes. you are on your own for a lot of it--not only acquiring texts from the library and reading them, but for finding research materials and preparing your presentations. Nothing is spoon-fed to you, and grading is tough. Moreover, every paper and exam is graded twice--both by your professor and an external grading board, which checks for plagiarism and cheating. Nobody earns a grade above an 80--they don't believe in perfection, or anything near it. But a 70 is an excellent grade.

A professor can make or break a class--i had two excellent professors, one sucky professor, and one bitch who artificially lowered my grade because she didn't like Americans. There's no excusing that. The sucky professor knew his stuff but he wasn't nice and tore everyone apart for their commentary, even when the student was right. Oh well. I learned a lot, i did a lot of research and a Whole lotta writing, but i didn't really care about the classroom. I made b's (known in the UK as a 2.1 or a 2.2--might i suggest you google the UK grading system? its a nightmare.) but they transferred back to USC as "pass" and did not affect my gpa.

The easiest and best way to meet people is to go to the campus bars. England is a drinking culture, so if you don't drink for whatever reason, people are going to think you're weird. They drink, but second years and up drink responsibly--it looks bad to get plastered too. Alcohol is not put on a pedestal in the UK--its consumption is permitted and encouraged among college students--so people are less inclined to abuse it the way we do here. My favorite drink at Woodys was the Snakebite--it is half cheap lager, half cheap cider, with a shot of blackcurrant syrup thrown in. Very pink, but yummy (though a lot of people hate it. just try it once!)
Without alcohol, most people are not particularly willing to talk to strangers. It is up to you to strike up the conversation, though once you do, chances are they'll be more than ready to talk to you for days. I made a lot of friends just by being genial and southern--it surprised a lot of my friends to see the number of folks who would wave and say hi to me every time i walked to class. Don't act like you're afraid of the locals--they can smell fear. Just be chill--don't apologise for being American, but don't gloat about it either. The last thing anyone wants to hear is "well its better in 'Merica 'cos..." If they see that you're willing to accept their culture for what it is, they'll be more likely to accept you.

Native Kentish folk tend to be more friendly and open than Londoners, who are trained from early childhood to expect anyone who strikes up a conversation with them to be a mugger or sex offender. Bar talk again is easiest.

I actually saved money when i went to Kent--the housing is cheaper! USC has an arrangement with UKC in which you pay tuition to USC (if you're in-state it means you can keep your life scholarship) and housing to Kent, and their exchangers do the same. When i was there the pound was worth $1.93- 2.00, so the cost of living was massive, but i budgeted carefully and came back broke, but not in debt. (I earned about $6,000 the summer before so i had that, LIFE, and my stafford loan to support me.) A few tips for not going broke:

don't buy textbooks if possible--check them out of the library
don't take the bus into town--its a very nice walk
shop at Tesco instead of Marks and Spencer (groceries)
pick a day or two for drinking each week
take out cash once a week and try not to use your debit
if you shop for clothes or other stuff, shop outside of Canterbury.
buy electronics in america!

Oh, random side note--there is a path that leads from Parkwood all the way to Whitstable (six miles--whitstable is on the water) its a BEAUTIFUL walk and was one of my favorite things to do on slow days with friends.
Canterbury is a 1-hour train ride from London (2 hour by coach (bus) but half the price). I dated a guy who's family lived in London, and got to spend three weeks with them over spring break (christmas and spring breaks are both a month). It really is a cool city to visit, though not really a great place to live. too crowded for my tastes.

Weather. umm. If you get seasonal depression, might i suggest the south of France? England is routinely gray. You get the odd pretty day in spring and summer, but don't expect anything besides gray, dismal, rainy weather. On the plus side, though, it doesn't get insanely hot or cold, and we got a foot of snow three times, to everyone's enjoyment!

Would i go back? I've been trying to get back there for a year now, but scheduling and finances are rather prohibitive. I dream of Canterbury still--i didn't want to come home. I still don't want to be home. One year there and i'm trying to become a citizen. The biggest draw is the people--they're typically very liberal, very chill, and very secular. I like that in a culture, though USC students have gone over there and wanted nothing more to come home for those exact three reasons. They have no patience for prejudice against anybody (in response to American congressional debate over homosexual marriage, Ireland went and formally legalized it) and they can respect diversity among people and cultures without cramming it down your throat, and their government is forced by the people to use funding responsibly and reasonably.

