Letters from a broad...

Swiss Post-Mo Club: Getting Better and Better!

2012-01-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

We just had a fantastic ice-skating-and-fondue party with three new families! How'd this happen?

Shortly after moving to Switzerland, I signed up as the contact/coordinator of the Switzerland chapter of the post-Mormon organization. But, really, it was mostly just me and two other couples (who didn't even meet through post-Mormon), so it kind of wavered between being "the Swiss post-Mo club" and being a handful of people who happened to be friends with each other. Once in a blue moon someone would visit from the US, and we'd have an actual ex-Mormon gathering.

Then someone emailed me about the group, and I saved his name to include in the next exmo event. Some months later, another person emailed me -- this time a mom with kids in my area, and I met her and posted about it on post-Mo. Then, another family who had recently moved to Switzerland saw that, and here we are.

The conversation was amazing!! We had a group of people who had never (or barely) met before, yet we immediately had so much in common and so much to talk about!

The funny part was that -- by crazy coincidence -- our group got on the same bus with some Mormon missionaries!! No joke!

I tried to make polite conversation with one of them (I'm always curious about the situation with Switzerland not letting any more American mishies in), but I'm afraid I may have made a bad impression. I don't bear them any ill will -- honestly, I thought it was cool that we happened to run into another bunch of people who have this exotic culture in common with us, and I'd be more than happy to have a friendly chat with them.

I have to teach my kids a little better manners though. I'd been chatting with mishie #1 for a few minutes when my son Nico suddenly said (full voice) "Mom!! That guy's a Mormon missionary!" (They learned about missionaries from the Book of Mormon musical.)

Then, as we were getting off the bus, Nico kept talking about the mishies. Later we had a discussion about talking about people who are standing right there and can hear what you're saying, the appropriateness or lack thereof, etc.

Anyway, the event was great fun, and we're definitely planning get together again!!

Just another weekend in Paris!

2012-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

One of my complaints about moving from Bordeaux to Zurich was the relative (in)convenience in getting to Paris. Bordeaux is three hours from Paris by TGV, with trains every hour. Zurich, OTOH, was more than five hours from Paris. But now we have a new TGV route, cutting the trip down to four hours!! (Still not quite like in Bordeaux, but getting there!) So, when my husband had a conference to attend in France, I took the opportunity to gather up the kids and meet him in Paris for the weekend!

Naturally, the kids were thrilled because they got Bey Blades as their being-good-on-the-train treat. Fortunately that wasn't the only cool part:

Here Leo's pouting because his daddy just told him that he can't go on the ferris wheel.

And here he is happy -- right after riding the ferris wheel. Nico and Leo are both showing off the little souvenir Eiffel Towers their daddy bought them.

Leo also enjoyed riding the merry-go-round of extinct and endangered animals.

To keep it balanced, here's a cute picture of Nico too.

And the obligatory picture on the Paris Metro!

This picture reminded me of this other picture from long ago:

They grow up, but they stay the same in so many cute ways! When they were little, we used to take them out and run them around the fountain to get their energy out, and it's still a fun way to have a race!

I found another space invader to add to my collection.

And discovered that my sweetie has quite a knack for dramatic reading!!

A fun trip overall -- I can't wait to do it again!!

Cars 2: still my favorite James Bond flick, but...

2012-01-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

You may recall that I saw Cars 2 in the cinema with my kids and quite enjoyed it. My husband didn't go with us, so he had to get the kids the DVD for Christmas in order to see it.

He thought it was OK, but found it riddled with problems. For example, the theme seems to be that -- as long as you're being true to yourself -- it's OK to be ignorantly disrespectful to other cultures. (Indeed, the movie seems to say that McQueen had no business expecting his friend not to make a scene everywhere he goes, as a condition for being invited along.) Also, the spies could have transferred their photo anywhere, so why did they arrange to do it at that huge party that was being covered on international television? Neither one of them had any reason to be at that party, or even in Japan at all. (Answer: It was the simplest way for the writers to arrange for Mater to get mistaken for "the American spy.")

Personally, I don't really like it when a script is obviously written as a vehicle for showing off stunning visuals and effects. This film has really amazing, cool visuals, but suffers a bit from this cart-leading-the-horse storytelling. And to have a leading villain who's not only German, but is a professor wearing a monocle -- can you get more cliche than that?

Now, I don't want to see any comments telling me "lighten up -- it's just a kids film." If you're tempted to do so, please read this post carefully first. Yes, all the formulas are new for kids, so they can't tell the difference between something that's original and something that's last week's refried hash. But that's no excuse for phoning it in and acting like kids don't deserve better than last week's refried hash. You guys have probably had the experience of re-watching a film as an adult that you loved as a kid, and being carried away by the mixture of magic and memories. And you've probably also had the experience of re-watching a childhood favorite and thinking, "This is total garbage -- how did I ever watch this?!" And the memory is ruined. So, I hold kids' entertainment up to high standards, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

(Though I will admit to sitting by and not making any negative remarks when my kids choose and like something that I think is total garbage *cough* Bey-Blade cartoons *cough* and I'll even listen and talk to the kids about the stories and characters, etc. But I like to recommend and watch better fare with them.)

That said, Cars 2 is not garbage. I'm actually trying to figure out why I like Cars 2 in spite of its flaws. Crazy plot holes aren't always a major problem if a film has other strengths to make up for it (I learned that from Heat Miser and Snow Miser). I think it's because of the following:

I don't usually like James Bond movies (or action movies in general) in part because the set-ups for the action sequences are so absurd that my suspension of disbelief is completely overwhelmed and I have trouble getting excited about the action. (Related: I really don't need to see any more sequences of people outrunning exploding fire-balls.) But with Cars 2, it's so absurd that there's hardly even any pretense of suspension of disbelief. Instead of having the characters drive cars covered with crazy gadgets, have them be cars covered with crazy gadgets!!! It doesn't matter that it doesn't make any sense, indeed their whole universe doesn't make sense if you think about it. Don't even try to make sense out of it -- just sit back and enjoy! :)

Our Lego collection -- still crazy after all these... well, I guess it hasn't been that long...

2012-01-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

I had so many goals for what I wanted to accomplish during the holiday break!! Unfortunately, I accomplished almost none of them. One of the few exceptions was that I sorted all of the junk that had accumulated in our apartment, including sorting all the kids' toys -- notably the Lego collection! (A little like last time.)

Fortunately, a photographer friend (Maya Lucchitta) visited us, and captured the Lego collection in all of its crazy-sorted splendor!

Thanks -- it was a fun visit!!

2011/2012 State of the me address

2012-01-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of not writing a "state of the me" this year since I'm not feeling very ambitious this year, so most of my goals are of the "just keep swimming" variety. I want to work harder at helping my kids develop good study habits so that they'll eventually do their homework on their own -- plus I'm trying to encourage their independence in other age-appropriate ways, even when (or especially when) it's easier for me to do stuff for them than to insist they do stuff for themselves. I'd like to continue to get my stuff in order in preparation for moving to a new apartment next Fall. (I'd like to travel light through life, but the kids aren't always on the same page with me on this.) I have some things I'd like to write for Main Street Plaza, and I'm planning to attend Sunstone. And, as always, I need to keep studying German.

Anyone who follows this blog knows I'm always on about learning German. (Just click on my "German Language" label below!) So it seems like I should be done by now, right? It's frustrating that I've put other projects I care about on indefinite hold in order to devote more time to German, and it's still not "done"!

The other frustrating part is that I'd thought that once I got to this level (the level I'm at now), improving my German would stop being work because I'd be constantly getting German practice in my daily life. And it's true to a certain degree. I often read the free newspapers, and I always read all of the ads in the tram and at the tram stops -- and these items improve my vocabulary and my familiarity with different grammatical constructions. (Ads are very helpful because they often include wordplay.) But in day-to-day conversation, people are as likely to speak English or Swiss-German (Züritüütsch, specifically) as they are to speak high German, and the local dialect isn't really mutually intelligible with high German until you've reached a level of both that's... well, higher than the level I'm at.

These days, when I meet new people that I need to communicate with, the first question that comes up is language. Do I speak Switzerdeutsch? No? Shall it be high German, then, or English? After two years of working on this, I still can't just communicate and interact with people without this whole Ausländer! Foreigner! American! thing constantly in my face and everyone else's. It drives me nuts.

I don't mind being different, I don't mind being a foreigner, and I don't mind the fact that I don't always fit in, but I don't like the fact that the second I open my mouth, I get sorted into a little mental cubbyhole that I don't want to be placed in. And I'm tired of always having to make small talk about where I'm from. I don't want to be rude to people who obviously mean to be polite and friendly by asking, but I'm just tired of it. Sometimes I want to reply: What does it matter where I'm from? It's far from the most interesting thing about me...

Also (to make this post more pathetically self-absorbed than it already is) nobody understands why it bugs me. Seriously, nobody. My fellow foreigner-in-Switzerland friends are basically like Of course we always go around with the equivalent of a big neon "Ausländer" sign around our necks -- you'll be happier once you stop fighting it and just accept it. But I don't want to accept it.

The thing is that in France it wasn't like this. It was never like this in France. There I could define myself in my own terms. I feel like I lost something valuable in the move, and it's costing me a pretty penny to get it back.

I was trying to explain it to my Austrian friend the other day. I told her that in France, I would talk to people for a while, and they'd perceive that I have some kind of foreign accent, but it wasn't obvious where I'm from. People would try to guess, and they would essentially never guess correctly. This surprised my friend, and her surprise depressed me all the more. So my crappy German makes it hard for people to believe that my pronunciation in French is (or was? :,^( ) pretty good...? Lovely.

The German language itself is actually quite interesting. My goal for the year is to read all of Nouvelle grammaire appliquée de l'allemand avec exercices corrigés, and do all the exercises. I'd even call it fun if I didn't have so many negative/frustrating associations with the whole procedure. Plus I want to take an evening conversation course, to help me motivate myself to compose my thoughts in German.

I imagine that, once I'm ready to start learning some Switzerdeutsch, the whole procedure will become fun again. Nothing against high German, but on some level it feels like high German is something I have to do simply to get myself out of this hole and back up to ground level again, and then when I start learning the dialect, I'll be building something up. We'll see.

Wish me luck!

The Baby Jesus brings your Christmas presents...?

2011-12-29T02:34:00.000-08:00

It's funny how the Christmas legends vary slightly from one culture to the next. In the US, the story of Saint Nicholas (who traditionally gave small presents on December 6) morphed into "Santa Claus" (via the Dutch "Sinterklaas") -- and moved some of his legendary gift-giving antics to Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, some cultures also have a legendary "Father Christmas" (a.k.a Père Noël or Babbo Natale) who has his own traditions, but sometimes simply merges with the American Santa Claus. But in some German-speaking regions, there's another legend that I find amazingly strange: the Christmas gifts are brought by the Baby Jesus (Christkind).

The Christkind doesn't have quite as elaborate a mythology as Santa Claus, but he is supposed to magically bring the Christmas tree and the gifts during the night on Christmas Eve. I've always been kind of curious about how this works, and I had the opportunity to ask some Austrian friends about it the other day. These friends have kids who are a little younger than ours, and still believe that the Baby Jesus brings their presents.

I explained to them the reason the tradition stuck me as so odd. In the US, there's a whole angst-ridden rite-of-passage when the kid eventually figures out that Santa Claus is just made-up, and then there's a big question (especially in religious households) of whether the kid will extrapolate and start wondering about Jesus. But in Austria, Switzerland, and southern Germany, when the kid figures out that the whole "Christkind" thing was just a story, put-on by their own parents... Well, you kind of skip that intermediate step of having to notice the parallel...

"It's European efficiency," laughed my Austrian friend.

But, seriously, if any believing Christians practice this custom, that has got to be one surreal discussion when the kids figure it out.

"That part about angels announcing Jesus's birth in a manger, that's totally real. The part about the Baby Jesus bringing you presents on Christmas? OK, we admit we were making that up and faking it. But the stuff about Jesus walking on water and rising from the dead? That part is totally real..."

We're all misfits! Rudolph, Hermy, and the Misfit Toys!

2011-12-24T04:55:00.000-08:00

The Grinch and The Year without a Santa Claus may be my favorite Christmas specials, but Rudolph is the one that started it all, and launched the Rankin/Bass Christmas special series.

With its charming characters and catchy tunes (Holly Jolly Christmas!) this one has always been one of my favorites. Its theme -- that it's OK (even great!) to be a misfit -- was something I certainly appreciated as a kid. I imagine it was the same for other kids too.

It's also fun to analyze how this story shows the changes in our cultural attitudes towards bullying. The lyrics to the song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were written in 1939. As the song goes, Rudolph was ostracised and bullied for being different. The song doesn't seem to indicate that there's anything a priori wrong about bullying people for being different -- it only became wrong after Rudolph's defect proved itself to be a strength.

We can see how this works in detail in the (1964) special. When the other young reindeer started laughing and calling Rudolph names, their adult supervisor not only failed to stop the kids from bullying:

He actually compounded the problem and kicked Rudolph out of the class for being different. And Santa himself wasn't much better.

However, in the special, Santa realizes he was wrong for mistreating Rudolph before Rudolph's nose saves the day, so maybe attitudes towards childhood bullying had already changed a bit between 1939 and 1964. And (as I discussed here) we can see further cultural evolution in children's media such as the album Free to Be You and Me.

And now my kids are asking me to put on a Christmas special, so I guess it's time to enjoy it again! Or perhaps one of my other favorites:

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (and the invented origins of the Santa Claus legend)
"The Polar Express" takes belief for belief's sake in whole new directions!
"Nestor the Long-eared Donkey" saves the Christmas™ brand
Mr. White Christmas: The fabulous world of Heat Miser and Snow Miser!!!
The Grinch and the True Meaning of Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

New book reviews and Mormon Lit news!

2011-11-26T08:33:00.001-08:00

I just reviewed to great new memoirs for Main Street Plaza: John K. Williams' tales of serving a mission in Bolivia Heaven Up Here and Ingrid Ricks' amazing adventures in a highly unusual (and-not-entirely-in-a-good-way) Mormon family Hippie Boy.

Also note: Johnny Townsend is planning a project that sounds really fantastic:

I am accepting short stories dealing with unconventional Mormons for an anthology to be called “Marginal Mormons.” The stories should be 25 pages or shorter, though length will not necessarily disqualify a submission. Payment will be $20 and one copy of the book, in exchange for perpetual, non-exclusive rights. The stories may be original or previously published, as long as you currently retain the rights. I am not particularly impressed with faith-promoting stories, but I am also not looking to attack the Church. I simply want stories that show unconventional Mormons or new interpretations of doctrine or history. The story does not need to be disturbing but should certainly be thought-provoking.
Please email any stories in the body of the email, but also include them as an attachment. Send to johnnyjohnnyt at yahoo dot com.

Battle for Dream Island!!!

2011-11-23T23:48:00.001-08:00

As a parent, I end up having to watch a lot of low-quality kids' entertainment. My general strategy is (as long as it's not something actively offensive), just not to worry too hard about it, and let my kids learn and decide for themselves what they like. And when I find kids' programming that I think is clever, to recommend it:

Enter Battle for Dream Island, a cartoon series my kids found on YouTube.

I've gotten hooked on this series with them because I think it's clever and funny. But there's an additional, unusual aspect of it that impressed me:

The series started with twenty contestants (all of them anthropomorphized objects) with approximately an equal split between male and female characters. Yet -- even though it's a cartoon -- the female characters aren't given any of the typical signals to mark them as female (eg. big lips and eyelashes). The characters vary widely in personality, hence aren't gender-stereotyped. I know this shouldn't be exceptional, but I don't think I've ever seen any cartoon do this. And yet it works. It works great, in fact!

The series is almost over (after a run of a couple years), but I look forward to seeing what the artists do next. Go Leafy!!

(see also this post for contrast)

Ernie and Bert as mishies?

2011-11-14T21:41:00.001-08:00

There are various interpretations of what Ernie and Bert are supposed to be: brothers? a gay couple? just room-mates? Here's a cute comic of them as Mormon missionary companions:

I know, I know, E & B obviously aren't Mormon missionaries, but still... from reading missionary memoirs, I recognize the relationship dynamic

Procrastination!

2011-11-09T00:57:00.000-08:00

I have a long list of topics bouncing around in my head. I really want to write the corresponding blog posts, but I never seem to have the time. Especially if it's something potentially controversial, I don't want to just dash it off -- I want to compose it carefully. And the longer I put it off, the bigger the hurdle (to just sitting down and writing something) grows. Does that every happen to you?

I'll just list some of the topics, and see if anyone has any comments on them to start with:

Switzerland: "The country that continuously proves that no problem is insurmountable when you're sitting on a huge pile of money." On the one hand, I'm continuously impressed by Switzerland's ability to put money to good use in forward-thinking investments (eg. environment, scientific research), but there are some negative aspects as well (some xenophobia, for example).
Obama: Let me count the ways I am not happy with his performance as president, and deconstruct the errors in my earlier endorsement. Bonus questions: (1) Is there any hope for real change? (2) After 10 years in Europe (and counting) why don't I bother to follow European politics as closely as I follow US politics?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster: I got a really cute crocheted Flying Spaghetti Monster from Camp Quest. My kids love it! I'm planning to post a picture of it (possibly with Leo dressed as a pirate (since he'd already decided (before receiving this FSM toy) that he wants to be a Pastafarian)). The problem: my kids broke the camera I usually use for this blog. (That's why the food photo on this post is an embarrassingly blurry cell phone photo, unlike the sharp pictures on my Lego posts.) So I have to go borrow my husband's camera, and maybe get Leo to dress up as a pirate. Yet, somehow, I never seem to have the 1/2 hour that would require...
Bonus surprise feminism topic: I can't seem to sum this one up in a couple of sentences without writing the whole damn post. So it's a surprise.
I'll also be writing about Heaven Up Here for Main Street Plaza sometime this week.

