My Philosophy Class

brought to you in two snapshots.

Part I: The Letter φ, Brought to You in IPA

Student 1 - *asks a question in reference to the letter "φ"; pronounces it φi.
Professor - *after answering the question* And, you're right, it should be pronounced φi, but most philosophers say φei, so we'll say φei.Student 2 - Or you could say φɔ.
Professor - Well, you don't want to say φɔ, 'cause that's the noodles.
Student 3 - Actually, that's φʌ.
Student 4 - No, it's φi.

Part II: The Use-Mention Distinction.

(I'm not entirely sure who exactly she is referring to here, but clearly it's a child she is very close to/related to.)

Professor - When Makayla was little, she used to say: "Brother said 'Damn'".  That gave her permission to curse, because she wasn't using it, she was mentioning it.  Of course, I didn't care, because after you take Philosophy of Language, these things stop mattering. Now, her father - he's gay, and he's very conservative. So he really cares about these things, which I don't understand. You take her to all these red dress parties and then... nevermind.

This is why I love my philosophy class.

Did You Secure the Skis?

My personality and working style requires a lot of specific feedback. The worst thing is when I say something, and I get no response or a response that's brief or dismissive. Even if it's not meant in such a way, it makes me fear that what I said was out-of-place or inappropriate. For example, one of the shift managers at Jamba Juice, where I got a job, is incredibly subtle. She's very nice, super friendly, and way supportive, but, frequently, she makes me nervous. I can't read her emotions at all, and her responses to any questions I have are brief, quiet, and frequently made of shrugs, nods, and hums, not actual statements.

My mom has a similar way of communicating anything other than anger. So, when I feel dismissed by her behavior, whenever we run into a communication road-block, she blames it on my mental health. In some ways, she is right. It's probably my social anxiety that makes me nervous about making sure I understand a response, and my autistic tendencies that make me awful at reading non-verbal ques. But, when, after a fight, my mother tells me "Did you make an appointment with your psychologist yet?", I can't help but feel insulted. Instead of taking me seriously, she dismisses me and blames me for all our trouble.

In reality, my mom is a terrible listener, and I bet a lot of my communication difficulties actually come from being brought up by her. My sister and I often reflect on an incident that perfectly illustrates where I come from.

I Must Be Getting Old

Picture this. I'm at the airport, picking up my grandma, and things aren't going as smoothly as I wish, so I call my mom to complain. Do you see it? There I am, sitting in my car, talking on the phone, flailing my hands around in dramatic gestures of frustration.

And a child walks by. She must have been about nine or ten, and she was walking behind the mom, pushing her cart, passing in front of my car. She looks at me and then...

Flails her arms around. Like I was just doing, she teases me.

So I smile. and she smiles back, kindly.

I must be getting old.

Cookies are Srs Business

I can see someone not liking cookies. I often say "no" to cookies myself - they might be too dry, too crunchy, too sweet, or just not my thing.

But warm cookies, with the chocolate melting and the dough still soft? How can one ever lose respect for the warm cookie? There are days when it just doesn't feel right, but I'd never reject such a cookie without some hesitation. No one can dislike a warm cookie.

Well, my step dad is one of those professional businessmen for whom everything is srs business. And he flies a bunch, too, so he frequently gets auto-upgraded to business class. Well, in business class they serve these warm chocolate chip cookies. And my step dad says most people don't want them. They will even make comments - "who will want these?" - hinting that they're giving it to the wrong population. They'll frown, make faces. When the flight attendant offered the cookie to one man, he just raised his alcoholic drink in the air, as if to say "you want me to eat the cookie with this?".

"Businessmen," my step dad says, "don't want cookies."

But when did they stop wanting cookies? It's not like they wrinkled their noses as children, thinking they're too classy for this cookie. Or turned away as a teenager - instead, they'd go straight for it ("Dude, this cookie is warm, awesome!"). Even the most serious college-age guys wouldn't say no to a warm cookie. Then when did it happen? When did their universal love of cookies turn into disdain?

When did cookies become an enemy of The Man?

Promise me you'll never lose respect for the Warm Cookie?

The Elk Encounter

I've seen elk before. My family frequents national parks, so somewhere along the way, standing across a river or a pond or a field, I've seen elk. Sure, they're big and impressive, but nothing - nothing - is like seeing an elk up close.

We had two days of cleaning at camp, and breakfast was at 9:30, so it was definitely necessary to celebrate the extra hour and a half of morning. The night between these days, we went to the Grizzly Rose. It was pretty fantastic. I love nightclubs in  general, and this was something I'd never experienced before: line dancing, two stepping, people twirling and moving. I'm used to the typical hip-hop/electronica scene, but this was so much more: a country western Saloon. We headed home late, and it was quiet the eventful night, complete with vomit, 24-hour doughnut shops, and bumming cigs from stoners at a gas station. So we're driving 285 at 1:30 in the morning. My car is full, and three people are dozing off as myself and the last are deep in conversation. There aren't many cars on the road: one would pass by in the opposite direction every five minutes or so, but on my side, I was the only one.