I helped a girl get over to Kent for this past semester--she hated everything about it. She didn't make any friends because she refused to go to bars, studied too much, and convinced herself it was her calling in life to witness the Bible to the crazy heathens of the UK. Most people rejected her solidly, and told her why. After three months of this policy her dad finally told her to loosen up and try doing as the romans do. Not only did she start to have fun, but people started to want to be around her. By the time it was time to come home, she didn't want to either.

Okay, sorry, i know this is long. take it in stages. There's a lot of worthwhile information cloaked in opinion--i can't write any other way.

Hope this has been useful! Let me know if/when you have any other questions or would like to see photographs. I have about 1,000 of canterbury, my social life, london, Paris, Barcelona, and campus.

Regards,
Kristen

No. NO. You are an adult.

Here I am. 26 years old. Highly educated, proven capable of handling a wealth of tasks with ease, courtesy, and warmth. Able to hang upside-down off the side of an aircraft carrier with a drill in hand Monday, then collate investment documents and tax mailings with precise attention to accuracy Tuesday, and with great decorum put clothes on hungry women Wednesday. I am bright, capable, versatile, and ready for a committed, rewarding career.

So WHY am I seriously considering applying for weekend gigs on the South Bank for a pittance?

No. I am a grown-up with real debts and real responsibilities. I should not think that my place is in a company-logo tee shirt surrounded by tourists on the sidewalk. That's one small step above standing on the corner waving a cardboard arrow toward the nearest McDonald's--a gig a homeless guy I know in Baltimore takes occasionally in exchange for burgers. I have worked too hard on my education to think that I don't deserve self-respect and a living wage.

But what education do I actually have? As far as business-sector skills are concerned, I have very, very few--and only ones that I've gained on the job. Touch-typing, filing, mail distribution, correspondence, dictation, teaching CEOs to use their computers...all tasks I've only undertaken as a low-paid temp. Nobody wants to pay people enough to not only eat but pay for their rent AND their student loans to hang lights and build fake walls. There's too many highly-qualified technicians out there who are happy to do it for free because someone told them that after a few years of interning and volunteering, the money'll start coming in.

This is not actually true. There are always enough recent graduates and hopeful young people to exploit that the need to pay people doesn't actually come up. If they start demanding money, you just find someone new. Now that I have a MA in being exploited I've moved up from being a dime a dozen to a dime for five, but still. A two-year turnaround on burnouts is plenty of time to keep your theatre staffed and your coffers full.

----

Oh I'm sorry I missed that lunch date, Arthur, but with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics, it was either hitch a ride on a spaceship or head back to the dole queue on Monday.

Henrietta

I just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It was an excellent read and beautifully edited. (Before this I read in rapid succession all but two of Jasper Fforde's comedic novels, such as The Eyre Affair and The Fourth Bear, all of which contain at least one glaring typo for every five pages, so I felt this was noteworthy.) While heart-wrenching and painful to read (particularly when Skloot and Henrietta's daughter Deborah find Elsie's mildewing autopsy report) occasionally disgusting (watching Zakariyya eat over a pint of ice cream off a paper plate), and reminiscent of all of the time I spent in high school learning to hate myself for just how much white people have abused black people for centuries in the USA, I nevertheless had room in my brain left over to consider the more pragmatic issues surrounding Mrs. Lacks's cancerous tissue.

The big question that dominates the end of the book regards the ownership of components of the self once they have been voluntarily removed from the body. No one argues that if someone hacks off someone else's arm for the fun of it, they should put it back, or at the very least compensate their victim for the harm they've caused. But if a surgeon removes a damaged or damaging component of a willing patient, should the patient still have some claim to it? I'm referring to tumours, gangrenous appendages, iffy-looking moles, ruptured appendices--all things that A. people are better off without, and B. won't survive on their own once they're cut off.

If biopsies, blood samples, and other bits and pieces are useless to patients, and will more than likely rot or be discarded if given back after testing, then it makes sense that people who not only have a use for the samples, but know how to keep them useful should keep them. Figuring they're doing all the work to keep the cells alive, preserved, or indexed, and spending all the money on formaldehyde and electricity to run deep freezers, it's only fair that, given the opportunity, they should be allowed to earn the money back from any commercially viable discoveries they make using said samples.

But.