What do you think? Are these topics too difficult/controversial, or is it all in my head?

Check out my article in Free Inquiry!

2011-10-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

The October/November issue of Free Inquiry is all about Mormons -- and guess who wrote and article for it!!

Yep, that's my name, right next to Mr. Deity Brian Dalton. :)

Edit: You can read the article online here.

"That's so Mormon"...? Dan, no!

2011-10-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

If homophobic teachings by church leaders are to blame for anti-gay bullying, should people respond by giving Mormons a taste of their own medicine? Dan Savage OK's it, but I say no in my latest piece on Main Street Plaza!

See also my posts on bullying.

More wacky exotic beverages!

2011-10-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

This isn't really a food blog, but it hit me that I've written about a number of amusing and strange beverages from woo-juice to ironic eco-juice to local Swiss beer. And I recently discovered another one that had me scratching my head a for a while:

I picked it up because I was eating spicy food at an Indian restaurant, and they didn't have any lassi, so I just grabbed whatever yoghurt beverage they happened to have on hand. And I liked it immediately because I prefer drinks that aren't sweet. It was the first time I'd found a yoghurt beverage that wasn't sweetened like a dessert.

After buying this a few more times at the Indian place, I started to get a little bit worried about it. I mean, it's made in Germany, it's called "Ayran", and it's so white. I started fervently hoping that I wasn't accidentally drinking some sort of white supremacist beverage -- especially since it's so good, I didn't want to have to give it up! [Note: unlike this picture, the one I bought didn't say "Turkish National Drink" on it.] But after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, it hit me that Ayran and Aryan aren't the same thing.

Then I invented my own crazy variant!

I figured, since the sweet yoghurt beverages are flavored with banana or strawberry or mango, why not take a savory yoghurt beverage and add a little tomato juice? It's actually not bad, especially with a dash of Tabasco sauce and a sprig of basil...

The Little Secret Notebook of Rude Remarks

2011-09-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

After work a few days ago, as I was scrolling through the million blogs in my RSS reader, I wondered whether someday I might regret having spent so much time simply reading a ton of blogs. But then I realized that -- even if I don't get as much done as I'd like -- I do get a lot of stuff done, and that I need to spend a certain amount of time doing something that is simply pleasant and relaxing.

Then, more recently, I caught myself wasting time and energy on something that I really do regret wasting time and energy on: getting upset and stewing over some rude remarks that someone spontaneously decided to email me. If it were just some random person on the Internet, it would be easy to simply laugh it off. But not so much when it's someone I, unfortunately, have to deal with in real life.

My rational side says to me If she thinks it's a good idea to send people messages like that, it's her problem and not mine. And no matter how tempting it would be to respond in kind -- no matter how clever my rude retort would be! -- my rational side keeps saying don't do it! That would only make. it. worse. Simply avoid this person and stop worrying about it.

But not thinking about something is easier said than done.

Fortunately -- as with stress-induced insomnia -- this problem has a simple and relatively effective cure. (Recall that for insomnia, the trick is to get an mp3 player and listen to foreign language lessons.) For this one, it's: write it down. Get a paper or a little notebook and write down all the reasons why that person is totally wrong. In the wrong already before she contacted me, and doubly wrong to compound it by adding insult to injury, making it impossible to have a rational discussion about the situation.

Interestingly, it works a lot like the "pensive". (More wisdom from Harry Potter!) Somehow my brain gets the message that all my points are carefully stored on a paper somewhere, hence it doesn't need to keep forcing me to involuntarily review them. And soon it really does become just another funny story. Her problem, not mine.

Two great new Amazon reviews of ExMormon!

2011-09-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

I am an ex-Christian, and not an ex-Mormon, however I identified soooo much with this book of stories. I was April, Lynn and Jill. It was the little things really - that I only had one "church friend" because our church was small and exclusive and there were only a few other kids my age. Especially poignant are the stories of discovering sexuality, and the shame and guilt that go with that in a conservative Christian environment. Like the first time reading the word "masturbation" and recognizing what it is I do (several times a week). Then rationalizing by only fantasizing about married sex.
It follows the stories of several different characters who's lives are all connected in some way. All the characters are written with love and humor, giving them depth and clear room to grow and learn, whether they remain in the faith or leave it. It shows the interactions between believers, doubters and unbelievers in a realistic way, far more so than any other book I've read on this topic. It also shows how leaving the faith comes in many different ways for different people.
I just felt that I had to say something, because I simply loved this book.

-- Aimee

Now in a spiffy new-and-improved illustrated edition, this book was written by a multi-talented former Mormon who's now an expatriate living with her family in Switzerland (she's also a blogger, and did her own illustrations for the book). It's a series of novellas with linked characters and plots, and centers around the experience of growing up Mormon. Some characters are true believers, some are skeptics or struggling, and others have left the Church. The stories explore conflicts between people in various states of Mormon-ness and the world outside Mormonism. While the book has some of the usual flaws of a first novel (e.g., sometimes it lacks scene-setting descriptions, or dialogue comes across as stiff and clunky), it also has a lot of insightfulness and humor, and is well worth a read for anyone interested in literary depictions of Mormons struggling with or leaving their faith.

-- Groggie

I try not to look at ExMormon's Amazon page too often, because it doesn't get that many reviews, and I'd rather be pleasantly surprised once or twice a year than disappointed once a week. ;^)

If you're one of the nearly-two-thousand people who've read ExMormon -- if you have a minute to go add an Amazon review (or even just recommend the book to your friends), I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!! :D

*** Update! *** I just saw that someone posted a recommendation of ExMormon over on Friendly Atheist's post about BYU atheists!!

I definitely feel for ex-mormons, especially in the beginning. I finished reading a good book online called Ex-Mormon.
Even though I didn't grow up Mormon, a lot of things were similar to my childhood in the church of christ. Its a good read if you have the time for it.

My own little piece of crazy

2011-08-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

It all started when I thought the Mormon obsession with sex couldn't get any creepier. We saw Meridian Magazine advising prospective FiLs to grill their prospective SiLs about porn consumption. Not as a joke. And don't forget the Children's Friend teaching girls they need to cover their shoulders to be "modest." At the age of four. That was closely followed by this kids-n-sex gem in which naked Barbies are "a poison worse than the black plague of death itself" for boys in second grade.

As a mom of two little boys, I have to admit I find it a little disturbing to start the sex-shaming so young (or at all, really). But the other disturbing part was how the article hit on my own little piece of crazy, with this throwaway line that that mom tossed in for comic relief:

and there are LEGO pieces we've resigned we'll never find

Blasphemy!!! What kind of mom would say something like that?! lol

a portion of our Lego collection

Everybody knows that a good mom is supposed to regularly gather up every single Lego piece in the whole apartment and obsessive-compulsively sort them into seventy categories, each in its own separate bin.

I'm kidding. Naturally, I recognize that this behavior is a little bit nuts, and I wouldn't expect any other parent to do it. Yet, there is a method to my madness. Allow me to explain:

First off, sorting the Legos is a Zen kind of task -- a nice break from my day job (which requires a non-trivial amount of concentration). Secondly (and probably most importantly), it's so much easier to build things out of them if you know what pieces you have and can find them all. And I like playing with them too!!

I get so sick of the kids asking for new toys all the time -- when they have plenty of perfectly good toys they're not playing with. Whenever the Lego collection is sorted anew, it's like getting a new toy -- the kids make some really imaginative stuff out of them! Plus they have fun playing with the stuff they build.

Can the Hero Factory escape from the kitchen where the villains trapped them?

The disadvantage is that my kids are always asking me to find this or that piece for them. The advantage is that I actually know where the pieces are. And most of the time they can find them -- and sometimes even sort them -- for themselves! :D

Short review of Cars 2

2011-08-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

My kids and I just saw Cars 2, and I have to say, it's now my favorite of all the James Bond movies.

The trouble with "The Help"

2011-08-20T03:21:00.000-07:00

I admit it -- I read The Help and enjoyed it, as an entertaining novel. It struck me as a little odd to have a novel about racism with a white person writing the perspective of a black person, but it's not a priori impossible to do it well.

Then, courtesy of the Hathor Legacy, I found an interesting series of reviews that explain a lot of problematic aspects that I hadn't quite put my finger on.

From Rebecca Wanzon:

One of the three narrators, Aibleen, says that she realizes she is more free than the racist character that destroys her livelihood, a claim that encourages readers to feel better about segregation because, in this logic, nobody can take real, psychological freedom from anyone. Freedom is really about how you feel, not about, you know, the law. It makes Jim Crow an inconvenience, not an obstacle.

I read an Amazon review of the novel that told a reader not to worry that they would have to read over 400 pages of depressing oppression. This is true -- "The Help" makes Jim Crow palatable. I don't think this is a good thing.

African American women had voices before Miz Skeeter gave them the idea

From Duchess Harris:

So instead of incorporating a real Black woman’s voice in a novel purported to being about Black domestics, the Skeeter/Stockett character is comfortingly centralized, and I can see why white women relate to her.

Her Black characters lack the credibility reflected in Coming of Age in Mississippi, a 1968 memoir by Anne Moody, an African American woman growing up in rural Mississippi in the 1960s. Moody recalls doing domestic work for white families from the age of nine. Moody’s voice is one of a real Black woman who left her own house and family each morning to cook in another woman’s kitchens.

Sounds really interesting -- maybe I should pick up a copy of that book...

My Mormon Media Watch!

2011-08-10T01:01:00.000-07:00

So often the PR wing of the CoJCoL-dS complains that media coverage of Mormonism is full of misleading and confusing half-truths. My suggestion (in general) is that they could combat this problem more effectively by providing accurate information -- rather than simply attempting to get outsiders to repeat the church's preferred misleading half-truths.

Has there been any progress? See my latest Main Street Plaza article: Mythbusting, Mormon-Style!

Surprises in Germany!

2011-08-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

During my recent trip to Germany I spotted another one of those space invaders!

That makes three!!

This one was in Köln, along with this other interesting eyesore:

Grown-ups and choices

2011-07-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

When I last blogged about women and choices, I encouraged women to think about their own biases and to consider other women's situations before judging other women's choices. This may lead some people to the (erroneous) conclusion that I think all women's choices are equally good and empowering. Or that I think that feminists should never criticize other women's choices. (The latter would actually be a logical impossibility because I would be implicitly criticizing women's choices to criticize other women.)

Women make a lot of bad choices. Just like everybody else. Part of being a grown-up is accepting responsibility for your choices. It's accepting that people will criticize your choices. And when people criticize you, you have the choice to ignore them or to decide that they're full of it (just projecting their own issues onto you), or even to take their critique into consideration. Or some combination of the above.

On the other hand, I don't think it's a feminist argument to claim that another woman's (unempowering) choice isn't really a choice, or that she's somehow not responsible for that choice because of the way the patriarchy messed her up in the head. I think that if an adult woman is of sound mind and body, then she should be assumed to be competent to make her own life choices and she should be held responsible for her choices. Like a grown-up. Even if some women's ideas are negatively influenced by the patriarchy (or by something else), feminists should not argue that women need to be protected from their own choices.

Keep in mind is that being totally self-actualized and well-adjusted isn't the norm. It's not that women are messed-up by the patriarchy unlike ordinary people who aren't messed-up. Pretty much everybody has some kind of baggage. So when you see bad behavior, criticize away, and criticize with an underlying assumption that a grown-up woman can hear and learn from criticism -- she isn't just a puppet with a patriarchy hand pulling the strings.

Now, some of you probably thinking "Chanson, you're arguing with a straw-man! No feminist argues that the patriarchy renders women incompetent to make adult choices!" Not so. I've had this argument with fellow feminists more than once (though, fortunately, pretty rarely). And I was reminded of it just recently because of a discussion on MSP. On that thread -- in an interesting twist -- a gay man was passionately arguing that the hetero-patriarchy renders gay men unable to be held accountable for their own choices and behavior. If he (or someone else) had been arguing the same thing about women, I would have put up more of a fight.

That said, please note that often women's choices really are limited by ignorance, economics, and coercion. So when I talk about choices here, I mean choices among the range of real options and opportunities the woman has to choose from. Increasing women's educational and economic opportunities is the best strategy for encouraging women to make empowering choices on their own.

Sex-positive vs. sex-negative feminism

2011-07-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

When I sat down to write on being wrong a couple months ago, my first task was to go through my past posts for illustrations of how I have learned from being wrong. One of the first points that came to mind (which I hadn't really blogged about) is the divide between sex-positive vs. sex-negative feminism. No, I haven't switched camps -- it's that I've stopped believing that there's as sharp a divide on this issue and I've stopped believing that this divide is as central to feminist thought.

And this is a change of opinion that has come about in just the past couple of years, through reading other women's blogs and memoirs.

Here's an example of what I mean. Take Greta Christina's post on "elevatorgate". I agree with pretty much everything she said. Maybe everything. The issue she wrote about is male/female sexual interactions, and Greta Christina is pretty much as "sex-positive" as they come. But would a "sex-negative feminist" take on the incident be any different? Perhaps in tone, but in content? Probably not.

I've sort of grown into the conclusion that -- for a huge number of feminist issues, perhaps most -- the sex positive/negative distinction is irrelevant or doesn't make sense. And while some feminists can reasonably be divided into these camps, probably most can't.

To see my evolution on this issue, the best place to start is my post porn and me -- where I described how my outlook was shaped by some of my earliest encounters with feminist theory of sexuality. In a nutshell, I felt that women who enjoy having sex with men (including women who are aroused by the thought of arousing a man) should not be told that they're messed-up in the head or that they hate themselves or that they're tools of the patriarchy. And they should especially not be given this slut-shaming in the name of feminism.

While I was enjoying the pleasures of grad school, I once attended a talk given by Andrea Dworkin. My reaction? I was horrified. This was nearly twenty years ago, so my memory of the lecture is a tad vague. All I remember is that everything is rape. Everything. Even things that aren't sexual are rape. Naturally, I felt that expanding the definition in this way not only trivializes the experience of people who are actually raped, but (more importantly) it is counter-productive in the fight against rape. You don't solve a problem by obscuring it, you solve it by first understanding it. Of course, before I even walked into that room, I already felt that her stance on porn was totally counter-productive with respect to addressing the problem of rape. So who knows what she actually said that day...

My stance on porn hasn't changed. There exist images in the category of pornography that are offensive -- as there are in all media genres. But images of women that are created and used for the express purpose of male arousal are not a priori harmful or degrading to women. If anything, it's the opposite.

On the other hand, it's nearly impossible to draw a clear dividing line between explicitly erotic materials and other forms of entertainment. And, while I think it's A-OK for men to enjoy looking at depictions of sexy women, the overall entertainment industry has a bit of a problem with portrayal of women. Specifically, a piece intended for a general audience typically includes only one female character, and even for her to get a spot on the stage she has to be beautiful and she has to be the love interest who is peripheral to a main [i.e. male] character. (Even God's favorite musical suffers from this, as much as I love it overall.) Maybe this problem is related to erotica. It's certainly related to attitudes towards women and sexuality. After contemplating this for a number of years, all I can say is that I think it's not simple.

So I guess feminism ranks pretty high on my grand list of things that aren't that simple...

So, how was German camp?

2011-07-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest escalation in my ongoing battle with the German language: I packed up my whole family to Germany to spend our vacation on three weeks of German camp!

In case you're asking "Wait, don't you already live in a German-speaking country? Why do you have to travel to have a German-language immersion?" -- allow me to review. The problem with Zürich is they speak a flavor of German that is impossible for foreigners to learn without first learning German German. And everybody in Zürich speaks English anyway. So -- while I speak kind-of OK German -- I haven't felt confident enough to inflict my terrible German on unsuspecting Swiss people. Instead we've saved this fun for the Germans!

On the down-side, the camp kind of reminded me of that song "Camp Grenada." Particularly the line where they sing "...and they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining." I'd packed mostly Summer clothing (being as it's July and everything), yet the first week was unexpectedly chilly. Then the second week was even chillier, with occasional rain. But it didn't really start raining in earnest until the third week.

Then (while I'm on the complainy part), there was the food. My husband was already leery about the food when I first suggested this trip. ("Three weeks?? You have no idea how terrible the food is in Germany!") I then recounted that conversation to my boss (who is Swiss). He asked me what part of Germany it's in, and when I said it's near Köln, he immediately said, "Oh, the food is really terrible there! Oh... I mean... It's not so bad..." Anyway, with that introduction, the food at camp exceeded our expectations. Tragically. Picture a cuisine that's already not much to write home about, then imagine how it might be prepared by a school cafeteria for kids.

That said, I don't want to complain too much about the food because overall the camp was great fun, and we got a ton of good German language practice and instruction. And by the third week of people complaining, the food improved considerably. Either that or we just got used to it. My husband was only subjected to the first two weeks of it because he had a conference to attend, lucky bastard.

On the positive side, it was fun for the kids to get to attend the same school as their parents! After they divided us into classes, I told Léo that I'm in the same class with Daddy, and Léo immediately said, "I hope you get to sit by Daddy!" So cute! Naturally, why would he imagine that the grown-up classes would be any different from the classes for kids? He also assumed we'd be needing scissors and a glue-stick for our class...

I believe in science and logic -- but I like to make things up.

2011-07-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Today I have a few more scenes from the amusing adventure of atheist parenting!

My kids made some good friends at summer camp. Somewhat surprisingly, 8-year-old Léo told us that his new friend (an 8-year-old girl) asked him whether he'd read the Bible! Surprising because this is Europe -- it's not like we sent him to Summer Camp in South Carolina or something.

