My scrap of dirt

XD

- A really funny rant about the use of nail during sex in bad!fanfic.

- I didn't even try to understand half of what happened between Eli Roth on ONTD and I still don't really know who Eli Roth is actually, but this interview is kinda made of awesome, if only because he replies to the request of "Do a dramatic reading of a fanfic" by saying "That's a good idea. But why fuck around? We should act one out as a live stage show. Lemme e-mail Til." XD

- One of my pet peeves in the English language is people who say "use to" instead of "used to". It's been drilled into my head so much when learning English and it seems so simple to me, it drives me crazy that so many people get it wrong. So this expectedly both made me laugh and want to headdesk.

I'm still trying to get over my doubts from yesterday and the nervousness I feel because I think the project is turning into something very different from what I'd originally imagined in my head. I just need to convince myself that it's ok and I'll figure out the lit review and everything later. Basically originally I was interested broadly in how teachers teach, and I'm realizing that especially since I need to make the interview shorter, I'm really more interested in how the teachers teach and handle diversity and difference in the classroom.

Basically I'm still not sure what I'm doing. :/

So instead of freaking out, let me share a couple of funny links.
Cats can really sleep anywhere.
Cats fail and grad students.
( (Funny but Dollhouse spoiler!) )

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Now a few links stolen from le_canard.
The documentary Girl Like Me touches on how racism intersect with beauty standards. It's mostly bits of interviews with black girls who talk about how they've been made feel about their appearance. We often think that tastes are personal - so what if I like blonde better than brunette? It's a good reminder that tastes are also embedded in cultural bias and in Western nations, that means a certain racial bias, too.
The experiment featured at about 4 minutes is pretty heart-breaking and disheartening. It was reproduced recently and I don't know if I'd put quite the same positive spin on the story. I would love to try the experiment in France, but also to have white children do it, because I'm pretty certain patterns would differ.

And finally, in French, Mr. Haïdari who works at the City Hall in Marseille (he's assistant to the Mayor), talking about why he thinks it's important that we have racial statistics in France. The usual argument against such statistics - that they create racial categories that don't exist - is true in the sense that race is a social construct, but it blatantly ignores that this social construct has very real (psychological and material) consequences today in France (and beyond). Racial categories will never be perfect, but it's a better alternative (in my opinion) to pretending that there isn't a racial problem in France. These categories, we made them up, but today they influence the lives of people of color, and we have to stop ignoring that because it makes us uncomfortable.


That reminds me that this morning I was in a school and asked the head of the school (because he was showing me what kind of information students fill out every year) if he had any same-sex household that had a kid in his school. His first reaction was, "you know, it's none of my business" ("ça ne me regarde pas"). Which struck me as odd. Why would we want these families to be invisible? Is it that strange to imagine that teachers would know if their kids have a mom and a dad, one parent, two of the same sex? Under the excuse of giving people privacy, aren't we really playing into a system that assumes and favors heterosexuality? That's a rhetorical question, obviously. It's very telling that we ask kids to fill out information about their mother and father, but to ask if they have two moms or two dads is a breach of privacy.

A few links I've been meaning to post:

- French interview with José Bové "L'écologie n'est pas compatible avec le capitalisme".

- Still in French, on dubbing and fan subtitling: L'aversion originale des studios.

- Hamlet: Facebook edition

- Dr. Horrible: Facebook edition

- An update on Dollhouse Season 2, what we know at the moment.


Day is not starting out too well. Hopefully it will get better.

California Court says private school can expel lesbians. Apart from the obvious, two things really bother me about this:
- I want to know if that means a religious school could exclude a black student if they decided that "mixing races" was against Biblical teaching? (It's not like that argument hasn't been made in the past.) It's a genuine question, actually, because from the ruling it sounds like yes, schools would be welcome to discriminate on the basis of race (or anything else). This is really not making me think any higher of religious schools. I'm not against people having faith and wanting to teach it to their kids because for fuck's sake, that should not mean shielding your kids from the reality of the outside world.
- The fact that religious schools are welcome to expel kids based on the perception of homosexuality is really bothersome because it puts a lot of power in the hands of bullies. If a kid doesn't follow traditional gender behavior (and I don't mean cross-dressing, just liking dance if you're a boy will do) and gets harassed as a result, and rumors start circulating, they're at risk of being expelled? Woah. Way to go, fucktards. At least it really rubs in your face just how pervasive homophobia can be.

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On a happier front:

- Cute drawing of Simon, Kaylee and River at the end of Serenity. It's better than the earlier version, though that earlier version was really cute too.

- Felicia Day blods about "Highland Hunk-Fantasy" novels and it's hysterical. I would dislike those novels for many more reasons than she's mentioned but I just love her style of writing.

- Ediie Izzard never gets old, and the Death Star Canteen skit in lego is just priceless. XD

- Dan Savage rocks. That is all.