Patients did put in all the effort of growing those tumours from the outset. Whether or not the friendly doctor saved his life by removing it, and whether or not he wanted said tumour, the patient did do all of the primary work. Not only that, why shouldn't the patient be compensated for all the time he spent in pain, nauseated, bedridden, coughing up blood, and generally having a lousy time of it? We have this concept in our world that people should pay to get better, not be paid for being sick. But being sick is work--indeed, for some people it's the most difficult work they've ever undertaken. It may not always be work that supports a profitable enterprise, but if a patient is undergoing some course of treatment it has the potential to. The fact that some people volunteer to make theatre doesn't mean that practitioners shouldn't be paid if the show makes a profit. Surely if a researcher wishes to be paid for his medicine, he should compensate everyone who worked to achieve it.

Now, Henrietta may have waived her eligibility for compensation--not because of something she signed in life, but because her cancer cells went out of their way to sabotage years and billions of dollars' worth of research all around the world. I mean, I'm sure there's a breach of contract violation in that somewhere. If nothing else, it made a lot of people unhappy when they thought they'd made breakthroughs, only to realize that no, they'd just made another freezer-ful of Baltimore Black Lady. Maybe that's what happens when you harvest malignancies without informed consent. Henrietta let science make great advances and save millions of lives, but she got some pretty good jabs in for her trouble.

Anyway, a very well-written, touching, and pragmatic book that approaches the reader like you're an interested adult--at no point did I feel patronized, but the style likewise never dropped into unintelligible medical jargon. I'm very glad Skloot took the time to do it properly (the project took her ten years), and to communicate with Henrietta's family as people--to not only get their story, but to help them understand what happened to their mother, and how she changed the world. I'm grateful to Henrietta Lacks.

And Georgios Papanikolaou.

Poked, Prodded, and Tea'd

So, I just got back from the colposcopy clinic. A very nice (man) gynaecologist did exactly what the procedure says on the tin, with a bonus prize: the colposcope has a camera built in, which was hooked up to a monitor, so I got to watch. The nurse (woman) kept me distracted and talking and I didn't really feel any discomfort, but I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. My cervix is exactly the same colour as my gums! There was a little spot, about the size of a pencil eraser, that turned white and looked odd, but the doctor didn't think it was a big deal. He took a cylindrical biopsy of it with this long skinny contraption, and got me to cough when he did it and somehow I didn't feel a thing. (I also didn't watch the monitor for that bit.) Well done there, I think.

Meanwhile the nurse was asking me about where I came from, oh isn't it warm there? You said you came here as a student, what did you study?

"I...erm.. What Did I study?" I was entirely too fascinated by my own personalized NOVA show to remember anything about myself. "My mom's a nurse too, but she works labour and delivery. This is so odd--I'm having a hard time believing it's me I can see." "Do you want to have kids?" "No, that's not really the plan." "Well, if you decide to have babies, they'll grow just behind that." "I'm well aware of that, I just mean I feel rather detached, more like I'm watching a science programme. Is that the string from my IUD?"

Afterwards I asked to see the biopsy, and found it fascinating, which made the nurse laugh like a drain. And there was a condom on the handle of the colposcope. And instead of foot stirrups they had these sort of curved leg pad things, far more comfortable. And everything smelled of vinegar. (The naughty cells react to vinegar, so fair enough). The lighting in the hospital is terrible, but the place was clean and well-appointed.

No one but me in the waiting room spoke English, but there was another waiting room just around the corner full of pregnant teenagers and their boyfriends, all of them white and dumb-looking. I wandered in there on accident and was briefly confused because they all had numbers, but the receptionist hadn't given me one. I was also the only person in there who had come alone, which got me some pitying looks until I realised I was in the room with pictures of babies all over the walls when I should have been in the room plastered with posters for cancer support groups. Way to make a lady feel comfortable.

So now I get to wait three weeks for the biopsy to...do its thing, I suppose. Are they going to try and grow it? Or make a slide of it and examine the cell pattern? I suppose I could look it up. I'll go do that.

Inexperienced and Unskilled, but suck at digging ditches

Hello world. I need a job. I've been working for about ten years in a diverse array of fields, off and on around my education, all around the US and now London. Well, I say working in London. I say working.

Okay, scratch that.

See, I've had the fun experience of either never being asked to do anything--quite literally, sit in front of this desk and wait for the phone to ring though it probably won't--and doing highly-skilled and important tasks that I'm not actually supposed to be doing for busy bosses who have eventually decided I was competent.