Anyway, Léo recounted that he told his friend that he doesn't believe in God, but that it's OK for friends to believe different things. To give examples of things people might believe in, Léo asked the girl whether she believes in monsters, and she said she does. Also Santa Claus. This was another point that demonstrated for Leo that it's OK for friends to believe in different things because one of Léo's best friends at school (in Zürich) also believes in Santa Claus. I'm getting this second-hand from an 8-year-old, so the details are a little vague, but Leo seemed to indicate that he's always discreet with his friends with respect to not insisting too much that Santa Claus is just pretend.

My husband asked Nico what he believes in, and Nico immediately said he believes in science and logic. That's the point where you might not believe us that we're not brainwashing our own kids -- but he's only 9. He'll have plenty of opportunity to think for himself.

Then my husband asked Léo what he believes in, and -- after thinking a bit -- said he didn't want to say. Actually, quite a good answer for someone who's only 8. Nico prompted Léo to say he believes in science and logic, and Léo answered with the above quote: "I believe in science and logic -- but I like to make things up." So true! These are imaginative little guys who are always inventing stories and jokes!

It has to get messier before it gets cleaner!

2011-06-26T02:13:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, my apartment got to the point where it was simply not possible to put everything away. Even in its cleanest state there would be precarious heaps of books and papers and other stuff on top of every flat-topped piece of furniture. End tables, stereo speakers, chests of drawers, windowsills, and our long row of bookshelves -- it had been some time since we'd seen the top surfaces of any of them. And it wasn't a question of laziness, it was that we didn't have anywhere to put these things away.

I know, I know, #firstworldproblems -- but I'm not complaining. I'm just recounting that this problem has been an item on my to-do list for a while.

So, last week, I bought two new full-height bookshelves and installed them in my bedroom. This has had a huge impact on my ability to excavate my furniture. I'm no interior decorator, but I'm not keen on having my living space buried in stuff. Even the stuff itself is not helpful if you can't find any of it because it's covered in other stuff.

Now we have room for (at most) one more bookshelf in our apartment. Once we get to the point where we buy (and fill) that one, we'll have to move.

One disadvantage to reorganizing the bookshelves (other than the one in the title of this post) is that I keep finding books that I really want to read! It's like a trip to a wonderful bookstore or library where the shelves were stocked by someone with exactly my tastes and interests!

Naturally, I spent the whole morning (and most of the day yesterday) sitting in my bed, reading -- instead of making more progress sorting the remaining piles of junk on my dressers and windowsills. It was doubly dangerous to have set up the new bookshelves within reach of my bed...

What is faith?

2011-06-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's a surprisingly tricky question!

We were having a discussion about religion at Main Street Plaza (so what else is new?), and I noticed that different people were using very different definitions of the word "faith"!

I've found that a lot of unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding can result from assuming that everyone is using a word to mean the same thing when they're not. So I wrote a new post: What is Faith? to help each person clarify which definition(s) they're using -- with a fun list of twenty statements that may or may not be "faith"!

The answer sets we've gotten so far show a surprising variety in what people would call "faith". Try it yourself -- but be sure to write out your own answers before reading other people's.

I'm not claiming that one set of responses is necessarily right -- I'm just curious to see the range of opinions! :D

See also my earlier post on the definition of faith: It takes a lot of faith to believe that!!!

"Your opinion is so humble that we can just do whatever we want"

2011-06-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

So, apparently, my kids haven't learned Internet-speak yet.

I told them that covering their entire floor with Legos and puzzles so that it is impossible to walk in their room was very silly of them in my humble opinion -- and Nico responded with the above.

In other news, some of the videos (produced by teenagers) on YouTube discuss the comments (i.e. they invite people to comment on various points). My kids like to make videos, and they've been insisting that they want to be able to post videos to YouTube so that other people can comment on them.

We're not allowing them a YouTube account yet, but I'm sure that at some point they'll figure out how to post things to the Internet. For the moment we're trying to come up with a safe and appropriate pacing for easing into it. The step we're at now is: Make up invented names for yourselves, and practice making videos where you only use your invented names and don't mention your real names at all.

The Book of Nico!

2011-06-08T10:46:00.001-07:00

So, here's the result of our recent adventure:

Nico decided to draw/write this book (without any assistance or prompting).

Why I'm a bad mom, part 6: Teaching them from the Book of Mormon

2011-05-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

Back in part 2, you may recall I was trying to teach my kids a little something about their Catholic and Mormon heritage. It's surprisingly tricky. The problem is that either you're talking to someone who believes (and half the discussion is negotiating a peaceful way to agree to disagree) or the subject doesn't come up at all (because, really, religion is not that interesting, especially compared to Legos or other kid-interests).

But a fantastic new musical changed all that!!

Singing along with The Book of Mormon has provided a fun and funny intro to Mormonism. It turns out my kids weren’t aware of even the most rudimentary points like (1) Grandma’s church is called “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (2) its members are called “Mormons” (3) Mommy (me) was raised in this church — that when I was a kid, our Sunday family activity wasn’t hiking in the woods, it was going to church. Every Sunday.

The kids have also learned that the Mormon missionaries use the title "Elder" and are sent two-by-two all over the world to try to convince people to join their church. They've learned that Mormons like to call God "Heavenly Father" and that Mormons believe that Satan/Lucifer really exists (even though lots of other people believe in God without believing in Satan). Here are some typical conversations:

Nico asked me to explain the song Man Up, so I explained that Elder Price and Elder Cunningham have to go talk to the villain (General Butt-f*cking-naked), but they're afraid -- so Elder Cunningham is singing about how he needs to be brave, like Jesus was brave. Nico's a little vague on the Jesus story, though, so I had to explain further.

me: Actually, Jesus was killed in a horrible way. [conveniently, just then the line "What did Jesus do when they put nails through his hands?" played in the background]
Nico: Who killed him?
me: The Romans.
Nico: But... where was God when this was happening?
me: God doesn't exist.
Nico: No, I mean in the story!
me: According to the story, God wanted it to happen.
Nico: [thinks about that a bit] Oh.

***

Leo: When you were a kid, you went to this church?
me: Yep, every Sunday.
Leo: What do you do there?
me: Hmm... Well, people tell you stories about God -- kind of like Elder Cunningham in Making Things Up Again, except that you're not supposed to make up new stories, you're only supposed to teach stories out of old books.
Leo: But... You shouldn't just teach out of old books! With science, sometimes the old books are wrong.
me: Yes, that's right. In science, you should find the most recent books because they generally have more accurate information than older books.

***

Now, probably a lot of people are thinking that it's questionable of me to be encouraging my kids (ages 8 and 9) to sing songs that are not only loaded with profanity, but also cover adult topics like female genital mutilation, infant rape, and people dying of starvation, AIDS, or dysentery. Hence the title of this post. But the tough subjects aren't covered in detail -- they're simply mentioned -- so it's easy to give the kids as much information as they ask for without delving into details they don't need.

Here's what I mean. When Nico was asking about the FGM references in Hasa Diga Eebowai, and asking how they were using frogs to cure AIDS, I explained as follows:

In Uganda, the people have terrible problems -- they don't have enough food or clean water, and many people have AIDS, which is a terrible, deadly disease. But some people are also doing things to make their problems much worse. For example, some think that girls need to have a part of their body cut off, and some think they can cure AIDS by hurting a baby. That's why Elder Cunningham was making things up -- he was trying to convince people to stop doing the things that are harmful. He told them that hurting a frog can cure AIDS to keep them from hurting babies. Really, neither one cures AIDS, but he figured that at least this way people will stop hurting babies.

Nico didn't ask precisely which part of the body was being cut off nor precisely what people were doing to hurt the babies and frogs, but if he had, I'm sure I could find an appropriate anatomy textbook and/or explained that the word f*ck actually refers to mating.

It's funny that they don't appear to know the definition of that word and they haven't bothered to ask. But they do know that it's a highly offensive syllable to most English-speakers -- almost magically so -- and that's more than 90% of what you need to know about the word; far more important than the precise definition. Naturally, they love the line where Elder Price says "Excuse me, sir, but you should really not be saying that!" :D

They also love the references to Boba-Fett.

See also parts 1, 3, and 4.

On Being Wrong

2011-05-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

Kathryn Schulz absolutely nails it:

(Hat tip Saganist and Jon Adams)

This is one of the biggest things I've learned in my life: it is inevitable that some of the things you believe are wrong.

A lot of it is due to invisible assumptions -- beliefs you hold without even realizing you hold them because you've never really consciously noticed them. (Here are some past posts where I learned from new experiences and by noticing my own invisible assumptions.)

Even on questions you've spent some time thinking about (and have reached a conclusion), it's important not to get too emotionally attached to your conclusions. Always be ready to question your conclusions when presented with new arguments or new evidence. (Here are some posts where I learned from my own errors and reconsidered my conclusions.)

There's no shame in being wrong (even publicly) and admitting to it. Refusing to ever recognize or admit your own errors -- dogmatically fighting to the death to back all your past statements to avoid ever having been wrong -- (ironically?) makes you less credible, not more.

It's how Science zeroes in on accurate results, and it works on a personal level too! :D

Indulge me: one more Lego post...

2011-05-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

I never finished my Lego tree house post because I wrote it on the day of the grand Blogger crash -- so I was only able to post the first half. Here's the rest:

Back when I made my Lego city, I felt like -- in my effort to build a whole city in a reasonable length of time -- I skimped on details and on the design of some of the buildings. (Though I did add some details I liked.)

So this time I decided to just design one play-set -- and pull out all the stops!! For instance, I made it open, and designed fun interiors:

Here you can see the fireplace, with food cooking over the fire:

Here's a side-view of what it looks like opened:

And here's the interior opposite the kitchen:

Leo wanted to have some secret compartments to hide treasures in, so I built some in. Here's the same view with two secret compartments open -- see if you can find them!

Above that small spiral staircase and ladder, we find the bedroom:

You can also access the bedroom from above:

Naturally, you do this by opening the top of the tree:

On the other side, you may notice a red roof:

which also opens so you can play inside:

For fun, I added the same thing nearer to the top of the tree:

You can open it to put characters in the upper rooms:

(If you look closely, you can see a mummy looking out one of the windows.)

So, that's my Lego tree-house playset -- hope you like it! :D

SAHMs: Who's got your back?

2011-05-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

Over on Main Street Plaza I've just posted SAHMs: Who's got your back?

(It is the latest instalment in my series on Feminism and women's conflicting interests.)

Pullin' together we can work it out!!

2011-05-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

OK, I apologize for the reference to a certain musical that some say doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with the greatest musical of all time (which I've been rushing home to spend every moment listening to because it's so unbelievably fantastic!!!).

Anyway, it turns out that -- despite team underdog rebranding itself as "Team Awesome" -- PZ is still mercilessly wiping the floor with us!!!

So "Team Awesome" wants to come up with stunts we can offer to compete with the PZ's puny offer of bothering to shave his beard off. (And, don't forget that it's for a good cause.)

Myself, I was thinking of trying to organize a showtunes singalong -- where I try to persuade my fun-yet-faithful Mormon relatives to have a blast performing some (of the non-explicit-lyrics) songs from "The Book of Mormon" during our next family reunion! But, really, if I can I'll do that no matter what. Because it would be so much fun!!!

But the question remains: is there something I could offer to do (as a prize) to sweeten the pot to get more donations for "Team Awesome"? Ideas?

Insights on Mormon culture, thanks to "God's favorite musical"!

2011-05-14T01:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen "The Book of Mormon" yet, but you can hear the songs online, and people have already started discussing them on Main Street Plaza.

When the reviews of the musical first started appearing, I remember there was a lot of focus on whether they got the doctrinal details right (Is Kolob a planet or a star? Does God really live there? etc.). But it appears that what they really got right is unique character of Mormonism — what it’s like to be Mormon! (And, really, placing less importance on the precisions of doctrines like Kolob and more importance on Mormon practice and attitude is, itself, quite accurate.)

If you have an opinion on any or all of the songs, please vote in our poll and tell us about it. Here's my favorite (followed by what I wrote about it):

A lot of the songs had me going “Wow, fantastic! And so true!” But it was listening to “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” that made my whole youth and childhood pass before my eyes. Standing there, happy to supportively sing “my best friend…” while somebody Awesome! sings his heart out about serving God. And it didn’t hurt that the song kind of reminds me of ’80′s pop, and of “Humble Way” from God’s second-favorite musical:

This same missionary scenario — including the leader/subordinate relationship, and the fact that it’s cute that they’re not really humble about their awesome task — is exactly what the song “Humble Way” was about. “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” is what “Humble Way” wanted to be (if it had been totally brilliant).

I completely agree with Holly’s assessment that this would be perfect sung as a duet between a young LDS guy and his fiancee. I don’t think that’s reading anything into it that’s not there. Hierarchy colors so much about Mormon interpersonal relationships. And the (officially unequal) partnership between missionaries sets the model for marriage.

One point that is pure genius is the fact that their unequal relationship isn’t quite the central focus of the song. The leader’s earnest desire to do something great for mankind and God is as central (if not moreso). And the fact it’s tied in with his own ego is winked at.

You can see this symbolized in the Mormon temple endowment ceremony (which I haven’t been through, but I’ve heard about it). The fact that the wife covenants to obey her husband is OK because the husband is making a covenant with God. If you complain (or do anything other than stand beside him being supportive), then you’re the buzzing fly that’s detracting from a man and his important business between him and God!

I can’t imagine any song could more perfectly capture what Mormon patriarchy feels like.

And I can't wait to see the whole musical!!

I Am an Artist of Lego!

2011-05-12T00:46:00.000-07:00

Apologies in advance -- I don't mean to turn this into a Lego blog -- but I have to show off my masterpiece!

It's a Lego tree-house.

Or, more precisely, it's a Lego stone house built into a tree.

I didn't have enough brown pieces to make it just a tree house, but I got some interesting new grey cave-wall type pieces when I bought a sack of 1 Kilo of used Legos from a second-hand store.

My 7-year-old Leo helped out by making some of the bushes and the little ducks in the stream. He was an enthusiastic participant right from the beginning, even helping me wash and dry the used Legos.

[me: I felt so Swiss, carefully scrubbing all those Legos with a toothbrush! my husband: Yes, that was very Swiss of you.]

Wow, Thanks!!!

2011-05-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

I opened up ExMormon's Amazon Page this morning (which I don't usually do because it rarely changes), but boy was I in for a pleasant surprise!!! I received this new review:

I bought the book after looking at the blog. I couldn't stop reading it because I could relate to it so much. I grew up Mormon and I haven't been a practicing Mormon since I left BYU as a teen/young adult. I could really relate to the Mormon culture and also relate to not fitting into that culture. I brought it with me on a Christmas family trip to Mexico and my Mormon relatives were into it also and wanted to read it. It was hilarious at times and also touched me to the core, this book. This is one of my favorite books ever, a book I could read again or pass on to jackmormon buddies and relatives, seriously love it! I'm so glad someone wrote about what it can be like growing up Mormon and in that culture.

I am totally floored! I can hardly imagine receiving a better compliment. This makes my day! (week, month, year... ;^) ).

I was already aware of the earlier nice review (by Book-o-philiac):

This was an amazing novel. I usually don't read fiction books, but decided to give this one a try, due to my leaving the LDS Church. It touched on so many of my experiences of growing up in the LDS Church and many of the reasons that I left. Anyone is considering leaving, even briefly should read this book.

Four stars and would recommend to anyone!

For that review, Book-o-philiac emailed me to tell me how much she liked the book. Naturally, I thanked her and asked her if she would please go write that on the book's Amazon page. ;^)

BTW, I haven't mentioned this in a while, but if anyone is interested in writing a review of ExMormon (for a blog or a publication or Amazon or whatever), just email me and I'll send you a review e-copy: chanson dot exmormon at gmail dot com.

Speed of Lightning! Roar of Thunder!

2011-05-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a frog!

To all those who are younger than Gen-X, please excuse the obscure reference to the "Underdog" theme song. ;)

If you follow the atheosphere like I do, you probably already know that Camp Quest -- that fun science-not-Bible Summer camp for kids -- needs some funds. And, to make the fund-raising more interesting, they decided to turn it into a competition between PZ Myers and a team of other cool atheist bloggers. In round 1, PZ totally wiped the floor with the competition, so some more cool underdogs signed on.

Now, as fond as I am of PZ (I met him in person and even included the photo of our radio interview together in my masthead if you look closely), I am compelled by some mysterious human compulsion to support Team Underdog. (Also note: Team PZ doesn't need my help, but I qualify for Team Underdog.) Hence I've added the donate widget to my sidebar =>

And remember, it's not just about beating PZ (and watching Hemant shave off PZ's beard). It's a great cause! As much as I loved LDS girls' camp as a kid, I wish I could have gone to something like this!! I'm planning to send my own kids as soon as feasible.

The action shot!!

2011-04-30T04:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am, engrossed in my favorite vacation activity:

So, we'll take the 12:40 boat to Isola Madre, where we will wander around and enjoy the gardens for exactly one hour and twenty-five minutes, then catch the 14:20 boat to Stresa where the kids can play on the playground for fifty minutes before we catch the 15:40 boat to Santa Caterina del Sasso...

I'm not sure anyone else in the family enjoys lake boat rides as much as I do, but they did OK:

We sure are riding a lot of boats on this trip...

But we all got to enjoy a lot of gorgeous scenery. Here's Nico at Santa Caterina del Sasso (a three-building hermitage built into the side of a cliff):

just hanging out

and on Isola Madre:

Leo is a lot more reluctant to be photographed than Nico (unless he's playing "Angry Birds"), but my husband got one picture of both boys touring the botanical gardens:

Our imaginary universe is even more fun than all these gardens our parents keep taking us to!

Decountrified!!!

2011-04-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

When we last left our little tale of my crazy international life, I admitted to passively letting people in Paris believe I was Swiss, mostly just because I like to keep people guessing. Well, be careful what you wish for!

