guided by a new era

- I hit another Zingerman's truck in the parking lot today. This one left a mark on my bumper, too. I was backing out of a spot and thought I had room to back up just a liiiiitle bit more. I didn't. Oops.

- I am *so* proud of myself. I wrote my essay for Angela's Ashes in two days. All it needs is a bit of editing and a title and it will be done. Senioritis, my ass.

- I have completely, irrevocably fallen in love with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I'm a little more than halfway through 2nd gig and it makes me sad to know that after 2nd gig is just the movie Solid State Society and then it's over. :( It's soooo awesome. As per usual, I've latched onto one of the minor characters who will never get more than one or two quick appearances each episode as one of my favorites. I have to watch most of the episodes twice to understand them completely, but aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh it's so awesome.

- Yesterday I discovered Pandora. It's amazing. I've found so much awesome music on it, and besides that it's good background noise for when I'm working. I have a relatively small collection of music (~600 songs, compared to most of my friends who have ~10,000) and sometimes I get sick of hearing the same songs over and over again.

Dear Philosophy textbook (and the one guy who wrote it),

You didn't just have to be extremely heteronormative. You didn't just have to assume that everyone reading this book goes to church. You also had to lump homosexuality in with incest, adultery, pedophilia and beastiality in the group of sexual behaviors whose ethics are questionable. I understand that there are arguments that homosexuality is "unethical", but that doesn't mean you have to actually validate them by listing homosexuality alongside all of these behaviors constantly. There are valid arguments that support the idea that adultery, pedophilia and beastiality are all unethical. There are no valid arguments (that I have heard) that support the idea that homosexuality is unethical. Why couldn't you follow the example of the side that sees homosexuality as ethically neutral when constructing your examples, instead of following the example of the side that thinks it is unethical? When is society going to realize that trying to argue that homosexuality is "unethical" or "wrong" is complete and total bullshit, and is an argument that should not even be entertained? I know society would not tolerate the argument, "Heterosexuality is wrong/unethical" for one second. Why not show the same courtesy to homosexuality?

I am getting really sick of reading the line, "such as incest, adultery and homosexuality." I know it seems like a small thing, but please forgive me if I do not like seeing my identity lined up next to breaking a lover's trust and child rape.

Incest, adultery and heterosexuality,

Ernie

x-posted to queer_rage

- So the deal with the U of M application is that, because the teacher letter of recommendation came late, they can't look at the application until all the components are in, and looking at one application can take up to two months, they have not yet come to a decision about my application. They know that I tried to apply early action and will take that into account, it's simply a matter of the amount of time it takes to look at the application. This makes me feel a lot better.

- There are four movies I want to see: Slumdog Millionaire, Milk (going to see it this Friday), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Gran Torino. For once I actually like a lot of the movies that are in the running for lots of Oscar nominations.

- UGH FINALS. Three essays, a project and a test. BLEHHH.

- My students in LGBT studies are writing their final research essays on very interesting topics. One is writing about the treatment of homosexuals in apartheid South Africa and the other is doing homosexuality in pre-British-fucking-up China. I am excited to read their essays.

I finished The Well of Loneliness. It was really, really good, and really depressing. But mostly good.

So now I need another book to read for Pop Lit, and all the books I can think of are books that the library doesn't have or that I've already read. Suggestions, plz? What are some really good books that you all have read lately? (they don't have to be fiction.)

- Yesterday I received my checks and debit card for my checking account. No more carry cash around everywhere. Yay for convenience.

- Two weeks until school starts. This summer is unequivocally the fastest summer I've ever experienced. I don't really remember July at all. It feels like we finished junior year last week, instead of two months ago. I'm excited for school, but not as excited as I've been in the past, since it's my last year of high school. I want to get the hell out of high school, of course, but I'm not looking forward to the stress + work involved with college applications. Especially since the cheapest college I'm looking at costs $18,000/year. And that's my safety school, so I probably won't be going to that one.

- Speaking of school, I need to finish the stuff for my class. I have yet to make more than ten presentations, and I'm only half finished with another ten. @_@ I have no regrets so far, but urgh. It looks like my goal of getting it all done over the summer won't be reached. I'm not looking forward to having to work on the class during the school year.

- Music plug: A friend of mine introduced me to My Dear Disco a month or so ago. They're a band out of Ann Arbor whose lead singer is a lesbian, and they're AWESOME. They call themselves "dance think music", but as far as official genres go, they're very techno. They've got an EP out that you can get on iTunes (and probably from Amazon), and their MySpace has a bunch of songs on it. Check 'em out.