Paper done! and other mostly happy things

So, my second Black Britain paper was nearly as long page-wise as my first one, but Word was telling me it was only about 1400 words, while my previous one had been about 2600 words. Eventually it occurred to me that i had a lot of material in the last one that i didn't end up using and was highlighting the bulk of the paper for a word count to ignore the peripheral material i had moved to the end of the document. This works in WordPerfect. Apparently Word is dumb, though and just Word Counts the entire document. Copying-and-pasting my previous essay into a new document, it's only about 1600 words.

I finally finished this second essay (have been attempting to lock myself in the computer lab and write it since Friday) and it clocks in at 2282. That's close enough to 2500 for me. I need to revise my first essay and submit it for the Hofer essay prize (due August 8). This essay is good, too, but it's on being an outsider and growing up and just your typical stuff, whereas my first one was on "Identity as Costume in Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia," which is just so much cooler, even though i really should elaborate more on stuff in it and make it flow better and we all know how much i love revising papers. (P.S. Gillian, my professor wrote a book on Hanif Kureishi.)

Much though i dislike it, i am in some ways enjoying this essay work. It's forcing me to improve my essay writing skills in ways Smith hasn't, which is funny because Smith is definitely more challenging than this program is. I think maybe in some ways i can get away with pretentious academic bullshit in my papers at Smith whereas for these papers i am forced to do serious textual analysis (i have read over the books i wrote my essays on probably twice each on top of the initial full reading) to get quotes and make sure i have the order of events and stuff right. (It's more complicated than i'm making it sound.) I'm also being forced to stick with a theme and connect everything i say/quote back to that theme. I honestly remember very little of anything i've written at Smith, so i'm not really sure why this is harder, but the challenge is rewarding in a similar way to how manual labor is rewarding, and i've been pleased and impressed with how i've actually been making intelligent connections in these essays. (The fact that i can write good papers on literature has yet to cease to pleasantly surprise me.) If i can force myself to work this hard when i get back to Smith i might actually start pulling off more (deserved) A's in classes.

Astute readers may remember that i was going to day-trip to London on Saturday. I definitely did not, for various reasons. I will be going at least 2 times in the future, though, because i purchased a £5 ticket to (all-female) Richard III (Friday, August 1) and a £9.50 ticket to (open-air) Midsummer (Wednesday, August 6).

Also, Stonehenge is part of the Hardy Hike, so i get to go to Stonehenge after all, and i'm going to Sulgrave Manor with the Seminar tomorrow. Whee.

Caroline said that while the White Cliffs are just that (cliffs, white, whatcanyado -- though it's partly cool just to dip your toes in the English Channel and stuff, the whole "Yeah, i was there" thing), the castle at Dover got her her medieval castle fix in a way Leeds Castle didn't. Hmm. I should have gone to Dover when i went to Canterbury. I was thinking of going to see the Seven Sisters while at Sussex, but i'm not sure how that will turn out with Mandy and all. Sigh. We need to seriously hash this out.

The gardens were opened to the public from 2-5 today, including the private gardens that usually aren't even open to students. The President's Garden is basically that big manicured lawn that gardens here are, with flowers along the edge and a couple statues. The Fellow's Garden is a smaller version of that but with two gargoyles spouting into a fountain which has bright goldfish in its base. Much cooler.

There was a wedding here yesterday. The bride and groom were coming out just when i left to go grocery shopping. (Again, i should always have a camera on me.) I got a shot of the string quartet practicing outside my window before i left, though. And i took a picture of the reception when i came back, because it was in the two areas outside my window and really, how often do you see a wedding reception on the grounds outside your dorm window.

anniesj is gonna get me hooked on X/S. This is no fair.

jacklemmon blogged for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for this year's Blogathon. I need to do Blogathon next summer, though i'll probably make a new journal just for that so i won't be spamming anyone who doesn't want to be. Also, state!porn is mad fun. (Start with her first Blogathon entry and just keep hitting the little next arrow at the top of the LJ entry. Read the comments, too; they're half the fun.)

In other amusement, one can get clothing of just about all sorts with "mind the gap" on them.