I have a large résumé, but it's full of short contracts, internships, temp work, and good jobs that I nevertheless did without a license or proof that I knew what I was doing. I'm a good MIG welder (untested) a strong rigger (unqualified, and with lapsed belay certification from 2004) a skilled carpenter (scenic, unverifiable), and a capable lighting electrician who can work safely at heights (unconfirmed). I've competently operated cherry pickers (without a license) and can drive a car (in the USA). I've maintained and repaired vehicles (with my dad) and can fix and upholster furniture (though the last place I did this as a job I left after a screaming match with my misogynistic boss who tried to make me cut Styrofoam with a hot knife without proper ventilation or a clean respirator while mocking my Wiccan co-worker for being a heathen and 'playing around with voodoo').

I have about 6 months (over three years) of administrative experience. I have a master's degree (in theatre) and a valid work visa (for 2 years, the point of which is to help me find a job that will sponsor me indefinitely, which is a burden no employer wants to deal with). I've never been fired (but I've had dozens of contracts lasting four hours to three months) and have spent the past six months volunteering (as a lighting technician in dodgy-at-best theatres and found spaces). I'm organized and efficient (when I have to be) have a pleasant telephone manner (with an American accent, which is inappropriate for a truly British company) and can type 95 words per minute (when it's warm out, otherwise my fingers lock up and I can manage about half a sentence before I start spewing gobbledegook.)

All told, with my CV and personality...I wouldn't hire me. Maybe I can go into landscaping. I quite like plants. Check out my lavatera seedlings:



And my tulips, as they get going:


And my daffodil (yes, just the one)



and my whatever the heck this is:


Green thumb? Perhaps not. More like greenish toe, but not in a gangrene sort of way.

Oh the life of the dabbler, the short-term gigger. The Temp. Too competent to be an amateur, but too inexperienced to be a professional.

col-PAHS-co-py

So. A letter just came through the door inviting me down to the girls room for a poke-n-prod.

Erm. To rephrase. I've received correspondence from my local NHS trust informing me that I have an appointment for a colposcopy. Apparently my most recent Pap smear turned up a HSIL, or High Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion, or Severe Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia, which I've had a fun hour or so of reading about. At my appointment in 2 weeks I'll get the fun experience of having a 3% acetic acid solution spread on my cervix to see if it turns white in areas where there's a high concentration of cellular nuclei. I'll probably be biopsied and may even get to experience the sublime joy of the LEEP (looped electric excision procedure, which sounds a lot like the slice-n-toast knife in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy film) And then, joy of joys, I'll get two more Paps over the next year, and annual pappage over the next 10. Whee, who doesn't love the sound of that?

Interestingly, in my last hour of low-grade-panic-driven research, I've learned that the plastic broom I've always associated with Pap tests is not very good at collecting cells, which might help to explain why my 2009 Pap came up completely normal but all of a sudden in 2011 it's come up hellafuckedup (technical term).

I've also learned that the person who detected my abnormality is called a Cytoscreener, which is awesome. Thanks, Cytoscreener, for helping me stay healthy.

I've known for a while that most everyone has at least one, and probably several strains of HPV. I know I have had at least 2, now--I also got a verruca from lifeguarding at a summer camp in 2004. Kids are gross. I had to have the verruca frozen off with liquid nitrogen which was astonishingly painful. Like, it felt kinda funny for a sec while the doctor was applying the goop, then he got up and left the room just as a bolt of lightning shot from my heel to my hip, causing me to clench up and jerk around like a rabbit in a snare while emergency lights flashed red in my head alerting me to the fact that my foot had been cut off. If the same thing has to happen to my cervix, be prepared for a killing spree. Getting an IUD was bad enough.

I like the way the letter was phrased. To paraphrase: "you're probably fine, this is all fine, don't worry, you're great, we love you, cancer, you're a good person, you're better than healthy, it's probably nothing, do not miss your appointment for any reason, this happens all the time, it's downright routine, hugs and kisses, NHS." Kinda like that time I was grabbed by a London transit police officer to have my Oyster card checked after a fault caused me to get smushed in the gate--ID badge, big smile, mind if I check your card? big smile. I'm sure it's fine, you look like a good person who wouldn't try and get away with not paying, criminal, big smile, there we go--the person ahead of you must have not touched the reader properly, big smile.

