Captain America: Civil War

I recently read Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner. It's something I've been meaning to read for a while, and it was interesting to read about some history and ideas of how we got to where we are today. It was a little shocking to read about how things were for women in the past--it's something I knew, but not something I've spent time thinking about consciously lately. The more disturbing thing is that there are still many parts of the world today where women are considered the property of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, denied access to education, or suffer other inequalities.

I'm also almost finished reading Deep South by Paul Theroux. I received the book as part of a book club, but I'm really not enjoying it at all. Maybe I just don't need to be reading travel books, but, in my opinion, the author manages to come off as condescending and full of himself and a bit rude most of the time, which is really making it difficult for me to enjoy the book.

All my friends are already done with classes and exams. Meanwhile, I still have a bit more than three weeks remaining before I'm done with exams. It's very strange to be the last one out of school, but it's also not warm enough here for me to feel like it's actually summer.

I re-watched Captain America: Winter Soldier this week with a friend in preparation for Captain America: Civil War last night. I'd forgotten a lot since I last watched that movie. I really liked that Natasha and Steve's friendship was platonic--it was refreshing to see something different for a change. It was also a reminder of how confusing all the stuff going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe can get if you're not paying close attention.

Civil War was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. At this point, I'm not certain if we're capable of not enjoying Marvel; they've set themselves up with enough a good track record that we're far more willing to be forgiving to any mistakes they might make. Spoilers ahead.

What did really bother me was that I felt there was a missing sense of closure at the end. Steve sends Tony the letter which suggests that they're all still going to work together, but it hasn't really addressed what's going to happen with the Sokovia Accords or any of the issues that caused the team to fracture in the first place. T'Challa is the only person who has learned anything from the entire ordeal, when he decides to forgo vengeance. It seems like Steve and Tony haven't learned anything, they've just decided to quit trying to kill each other. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the movie.

The Original Affluent Society

From looking at some of my Friday Flowers this term

Maybe these wrinkles are the reason I've had painting difficulties

This trimester, I'm taking Introduction to Anthropology, Indo-European Folktales, and French 103. I'm really enjoying all my classes; my professors are good. I've been painting more, since more of my brushes and watercolor paints are up here for the spring term. I'm pretty pleased with some of my efforts, if I do say so myself. I haven't been as happy with some of the stuff I've tried to do on larger paper--maybe that has something to do with how rippled the paper has become...I should probably try to use up this block before it gets any older and sadder.

I learned something interesting in Anthropology today. We've been reading The Dobe Ju/'hoansi by Richard Lee for one of our class readings. It's about Richard Lee's ethnographic work with a group of people in the Kalahari desert in Africa. Along with his ethnographic work, he also collected scientific data about number of calories, types of foods consumed, and hours worked. Interestingly, he found that only about 20 hours per week were spent on getting food. When he added in housework, tool repair, and other types of work, (work that we in Western society would not count as part of a traditional 40hr work-week job), that number came to about 42 hours of work per week. Calorically, the Ju/'hoan diet was appropriately meeting their needs for nutrition and diversity. This was a bit strange to me, because it's the opposite of what most people probably expect. Marshall Sahlins also wrote an essay further exploring the topic of the hunter-gatherer society's work week. I'm not really sure what it means, but it was still interesting.

Can you guess this landmark?

Looking Towards Winter Term

I registered for my classes Tuesday night. I'm pretty excited I get to finally take some biology again, although I'm worried this may be a more chemistry-heavy part of biology, which has never been my favorite. (Also the labs are four hours long; that's a really long time!) I also registered for the second term of French with my same professor. My third class is Literature of the American South, which is a Writing Rich course; it should be interesting reading and discussion, but I hope the writing part doesn't murder me. All of the new professors seem to have a good track record based on other students' experiences.

I'll be working in Mail Services next term instead of the Post Office. There is a possibility that the two may be combined once we get to Spring Term. For now, though, I've heard that Mail Services is a good opportunity to work on homework. I may need it; I'll have a Writing Rich course and a lab course in the same term.

We still haven't seen any legitimate snow yet, but they are already beginning to setup the ice skating rinks on The Bald Spot. We probably won't see those actually functional until Winter Term.

Now I just have to make it through the rest of ninth week and tenth week, and then I get to go home for Winter Break (and SeaBase)!

Happy Halloween!

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything, and today is Halloween, so I thought I'd share one of my personal weird fears.
Whenever it's rained really hard and the sidewalks are still all wet, worms like to come out and wriggle about on the sidewalk. I don't really have a problem with worms or with them wriggling about--that's generally just what they do. However, when they lie on the sidewalks en masse and flail about it really disturbs me.
They just blend in with little sticks and other debris and you're about to take a step and it moves and it's a worm and you don't want to step on it. I just don't really want to step on a live worm--it doesn't seem like it would be a pleasant experience for anyone involved. I don't really want to step on a dead worm either; that's just gross.
Mainly it's just the fact that there are large amounts of worms everywhere and they're hiding and I don't want to step on them, which makes it difficult to walk down a sidewalk like a normal person.
Happy Halloween everyone!