( This is already a lengthy entry, so i'm cut-tagging the part wherein i talk at length about going to church today )

Questions:

Why hasn't LJ been updating "comment posted" counts? It has told me for the past few days that i've posted 1,920, though my comments received has gone up. And it's not just me. I checked out a profile because i saw a comment in a friend's LJ and thought "Is that So-and-so i went to high school with?" and the profile said Comments: Posted: 0.

(I'm also not a fan of how recently -- the past few hours -- LiveJournal has been having some posts disappear and reappear on my friendspage. Whatever is causing that hiccup needs to stop, soon.)

Can i edit my layout style even though my paid account's run out?

What has been making my tummy feel off-and-on weird these past few days?

[Oh, and trijinx made me do this: I am a Human-Sized Lizard that can Change Colour, and has Crablike Pincers, which is oddly appropriate on numerous levels, though i'm sad that i only have middling level everything.]

sex, love, etc. [Things have been mulling in my head, not as well thought out as i usually like.]

"i am a whole and complex person, and part of that person is queer as the day is long. because of that, as long as i can't say who i really am, you can't really know me."
Word, sister.


A friend of mine recently came out to me as bi (and i felt really special, because i was only i think the 2nd person she had come out to), and she said she wasn't looking forward to coming out to a lot of her friends because have made clear that being gay or lesbian is fine, but that bisexuality made them uncomfortable. I'm so used to either being in queer-friendly places or in combatting heteronormativity that i forget about biphobia (which exists on both sides). I think it (bisexuality) upsets people's neat categories and that disturbs them (much in the same way that trans stuff upsets people, messing with the gender binary and all). We both have faith that her friends will come around, and her parents will definitely be accepting (which is always a blessing -- love and hugs to my parentals, btw, as i haven't said that recently), it's just frustrating.


One of things Mandy and i talked about that long night was sex and how one defines it. She said that for her, she has to make a verbal commitment beforehand, saying "I am defining this action, with this person, as sex," and that actions other than those usually defined (even within the queer community) as "sex" can be included in that, that the focus is more on the partner and the decision. I think that's an interesting and potentially useful way of defining it, but it doesn't work for me. I'm not sure what does work for me, though. I think that gay sex has really upset the traditional definitions. I mean, i'm comfortable with the idea of penetration-as-sex (except in non-consensual situations, where Mandy's definition takes on appeal for me, where one can say that someone forced sexual activity on you and you have been violated and you have been raped but you compartmentalize it outside of the consensual sexual activities you have participated in) but what about oral-vaginal sex. If you go down on a woman, have you had sex? has she? Gay sex also upsets the idea of whether it really matters. Virginity has traditionally been an issue of bride-as-damaged-goods, and retains even in liberal societies the idea of wanting to maintain purity etc. When you bring gay sex into it, you have to question just what all that means. The major issue used to be one of property, of husbands wanting to be sure that all the fruit of their wife's loins was theirs by blood. Without that factor, what is the issue? Is sex an intimate shared experience you want to save for your life partner? I can absolutely understand and respect that and in fact feel similarly myself. Mandy has got me thinking about that, though, because one can certainly have physical intimacy outside of "sex." Is kissing something you want to save for your life partner? We can perhaps put kissing and "sex" on opposite sides of the life-partner-line, but it gets blurry in between.

[edit: I knew there were related things from that conversation i was forgetting. Thankfully i had jotted them down since i knew i wanted to LJ about them at some point.]

One of the things she said was that it's not important how far you've gone with how many people but whether the physical interactions you've had have been significant.

WORD.

I've also been thinking for a while about the fact that i have fulfilling friendships, which i think is more important than physical intimacy with one single person (though physical affection is important to me).

Okay, sleepy girl should go to bed now.

[/edit]


There was an ad (i think for Bombay Dreams though i really wasn't at all sure) i saw a lot last time i was in London whose focus was the quote "Love like you've never been hurt before." I've seen this in the context of the full quote before and never thought much of it (The "Dance like no one's watching." bit really appealed to me much more.) but seeing it on its own it started to really trouble me. I get what it means, but it's troubling because it's important to learn from relationships, particularly the ones in which you've been hurt. I mean, you shouldn't let a heartbreak prevent you from ever allowing someone else into your heart, but it's also important to not repeat mistakes like getting into relationships with people who are abusive or emotionally unavailable or whatever.