Terra and I were at Brad's house today, doing some pumpkin carving! I was going to carve the Chinese characters for "serenity" into one of mine but got worried I would screw it up (this is the first time I carve a pumpkin on my own!). So instead I did evil (vampire?) Harry Potter (on the right) and a cute pumpkin who's having the BEST time, all the time, because, much like me, he's easily entertained. I named him Ron for continuity. And on the left side of my dear laptop Aziz, you have scaredpants pumpkin. In its defense, it did hang out very close to Chtulu (Brad's pumpkin, not featured here!) for a while, and that would scare the shit out of anyone.

I had an awesome time carving :D And I'm very happy with how they turned out.

While I'm sharing silly stuff, this video of Ellen interviewing Vanessa Hudgens just cracks me up. I just love the way Ellen asks her question very seriously and yet a little hesitant, and Vanessa doesn't seem entirely sure at first when she's joking or not. ^^


And finally,courtesy of metaquotes, are you pro- or anti-American? Take this test and find out! I got disqualified but if I hadn't, I'd still be at -35. Living in Vancouver screwed me from the start! Damn you, Vancouver, for being welcoming and progressive.



EDIT:
So, remember how I mentioned the kittens had been nursing from each other ever since Mommy's been gone? And how Chloe'd taken up sucking her own nipple? Yeah, well. She's been doing it a lot and yesterday I picked her up and noticed her nipple was very red, almost raw. ... Yes, my cat sucked herself raw. So I called the vet to check what I should do, and now I'm making sure she doesn't do it again, at least until her little nipple has healed. She's a very special cat for sure. ^^
And because I can, photo!

This whole preparing a lecture thing is so much fun :D

I'm going to start working on the powerpoint and so I'm shopping around for illustrations, and realized that High School Musical is like, perfect. It's school and family entertainment and it's all about heterosexuality. Actually I'm just wondering now if I shouldn't try and show THAT in class. Because seriously. It would be so funny.

(As a sidenote: Oh, baby Simon. You're so cute going for the dark and broody look. The sad thing is I do actually find him really pretty hot, especially with the longish hair. I fail. ^^)

I just wish I could find a high quality image of Troy (Efron) and Gabriella (Hudgens) with a school backdrop, but barring that, still so many to choose from. Oh, High School Musical. You will never cease to amaze me.

...I almost want to rewatch those movies now. Except I know they really won't be half as funny without you, fan_elune. Get yourself over here, will you? ^^



...why isn't Sean Maher doing these photoshoots? Damn, Efron.

SO MUCH LOVE. Oh, Joss. Oh, Eliza. You make me so happy. Almost as happy as the BDHs (okay, not quite just yet, but you'll get there. Hopefully.) I'm going to need a Dollhouse icon, dammit.

Did I mention Dollhouse's got a 13 episodes order? WOOT. I'm so excited. It also helps that FOX seems to have a sense of humor about what happened before and how distrustful the fans are and it really makes me confident they're not going to screw around too much this time. I actually really like that video they just released, The FOX family. *g*

Thesis almost done. Working on index. It'll have to be done by Sunday since I'm printing it out then. Off to Salt Spring Island this afternoon!

[I believe this was at Serenity Cubed in London-Heathrow in September 2006 - just copied it from the imdb boards where someone posted it]

Fan: "You're such a good looking cast and I was wondering if there was any actual romance between anyone?"
Jewel: "That's a good question."
Morena: "It is a good question."
Jewel [nods at Morena]: "We've never been asked that."
Morena [looks at Jewel]: "Should we tell them?"
Jewel [looks out into the crowd]: "Morena and I had a fling."
[Crowd laughs and cheers]
Jewel [keeps the same 'serious' voice]: "It was just a fling, yeah, it didn't really... yeah..."
Morena: "Well, because, you know... Ron's so sexy, I had to go for Ron."
Jewel [nods]: "That's true. And Sean and Summer, I think, were sleeping together for the first few weeks, which was not surprising."
Morena: "And, Alan and Nathan."
Jewel: "Yeah, yeah."
Morena [looks back at the audience]: "And the real answer to that question would be no."

First... AN family doctor? AN??? My English-as-a-Second-Language heart HURTS.

So yeah, this is actually from the AMPTP campaign to turn public opinion against the writers. I first read about it on wga_supporters, and by far the best response to the post is the one meyerlemon came up with:

The average working WGA writer
makes more than an[sic] Family Doctor
...that's why the AMPTP supports health care reform.

Way to turn it around, and in a very true way, unfortunately. It's not that the writers are privileged little bastards for trying to protect whatever few benefits they might have - it's that the majority of America should be on strike right now complaining about the way workers are treated in that country. What the writers are asking for is ridiculous in the grand scheme of things. And the fact that they might still be better off than other professions? Just says there's something frankly fucked up about the way America rewards its workers.


EDIT: About the ad itself - I don't know any of the numbers, but something important to keep in mind, especially when dealing with an industry such as Hollywood where inequalities are intensified: averages are easy to use but can be misleading. If you have one person earning $100 and another one earning $1,000,000 per year, the average earning per year of that group will be $50050, which... doesn't exactly represent very well the reality of the dude earning $100/year.