I've been learning Italian for almost as long as I've been speaking French -- and I've gotten to the point where I can read simple books and carry on a rudimentary conversation in Italian -- but I've never gotten really fluent in Italian because I've never spent more than a few weeks at a time in Italy (and even then, I haven't gone far off the tourist-beaten track).

But that's OK! Because at Lago Maggiore (as I mentioned earlier) most of the tourists are Italian, French, German, or Swiss. So if you start speaking to someone in Italian -- even if they sense that Italian is not your best language -- they can't simply switch to your best language because they don't know which one it is! Hahahahaha!! Unlike Zürich, where everybody just assumes that everybody else speaks English. Where, if you have an accent or make a grammatical error when speaking German, Swiss people give you this "isn't it cute that you're trying to speak German? But seriously, if you want to communicate, I'll just stick to English for you." And then the Swiss people complain that the foreign residents don't bother to learn German. But I digress...

Anyway, there was one major new development in my life since my previous trip to Lago Maggiore: I have really gone to town on learning German! I'm now at the point where I can carry on a rudimentary conversation with ease, and most slightly-more-complicated things I'd like to say, I can approximate in real time (or at least in a not-too-embarrassing length of time). But -- as anyone who has tried to learn a second foreign language can attest -- my new foreign language (German) is interfering with my earlier one (Italian)!!!

Fortunately, my German has not interfered with my French. I guess that since I lived in France for seven years (and I still speak French with lots of people on a daily basis), French has moved out of the "expendable foreign language" part of my brain...? Ever since learning French made me forget all my Latin, I've been very careful to practice and review French and Italian while learning German. (Aside: I don't understand those folks who can speak seven or eight languages fluently -- it's hard enough just learning four!) Anyway, if I haven't lost you already, you can probably see where this is going:

Every time I tried to speak to someone in Italian, a bunch of the words would come out in German. Totally unintentionally. I was trying to speak Italian and ended up speaking some sort of Italodeutsch. So, naturally, everybody assumed I was German. It's not that far-fetched an assumption -- the place was crawling with Germans-attempting-to-speak-Italian, and I'm not as fashionable as the French or Italians:

Leo liked the boat rides -- especially the video games

I thought it was pretty funny, actually.

So I was ordering some cappuccinos for breakfast the first morning, and the waitress (wanting to make sure I understood the difference between cappuccino and caffe latte, trying to pick an appropriate language for this explanation), asked "Deutsch?"

I immediately launched into this whole explanation about how, no, I'm not really German, haha, I'm just learning German, and I keep accidentally mixing up the words with Italian so people think I'm German, haha!

I suspect the problem was choosing to give this explanation in French. My husband's system was to say a few words to people in Italian, but then switch to French for anything he didn't know how to say in Italian. It normally worked like a charm -- everybody seemed to speak perfect French. Except maybe this one lady. She just gave me a kind of exasperated look and said "Zweimal cappuccino?" [German for "Two cappuccinos?"].

I thought about it for a second and replied, "Ja, zwiemal cappuccino. Isch guet."

After that, it hit me that sheesh, I speak Italian well enough that I can explain to people in Italian that I'm learning German, and I keep accidentally mixing up the words. So the second time I did it better. I was discussing different boat itinerary options with someone at the boat ticket counter, and as he turned to get me a page of information, he asked "Deutsch?"

That was my cue! I told him in [not-quite-right] Italian that I'm just learning German and sometimes I get the words mixed up. And when he smiled in comprehension, I thought success! actual communication!

After that, I made a point to prepare in advance before talking to people, planning Italian sentences and purging them of German words before speaking. Then I didn't have that problem anymore. But it was a fun little linguisto-cultural adventure!! :D

Spring Break in Italy!

2011-04-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

We just got back from lovely Lago Maggiore!! Now, I know we've already been to Lago Maggiore, but the way I see it, you can never have too much Lago Maggiore.

Some amusing stuff happened that I'll post about in the next couple of days. But for the moment I'm easing slowly back into the Internet. Since the trip was just four days chrono, I figured I'd make it just make it a relaxing vacation-from-Internet. (I love the Internet, but sometimes we take separate vacations.) I even got up at five on Easter Sunday to be sure to have time to finish my Sunday in Outer Blogness column and make a picnic lunch for my family to eat on the train. It wasn't necessary, BTW, we were ready a full hour before we needed to be -- but better safe than sorry!

Helpful fly-by critics

2011-04-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

One amusing thing about Main Street Plaza it the number of fly-by critics we get. By "fly-by" critics, I don't mean people who are intentionally trolling. I mean people who take one look at the site and are incensed -- incensed! -- that non-believers would be discussing Mormonism. We get so many of them that that's our one FAQ.

For a while, I assumed that this is simply because Mormons are taught in church that "apostates" are bitter and hateful. Hence -- if Mormons see any "apostates" on the Internet -- they sometimes post a "Why are you so mean and bitter?" comment without making any attempt to determine whether that criticism applies. I imagined that -- if it weren't for prejudice against former-believers -- they'd have the common courtesy to read the welcome page before criticizing.

The more I thought about it, though, (over the years, as these fly-bys have flown by), the more I asked myself: Is this supposed 'common courtesy' really so common? Do people really read the welcome page and FAQ on other types of sites before posting comments like "I can't believe you people are wasting your time discussing this topic!"

I certainly got my share of that in my few posts on the Hathor Legacy (eg. helpful fly-by: "Why are you wasting your time analyzing a kids' movie? It's just a movie!" me: "Um, because I find the topic interesting. If you don't, then I agree that one of us is wasting time by participating in this discussion. But it's not me.")

Then I thought: Maybe these helpful fly-bys only appear on blogs about touchy topics like feminism or religion -- topics where some people feel threatened by the mere existence of discussions they disagree with. Maybe blogs on topics that really are frivolous [royal wedding watchers, Edward Cullen's hair-care tips] don't get as many "This site is so stoopid, you all need to get a life!" comments.

But what do I know? I'm starting to think that all websites get these. My kids have been watching some (rather ridiculous) YouTube videos reviewing various Lego sets. And even there, one of them spent a good three minutes complaining about all of the negative comments. His advice? "If you don't like these videos, don't watch them." Makes sense to me.

The thing is that the Internet is full of people discussing every topic you could possibly imagine (and plenty of other topics that you would never have thought of in a million years). There are so many interesting discussions to read -- plus an uncountable number of discussions that you personally won't find interesting (but someone else, apparently, does find interesting). That's what I find perplexing. Given the infinite selection and finite amount of time -- why take the time to read the ones you find uninteresting and post comments telling them how uninteresting you find them?

But that what I love about the Internet -- you're exposed to so many new mysteries of human nature to contemplate!! My personal motto is a variant of a famous quote by Spinoza: "I strive not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."

Free to be a homemaker...

2011-04-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

One point where I feel like the feminist messages of the seventies were fairly effective was in convincing people that men are also responsible for housework and child-rearing -- that it's not automatically the woman's job. There's still a long way to go, but I have the impression that, for men and women of my generation and later, expectations on this front changed noticeably compared to the previous generations.

This is true for child-rearing in particular. Not so long ago, pushing a baby-buggy was equivalent to wearing a dress. I have a vague memory of this being a popular comedy situation, to show the poor man having to take care of his child for an afternoon. The director would even have the poor sap wear a frilly apron over his dapper suit, to emphasize the absurdity of the situation. He's a man and he's trying to take care of a baby -- hahaha!! Now you see men walking down the street carrying babies in pouches or pushing them in strollers, and it doesn't cross anyone's mind to see that as strange.

The "Free to Be..." album I discussed the other day had a track about how it's OK for a boy to want a doll because he might want to learn to nurture babies too. (Aside: this track, like the one about boys crying, seemed to portray bullying as inevitable, but basically said the boy shouldn't be bullied for wanting a doll.) Then there was another track that struck me as almost controversial: "Housework".

"Housework" is a poem that says, essentially, that those smiling ladies you see doing housework in TV commercials for detergents -- they're only smiling because they're actresses. Really, nobody likes doing housework, and that's why the mom and dad should share the housework load.

My modern-sensitivity-and-awareness brain immediately makes the connection between that statement and the central tension of feminism: For every role/trait that is seen as feminine and bad, some women will argue "Stop seeing this bad thing as feminine!" and others will argue "Stop seeing this feminine thing as bad!" And often both positions have merit.

It makes me wonder OK, is the above dissing SAHMs? And hence feeding the supposed enmity between career women and SAHMs that is so overhyped?

Then I wonder: Am I just being hypersensitive about this, from reading too much feminist Mormon housewives? I mean, is it really insensitive and un-PC to say that even homemakers don't like housework? Plus, I know that many SAHMs would totally agree with the moral of the poem: that the housework is not just one person's responsibility...

Thoughts?

"Free to Be" -- forty years later...

2011-04-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

I remember how old I felt when I first noticed that I could start a sentence with "Twenty years ago..." and speak from first hand experience. Now that I'm on the cusp of forty, I can easily tell you about stuff from thirty years ago, and it's only getting worse...

But, aaaaaaaaaanywaaaay....

Right up there with Schoolhouse Rock, Free to Be... You and Me totally captures (for me) the messages to kids in the '70's. According to the wikipedia article, "Free to Be has become a cult classic across the United States amongst many who were children of New Age parents in the 1970s" -- which I find kind of funny because my parents back in the '70's were pretty far from "New Age" (they were conservative Mormon Republicans). And yet I still think it's a [cult?] classic.

My parents aren't the ones who played it for me -- I don't remember exactly where I first heard it. But I bought a record album of it myself (for fun) as an adolescent in the '80's, and my mom (despite having opposed the ERA like a good Mormon), didn't appear to object to it. I recently found a CD of it, and I've been listening to it to see what I think of it now.

If you're not familiar with the album, it's a collection of clever and fun songs and skits that challenge traditional gender expectations. One central point to keep in mind is that essentially all of the messages in the album were countering other messages that kids were also hearing quite loudly. So every time you hear a song on it whose theme makes you go, "Well, duh, everybody knows that" -- then you've found a point where this album (and other voices from that time) had an impact and changed cultural assumptions.

The song that sounded (to me) the most dated was the one telling boys "It's all right to cry." I have two little boys, I watch tons of media directed at them, I read popular parenting advice, and I talk to lots of other moms in Europe and in the US, online and in person. I haven't done a formal study, but the gendered message I remember from my childhood -- that it's shameful for a boy to cry -- has fallen out of favor, and it's not just Glenn Beck. ;^)

It's my impression that our cultural expectations have changed on at least three fronts: (1) getting your feelings out instead of holding them in is viewed today as healthy and not exclusively feminine, (2) It's somewhat more acceptable for boys to express feminine traits and interests, and (3) Childhood bullying in general is no longer seen as inevitable or acceptable. Keep in mind, folks, that "Free to Be..." came out a mere three years after the popular Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue, in which it's presented as a more-or-less reasonable act of love for a father to name his son "Sue" specifically for the purpose of ensuring he'd be bullied, and hence come out a tougher man in the end.

Part of the spoken text says that crying boys aren't "sissies," but instead boys who are afraid to cry (and hence risk being called "sissies") are the "sissies" [implying that being a 'sissy' is still bad]. Naturally, that way of deflecting-yet-reinforcing the label "sissy" wouldn't be considered OK among liberal parents today. That said, I'd be pretty surprised if our gender awareness hadn't improved at all beyond what was on the cutting-edge-of-mainstream forty years ago.

The whole album is quite heteronormative (to anachronistically use a term that has come into ordinary public discourse fairly recently). That is, the album assumes that girls grow up to be mommies, boys grow up to be daddies, and (if they get married) mommies are married to daddies, period. Again, keep in mind that this was a mere three years after Stonewall, so mainstream awareness of LGBT issues was a fair distance in the future. The message that both girls and boys can grow up to be whatever they want to be was already pretty controversial. And teaching one generation of kids not to be limited by gender expectations helped set the stage for them to question gender roles even further -- in ways that many people in the previous generation didn't think of.

A track that hardly seems dated at all is the tale of Princess Atalanta. Female characters in kids' movies and television have sadly made a lot less progress than many parents (like me!) would hope (see, for example, The Hathor Legacy). Most parents of little girls I know are powerless against the lure of the Disney Princess pink ghetto (though I've heard some creative strategies for dealing with it). But I really like the way Atalanta's own autonomy takes center stage in bringing about her "happily ever after". [If you read the wikipedia entry, they explain how "Free to be" took some major liberties compared to the original story, but, really, no worse than Disney does.]

So, which song do I like/remember best after all these years? Probably the title track. Anyone else have memories (fond or otherwise) of this album?

My country, my label

2011-03-24T00:40:00.000-07:00

During last Summer's visit to Paris, I admitted to kind of pretending not to be American. Not actively lying, but -- since I was visiting from Switzerland -- just kind of letting people assume I'm Swiss.

And since then, I've asked myself Why? Is it so terrible to be American?

Here in Switzerland, I've been told many times that the foreigners that the Swiss really don't like are the Germans. The Swiss don't seem to have all that strong an opinion either way about Americans. It's actually kind of a relaxing change from living in France -- France and the US apparently have the most unbelievably passionate mutual love-hate relationship, whereas US and Switzerland have kind of a "friendly acquaintances" kind of relationship (as in "Who did you say you were again? Sweeden?").

Upon reflection, though, I don't think my problem is that people's assumptions about Americans are terribly negative (certainly not compared to their assumptions about people from various other countries). It's more that I'd rather not have people mentally lumping me with all the other Americans right off the bat. Let me be the "mystery foreigner" for a little while! ;^)

This is also why I enjoy telling people I was raised Mormon than telling people I was raised American. Growing up Mormon is exotic -- especially here in Europe. People I meet don't generally have any mental stereotypes about Mormons because they've never met any Mormons. All they have is wild stories they've heard (which they only half-believe) -- and that is so much more fun than a solid, garden-variety stereotype.

These musings partially inspired by Andrew's post on labels.

How to build a Lego Crane!

2011-03-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of Lego Power Miners sets my kids got had some structural pieces that looked like crane parts. So, when they dismantled those sets and we started building a Lego city, a construction site with a crane was naturally on the to-build list!

The crane pieces were so obviously crane pieces that I figured I'd save myself some design time by looking up the instructions on Lego.com or google for pictures of how others had built cranes out of these Power Miners pieces. Strangely, I didn't find anything. So -- since the crane I designed worked out pretty well -- I thought I'd do a quick explanation of how to make one.

Start with the stem of the crane. For stability, rods should hold the pieces together wherever possible (though sometimes it's not possible, such as when adding the turntable to allow the crane top to rotate). A round piece should be included below the platform (and connected with a rod) for added stability.

The crane arm also needs to be reinforced with support rods, and -- naturally -- also needs angle pieces to attach it to the base and to the part that extends above the base.

Then there's the cable mechanism, which starts from the weight/reel on the short end of the crane arm, goes through the loop at the top of the crane stem, and is directed by a moveable attachment that goes around the long end of the crane arm. Here, I've taken the little ball off the end of the reel axel so that you can see how the reel fits together.

The last bit is the crane operator's cabin. There's a lot of leeway in precisely how to design it (depending on the pieces you have). The only important part is to include a piece with two holes near the top so you can connect it to the top of the crane stem:

Then, all that's left is to put the components together!

Now, at this point, probably a lot of people are asking: "Are you doing this for yourself, or for your kids?"

Answer: both. I think that -- in order to spend quality time with your kids -- it helps to take a sincere interest in the things they're interested in, and talk with them about things they care about. And these kids love Legos!!! Here they are taking publicity photos for their own invented Bionicle sets:

I wanted to make a city for the kids to play with so that they'd see what you can really do with Legos when you get a certain number of them. And Leo absolutely got into it -- here's the city he made, inspired by the one I made:

Legos were some of my very favorite toys as a kid, so it's easy to get excited about what they're up to! Here are a few more vehicles I made for Leo this morning:

See the sights in my amazing Lego city!

2011-03-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

And now I'd like to tell you about the fun I had making this city!

The restaurant in the bottom-right corner is based on the 3-in-1 Log Cabin set. The version with a large, arched window seemed like the right combination of rustic with modern chic to be a Swiss restaurant.

You can see that I basically took the idea and ran with it, adding a rustic chimney and extra ivy. Instead of having it open (as per the instructions), I made the front half of the roof come off easily so that the interior is accessible (not that there's anything in there...). I absolutely love these 3-in-1 Creator sets because they show you how to make very different things out of the same pieces.

As an aside, one of my friends sorts all of her son's Lego pieces according to which set they came from so he can always reassemble them -- and she got annoyed with him for taking all of his sets apart and making one big tower out of them. I told her that the point of Legos isn't to make the same set over and over, but to build the set once, and then take it apart and use the pieces to make something else. Here's that principle at work in my Lego swimming pool:

You can see from the stickers on top that the red arches came from some sort of vehicle. (Perhaps they were wheel-wells?) Anyway, they made very pretty asymmetrical arches for my pool!

The school is not a set. It's probably the prettiest building that I designed myself. I had a lot of fun with the stairs and the trim.

I also designed the blue-black-green garage. That's my "I'm running out of pieces" building -- which is why the color-scheme is so crazy. I think it would be prettier if the dark blue walls were some light color like yellow. Note that I again used wheel-wells as architectural arches: the black arches over the garage doors are from the Toy Story locomotive.

It was also due to color-piece limitations that I made my gas station a "bp". Considering the disaster in the Gulf, I wouldn't normally have picked that one. Any I don't drive, so this is not an endorsement of their products.

The grocery store is also my own invention. That's the only building that actually has anything in the interior. (There's a cashier, and the shelves are stocked with things to buy.) Most of the buildings are open in the back, but I haven't put much in them.

I also designed the little post office in the front left corner of the city and the bridge that the fisherman is on. The drink machine beside the table-tennis match is from a "Power Miners" set. I can't get over how cute it is that you can push the little Lego $100 bill into it, and a can of Lego soda-pop comes out!