Oof. What is it, when people tell you not to worry, it just makes you even more anxious? Like when people tell you it's not going to hurt, you totally know it's going to be a gore-splosion, or when someone in a bad movie says "nothing could possibly go wrong." I'm sure I'm fine, I'll be fine, and even if it has the potential to be not fine, it is still in a it's-fine stage of not fine. But nevertheless...AAAARRGGGHHH.

As for silver-lining thinking: At least I'm not in the USA without health insurance right now. I have a valid NHS number and a valid work visa.

As for appropriate responses to that line of thinking: FUCK YOU, REPUBLICANS. I'm safer in the UK than at home, despite massive blows to the NHS under a Tory-led initiative to try and privatise and profit-drive healthcare because they're mass-murdering wankfucktards who have no concept of I can't afford it EVEN IF MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT and therefore assume that poor people just don't care enough...even with those EVIL IDIOTS in charge, I'm BETTER OFF than with YOU.

Without tax-funded women's health centres like Planned Parenthood, many women will not receive Pap smears. They won't be able to afford them, or at least won't see an appreciable cost/benefit ratio to paying to have them as often as they should. They will not detect problems early. They will not have the fucking chance that I think I have...fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fucking republicrats. Fucking religious aristocracy trying to punish all us naughty heathens for our normal, human behaviour. Fuck you, yes you--judging me for bringing all this on myself with my youthful indiscriminate actions. If you hadn't told me not to, I probably wouldn't have. I pay my fucking taxes... (descends into incomprehensible mewling)

And Guess what I started reading on Monday?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

Faaaaaaaack.

March in London, or "What are Begonias supposed to look like?"

My poor, sad, confused house-plant. I have no idea really how to care for it, or if I'm even supposed to at this time of year. I just looked at a bunch of pictures on the interwebs of what begonias are supposed to look like, and...mine doesn't look like that. It has one sad and strange looking cluster of flowers dangling off to one side and is otherwise a green, sprawling mess. Most of the leaves look happy and it has new growth but it's not the compact, flower-laden plant you see in the pictures.



I just took a lot of pictures of it with flash so that may confuse it, I don't know. I can just see all its chloroplasts screaming "I'm blind! Oh the Humanity!" (begoniaty?)



I water it when the soil gets dry, it is well-drained and gets as much sunlight as it can (not much, it's London and it's March) and I've fertilized it once or twice. I just have no idea if it looks the way it is supposed to, if it is happy and thriving or on its last legs. Should I put it outside when it gets warmer? Should I prune it? I put it in a larger pot about four months ago and it got bigger, but maybe I shouldn't have done that. But it has flowers at all now, whereas when we first got here it had none, and continued having none until I repotted it. I worry inordinately about this plant.




I think I have a sort of ET relationship with my lone house-plant. When I'm all seasonal-affective so is it, or perhaps I just imagine it to be so. I'm not getting enough sun, so Windowplant is likewise in the dark. I tried growing cilantro on the windowsill and it sprouted, looked around for about five minutes, and died. Well screw you too, dumb herb. I'm nervous to start any seedlings for the summer 'cos I'm pretty sure they'll bail on me too. I'm not going to bother with aubergines this year, but I'm eager to try courgettes with the assistance of fungicide. That stuff makes a mountainous heap of difference (between having courgettes and...not)

London has this cute tendency to cloud over for the brightest part of the day. Like today. It was cloudy all morning until about noon, when it cleared up partway, got me all excited...then clouded over again until just now. It is currently too dim to enjoy the clear sky, and Windowplant is not getting anything out of it. I pruned some dead twigs off my Big Pink Plant in the cold cloudy gloom, but it doesn't look like it wants to bloom this year. It has buds, but they look to be leaves. FAIL.

Quotation mark "abuse"

What is with the anti-freedom camp these days that makes them feel it is appropriate to put quotation marks around every word they find objectionable? "Gay" is the new homosexual. "Rights" is the new...rights? These numbnuts are so intent on claiming that other legal Americans don't deserve equal protection under the law that they will suggest that the word right may be used ironically. That's not funny. It's weird. I've actually seen the sentence ""gays" believe they "deserve" the "right" to same-sex "marriage"" on an official statement, along with "it is not "bullying" for my child to encourage your "gay" child to seek the path of righteousness."

I think your "grammar" is "gross".

