Sorry for the lack of updates. As per usual, march madness (and red wine) has swallowed my existence. i don't mean for this to happen every year, but it does. Nova totally busted my bracket tonight, bastards. Sadly though, basketball has me thinking about gender equity and how much harder it is to be a fan as a girl. This makes it less fun, hence the red wine (and the Neko Case).
Sure sign that I have had too much to drink: my dinner (at 10:30 PM) is composed entirely of items from the gourmet cheese section of king soopers.
I think this is going to be the best March Madness ever. I'm excited for a lot of upsets and craziness. The downside is that I'm supposed to be writing these papers for school, and I just don't care. Kansas went out in the first round of the big 12 tournament, and I have still watched an obscene amount of basketball in the last week. If my papers were about breaking the press or something, maybe I could get interested. As it is, it isn't looking good.
Even with the gender gap for standardized testing closing, the U.S. is still not graduating enough women in the non-social sciences to stay globally competitive in these fields. Competing nations are pledging resources to increasing female participation in the STEM fields and are quickly outstripping the U.S. A change in education and encouragement for girls, from infancy through graduate work, is required to keep the U.S. competitive in a market that will require an even higher number of science, math, and engineering degree holders in the future.
Writing this paper makes me want to go out and get an engineering degree. "You say that like it's something she's even remotely capable of."
I’ve had a strange relationship with French. I love the language. I like the culture. I start over a lot with studying French. I have taken French 1 three times. Once in high school and twice in college. Both tries in college, I took French 1 again because I was worried that I had forgotten too much to jump right into French 2. It never occurred to me to take a placement test or talk to someone in the department. I just kept taking French 1 over and over again. This means that I have a fantastic command of the alphabet, the numbers, items found in a classroom, and items found in a restaurant. As long as things stay present tense, I’m golden.
To graduate from college, I have to have a two semester proficiency: French 2 we meet again. I signed up for it last semester and then dropped it; I couldn’t hack the schedule. I spent all of winter break looking for an online French 2 course that would satisfy my graduation requirements. I found one, but it was going to cost $1400 out of my pocket. Sigh. I had contemplated testing out, but I lacked the confidence to believe I could do it, that I knew enough.
I made a deal with myself last week. If I passed the test, saving myself $1400, I could keep the purse I bought in New York. If I failed, bye-bye purse. I decided to take the test this morning and get it out of the way.
I get to keep the purse.
Just before my 19th birthday, I accepted a job in Bedford, New York as the live-in nanny for a very successful couple: a New England blue blood and a former marine. I think they probably started dating because they were the only two people tall enough for each other. She was 6’4” in bare feet (loved heels); he was 6’8”. Working for them, I got to tell people I was moving to New York. People always assume you mean the city, and I didn’t discourage them. On the weekends, or when the family was out of town, I was able to ride the train into NYC and stomp around, visiting the park and museums, places I could explore alone.
My sister came out during spring break that year, and we spent the week eating and shopping and seeing shows. We always left town on the train by sundown, like some reverse vampires, so we didn’t see much of the nightlife. Since we were both still well under 21, it probably didn’t make that much difference. Our week in NYC was spent shopping at stores like 9 & Co. (NineWest’s now-defunct younger sister) and eating at restaurants like Planet Hollywood and the Jekyll and Hyde Club. Like I said, we were under 21 and these seemed like good ideas at the time.
Eleven years later, my tastes have evolved beyond platform sandals and novelty hamburgers. So this trip, I planned different things. New York was happy to oblige. After a bad start with a cancelled flight and a scary ride from LaGuardia, the trip went beautifully. We (sis and I) got to the Plaza. I had wanted to stay there since I saw Big Business (or any other movie about New York in the 80s). We were whisked inside by the doorman, Freddie, who was very nice. At the check-in counter, we were informed that our double room was not available (gasp) but we had been upgraded to a suite (relief). “Unfortunately, that room isn’t quite ready, but please, let’s go over to the Champagne Bar where you can have a drink on us while you wait.” The waiter didn’t hesitate a second when I ordered us two glasses of Veuve Clicquot and popped a brand new bottle just for us.
Just as I reached the bottom of my glass, the phone rang; the room was ready. I apparently didn’t take any helpful pictures of the room.
To be continued...