The apartment building in the center is another 3-in-1 Creator set. Basically, my kids were watching a video on Lego.com showing that if you build this set as a two-story house, you can expand it by adding extra floors. And that was when I said "I must have that set!" So, since I want to be involved in my kids interests, and since they like websites advertising toys, I end up getting marketed-to as well. ;^) I only added one extra floor because I didn't want it to be too much taller than the rest of the city.

I designed the train station myself, along with the train platform and the kiosk. The fun part was stocking the display case with items to buy! If the train platform steps seem a little steep, that's just because I wanted to make sure the platform was high enough for people to board the train.

The passenger car is based on one of the cars from the Lego Toy Story train, and the locomotive is a silly fantasy locomotive that I made out of spaceship parts. (Note that the driver is a gorilla.)

Tune in next time for how I built the crane!

My most awesome Lego city ever!!!

2011-03-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

If I ever go more than a week or two without blogging, you may rest assured that it's because I'm spending my time on some similarly-worthy creative pursuit! In this case, I've been devoting my free time over the past couple of weeks to constructing the coolest Lego city I have ever made!

Here's what it looks like:

If you look at the details, you may notice that -- though my kids named it "Imaginary City" -- it's Imagniary City, Switzerland.

In the coming week, I'll post some more pictures of Imaginary City, Switzerland, with some details about the different buildings and other sites! :D

A new mishie story!!

2011-02-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

I've always been interested in mishie stories (as you can see if you click on the "mishies" tag below), and I recently read one that, IMHO, is one of the best of the bunch. See my review here, on MSP. Actually, of the many indie-published works I've read, it's among the top handful in terms of writing quality, so if you'd like to read what a Mormon mission is like, definitely pick this one up!

I finished reading Harry Potter to my kids!

2011-02-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

That was a cool, fun trip! I have fond memories of my mom reading to me and my siblings when I was a kid, and I've enjoyed passing the tradition along!

And now -- since this story has been taking up so much of my brain of late -- I have to give you my promised critique:

1. The evil-just-for-the-love-of-evil villain. My kids already spend enough time on commercial stories that are designed just to sell toys (eg. Lego Hero Factory, Planet Heroes) where they make a simplistic division into bad guys and good because its the easiest way to give your hero a conflict. And I know that Voldermort had some depth and character development (he sure a hell better have some, in 4176 pages...), but I think that an excellent children's series ought to have a more imaginative quest/conflict than the usual "We have to stop Dr. Evil from destroying the world because he's so evil just because he loves evil."

I found Lord Voldemort to be an incredibly boring villain. The series makes up for it a bit by having a number of interesting side characters, like Snape. I liked most of the teacher-characters, though (as my husband pointed out) it's a bit odd that none of the teachers are married or have a significant other. Did Rowling forget to mention that accepting a teaching position at Hogwarts means you have to take a vow of celibacy?

2. The monotonically increasing level of evil. To borrow some Dungeons & Dragons terminology, Rowling's series feels like "Lawful Evil" compared to, say, some works by Roald Dahl which feel more "Chaotic Evil". In Potter-land you don't get the feeling that anything might happen (unlike, say, Alice in Wonderland). It's more like Science Fiction than like magic -- the characters have a specific set of additional powers/technologies and a particular set of alien creatures, and they're all plodding towards the epic battle. And if there's X amount of violence and death in book 1, then the amount in book 2 is X+1, etc., so that by book 4, it's already pretty questionable whether it's appropriate for children, and by the last book, so many people were dying noble, glorious deaths in battle that I felt like I was reading a Klingon opera.

3. Underdog! After the beginning of book 1, Harry's not really an underdog anymore, and yet a lot of the story seems to rely on the reader rooting for poor Harry. Some of the situtions the author constructs to repeatedly try to put him back to underdog status (he's stuck at the Dursleys' again, Snape is mean to him, Dumbledore won't tell him everything) seem contrived and petty. I feel like I'm not explaining my point very well, so just consult this Potter Puppet Pals episode:

For such a long series, it might have been more interesting if the POV didn't always follow Harry. As I said earlier, I felt the "Dark Materials" trilogy did better than the Potter series at having peripheral characters take important independent actions rather than having all the action revolve around one or two battling champions. (And those battle scenes! Everyone picks a partner and starts duelling, as though it were the Yule Ball.)

I have a couple of other picky complaints, but I'll just leave it at this. Despite the occasional annoyance, I really did enjoy reading these to my kids. But now that it's done, they're asking me to go back and read them selected chapters! I'm happy to keep reading to them, but I'd like to move on to something new. Suggestions...?

Ah, Switzerland, what will we ever do with you?

2011-02-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

I wish I could understand Swiss politics -- it seems like this small-but-disproportionately-important country is always full of surprises!!

A lot of the exmo community lauded Switzerland's recent decision to stop issuing Mormon-missionary visas to foreigners who don't have citizenship in the EU. On the Internet, there was kind of a vibe of "Go Switzerland -- way to stand up to those annoying people knocking on your doors!"

I was conflicted about it though. On the one hand, I think the Swiss are right to classify Mormon missions as being closer to an unpaid internship than to charity work, hence it's reasonable to classify it as employment. On the other hand, I don't know all of the details of the whole restricting-employment-to-Swiss-and-EU-citizens deal, so I don't know whether I agree with it or not. And, most importantly, it's not as though this move were part of a consistent system of making religious organizations play by the same rules as secular non-profits...

However, they're not too bad at international law. If a foreign (former) leader authorizes torture and openly admits to it -- even if his own country shields him from the law and its consequences -- he can't come to Switzerland, at least, without risking arrest. Even though we're talking about a big powerful country that a lot of little countries would be afraid to provoke. Go Switzerland!

Why I'm a bad mom, part 5: The worst word!

2011-01-30T03:55:00.000-08:00

Way back in part 1, you'll recall I was teaching my kids naughty words. In the years since then, I haven't gone out of my way to teach them naughty words (nor have I bothered to avoid using them), and I'm happy to report that we haven't had any problems over this.

(Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they probably say naughty words occasionally, but I don't notice because I don't care.)

I did tell Nico recently that saying certain words (especially f*ck) is a little like saying "Voldemort": Some people worried or upset when they hear it, as though the syllable itself had some sort of evil magic power. And it's important to keep in mind when deciding whether/when to use it.

But there's a far worse word out there. Leo has dubbed this word "the worst word in the world", and has forbidden me from ever saying it to him. Can you guess which one?

"Whatever."

Why is that the worst word?

"Because it means you're not listening to me."

see also parts 2, 3, and 4

My continuing adventures as the Vulcan/Romulan Captain Thelev on TeeVee!!!

2011-01-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

I hope you liked the earlier episode I posted (the one where I got to play my own evil twin, separated at birth -- one of my faves!). Well, that was episode #7, and here are episodes 8, 9, and 10:

In this one, my younger sister plays a child-genius who invents a computerized brain -- that escapes, naturally. The folks of the lower decks try to catch it without the Captain getting wind of the situation.

In this one, I watch in horror as my arch-rival gets the promotion I deserved! Also features sneaky Tholians and a hamster getting dropped into the soup.

In this one, Captain Kirk's illegitimate grandson (who replaced the horta as our first officer) gets a chance to prove himself -- by figuring out the mystery of the weird recurring dreams!

If you guys like these, I'll go back and post episodes 1-5, but I'd rather you start with these because the earlier ones have poor sound and production quality.

Succeeded in my goal to play more Legos with my kids!

2011-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

Here's to starting with the funnest goal!

Somehow my kids have seemed to have acquired an uncountable number of Legos. I think Christmas accelerated the process. The trouble with Legos? They tend to leave droppings all over the house. Then, if you succeed in gathering them all into one place, it's impossible to find the piece you want or to get an overview of what pieces you have to play with.

So, to get maximum playtime out of these maddening little bits of plastic, I sorted them. I spent the whole day Saturday at it, and I sorted them all. I bought a whole series of various-sized tupperwares, and sorted the Lego bits into thirty-seven different categories.

In theory, the kids were supposed to clean up the rest of their room while I did the Legos, but that plan had one fatal flaw -- once Legos are sorted even partially they are irresistible to play with! So the kids re-built a bunch of their old sets, and built some more that they found instructions for on the Internet, and even invented some of their own.

Naturally, I could not resist the temptation myself. I wanted to try out some of these "Lego Heroes" bits that we certainly didn't have when I was a kid. (Seems like in the olden days, we just built simple stuff like castles.) In particular, I wanted to see if it was possible to build something out of the hero pieces that wasn't obviously a Lego Hero. Here's what I came up with:

It seems like these pieces mostly lend themselves to making monsters, so I decided to go with that. Also note, I made the head out of bits that I think were from some sort of boat.

What do you think? Doesn't it make you want to have 7-to-10 year old kids, so you can have an excuse to play with toys? ;^)

Vote (for me) in the 2010 Brodies!!!

2011-01-08T23:55:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! Time to showcase the best LDS-interest stuff posted to the Internet in the past year!! And vote for which ones deserve awards as the very best!

Several of my posts are in the running. Please vote for me -- unless, of course, you think someone else's post in the same category is better. ;^) There's some pretty stiff competition!

for Best Interfaith Interaction: Our Heavenly Nico!

for Best Philosophical/Religious Discussion: Faith vs. Bias

for Most Interesting Commentary on Mormonism: Survival of the Fittest: Mormon Style!

for Best Gender Issues Discussion: Career women vs. SAHMs round II: There Can Be Only One True Choice!

for Best Book Review: The Church of the For-Profit Corporation: Daymon Smith's "The Book of Mammon"

for Best Book Review: Steven H. Lee's "Falling into Life: A Gay Exmormon's Journey"

Plus, I was nominated for "Best Bridge Building" (overall). We'll see if I can beat John Dehlin -- he's a lot more famous than I am. ;)

Whether I win or not, though, I'm thrilled to see how many people are excited about these awards!! This is only the second year we've been holding Brodie Awards at Main Street Plaza, and I'm glad to see that people are having fun with them! :D

2011 State of the Me Address

2011-01-04T02:40:00.000-08:00

You may recall from last year that I'd isolated three main categories of goals where I need to put in some effort: (1) career, (2) German, and (3) arts (writing/blogging).

So, how have I done?

1. Career -- on track. As usual, this is a point where it's not appropriate to post too many details to the Internet, but I'll just say I had some specific goals in mind about the direction I'd like to see my career heading, and where I'm at right now is (if anything) better than what I was hoping for.

2. German -- on track. I'm at the point where I can carry on more-or-less reasonable conversation with a very patient German-speaker. I'm about halfway through my intensive German class (two afternoons per week), and I'm enjoying it immensely. And I'm planning to spend my vacation this Summer on a really, really intensive German class/immersion in either Germany or Austria.

3. arts (writing/blogging) -- pretty much totally dropped the ball.

I had a number of different creative projects I wanted to work on this past year, and I got very close to zero work done on any of them. I haven't given up on them. Rather, as Jen Hancock (and Madonna) explained:

So NARAS asked her, how do you keep all those balls in the air? She said she didn’t. She just makes sure to remember where she drops them so that when she has the time she can pick them up again.

Even though lots of amusing stuff happened to me and my family -- which I could have written about -- I didn't even bother to keep my blog updated regularly! At least I updated my masthead so y'all would know I'm not dead...

The trouble is that I have more than twice as much stuff I'd like to do than I have time in a day to do it. I used to write a lot of blog posts in a little notebook while I was commuting on the bus or tram, and now that time has been taken over by German homework. (Well, let's be honest -- for a stretch of several months in there, I developed a rather unfortunate Sudoku habit that also ate up quite a lot of otherwise-potentially-productive commuting time.)

The one exception -- the project that I'm very proud of -- is how well things have been going at Main Street Plaza. For years I've been gathering all of the former-Mormon blogs into a common list (Outer Blogness) and encouraging community discussion by highlighting new blogs and interesting posts in my weekly column Sunday in Outer Blogness. But it was hard for MSP to really get a foothold as a central gathering place because we didn't have enough news and other content to keep people coming back. Then Chino Blanco signed on and changed that. And in the past year MSP has really taken off, from having a small-but-loyal readership to being one of the Internet's most popular blogs on the topic of Mormonism. And the success builds on itself: the more popular MSP becomes, the more people are willing to contribute interesting guest-posts!

Naturally, the blog that's doing well is the one that gets all of my Internet time lavished on it. Usually, I feel like I'm hardly doing anything substantial over at MSP, but it is amazing how time-consuming it is just to read everyone's blogs every week and look for ways to weave the different discussions together.

Another goal that wasn't on my official list -- but that I did a good job on -- was to spend more time with real-life (non-Internet) friends and with my kids. As far as the kids are concerned, I'm a huge believer in undirected, free, imaginative play. However, it's possible to go overboard on that. I like to set aside a certain amount of time to read to them, and to just sit down and play some of the things they're interested in with them. Especially now that they're getting to be old enough to build some really cool, complicated stuff out of Legos!

So, my goals for the comping year are (1) to keep going on the items that are on track (German, career, family, friends, MSP), (2) pick up some of the balls of creative projects I've dropped, and (3) Put some more effort into "thinking globally, acting locally" regarding the environment, charity, etc.

Rereading Harry Potter, Part 1

2010-12-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

A few years after my first read-through, I'm re-reading the "Harry Potter" series to my kids. This morning, I just finished book 5. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, and I'm ready to start posting about my reaction the second time through.

This book (#5) was the one that changed me from avid Harry Potter fan to lukewarm Harry Potter fan. My first reaction to this book was "OK, she finished the set-up in the previous book, and it's too early to start on the wrap-up, so she's killing time between books 4 and 6. And yet it's still I-don't-know-how-many-hundred pages long." My reaction this time? The same, except that I was less annoyed/disappointed this time because of my lowered expectations going in. I was able to just enjoy the episodic ride because I wasn't thinking "Sheesh, do we have to plod through every date on the school calendar before the final chapter where Dumbledore explains everything...?"

Now, I'd like to go over some of my main criticisms of the series. But before I begin, I want to make it perfectly clear that I don't want to see any angry comments about what an evil hater I am for not liking the Harry Potter series. I do like it, and I'm enjoying re-reading it to my kids. Please review my parable of criticism as a compliment. I wouldn't bother to critique/analyze the Harry Potter series if I thought it were just a pile of scheiss.

Also, I'd like to draw your attention to some other critiques made by fellow-blogger friends here and here. These are interesting points, and I have nothing in particular to add to them.

I could swear that I read Holly say somewhere that the "magic" in Harry Potter is not at all magical, but I can't find the link. That is quite a valid and interesting point. Yet, I'm actually kind of intrigued by Rowling's conception of magic as being kind of like science/technology. Indeed, it's interesting how she presents the wizards as sticking with outdated technologies like quills and ink bottles because -- once they've found a way of bewitching a "muggle" technology to their liking -- they have no reason to switch to the latest thing. It creates a situation where sometimes it's actually not clear that the wizarding community's ways are better or more convenient -- just different, and existing in parallel with more familiar ways. So the author's unorthodox conception of magic isn't what I particularly object to.

To be continued. ;^)

(dreaming of a) a white-on-white Christmas!

2010-12-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

I was planning to deconstruct "Frosty" this year (since my "popular posts" widget tells me that my posts on Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, The Grinch, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and The Polar Express are among my most popular posts), but...

I was too busy trying to wrestle this dry-powder snow into the snow-mom-and-baby you see here. And, sadly, this is the only picture my Nico managed to take before the other kiddies knocked 'em down. :-^(

Please bear with me as I celebrate a minimalist Christmas this year. As some famous guy once said, "I'll be back again someday!" :D

Me, on Star Trek!!!

2010-12-12T00:05:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned a few times that my brother and I produced a 13-episode community-cable Star Trek parody series (way back when we had just graduated from college). Well, I finally found a friend who knew how to convert the DVDs to YouTube-friendly format (and another who knows his way around YouTube), so you can see the show for yourselves!

I'm starting with episode 6 because the the early episodes have really poor sound quality and other technical problems, and I'd rather introduce the series with one that we filmed after a few episodes worth of on-the-job training. ;)

And now my immense psychic powers will make this blog more relevant to your life!!

2010-12-04T09:25:00.001-08:00

Check this out!! In the course of livening up the ol' blog, I've added this this fab new sidebar widget --> to psychically *cough* randomly *cough* select a batch of amusing old posts just for you!

After a bit of playing with it, it's kind of making me want to go back and delete all of my less-interesting filler-posts. Like this one. ;)

p.s. If any of the posts it chooses really are eerily relevant to your life, please leave a comment! I'd like to build up some (self-selection-biased) evidence to prove that my psychic powers really are amazing!!! :D

I got a comic published in Sunstone Magazine!!

2010-11-28T00:44:00.000-08:00

Sunstone's big comics issue just arrived in the mail -- including the above comic by yours truly!!

As you may recall, the deadline was too short for me to have time to draw something just for Sunstone, so I took the lazy-artist's route, and sent in some illustrations from my novel ExMormon with captions supplied by readers. As you can see, the winning caption was provided by Sabayon. (Note to Sabayon: I wrote in my bio sketch that you provided the caption, but the editors cut that part off, so all I can really offer you is the joy of knowing in your heart that you've been published in the Sunstone comics issue -- sorry!)

Here are the other panels I submitted, which didn't make the cut:

Another good question about exmos?

2010-11-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

Why are so many young people leaving the church these days? At first it seems like a simple question, but if you think about it, it's not. the question started on the LDS blogs, but they didn't have the stomach to see it through to the end, so, naturally, we've picked up the slack at Main Street Plaza. :D

Why are exmormons so sexy?

2010-11-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

why?

I cannot help but ponder this question. Also, who is that sexy guy standing next to Chino? Is he exmo too?