It is also amusing that they've named their movement "pro-family" which is another can of douche. How can someone who is pro-family impede others in their attempts to have...a family? I'm pretty sure the "gays" are the "pro-family" side of this debate, and you, friends, are in the "anti-equality" trench. Or how about "pro-theocracy" if you've gotta be pro-something? Too much of a mouthful? Pro-hate? Pro-bigotry? Pro-white-wealthy-fundie-closeted-men-and-subjugated-sexually-repressed-women?

This is just another "grievous abuse of language" to go along with their gun-waving pro-life, union-busting pro-democracy, and consenting to job, service, and benefit losses while paying more in taxes so the aristocracy can maintain their tax cuts pro-liberty catch phrases. Think, please, before you give yourself a misnomer.

Hello UK

Hello, my name is Kristen, and I have the right to be here.

My newly-vignetted passport arrived registered mail this morning. I'm legal, it's official, it's in my hands.

I scheduled a National Insurance Number interview last week after I spoke with my UKBA case worker. I called to confirm he'd received my bank statements, and instead of answering that, he told me my visa was granted. (Oh darn! But I swear I wasn't hounding him to find out anything besides the delivery status of my documents!) I feel a bit silly now, as the Job Centre worker asked if I'd like a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) and I declined as I'd been told my visa probably wouldn't be in my hands until Wednesday. She bumped it up to Friday. So now I have another week of thumb-twiddling, but things are in play.

My new visa is valid until the end of February 2013. I have two years to find a full-time job that would be happy to help me stay. I've already been looking will now continue my search with less despair. And I can apply without hoping they won't call me back immediately--I can hope for Fast Turnaround! Ooooooh.

----

In other news (if you don't care to hear a diatribe about religion, politics, or authoritarian regimes, the blog post is finished, nothing else to see here.) I read a lot of Science Blogs, particularly Professor PZ Myers' Pharyngula. He teaches biology in Minnesota and points out when religiosos try to cause harm or damage politics in their own special ways. Yesterday he provided a link to the blog of a Catholic wacko who annoyed me by trying to establish through scripture that giving a woman an orgasm is a mortal sin. So I've been giving him a hard time. I figure he won't publish my response to his blog post so I've reposted it here. If you think frank anatomical discussion is explicit, I suppose it is explicit. As a courtesy, I elected to try and write this as though I am party to the writer's own skewed version of reality. I probably got a few things wrong as I am neither Catholic nor tolerant of religion, but I did try.

----

Your refusal to address women and concerned husbands' questions regarding mutual enjoyment of sex demonstrates weakness--not of your mind, but of your evidence. You know that the location of clitoris, if designed by God, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and that unpleasant and un-fulfilling sex is divisive, not unitive, and leads slowly and painfully to the breakdown of marriage. It doesn't matter if you don't believe the purpose of sex is pleasure--if one party enjoys it and the other doesn't, it fails the 3-font challenge of your description.

But I’ve figured out something that can help you. It’s simple, really, so I’ll state it simply. The clitoris is not sexual, so touching it is not evil.

Check it out. Yes, biologically the glans of the penis and the clitoris are derived from the same nerve cluster during gestation, so technically they are the same thing. But functionally, and therefore doctrinally, they are utterly different. The clitoris contributes nothing toward procreation. The organ itself and its functionality are in no way related to baby-making, therefore usage of the clitoris is unrelated to sex. The fact that stimulating it leads to an energy build-up and release that society calls “orgasm” is irrelevant. The fact that it is near the vaginal opening is irrelevant–unless you want to argue that the bridge of the nose contributes to the function of the eye. The concern of the Church is that procreative organs are exploited for pleasure and not for procreation, but the clitoris is in no way procreative, therefore exploitation of it is wholly outside the realm of sexual ethics. Touching the clitoris cannot lead to the spilling of semen nor the expulsion of the egg. As long as you do not massage it with a procreative organ its use is cleanly and definitively separate from sex.

If you try to impress upon me the notion that the clitoris is sexual, then you are seeking to impress upon me the notion that the clitoris is a vital component of procreation. If so, then you’ve unfortunately defeated your own argument–if it is vital, then it must be stimulated in order for God’s design for marital acts to be fulfilled. If it is not, it is a system and entity entirely unto itself and is therefore fine. It exists not for sexual pleasure, but simply pleasure itself.

If you had to reach into the woman’s sexual organ to stimulate the clitoris it would be different, but then again, this issue probably never would have come up as stimulation thereof would be considered a normal component of the procreative act. But it is separate, therefore it is separate.

