Gender Roles

I'm set up to start talking about college soon.  Definitely this month.  This week, though, I think I'll continue to talk about different things instead.

I got into Glee just last summer, which means that I've been processing 2.5 years of material in about 6-8 months, where most Gleeks have had that much time to think it over.  I'm beginning to think that those 1- 2- and 4-week hiatuses actually give people time to go back over the previous episodes and think about the implications.

I am... often... slow to declare my favorite shows and favorite characters in public.  With Star Trek: The Next Generation, it was Wesley Crusher.  Hey, I was a geeky teenage girl.  I've already said that my crushes were usually based on intelligence more than looks - though Wesley had both.  And maybe my father was just trying to protect his little girl... although how a fictional character could really be a threat to one's virtue, I do not know.  But my father made sure I know about every criticism his co-workers had.  How they wished the character would leave the show, one way or another.

What I learned was to keep my cards close to my chest.  That to talk about the things I liked the most, just brought on more criticism.  Perhaps they didn't mean to attack me by attacking the things I liked.  But neither did it encourage me to be myself.  So perhaps I am making a mistake one more time, when I talk about my favorite Glee character.

Globalization and the Global Village

In elementary school, one of the things I wished for was to have lived in a small town.  (I have to admit, the year that we did just that, I discovered I didn't like it.)  Looking back, I believe what I truly was yearning for was the concept of the village.  This is much the same "village" in the oft-quoted proverb "It takes a village to raise a child." (See here for a discussion of the phrase's origins.)

I have heard that proverb used in many contexts.  Ever since Hillary Clinton used it as the title of her book, I have heard some Conservatives mock the phrase.  Which confuses me, considering how traditional the concept  is.  I've also heard many people talk about how, when they were children, it didn't matter how fast they ran home - the gossip of their mischief would reach their mother's ears faster than their legs could carry them.

Look, I'm still around

As promised, here's some of the songs that help me to feel better.