Scene at the Bahnhof

2010-11-21T04:19:00.000-08:00

Part of the reason I'm so hard on the US is because I actually follow US politics. I read the stuff about the anti-immigrant laws in Arizona or Tea Party's latest antics, and it makes me want to tear my hair out -- it leaves me with the impression that the US must be the most militantly, wilfully ignorant country on the planet.

Then I remember that it's easy to wander around Switzerland with the (mis)impression that everything is candy-canes and lollipops -- as long as you don't speak German well enough to understand what people are saying...

Sometimes bad stuff is hard to miss, though -- for example, the cutesy-cartoon-racist political posters that are often plastered all over town. (I posted about them once before here.) Lately we've been treated to a new version of the "white sheep kicking the black sheep our of Switzerland" poster:

I was waiting at the train station with my son the other day, and the only free bench on the train platform had the white-sheep-black-sheep poster behind it. But my son wanted to sit down, so we did (with me muttering to myself about having to sit by this racist poster).

The interesting thing, though, was that apparently folks hadn't let this message pass without comment. There were three messages written on it in ball-point pen:

Naturally, since I have the wrong skin color, I'm a bad person. And naturally I chose my skin color! (originally: Naturlich habe ich nicht die richtige Hautfarbe, also ich bin eine schlechte Person. Und naturlich habe ich meine Hautfarbe ausgewählt!)

Thanks a lot, SVP! They're so intelligent! (originally: Danke schön zu dem SVP! Sie sind so intelligent!)

I suffer every day because of my skin color... I didn't need a poster like this one to remind me. :( (originally: Je souffre tous les jours à cause de ma coleur de peau... Je n'avais pas besoin d'une telle affiche pour me la rappeler... :()

I don't really have anything to add -- I just found it to be an interesting urban dialog.

Mommy and Daughter

2010-11-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

This reminds me of my first post at The Hathor Legacy Do boys like stories about girls?

In truth, more often than not, my boys invent male characters in their imaginative play. But today Leo decided that the above Lego Heroes are mother and daughter. (Hint: Mom's on the left and daughter is on the right.)

Faith vs. Bias

2010-11-15T21:56:00.000-08:00

My earlier post on faith was apparently confusing (judging from the comments). No wonder -- it was a bit of a double-negative: I wrote something negative about what faith isn't. To compensate, I'd like to say something positive about what faith is. (People of faith: please feel free to correct/clarify in the comments -- I don't claim to be an expert on this subject).

I'll start with a definition from my own tradition (Alma 32:21):

faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

So what is the justification for believing something that's not "seen"? (Here, I assume that things which are "seen" means things which are measurable via the standard senses and/or scientific instruments.)

Here are some possible justifications for believing a given proposition:

Spiritual/Miraculous Witness: "I have experienced spiritual or miraculous manifestations that defy natural explanation."

Hope or Leap-of-Faith: "I'm totally sure that X is true, however I think X deserves the benefit of the doubt, so I believe X."

Unintentional Bias: "I want X to be true, and my bias prevents me from approaching the question with any kind of even-handedness or objectivity."

Wilful Dishonesty: "I want X to be true, and I feel justified in believing whatever I want because I'm sure that everyone else is biased or dishonest too."

Now, the whole point of my earlier post (and its predecessor) was that options #3 and #4 are not "faith". If you are a person of faith, and you think that either #3 or #4 is a reasonable description of how "faith" works, then you should do a little introspection and perhaps hold yourself up to a higher standard of honesty. And when you accuse atheists of having "faith" of varieties #3 and #4 above, you are not paying your own faith a compliment.

Now how does atheism [lack of belief in God(s)] fit into the above four categories?

Atheists are all over the map, so they can potentially fall into any of them:

Spiritual/Miraculous Witness: This is the one atheists are most likely to reject, yet there do exist people who believe in the supernatural without believing in God(s).

Hope or Leap-of-Faith: There are perhaps a few atheists here, but I think most atheists fall into a related category which I'll call category 5. Weighing Naturalistic Evidence: "I'm not 100% certain that X is correct, however, I have examined the evidence, and of all the possibilities, I think X is the most likely." (That's pretty much how science works in general.)

Unintentional Bias: Atheists are only human, so some of them almost certainly fall into this category. (I'm not claiming 100% certainty here though! ;^) )

Wilful Dishonesty: As with #3, there are probably some here too.

Note that's it's also possible to consider a question even-handedly and still make an honest mistake. That can account for some of the disagreement in the world.

Also, IMHO, category 4 (I want X to be true, and I feel justified in believing whatever I want because I'm sure that everyone else is biased or dishonest too) is the one that is truly repugnant. All the others are either right or potentially honest mistakes.

I think that it's probably impossible for humans to overcome (or even recognize) all of their biases 100%. However, there is a very big difference between honestly trying to compensate for your biases and deliberately not trying.

It's like what I said about racism: It is probably impossible for humans to completely avoid mentally grouping people into stereotyped "other" categories. But that's not an excuse to throw in the towel. Addressing your own biases and prejudices is a lifelong effort. But it's a necessary and worthwhile effort -- that is, if you're curious about the universe, the world, and the people in it.

The Turnip-Lantern Parade!!

2010-11-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

It all began many years ago, when I tried to explain the "story of Halloween" (or lack thereof):

Sure, today it seems pretty odd to carve a face into a pumpkin, of all things. But today any object humanly imaginable -- of any size, shape, color, shininess, sparklitude, and luminosity -- can be manufactured for pennies in China. So you'd have to be pretty crazy to just spontaneously decide to waste your time carving vegetables.

But think back to what it was like for people at the time when the jack-o'-lantern tradition arose. Just because they were peasants with no access to the magic of cheap Chinese manufactured goods didn't mean that they didn't want festive decorations for their holidays.

And think what they had to work with: dirt, vegetables, maybe some rusty tools if they were lucky, and candles. Under the circumstances, carving vegetables into lanterns seems like a perfectly obvious thing to do, hardly requiring any kind of excuse or explanation.

Note that I mentioned carving "vegetables" and not just pumpkins. That's because I've always liked reading about the history/evolution of holiday traditions (see here), and I'd read at some point that instead of using pumpkins, a lot of people in centuries past would carve their holiday lanterns from turnips!

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this tradition still exists! In fact, my family and I were even invited to participate in a "Raebeliechtli-Umzug"!! (Online translation tells that me means "Turnip-moving," but I think would be more accurately rendered as "turnip-lantern parade".) (Also note: my Austrian friends claimed the lanterns were rutabagas, but sadly my ignorance of the subtleties of root vegetable species prevents me from telling a rutabaga apart from a turnip.)

Here's what the Raebeliechtli were supposed to look like (shown on the wagon that led the parade):

And here's what mine looked like:
Now I know what you're thinking: It doesn't take a vegetable expert to tell you that's not a turnip. But I couldn't find any turnips! Note I also carved a face into it, which you're also not really supposed to do, but old habits die hard. Anyway, now that I know what they're supposed to look like, we'll do it better next year.

One of these two Raebeliechtli is not quite right

As for the story of the Turnip-Lantern Parade? Even Wikipedia doesn't seem to know. My Austrian friends said that the tradition exists in Austria as well, and may have something to do with the harvest. (Maybe kids were motivated to come up with creative alternate uses for turnips to avoid having to eat them...?) Who knows?

But now it's a tradition. And as long as I'm living with kids here in Raebeliechtli-land, I'm going to follow it!

Exactly!!

2010-11-11T08:32:00.000-08:00

You remember my usual reaction when people of faith start accusing atheism of being a "faith"-based belief or a "religion"?

Well, Jesus and Mo have now made the same point in comic form:

(Hat tip too many tribbles.)

Career women vs. SAHMs round II: There Can Be Only One True Choice!

2010-11-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

See Round I

Throughout my life, I've been happy and pleased with how much our culture has improved from a feminist perspective. [When I say "our culture" here, I'm sticking to my own experience, hence I'm talking about the US and Europe.]

The kids of my generation (Gen X) were brought up with expectations that were dramatically different than the expectations that our parents had been raised on. If a girl decided she wanted to grow up to be a scientist or an astronaut, she could expect to be encouraged, not shot down with "Honey, don't you think you'd rather be a nurse or a mommy?" Boys, too, were finally brought up with the expectation that a father is responsible for his share of the childcare and housework. In the fifties, if a man was pushing a baby carriage, it was the set up to a joke -- it was almost the equivalent of dressing him in a flowery dress. Today, you constantly see men taking care of babies and children, taking them to school, etc. It's expected.

In my feminist world, the women of the twenties and earlier showed that a woman could do a man's job, but they typically had to choose career or family because back then -- to have a brilliant career and a family -- you needed to have a wife back home. The natural next step (for a feminist born in 1971 like me) was to try to build a world where a woman could reasonably expect to have both a successful career and a successful family. With the right support network, it's possible. And -- as an added bonus -- the father gets the opportunity to play a more hands-on role in raising his kids, rather than just being expected to bring home the bacon and then go smoke his pipe in his den while the mom rears the kids.

As much as things have changed for the better, traditional roles have obviously not been thrown out completely with yesterday's trash. Traditional expectations about men and women are alive and well, even among liberals and feminists. Here's my impression (and feel free to disagree with me in the comments):

I think that -- even in our enlightened day and age -- men are judged more for their career/worldly success and women are judged more for their marriage and family.

Here's a taste of what I mean: If there's a couple who are both doing great in their careers -- and they have a baby and toddler at home -- nobody is going to say to the man "Don't you feel guilty or selfish spending so much time on your career while your baby is raised by strangers in day care? Don't you think maybe you should take a year or two off from work, or switch down to part-time?" Whereas you can bet your bonnet that the wife will be getting that critique from some of her peers, friends, family, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, if both parents are unemployed (or underemployed), and they can't afford decent food, clothing, and shelter for their kids, the man is the one who will be judged as a failure for it. As for women who choose to remain single, your career has to be pretty spectacular before people will stop pitying you as the poor, old maid who was too unattractive to land a man.

Now, many men do take time off and/or reduce their hours when their babies are small, and many women are largely or primarily responsible for paying for their their kids' food, clothing, and shelter. But it's like those things are often viewed as a charming plus, and not viewed as being your real responsibility.

This whole elaborate prologue has been to explain why I hate it when people pretend that career women and stay-at-home-moms are mortal enemies, locked in some eternal, petty cat-fight.

If you're a straight woman with career dreams and ambitions, you might magically get lucky and find a husband who will take primary responsibility for child-rearing and who will put his own career on the back-burner in order to support your career more fully. But don't count on it. A successful man, OTOH, can absolutely count on finding a wife who pick up whatever slack is needed to allow him to "have it all" -- the happy well-cared for family and the brilliant career. (The men on the bottom end of the success spectrum can count on having neither one.)

If you're a straight woman who wants a family, then, in our current society, you're almost always faced with a balancing act. You might want to devote yourself full-time to your career and also devote yourself full-time to your kids, but you can't do both. Whatever balance you come up with, you're almost certainly going to feel some regret about the things you chose not to do. You'll occasionally feel like "I wish I didn't have this proposal due tomorrow morning -- I should be reading my daughter a bedtime story right now," or "If I weren't stuck at home covered in baby vomit 24/7, I'm sure I could have earned that promotion!" (Naturally the balancing act is that much worse if you're not in the privileged set, and you need to work to put food in your baby's mouth, when meanwhile people are judging you as a negligent mother for working when you should be taking care of her.)

Regret often leads to defensiveness. You hear a woman at a party talking about her exciting new project at work (respectively, talking about all of the amazing educational activities she did with her kids last week), and you start to think she's talking directly to you, judging you and your choices as inferior. Occasionally, this defensiveness can lead to a vicious circle where some women start to believe that their own choices are the only valid choices for mothers period, and career women are all selfish bitches (respectively SAHMs are all brainless layabouts).

I don't like to take it there. If you feel good about your own choices, then you have no reason to feel defensive about other women's choices. (And if you really regret your choices, lashing out at other women is certainly not going to improve the situation...)

I have so many friends who are moms, and they're all over the map when it comes to working outside the home. Some work full-time, some are full-time SAHMs, and some -- like me! -- have reasonably successful jobs outside the home, but choose to work part-time in order to devote some time to homemaking. All of these ladies are intelligent, responsible, fun, etc. I'd rather say, "Look, we all have a difficult balancing act to perform, and how we manage it depends on our opportunities, skills, and temperament. The right choices for me and my family will almost certainly be different from the right choices for you and your family, and that's OK."

I'm glad when there's a variety of possible choices. Even if not every choice is equally empowering or "feminist," it's feminist to respect grown womens' ability to make good choices for themselves and for their families.

Finally updated my masthead!!

2010-10-30T03:40:00.000-07:00

I've been living in Switzerland for three years now, so it was getting to be time to replace the old masthead that I drew for France (the one with the word France crossed out and Switzerland written in). I spent all morning on this one, but I'm not totally thrilled with it. I'm thinking maybe I should try again...

*** ETA: OK, I redid the masthead. Here's my first attempt:

The second one is better, don't you think?

BTW, here's mo old masthead, for comparison:

Also, I've thrown away all of my sidebar junk, and I'm slowly replacing it with updated stuff. Bear with me for the moment on the missing blogroll, etc.

My favorite grammar rules!!!

2010-10-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

Folks, if you follow this blog, you know I love language. (Yes, even German, though I've got a bit of a love-hate relationship with that one.) I love the way a language evolves and changes -- so something that's "wrong" in one century can be A-OK in another. And as I've said, I like my grammar rules descriptive rather than proscriptive, and I love the way -- in English, at least -- it's OK to play with the language and break the rules in fun and amusing new ways!

Then I saw this video slamming grammar pedants:

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language from Matthew Rogers

The thing is that I agree with almost everything he says, and yet... it's just so negative. It's too easy to be so gratuitously mean to the poor little grammar pedants, whom everybody just loves to hate! It makes me want to argue the other side. (Yes, I'm just that ornery!!!)

So now I'll tell you about some proscriptive grammar rules that I like:

#1. Words getting new meanings: I love words getting new meanings when it enriches the language, but I hate it when they get new meanings that just increase ambiguity. Here's an example:

"Hopefully he'll finish the job by tomorrow."

Now, I know that in some theoretical sense "hopefully" is supposed to mean "in a hopeful manner." But the meaning of the example sentence is totally clear, and the obvious alternative ("I hope he'll finish the job by tomorrow") doesn't mean quite the same thing. Plus, you can still use "hopefully" to mean "in a hopeful manner" -- it's generally clear from context which you mean. So, thumbs-up on the sorta-non-standard use of "hopefully."

This one, on the other hand, is just sad:

"She was literally fifty feet tall!"

Now, I hate to be the pedant, but it's so nice to have one simple word that you can count on to mean "You may think I'm exaggerating or speaking in metaphor, but I'm not." 'Nuff said.

#2. The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. I know, I know, it's just those mean old pedants who insist that when you put something in quotation marks, that means that somebody said or says it. Yet it's still hilarious to make fun of the signs where people screw this one up!!! ;^)

#3. "Between him and I." This one, IMHO, is the funniest grammar rule of them all. It's the mark of the grammar pedant's victim. It's like someone has heard too many teachers say "Don't say 'Me and Sally went to the store,' it's Sally and I." Then the grammar-pedant-victim starts to imagine that the rule is "Whenever you think you might want to say 'me and X' you should instead say 'X and I'."

And the funny part is that it's not such a stupid mistake if you think about it. It's actually possible for a human language to have a rule like that where you use one pronoun when grouping with a conjunction and a different pronoun without one. Hell, German has pronoun-usage rules that are way crazier than that one!! (I kid. I kid because I love.)

Anyway, I've actually even heard pseudo-grammar-pedants enforcing the above (imaginary) rule! Yes, indeedy! I heard someone say something like "Don't say 'He spoke with Sally and me' -- it's 'Sally and I'." That one made my inner anthropologist's day, for some reason.

Do you have any faves?

One Million Hits!!!

2010-10-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Yep, this past week my humble little blog-and-novel combination reached that magical milestone of one million hits! That's not a million different readers, BTW -- just a million page loads. My novel ExMormon, however, has been read by more than a thousand different people (and the gratuitous love scene by more than two thousand), and that's a lot of pages, so I guess that explains a lot of the pageloads.

I'm happy, though, because -- ever since I stopped reading my blog stats religiously -- I started getting this (wrong) idea in my head that nobody reads my blog anymore.

Why did I stop poring over my pageload information? Three reasons:

1. I'd learned about as much as I could learn about what draws people to this blog,
2. Further poring over the logs was kind of a waste of time, and
3. It was causing me unnecessary stress about stuff I can't control (like who is/isn't linking to me). Then I would stress some more about all the time I was wasting on reading my stats.

The downside is that I'm no longer inspired to do those amusing search query posts...

Long-time readers may have noticed that a couple years ago I was manic about blogging, and now I'm far more laid-back. The thing is that when I first started blogging, part of the challenge was figuring out the strategies for building up an audience. That has been an incredibly fun learning experience, but one of the things I learned is that it takes a ton of work all the time. There isn't a magic formula that will make your blog popluar without daily effort.

Now, I'm not allergic to hard work -- far from it -- but I found it happening more and more frequently that I'd think of a project I want to do (artistic, professional, or around-the-house) and I'd say, "Ah, I can't ever do that -- it would take so much time, and I can't squeeze it in with my family, work, and blogging..." And I realized that I can't let blogging be something that limits me. If I did, I'd eventually have no life left to write about!!! (Actually, I still have yet to figure out how other bloggers get around this conundrum.)

I thought long and hard about it, and I realized that I love blogging in the sense that I love being able to write up my thoughts in a careful way and then bounce them off the wonderful folks on the Internet, and get good feedback, etc. What I don't love is the pressure of feeling like I have to post X times a week -- whether I feel inspired or not -- because people will unlink me and stop bothering to read my blog, so no one will be around for the times when I do feel inspired.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I hope people will subscribe to this blog and/or follow it -- just don't expect me to post as often as I wish I had the time/energy to do it. ;^)

And, from my stats (which I exceptionally took the time to review today), it looks like that's what folks are doing, thanks!!