If you can find, in scripture, anywhere that it says “women have an organ separate from the entrance to the womb that feels good when you touch it–do not touch it” fair enough. But anything more vague than that does not pass muster. It is a separate entity, it is not sexual, so it may be stimulated by either partner with impunity.

developmental biology for beginners, or Mother Nature is Amoral

If by some bizarre set of circumstances Asshat McGee in Georgia manages to shove through his "miscarriage punishable by death" legislation, the logical next step is actually the prohibition of any non-barrier form of contraception up to and including the rhythm method.

See, he wants to define personhood as beginning the moment a sperm bites into an egg. Wham, two cells combine, it's Joe. Unfortunately, the fact that cells have combined in no way guarantees a live birth, or even that the active zygote won't be passed in the woman's next menstruation. Indeed, it is a matter of general consensus among reproductive healthcare providers that after day 13 of the menstrual cycle one or more eggs is released into the uterus and will survive about 24 hours. If the egg is not fertilized in this time it is flushed out of the body about two weeks later. If the egg is fertilized in this time but for whatever reason doesn't adhere to the blood-rich uterine lining it too is flushed out of the body about two weeks later. Joe, meet tampon.

Women's bodies do this on their own all the time, as is doubtless being discussed throughout the internet at this moment. Billions of uteri over the years have rejected or simply failed to accept viable zygotes because the zygote simply never made it over there, for no particular reason. This is not a tragedy, this is not a miscarriage, this is not a baby, this is not a person. It is a microscopic cluster of cells that oozed out of a woman along with a whole bunch of blood and mucus.

Inter-uterine devices (IUDs (or Coils, in the UK)) work (we think) by inhibiting a zygote's ability to attach to the lining of the uterus. If you look at it like a Fundie, that would mean that an IUD works by starving the poor helplessly-flailing fertilized cell to death. Progesterone-infused IUDS are even worse--they don't usually inhibit egg release, but they do prevent the body from building up a uterine lining And physically inhibit zygote implantation. Oh, what a hostile environment!

Hormonal birth control methods generally do inhibit ovum release, so I guess they should be Fundie-fine, but they're absolutely horrible in every other way. They screw around with women's physiology so much that they cause neurological disorders, emotional disturbances, weight problems, digestive problems, dermatological problems, fibroid problems, bleeding disorders, and a host of other unpleasant changes. Barrier methods likewise prevent fertilization...when they work, but they're notoriously movable, breakable, by-passable, and faulty. The most reliable, least-unpleasant form of contraception is in fact the IUD, which, to the Fundie, could be considered forced miscarriage, i.e. muuuuurrrrder.

Obviously, non-implantation happens on its own constantly--the Mayo clinic has stated that non-implantation and even implanted miscarriage within the first 3 weeks of pregnancy occurs all the damn time, far more than the 1/4 of detected pregnancies that end in spontaneous miscarriage. Evidence exists to suggest the likelihood of Most pregnancies failing at this time, but it is utterly impossible to tell how many unacknowledged fertilized ova have been absorbed by sanitary products, even in women who were hoping to not have a period this month.

All IUDs do is bump up this number a bit, but if you believe, as many morons do, that personhood begins at fertilization, they could be seen as aiding and abetting the natural inhospitable nature of the uterus toward God's chosen innocent helpless blastocysts. It would follow, then, that the miscarriage police would feel comfortable in banning implantation-inhibitors, and should enforce that all sexually active women take human chorionic gonadotrophin supplements to prevent evil progesterone cycles triggering the uterine lining to shed before implantation occurs. If personhood begins at fertilization, we must do everything in our power to ensure that zygotes survive, including suppressing normal biology and causing heinous damage to women's bodies and minds in the process.

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The trouble is, religion and law don't really fit with the truth of how bodies and societies actually work. They exist in this idealized, inhuman sphere that cannot cope with the truth that the body is amoral. It does its own thing no matter what you tell it. Whenever life begins is irrelevant to the uterus. The menstrual cycle is only a pattern of chemical releases, one that pregnancy may or may not interrupt. So too is a woman's decision-making process entirely comprised of electrochemical impulses. Whether the uterus or the brain decides to not see a pregnancy through, it is all part of the functionality of the female. If a fertilization results in a non-viable foetus, if a woman is on drugs, what have you--the inside of a woman must be off-limits to the prying, judging, moralizing, arbitrary eyes of the law and the church.

In conclusion: It may be Joe, but that really doesn't matter.