InsaneJournal continues to be down, but should be restored today. In the meantime, here are the things getting me through the mid-week slump.

1. I made a giant batch of soup last night, using this super-easy but tasty recipe. (Just a note - I find it a little too salty, so you may want to add plain water.)

2. I made a semi-impulse buy and ordered a coffee maker and coffee grinder yesterday. I don't drink coffee on a regular basis, but I have been drinking it more lately; and this way I won't have to make a trip upstairs to the coffee stand every time.

3. Work on the Warmakers 4-koma continues. It's slow-going, because I'm so not good at humorous art ... but hey, it's a new skill to develop.

4. My BPAL order arrived! I still have to go pick it up from nekokoban, but ... my BPAL order arrived! :D Also, I'm wearing Bengal today, and while it's not my one of my favorites so far, it's still quite nice.

5. ratzeo is running game on Sunday!

... guzzling tea and downing satsumas and trying to rid myself of that ominous tickle in my throat.

In an effort to stave off my am-I-or-am-I-not brooding about my maybe-sickness, I'm thinking about things that are making me happy right now:

- Guzzling tea and downing satsumas is actually a pretty good way to spend my day, actually. The bright side to the fact that I never remember to buy myself cold medicine is that I have to administer tastier food-based remedies to myself.

- I have a new winter coat, since the zipper on my old one busted last week. kyonkun gave it to me as an early Christmas present, and it's all downy and squishy. :D

- I really enjoy wrapping, packaging, and otherwise arranging Christmas presents for people. A pile of wrapped presents is slowly amassing in my room (others are still en route in the mail, or stored at ratzeo's apartment). Seeing a pile of gifts for other people makes me just as happy as seeing a pile of gifts for myself. (Well, okay ... maybe just a teeny bit less happy. XD;;)

- I really look forward to my plans for the remainder of the week, and I'm doing my level best to make sure I'm healthy for them. Can't do anything more right now.

- Since I'm relaxing and (trying to) nap today, I'll have more energy to do the bedroom and basement cleanup I've been poking at since last week. Last night I was too tired to muster the energy, and then I watched the finale of Heroes and it sucked the remainder of my will to be productive.

Edit: My Q Center meeting has been postponed. So that's one less thing to worry about!

It's a wonderful day today, and here's why:

1. It's Friday, duh.

2. Tonight I'm going over to watch Doctor Who with nekokoban - the last episode of season 1, and probably some of season 2.

3. Cathartic cooking! I don't know what it is, but cooking my own meal makes me feel good. Something about following the steps to get a desired result, which makes me feel both productive and fulfilled.

4. I've spent the past two days geeking with shadawyn about Warmakers stuff (irishninja's game) both over email and in-person. Fleshing out the backstory for our characters (who are twin sisters), RPing some conversations between them, and drawing fanart.

5. I've also been RPing with ratzeo over email. Since this is something like our fourth or fifth game together, we've decided to try RPing a romance between our characters. Unfortunately ... both of them have negative Charisma. XD;; ratzeo's character has both negative Charisma AND Wisdom, which is even better. And finally, both characters are teenaged. The result? Hilarity.

6. shadawyn, evil temptress that she is, just shared SilverJewelryClub.com with me, a site which offers designer jewelry essentially for free (for real). I haven't gotten anything yet, but I have stared at a lot of shiny things.

7. Tomorrow I'm going to dinner at The Melting Pot!

Edit for myself: Okay, self, you are not allowed to order any more jewelry until you actually receive one of your orders.

shadawyn and mimerki both posted this meme, and it seems like a good idea: list 6 things that have recently made you happy.

So I'm taking a moment away from the deadline crunch in order to remind myself of things that have been good lately.

1. Last night I got to hang out at lunapome and music_enforcer's apartment, where they carved pumpkins and ratzeo and zinjadu and I ate candy.

2. The deadline I mentioned is because of a new responsibility at work, which furthers my goal of participating in recruiting and admissions. (Vague, I know; I'm just not sure how much I should blather about such matters on an unlocked post.) It's a little intimidating, but I'm glad to learn; plus, I'm pleased that my supervisors trust me with taking this on.

3. I have been eating so much chocolate lately because of Halloween. XD

4. shadawyn will be running her game this Saturday, and ratzeo will be running his on Sunday.