Is anti-bullying education possible?

2010-10-08T05:30:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing a lot in the news lately about anti-bullying education in schools. I have to admit that I was surprised when I first heard about it because bullying was always one of those "kids are like that" sort of things that I'd never questioned. But now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking that maybe it is possible to change it.

Let's start with the reasons why I'm a little sceptical of the whole idea:

I remember, when I was in elementary school, having a weekly educational program called "Project Charlie." The idea behind it was to have kids play self-esteem-building games in order to avoid later using drugs. And I remember -- as a fifth and sixth-grader -- thinking that this was the dumbest program that I could possibly imagine. It wasn't the usual "stuff grown-ups want us to do is by definition dorky" kind of assessment. It's that the program was a series of social games where the popular kids were encouraged to take center-stage as usual, and no effort was made to draw out the less-popular kids and make them feel included.

As an example, they would start every session by choosing one kid to come to the board and compose a sentence starting with "You are someone special..." Naturally, the popular kids were selected early and often. When I finally got a turn, kids from the class teased me and mocked my sentence. This wasn't surprising -- I expected to be teased and bullied for anything I did in front of the class -- but it kind of left me going "What the hell is the purpose of this exercise?!" And I learned the lesson that the phrase "You are someone special" is just words when it's coming from an institutional program.

Fortunately, in my own home, I was never made to feel like I deserved it. I come from a long line of nerds, so being bullied was just one of those things that you expect to have to cope with, like really cold weather in the Minnesota winter. The coping mechanisms I was taught (or figured out) were the following:

* Ignore it, if possible; attempt to pretend you don't even hear it,
* try to blend into the crowd; don't give the mean kids any reason to notice you,
* keep in mind that when you are older and out of school you will not have this problem.

Following these strategies, already by high school it started getting a little better -- Jr. High was the worst.

But bullying isn't just a question of a handful of bad-apple mean kids. Once an outcast has been selected, joining the group in mocking that person (or at least being obviously complicit in it) becomes a badge of belonging for everyone else in the group. And kids who are bullied will often give back as good as they get, when they get the opportunity. That was one of the more disturbing things I discovered when I re-read my early-teen journals as an adult. My actual teen and childhood memories were full of vivid, horrible scenes of being that outcast. Yet I found that when it came to writing my stories down (in my good little Mormon-girl journal), I was far more inclined to recount the few incidents when I was on the bullies' team against someone even more socially rejected than I was. This is, quite frankly, because I had internalized the idea that there's far more shame in being the outcast than in tormenting the outcast. (This is illustrated a bit in the story Young Womens'.)

As I grew up, I learned from experience that being a bully is more shameful than being an outcast. But I'm sure I could have learned this lesson earlier if the adults around me had thought it was an important and valuable lesson to learn.

Just because Project Charlie was poorly designed and implemented, that doesn't mean that it's not possible to design a good program. And targeting the specific behaviors of bullying -- teaching kids that it's not OK to do that -- may well be a more realistic goal than the rather nebulous goal of "raising self-esteem."

Kids' expected behavior (and their corresponding actual behavior) can change pretty dramatically from one generation to the next. Reading some kids stories from the American frontier, it's kind of shocking the degree to which it was just expected that little kids would fight each other for dominance, to determine which one was the toughest. Parents of the time probably just figured "Hey, kids are like that," and maybe gave them some pointers on how to win. But even if it seemed like "that's just the way kids are," modern society has clearly shown that this behavior is not immutable.

The more I think about it, the more I think it might work. The key is to change people's expectations. If adults see taunting and bullying and turn a deaf ear, thinking Ah, kids..., then kids learn that it's acceptable. But if you train everyone in the school (adults and kids alike) that certain behaviors aren't acceptable, it stands to reason that the behavior will change. (And according to this answer sheet that's the kind of program that works.)

One can argue that this addresses only the symptom. After all, even with no bullying, it's not like the popular kids were going to like me or pick me first when choosing teams in gym class. But, y'know, I could totally accept that I'm never going to be prom queen. Just not having kids shove you and laugh about it or make up a mean song about you for the rest of the class to sing in unison -- already that would make a big difference.

blogging/blogroll update from Outer Blogness and beyond!!

2010-10-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, the service that was hosting Outer Blogness has vanished in a puff of smoke. Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll was using the same service, and has plans for something new. I'll probably use whatever service he finds (or founds), but that solution isn't coming any time soon.

In the meantime, if you have the Blogrolling code for Outer Blogness on your blog somewhere, please remove it and just link to Main Street Plaza instead. The whole blogroll is there. I'll try to come up with a nice button graphic for it soon. :D

While I'm at it, I'll probably try and update the ol' blog here, too (the way we spiffed up MSP). That code was the only thing keeping me from switching from an old-style blogger template to the more modern version (with "widgets" to choose from instead of just mucking around in the html code!). Maybe I'll even be inspired to create a new masthead -- something a tad more relevant to my current life here in Switzerland. We'll see if I manage to come up with something!

Naturally, it's getting to be about time to update my own blogroll. There are plenty of blogs on it that have kind of petered out, and there are plenty that I read regularly now (through my RSS reader) that I've neglected to add. So if you read this blog -- and have a blog yourself -- please leave a comment here so I'll know to put (or keep) you on my upcoming new-and-improved blogroll. Thanks!

*** Update ***

As I'd hoped, my fellow MSP permablogger Chino Blanco prepared some lovely buttons!!

If you're a part of Outer Blogness, I'd like to ask you to please link to Main Street Plaza, and perhaps even use one of these lovely images!

Either save your favorite image and link it to MSP on your own, or copy this code into your blog template:

<a href="http://latterdaymainstreet.com/"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/Chino_Blanco/Brig-Blue-120-web.jpg" /></a>

Thanks, and I hope to see you in Outer Blogness!!

Locked away in a Lego tower!

2010-10-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

Now, I know you're probably all wondering, "What has Chanson been up to lately?" Here's the scoop:

In addition to my usual adventures at Main Street Plaza, plus promoting my last Java book (and tech-reviewing a new one for someone else), I've been very busy building a giant Lego tower:

Maybe if I lock my little son up in it, some princess (or ogre) will come rescue him or something. Hope he doesn't get away! ;^)

Summer Family!

2010-09-19T00:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun memory from this past summer:

As usual, my parents wanted a group photo of all their grandkids. But, as my sister pointed out, "How do you take a picture of 7 kids? That's 14 hands, 14 eyes, and 7 smiles. All moving at the same time in different directions." (See her post for some of out initial failed attempts, plus the portraits from previous years.)

Then my SiL Louise had a brilliant idea: giant rainbow lollipops! Decorative in the photo, plus they keep some of those little hands occupied. Here's the result:

I know the baby is still screaming (and the toddler looks worried), but they were like that in all the photos. This was the best one. Not too bad, IMHO. Note: the baby has two legs, even if it's not clear from the photo.

The Esperantist strikes back!

2010-09-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

I got an interesting comment on yesterday's book review. Interesting because I essentially agree with everything the commenter said except that first line where he says I'm being unfair to Esperanto. As far as I can tell, he repeated a lot of the same points I made. The main difference is that he's actually lived the Esperanto experience, whereas I just read about it in a book. I actually don't see that he's contradicting anything I said, but maybe you guys can help me out:

I think you're being a little unfair to Esperanto. Of course there are words in every language which look or sound like rude or amusing words in English. The word 'penis' which you cited simply means '(somebody) tried'. For a fair introduction to Esperanto, go to www.lernu.net. Esperanto works! I’ve used it in speech and writing - and sung in it - in about fifteen countries over recent years.

Indeed, the language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. In the past few years I have had guided tours of Berlin and Milan and Douala in Cameroon in the planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on.

Of course Esperanto cannot compete wwith English but it remains useful and has a steady speaker population, with people happy to meet and talk to you and me in places where it would be hard to find a speaker of English.

Now, was I making a little fun of Esperanto? Yes, of course! IMHO, Esperanto is one of those hobbies that you kind of need to have a sense of humor about. And I'm not saying that in a mean-comment-hey-can't-you-take-a-joke sort of way. As someone who has starred as a Romulan in a community-cable Star Trek parody series, I mean it in a sincere gentle-ribbing-among-friends kind of way.

Frankly, there's a limit to how many people you'll attract by taking Esperanto's noble purpose too seriously. However, you can make a very strong case for the claim that Esperanto is fun! And the Esperanto community is fun too, isn't it? Allow me to quote the letter that Esperanto's inventor (Ludwik Zamenhof) composed and encouraged people to send to their friends:

Vi rigard-os la sub-scrib-o-n kaj ek-kri-os: "Cu li perd-is la sag-o-n?"

Which translates as

You will look at the signature and cry out, "Has he lost his mind?"

So, a little light-hearted self-deprecation has been part of Esperanto's marketing strategy from the beginning, and is probably one of the main reasons that Esperanto is the most successful invented language ever. Go to the lernu website and try it out!

p.s. On a totally unrelated note, this other website has guessed that my blog is "probably written by a female somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time." Exactly what I wanted to hear on my thirty-ninth birthday! I hardly feel a day over thirty-five. :D

Supergeekland!!! "The Land of Invented Languages," by Arika Okrent

2010-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

How times change! It wasn't long ago that flying across the Atlantic with my two toddlers was a horrific experience. Now that they're not toddlers anymore, my kids can entertain themselves so well that I can read a whole book during my flight!! During last year's trip to the US, my husband bought In the Land of Invented Languages, but he left it there at my parents' house. It was clearly the perfect choice for my flight home to Switzerland this year.

What comes to mind when you think of invented languages? Esperanto? Klingon? Well, it turns out that those two have a special distinction: They are probably the only two wholly-invented languages that have live speakers who can carry on a real conversation in them. Esperanto even has a handful of native speakers -- people who were brought up with Esperanto as a first language!! It's an astonishing feat, considering how many hundreds of languages have been invented, published, and forgotten. Heck, my brother and I invented one ourselves when we were kids. I also tried my hand at translating a few sentences into Klingon and Esperanto when I was in High School.

Arika Okrent tells a fascinating story about how people's ideas about language changed through the ages, and how that evolution, in turn, changed the types of languages that various mad dreamers invented. She also tells the story of how Esperanto achieved (relative) success, despite being arguably inferior to some of its close competitors. Essentially, the inventor of Esperanto wrote an amusing chain letter illustrating how easy (and fun!) it is to understand Esperanto if you already know one of the languages of western Europe. Then, once it has even a handful of speakers, it becomes the obvious choice if you want to learn an invented language. (That's why I tried it out in High School. Then I showed one of my translations to my mom, and -- instead of being impressed! -- she made fun of the fact that some perfectly ordinary verb translates, in Esperanto, as "penis." I kinda stopped bothering with it after that.)

One of the problems with Esperanto, as Okrent explains, is that it was created with an idealistic (yet not currently realistic) purpose. You want a language that has a relatively simple grammar, that is kind of halfway between the romance languages and the Germanic languages, and that people from all different countries can use to communicate with each other? Well, you've got it. It's called English. Esperanto has some theoretical advantages over English, but if you think it's a serious competitor against English's billion-or-so speakers and thousand-year literary tradition, then you come off as, well, a little batty.

But Okrent explains a different (and arguably reasonable) motivation for learning Esperanto: Over the years, the Esperanto community has developed its own culture -- one which sounds fascinating and fun! If you're thinking of backpacking across Europe (or some other continent), the Esperantists have a whole network of folks who are willing to host you wherever you go (on the condition that you speak to them in Esperanto). And their conferences sound way more fun than a Renaissance Festival or a Star Trek or other geek conference. For a short while, Okrent had me totally tempted to pick up some Esperanto books and try again to learn it. That is, until I remembered that I have only so much time and so many brain-cells to devote to foreign languages, and I really, really, really need to learn German.

Klingon, by contrast, skips the crazy idealism and goes straight for what works: fun!!! They've got a whole ridiculously silly (invented) culture and history to go with the invented language, which makes it a great (geeky) idle pastime. Naturally, the Klingon speakers do wildly frivolous things with the language like writing operas and translating the Book of Mormon into Klingon. Esperantists, being slightly more practical, have regular songs, and -- while there may or may not be an Esperanto translation of the BoM -- you can at least read the Book of Mormon's Wikipedia page in Esperanto (not true of Klingon!).

Okrent covers a whole bunch of other fascinating invented languages, and compares them with similar language innovations like symbolic languages that are used to introduce language to handicapped kids and like the revival of (once dead) Hebrew. But I don't want to give everything away, so I'll let you read the book for those! If anything I've said here intrigues you, you'll love this book. It's clear, entertaining, and informative.

"I wish I were Harry Potter..."

2010-09-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

So, my kids have discovered Harry Potter.

During our recent visit to Minnesota, Nico heard part of an audio-book his cousin was listening to, and away he went! Fortunately, we happened to have all of the Harry Potter books and a few of the movies already (since my husband and I had read them ourselves).

Now my two little boys are going around drawing red-marker lightning-bolts on their heads and waving magical chopsticks at each other.

Personally, I'm glad to see my kids getting excited about a story in a book. They've learned an amazing amount of science from videos on YouTube (I should post some of Nico's drawings of whale evolution), but I'd like to see them want to read for pleasure. So far it's just been me reading to them a chapter at a time (plus my Mom read to them during our visit), but Nico has picked up the book and read bits of it.

For the moment, I don't mind just reading to them myself because I'd like to start by building up the idea that a story read from a book is fun and exciting. These are the sorts of crazy new challenges modern parents have to navigate! Plus, it's fun to spend the time reading with them. I hope eventually, though, they'll get the idea that they don't need mom's help, just as they finally learned to swing by themselves (and stopped asking me to push them).

"Prospettive" vs "Gatti neri Cani bianchi"

2010-09-07T04:44:00.000-07:00

Comics are a great tool when learning a new language!

For Italian, as I've said earlier, I like Diabolik, but... it could be better. The main problem is that the setting is so generic. Even though Diabolik is an Italian comic series, I think it's actually supposed to take place in England. But it could just as well be taking place anywhere. It's a standard international crime/action story -- like a reverse James Bond story (reverse because the criminals are the protagonists). But when I read a foreign comic book, I'd rather taste a bit of the culture as well as the language.

So, on my recent trip to Italy, I picked up two new Italian graphic novels: Prospettive and Gatti neri Cani bianchi. Both stories are about twentysomething Italian women, moving from one boyfriend to the next, contemplating life and (especially) death. Despite these similarities, they're surprisingly different from one another.

Prospettive has more a sense of place. This story is grounded in Catania, a city in Sicily, in the shadow of Mt. Etna, the most active volcano in Europe:

I can read ordinary Italian (in comic book form), but when they start slipping into Sicilian dialect, it gets challenging...

One thing that surprised me about Prospettive is that the main character, Agata, seems very open and curious about people, and yet she can't bear the thought of leaving her home town. She's rather leave her beloved fiance than leave Catania.

Gilla, the heroine of Gatti neri Cani bianchi is just the opposite:

"I was born here, but this city seems foreign to me. So I said to myself... If I'm going to feel foreign, I might as well be foreign for real."

It's not even clear which city in Italy she's from.

So she packs up and moves to Paris:

Gatti neri Cani bianchi has kind of the same problem as people discussed in Eat, Pray, Love. Gilla has no responsibilities of any kind, she arrives in Paris and gets a free, furnished apartment, complete with an amazing vintage fashion wardrobe, and luckily she happens to have the Barbie-doll bod for it. So she mostly wanders around Paris talking to ghosts. I'd be tempted to call it "self-indulgence as self-discovery" except that it's not clear she discovered anything. Not to be mean to the book or anything -- it's an entertaining story with beautifully researched and executed artwork.

The thing I found most interesting about it, though, is that part of the reason she has these particular adventures is because of her beauty and her level of privilege -- yet she doesn't seem to be aware of it. The closest point was when a French student who was working his way through school called her leisure a luxury -- and she sarcastically responded, "What do you expect? We Italians are so superficial..." Which kinda left me going, "Um... being Italian's got nothing to do with it..."

Interestingly, while Gilla's beauty was ever-present yet unmentioned, it's the opposite for Agata. Other characters say she's beautiful, but she's not really:

It's one of the things I like about graphic novels as a medium -- there are things you can show in images that you can't express in a natural way with words.

Minnesota Trains!!

2010-08-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, a vacation is not complete without trying out the local public transportation!

Here in Minneapolis, there's now a light-rail line. (Yes, there's just one line, but from there you can transfer to buses and such.) So I decided to take my sons and my niece Emily on a little ride. My brother Ben and his family came along too.

My nieces were excited to ride the train, but by sons were pretty blase about it:

Oh, boy! We get to ride a tramway almost exactly like the one we ride every day back home in Switzerland.

My kids just wanted to go because they're interested in unusual coins, and Louise (my SiL) told them that the ticket machine gives dollar coins as change.

I also learned an important lesson that day: If you're wearing beige pants, don't put your black camera-case in your lap just before handing someone your camera to take a picture.

Yes, I am wearing pants in this picture.

The verdict: Better than nothing, but not quite the same level of convenience as the transportation in Zurich. ;)

Our Heavenly Nico!

2010-08-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

OK, so now I'm in Minnesota where my parents have been taking care of my kids for two weeks during our trip to Italy.

Upon arriving in Minnesota, I was a little jet-lagged and not quite in line with the local schedule. So I warmed up some leftovers for a solo meal (while chatting with family in the kitchen), and just as I was about to eat, my 8-year-old Nico suddenly announced that he was going to say the prayer!

Naturally, I was a little shocked (this is what happens when the atheist family leaves their kids in a religious household for two weeks?), but I didn't object or try to stop him.