National Geographic tells me elk are 4-5 feet at the shoulder. That's at the shoulder. His neck, head, antlers: that's all above that. I'm 5'3". And my little sedan? That's shorter than me.

Twenty feet in front of me, and there he was, standing in the lane next to mine. If he was in my lane, I could have seen him sooner, I could have slowed down, even stopped... but in the lane next to me, in the dark, he was invisible. It was just his silhouette, but I could see his legs clearly. They were already in my lane, but he took a step back- and I froze. A second later, the beast was behind me. His hoofs were at most two feet from my tire. His head must have been hanging over my car. I had never, ever seen a beast of that size.

I went crazy. My car had almost been totaled. I had almost died. I had almost died with the four other people in my car- and yet I had survived. The elk grew bigger in my mind, the more I ran and ran that image through my head. By the time we arrived back at camp, I was laughing hysterically, completely out of control. That was the scariest thing to ever happen to me on the road. That was The Elk Encounter.

My Favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episodes

Because if I'm going to watch seven long seasons of a TV show, I'm at least going to make a list out of it.

1. Hush (4.10): The most terrifying monsters of the whole show. Dance Macabre. Plus Joss Whedon wrote this speech-less episode because everyone kept complimenting his dialogue.

2. The Zeppo (3.13): I was laughing all the way through. This episode meant so much for Xander, plus it was fast-paced and scattered with overshadowed significant incidents, all the great factors of classic comedy (and by classic, I mean Voltaire-classic).

3. Earshot (3.18): Like Hush, I found this episode to be one of the scariest horror episodes of the show.

4. The Body (5.16): The most chilling episode, with no music or unnatural sound. A reminder that life outside mystic forces still exists in the Buffyverse.

5. Passion (2.17): I loved Jenny Calendar, and this was the first episode of this show to make me cry, and the one that made me weep the most (save for, maybe The Gift). For the first time, the show got serious, and I loved it.

6. Restless (4.22): I am a junky for the surreal/post-modern dream sequence. Though the real reason I loved this episode was what it meant for the character of Xander. Oh, and Giles's singing.

7. Nightmares (1.10): Like most first-season episode, it stuck to a simple, classic concept, executed beautifully and terrifyingly.

8. Conversations with Dead People (7.07): The show really went downhill in season six, and this was the one season seven episode that I absolutely loved.

9. Out of Mind, Out of Sight (1.11): Another classic season one story, but my favorite part was the government guys at the end.

10. Once More With Feeling (6.07): The only season six episode written or directed by Joss Whedon, and definitely a favorite.

11. Same Time, Same Place (7.03): Another season seven episode that didn't bore me to death. Mostly because of that scene with Spike. So much fun!

Revisiting: Bi

A while ago, I wrote on the ways bisexuality erases non-binary gender identities.

Since then, after first getting a glance into what could be called the "bisexual community", I've rethought my previous views, and I'm planning to re-write that essay. For now, here is a summary in bullet points of my thoughts.

I used to say that:

• Identifying as "bisexual" is a privilege that many binary gendered folk have but that non-binary folk (as well as certain binary gendered individuals, eg partners of nonbinaries) do not have.
• "Bisexual" as a personal identity should be restricted to very specific situations when safety or personal comfort is at stake. Sometimes, binary-gendered polysexual folks have to put themselves in inconvenient situations, because non-binary gendered folks don't have the privilege of this convenience.
• "Bisexual" is most harmful as an umbrella term for non-monosexual identities, because it isolates non-bisexual monosexual folk from the community and movement.
• "Lesbian", "gay", and "straight" are not as harmful as "bisexual", because people who are primarily attracted to one gender have very specific experiences that need to be addressed.
• Bisexuality does exist, and there are indeed individuals primarily attracted to men and women, but not non-binary folks.

I now think:

• "Bisexual" is a very powerful and important term with a very strong history and present.
• There are individuals of all genders who identify as "bisexual".
• The use of "bisexual" as a personal identity, just as the use of "lesbian", "gay", and "straight" is always strategic, and it is unfair to scrutinize B folks more than LG & straight folks for their identity.
• Identifying as "bisexual", especially for binary-gendered folks, is still a privilege that not everyone has, and binary-gendered bisexual-identifying folks still need to remain cognizant of their privilege.
• However, identifying as a polysexual identity that isn't bisexual can also occasionally be a privilege, because, unfortunately, other polysexual identities have very political connotations.
• "Bisexual" is most problematic as a term for the community/movement/etc., and as an umbrella term for non-monosexual identities. It's more problematic than "lesbian", "gay", or "straight" on this level, because LG & straight folks have very specific experiences and can unite under this term, while "bisexual" isolates polysexual folk who do not and cannot identify as "bi".
• True "bisexuality" does not exist, because it implies that someone can tell who is or isn't binary-gendered, and thus third-genders certain gender expressions while restricting others to the binary.