5. The end of Daylight Saving Time! I love getting to sleep in. 8D

6. Uh, this? I don't know, it amuses me.

( Reasons why I don't want to write my papers )

( Reasons why I do want to write my papers )

End result: I'm setting a goal of finishing a Women and Violence entry before I go out this evening. Then I'll have a couple days of doing fun stuff, and then go back to work. I can manage to accomplish everything I need to without letting it overwhelm me, dammit.

So: in order to alleviate the whininess of my last entry, here's some things I did to boost my mood (besides time and sleep, which always help soothe the mind and the hormones).

I took a short walk this morning, before the day gets too hot. My neighborhood is a pretty good place to walk, because it has a lot of winding streets (so long as you know your way back). On the way, I decided to concentrate on small things, because these moods always intimidate me with how broad and permanent they feel - I'm not doing anything worthwhile this summer, I have no talent, I always get discouraged this easily, etc.

I looked for individual things. I watched a pale yellow butterfly on the bushes next to me. I watched a fat corgi wander around its yard (IT WAS SO FAT T_T). I watched a cat sleeping in the shade. I found a house with a wraparound front porch, just like the house where I grew up in Texas.

I'm also going to try more CG coloring again tonight (taking advantage of the campus computers with their big and pretty monitors). I'm reminding myself that the reason I was so excited to work on my first picture wasn't because I was particularly skilled, but because it's a new and fun technique, and there's so much I can try. The nasty little voices that say 'you can't do it' and 'you're not as good as _____' can shove it.

( And some goodies )

Here's some of the (many) good things about my life.

There's a good reason and a bad reason for this. The good reason being that I'm just happy and I want to say it; the bad reason being that I could use the reminder right now and I need to say it.

(The reason I'm doing this on LJ is in case anyone might be inspired to do the same.)

( I am grateful for ... )

"I think we need to talk about the joy. I get such joy out of feminism. It is the greatest joy of my life, and somehow we don't translate that."
--Gloria Steinem

The feminist theory book I just finished reading used this quote as its conclusion, and I was so happy to find it there. I don't know if I feel exactly the same way - I'm way too young to be able to say what's my life's greatest joy! - but I think joy is a very important part of feminism and other anti-oppression movements. From a personal standpoint, at least, it's a very important part of why I study these things.

That seems strange, doesn't it? I mean, I know it's hard to learn about all the crappy things that society does: It's frustrating. It's nasty. It's gut-wrenching. Sometimes I have to take a break in the middle of the day from reading more news stories and analyses that reveal the ugly underbelly of my society. Sometimes I have to cut myself for days, as I did over Spring Break. Every once in a while, I feel kind of hopeless, and I wish I could go back to being sheltered and naive, when I thought that individual bad things were done by individual bad people, and weren't parts of giant and pervasive patterns - that society didn't treat me a certain way or think about me a certain way because I'm female or Asian-American (or that society didn't do things to other people for being gay, black, poor, disabled ...).

But that naivete was damaging in its own way. When you try to deny the presence of any of the "-isms" you're sort of left with two options: pretend the bad stuff isn't happening at all, or blame the oppressed group for the inequity. When you think about it that way, the joy of feminism/anti-oppression is clear, because it does the exact opposite: it affirms that yes, the bad stuff is happening, and no, you aren't making it up; and it also says it's not your fault that it happens to you. It's a way to speak my own experience, to hear those of other people, and to articulate what I feel is wrong, in a way that makes change possible.

It's comforting, affirming, empowering - and, ultimately, gives you the tools to fix what's wrong. Is there any other definition of joy?

A small example: my new classes for the quarter. I'm taking Introduction to Women Studies (with miss_arel, which is much awesome); Contemporary Feminist Theory; and Ethnicity, Gender, and Media. (Yes, it's a women studies bonanza this quarter.) In that last class, which I had this morning, we spent the introductory lecture talking about privilege: white, heterosexual, and male privilege (though the professor acknowledged that there were more that we weren't covering this time). We talked about how privilege worked. For most of us, we were speaking from the "other side," as people who lacked one or more of the privileges. As always, my classmates are mostly white - but this time they're also largely female, and there are enough people of color and openly gay people that I can't count them all on one hand. I have had exactly three other classes that have come close to this level of diversity.

It wasn't a bitchfest about how we've been stomped on, though it could have been. It was just honest observation, without the fear that someone from the dominant group would shoot back with a "nuh-uh you're just making it up!" We talked. Sometimes we laughed. We acknowledged that our society can be ugly. It was a very tiny beginning that probably didn't change anyone's lives - but it set the tone for the rest of the quarter, so now I know that this will be a class with an atmosphere that is both critical and sympathetic. I have learned that this isn't the kind of class I can ask for every time, so I'm grateful when it comes.

This was my joy today.

I ran into an old friend from high school on my way to work. She's a fantastic person all around -- smart, genuinely friendly, energetic and ambitious. Most notably, she was just in the campus paper because she won a prestigious national scholarship that only a handful of students receive. (To people who know her, this is decidedly un-shocking.)

She mentioned that she'd been planning to take a year off before grad school, but now she had to go because of the scholarship, which made me go :o because she wasn't really trying to get it, but also because she has the next three years of her life planned out. I, uh ... don't. And I'm not saying that she'll have no problems now that she's set for grad school, but I just know that I'm not anywhere near that determined about what I'm going to do with the next few years of my life.

It's funny; I was always the "most likely to succeed" type before college. People wrote things in my yearbook like "You'll be famous!" "You'll be rich!" "You'll own a small country!" But now here I am, probably less prepared than many of my classmates who weren't as "smart." And I know it's useless to try to compare myself to the friend I ran into, but -- well, I'm competitive. :P

She did say, though, that I was the only creative writing major she knew. We talked about writing and things like NaNoWriMo, and she talked like I was impressive for studying writing and being a writer.

And I *am* happy with my writing, and the role it has in my life. Last night I began my revisions for my poetry course, meditating on the discussion from yesterday and tackling one of my poems from early in the quarter. It's one that I like, that received a good response in workshop, as well as a lot of helpful advice. I worked on it and finished the (first) revision. I also worked on my critique for a classmate -- we partnered up to do in-depth critiques as part of the revision process. And my classmate chose me personally, which really shouldn't be such an ego boost, but it meant that there's something about either my poems or critiques, the way I write or the way I look at others' poems, that she likes and wanted for her own work. So that makes me feel good.

Not really the prestigious success my old classmates expected of me. Not really the prestigious success that, maybe, I still want. But, still -- it's give and take, I suppose.

Taken from shadawyn. Because it always helps to remember the good stuff.

I am thankful that I get bored at work,
Because that means I'm getting all my tasks done.

I am thankful that I have to get up at 5:30 for work every day,
Because they want me there and pay me for my time.

I am thankful that the walk from my bus stop to my house is uphill,
Because that means I run downhill when I'm racing to catch the bus in the mornings.

I am thankful that I worry about earning money for rent,
Because I'm paying my own way to live in a beautiful house.

I am thankful that I have to do household chores,
Because my house is worth the effort to keep it clean.

I am thankful that my house is OMGtoohot in the afternoons,
Because its heat-trapping ability is going to ROCK come winter.

I am thankful that my beliefs and opinions are challenged in ways that make me doubt,
Because that keeps me from getting complacent.

I am even thankful for the thoughtless, malicious, and infuriating challenges,
Because I learn more about what kinds of people are in the world.

I am thankful that my country's president pisses me off,
Because I'm allowed to say so.

I am thankful that I worry and doubt and stress about writing,
Because I have a passion that engages my mind and abilities enough to make me care.

I am thankful that I have no idea what book to read next,
Because I have that many good ones.

I am thankful that my parents worry and fuss over me more than necessary,
Because they care about how I'm doing.

I am thankful that I miss ratzeo liek whoa,
Because missing is proportional to loving.

I am thankful that I have no cash in my wallet,
Because the impromptu dinner date kyonkun and I had last night at Azteca is the culprit. :D~~

Now it's your turn.

There's a skylight at my workplace, located in the ceiling right around the area of the front desk where I sit. There's also a sort of gap in the second floor at that spot, so I can see straight up from the first floor to the skylight. Right now, it's raining pretty steadily, and it's hitting the skylight with the same sound it made on the roof of my house on the first night I moved into my new place. I've always loved the sound of rain on a roof, or against a window; but since that night, it's also become a reminder of comfort, rest, and love. It's a wonderful feeling, and right now, as I've hit a lull in my work and have a moment to reflect, I feel very peaceful.

I love Seattle.