Nico started by explaining that everyone has to be quiet until he says the magic word: "Amen!" Then he began his prayer:

"Our Heavenly Nico..."

He then said a few things about the food and about being thankful that Mommy could come. Then he gave a bit of a pause (as if waiting for a drumroll) and gave an enthusiastic "Amen!"

It was kind of a cute approximation of a standard Mormon prayer. It had the same basic structure, but he didn't quite use any of the standard phrases. Notably, he didn't close "in the name of Jesus Christ."

Later my mom took me aside to explain that they didn't tell him that he needs to pray or anything like that -- he was just spontaneously imitating what they do at their house. I replied that it's totally obvious that they hadn't actively taught him to pray. If you teach a kid about prayer, the one thing he's not going to mess up is who the prayer is addressed to!!

It seems pretty clear that it was just a question of "when in Rome..." Nico -- being a curious kid -- wanted to try out the strange customs of this new household. I imagine he'd heard my dad giving a prayer (starting with "Our Heavenly Father") and cleverly guessed that that was the spot where you insert your own role. (OK, he was wrong, but it was an interesting guess nonetheless.)

And, ultimately, I want my kids to learn that different households and different people do things differently; that the way Mommy and Daddy do things is not the only way. And I think we're on track. We'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss "What is prayer?" with Nico and Leo as they grow and have more experiences, and it's great for them to discover things on their own.

Italy trip tips #4: graffiti!!

2010-08-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

OK, this one isn't really a tip. I just wanted to highlight some amusing graffiti we saw. For example, this ordinary traffic sign in Florence was (for some unknown reason) transformed into a crucifix:

Also, what's up with these space invaders???

I saw this one right by the famous Spanish staircase in Rome, and I saw another one on my recent trip to Paris as well (though I don't remember exactly where it was).

Also -- this is a bit of a tangent, but -- I want to throw in a picture of my husband so you can see that he really was there with me:

My sweetie and Hercules battling a centaur

As usual he doesn't show up in that many photos because he tends to be on the other side of the camera. ;)

Italy trip tips #3: Souvenirs!!!

2010-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

And I thought Lourdes was great for souvenirs -- with their unending supply of Catholic kitsch!!!

The thing about Lourdes, though, is that there's really no reason to go there unless you're Catholic (and/or happen to be visiting an aunt who's a nun, like we did). But with Rome? There are so many reasons to visit, many of which have nothing to do with Catholicism! (Catholicism and Christianity became important largely because of Rome, not the reverse...)

The hilarious result is that the souvenir stands have all of the Catholic devotional made-in-China souvenirs, with the secular-questionable-taste items displayed right beside them! One very popular item was boxer shorts with the genitals of Michelangelo's David printed onto them. And the souvenir shop across the street from our hotel had a whole selection of rosaries on one shelf, while the shelf just below it was cartoon figurines of gladiators and of the emperor giving the "thumbs down."

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera handy when I was at that shop. But maybe you can make out the pope plates in this one, featuring the current pope putting on his best trying-not-to-look-like-the-evil-emperor smile:

Italy trip tips #2: Beware of the dome!

2010-08-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

Recall from tip #1 that we were wandering aimlessly around Italy, visiting anything interesting that we noticed in our path.

Well, in Florence, we noticed this rather remarkable dome:

On one entrance, there was a sign that said "Visit the dome." Sounds interesting, we thought.

Now -- this is perhaps silly of me -- but my initial assumption was that this was just an entrance to go into the cathedral "Il Duomo" and look up at the dome. Then, as we were buying our entrance tickets, I noticed a sign that said there were four-hundred-sixty-three stairs, hence the visit is "not appropriate for people with heart conditions." That warning went right past me. I don't have a heart condition, and I can climb four-hundred-sixty-three stairs without the slightest difficulty.

It wasn't until I'd passed the point of no return that it hit me that this wasn't quite the same as climbing four-hundred-sixty-three stairs in a modern stairwell.

The problem is that the path to the dome is a long, dark, narrow, cramped stone tunnel. There's a huge line of people in front of you and behind, and the corridor is so narrow that two people can't pass each other (except in a handful of isolated wider points). In particular, you can't turn around and go back out the way you came -- the only way out is to continue to press forward through the cramped tunnel, and who knows what's up ahead??

I normally think of myself as only mildly claustrophobic. (Of course I had a weirdly similar scare at that polygamist church service...) Even before I got to see the dome, I was already starting to get very, very nervous. If someone were to have a heart attack in the middle of the visit -- which I could totally see happening!! -- how could that person (and everyone else) be evacuated?

Then we stepped out onto the balcony of the dome:

It's actually quite amazing! It's apparently the largest purely-masonry dome in the world. Here's looking up:

And here's looking down:

This is why, naturally, you don't want someone freaking out, ruining the visit for all of the normal people.

The balcony along the inside of the dome is made of stone, but is encased in glass, and is still so narrow that it isn't possible to pass anyone. And it was rather unfortunate for the tourists ahead of me in line -- who wanted to stand there at leisure admiring the ceiling -- when I gently suggested that they please step away from the exit because I have to get out of here now.

I climbed down the earliest exit possible (there were only two choices), but my husband continued on up the second path to the visit to the outside terrace:

If it had been necessary to go up there, I'm sure I could have done it without a major incident. But I'm glad I didn't have to, and boy was I ever happy to be out of that towering dungeon and back on solid ground in the great out-of-doors!

Later we happened upon a museum of medieval torture devices. On that one, they were careful to post a warning that the visit wasn't recommended for people who are "very sensitive or claustrophobic." Of course, merely by reading that it's a display of medieval torture devices, I already know I don't want to see that.

But I appreciated the careful warning. ;)

Italy trip tips #1: Stuff we discovered by accident!

2010-08-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Remember how I said that one nice thing about a trip to Italy is that you can do it without any advance planning? And that -- from Zurich -- you can have the idea to go one morning, and then go hop on a train and be there that afternoon...?

Well, just because you can do it that way doesn't mean that's the optimal way to visit Italy...

For example (with just a little advance planning!) you can avoid going in August. In Florence and Rome, any site that was even remotely visit-worthy was packed to the brim with tourists!! (Milan wasn't quite so bad, but also didn't have quite as many sights to see.)

Fortunately, the locals (the few that weren't on vacation elsewhere) made the best of it, and were nothing but friendly and helpful. And, really, why should people in Florence hate tourists? That would be like Swiss people hating cows! In Rome, many of the Romans who didn't have standard tourism-industry jobs would dress up as gladiators to pose for photos with tourists. Basically, it was a little like visiting an Italy-themed amusement park, except that you can potentially get run over by the crazy drivers for real.

Our lack of planning also kept us from booking things we might otherwise have booked in advance. For example, here's the view from our hotel window:

See that round building in the background? That's the church where you can go see Da Vinci's "Last Supper". Or you could, if you'd made an advance reservation.

But here's a tip we discovered (by luck!) when visiting the Colosseum:

The Colosseum is a lot more popular to visit than the other ruins of the ancient city (the forum and the Palatine hill), but the same ticket gets you into the lot. So visit the forum first (and buy your ticket there) to avoid the lines.

The Colosseum is a bit easier on the tourist than the Forum is. It's a huge structure that's mostly still standing, and the upper floors have a large indoor section that's set up like a museum (with a lot of historical information). The rest of the ancient city center is an enormous field of intriguingly scattered chunks of marble:

I studied Latin all through High School and College, so naturally I had to go visit the Forum! But it's one of those sites where you might actually want to have a tour guide explaining what this or that piece of marble used to be.

Remains of the Temple of Vesta, perhaps...?

Also, it can get hot very quickly there -- another reason to avoid visiting in August!

Oh, and here's one more thing we stumbled on purely by accident -- Galileo's house! It's near the Palazzo Pitti.

At Einstein's house in Princeton, the residents not only have avoided putting up a plaque about it, they actually took the number off their house and put up a "private residence" sign (to ward off the tourists, I suppose). At Galileo's house in Florence, by contrast, they not only put up a plaque, but they painted Galileo's portrait in the top story:

So did he really live there? Who knows? But as they say in Italy, "Se non e vero, e ben trovato." :D

I'm back -- now with more science!!!

2010-08-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my trip to Italy -- with so many stories and pictures!!!

First stop was the science museum! Yes, even if we didn't bring our kids this time, and yes even with one of the most famous art museums in the world right next store, our first stop in Florence was the Galileo Museum, showcasing the most advanced science and technology of the renaissance! The high point: they have some of the earliest machines that were invented to study electricity and magnetism -- and they're so simple that you can understand them even if you know very little about electromagnetism! The low point? They have Galileo's finger in a jar. No, I am not kidding. You can even buy a book about Galileo's finger, oddly enough.

Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures in that museum, but we got a few pictures in the Leonardo da Vinci science & tech museum in Milan, where they have the history of early telecommunications technology. (To the left, that's me with an ancient, pendulum-based fax machine.)

I wrote an overview of my various science museum adventures at Science-Based Parenting here. (Note that Rational Moms merged with Science-Based Parenting, so I'm over there now.)

At least we got a picture of Galileo's tomb. It turns out he's buried in a Catholic church (which surprised me a bit, considering the trouble he got into with the Catholic Church...). (He's mostly buried in a Catholic church, that is -- not his finger.)

Before we set off on our trip, my husband's mildly-Catholic mom asked him to be sure to light a candle in one of the churches. So, naturally, we lit one for Galileo's monument. We wanted to light one for Machiavelli too (he's buried in the very same church! So's Michelangelo!), but Machiavelli's tomb didn't have one of those little candle-stands set up by it.

Yep, we foreign tourists have Italy all to ourselves!!

2010-08-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

I guess that's what happens when you don't really plan your vacation -- or, rather, leave an unfortunate hole in your plans...

See, we were supposed to be spending this vacation in China. My husband was invited to speak at a conference, and we'd been planning this for more than a year. I even organized the most elaborate system you can imagine so that my parents would come visit us in Switzerland (and pick up the kids and take them to the US), and I'd fly to the US to visit (and pick up the kids) after the China trip. Then, we we foolish enough to put off getting our visas for China until the last minute -- and China unexpectedly changed the rules for French people to get visas! There were a bunch of new rules and bureaucratic hoops to jump through, and we didn't have time to get the visas!

It must have changed all of the sudden because other French friends going to the conference didn't have this problem. Every French person I've talked to has guessed the Sarkozy must have said something to offend the Chinese.

So what to do on short notice???

The obvious choice was a trip to Italy. It has the advantage that, from Zurich, you can have the idea to go one morning, and then go hop on a train and be there that afternoon. Plus, we loved our trip to Lago Maggiore last year, but if you look at a map, you'll see that we hardly left Switzerland. And I've always wanted to see Rome.

The disadvantage -- from not planning ahead! -- is that this is the middle of the tourist season, so everything is overrun with tourists. And everything that's not touristy is closed for the month because everyone who lives in the popular-to-visit cities is currently on vacation somewhere else (except those who happen to be directly employed by the tourism industry).

One fun part is that it's like a second honeymoon. Or even like a first honeymoon since, technically, we never did go on a honeymoon. (Though being in Florence may not be quite as suited to that as, say, JulieAnn's choice of SLC since here you're rather strongly tempted to get out of the room to see all of the amazing art and architecture.) I'll post some pics when I can. (Of the art and architecture.)

Another fun thing is that my sweetie and I studied Italian together when we were first married, so practicing it brings back some fun memories. I've brought the book we read together so long ago: 40 Leçons pour Parler Italien.

One of the silly sentences from the book became kind of a running gag for us. There's a part where the turist orders spaghetti, and specifies that she wants it "al dente." The Italian waiter explains that in Italy the spaghetti is always served al dente: Gli spaghetti Italiani sono sempre al dente. So when we couldn't think of a relevant, coherent sentence in Italian, we'd just have fun claiming that all sorts of things are always al dente. The latest one we've come up with is the foreign tourists (like us). Whenever we see any of our fellow foreign tourists doing something particularly silly or touristy, we just sigh and remark I turisti stranieri sono sempre al dente.

It doesn't really mean anything, but somehow it fits. ;)

Bodensee vs. Lago Maggiore: Which boat ride is better?

2010-08-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Italy are surprisingly similar. OK, actually, it's not surprising if you think about it for two seconds. But if I say "Picture Italy! Now picture Germany! Now picture Switzerland!" you come up with three totally different mental pictures, don't you? But if I say "Picture a big lake surrounded by mountains, with lots of pretty greenery and old cities and villages along the coast," well, that could be any and all of the above.

All of these lakes have public passenger boats to ferry you from one side to the other. Recall that last year we tested out the boats of Lago Maggiore. This year we decided to visit the Bodensee (a.k.a. Lake Constance) -- mostly because it's only an hour-and-a-half from Zürich by train, and the kids had never been to Germany before.

As you might expect, the boat rides are very similar but a little bit different. As a control, we also tested out the boat ride on the Zürichsee -- from Zürich to Rapperswil.

Since we didn't bring along my husband (who normally takes the photos), I have to settle for illustrating this post with photos taken by Nico. For example, it may not be obvious from the picture, but here we're on the boat on the Bodensee:

Leo, just a couple days before losing one of those teeth you see in this picture...

(Having an eight-year-old photo-document a trip definitely gives you a different perspective on what's interesting. For example, here's a photo he took of the doughnuts at the Zürich train station:

The exotic doughnuts of the American Bakery of Zürich)

In all three cases, we decided to have lunch on the boat. Here's how they stack up:

The Swiss boat had quite a nice restaurant. The German boat claimed to have a restaurant, but I'm not totally convinced that they had a real kitchen (as opposed to just heating up pre-prepared stuff, like on the train). And, in proper Goldilocks style, the Italian boat was between the two -- not super fancy, but economical, pleasant, and a good value.

Of course the restaurant quality probably had more to do with the size of the lake than with the surrounding culture. The Zürichsee is really small. You have to travel the lake the long way in order to have a two-hour boat ride. The only reason to take the boat is if you want to go on a pleasure cruise. If you just want to go to Rapperswil, you take the train -- it's more frequent, it's only a half-hour, and it costs the same as the boat. On the Bodensee, it took an hour-and-a-half to cross it the short way, so naturally the boat is full of people who are as interested in getting to the other side as they are in the joy of riding on a boat. Naturally, Lago Maggiore is between the two.

The big disadvantage of the Zürich boat was that they separated off the top level for first class. Already, it was a small boat with only two levels (unlike a proper lake boat, which should have at least three levels). That was a bit of a disappointment because part of the fun of a lake cruise is to wander around and explore the whole boat. And the second-class section was fancy enough that it kind of made me curious to get a first-class ticket sometime, just to see what's up there...

The big surprise, though, was that -- contrary to all popular stereotypes -- the Italian boat schedule was more logical (made more sense) than the German one. The various boat lines on Lago Maggiore were very well-integrated with one another, and they fit together in a clear, easy-to-understand timetable. Then (and this is such a simple thing that I can't imagine why they don't do it in Germany), they post the destinations of the next boat on the pier where the boat will land.

The thing is that each port has as many as six or seven numbered slots where boats can dock (for passengers to get on and off). I suspect that the mapping of which boat goes to which slot doesn't change much, but, still, they don't print it on the boat schedule, and (in Konstanz) they don't post it on the dock where the boat lands either. You have to go read the boat-to-pier mapping off a central monitor or chart (which you have to go find, and it can be rather far from the pier in question).

Now, you may be thinking that I just found the Italian timetables clearer because I still read Italian (a little) better than I read German. But seriously, it's just a table of numbers -- the language is irrelevant.

The language, however, is another fun aspect of the trip! All of these lake cruises are (obviously) quite touristic, but they're almost all designed for local tourists. The Bodensee, in particular, is geared almost entirely for German tourists. It's basically the warm-and-sunny Summer seaside holiday destination for Germans. So in Konstanz (unlike Zürich) -- even if my German is obviously really limited -- as long as actual communication is taking place, they won't spontaneously switch to English.

Similarly, around Lago Maggiore, the tourists are mostly from Switzerland, Germany, and France, so all of the tourist-relevant signage is in Italian, German, and French (but not necessarily in English). If you have trouble communicating in Italian, it's not totally obvious which other language they should switch to. So they just stick with Italian until the tourist switches to some other language.

Anyway, sorry this is a bit of a ramble -- but I hope it's useful to any of you who are planning to visit the lakes of the Alpine region! :D

Steven H. Lee's "Falling into Life: A Gay Exmormon's Journey"

2010-07-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

Falling into life. Taking the plunge into the great unknown.

For a few weeks now, I've been wrestling with trying to write a review of this book. The problem is that I want to call it beautiful and inspiring -- it is -- but it's hard to write that about a book that describes so much pain. Consider this scene of a young boy and his mother:

One time, when she was particularly distraught, she went and got my dad's pistol, walked through the house with it so I could see it, and I panicked. I followed her to the garage where she got into her huge brown car, set the gun on the seat beside her, started the car and then she sat, staring ahead and banging on the steering wheel. She was enraged, and I thought she might break her arms, she was pounding on it so hard. I was standing in front of the car, crying and screaming for her to stop. After a few minutes, she put it in reverse, and backed out and away down the street.

I was sure that was the last time I'd see her; I sat there in the garage waiting for her to come home. Three hours later, the garage door opened, I ran to her and she got out of the car. She had almost a catatonic look about her. I kept repeating that I was sorry, and just as she went into the house she looked at me, and with a stone-colored face shouted, "Sorry doesn't matter!"

As background to Steve's life story, we meet a mom who repeatedly frightened her son threats of suicide, starting from when he was five years old. We also meet a dad who misused his pharmaceutical license to get the mom prescription drugs that he felt she needed to deal with her depression.

When I was a kid, we were the quintessential "Mormon family" from what everyone else could see. My mom had an immaculately clean home, everyone in the ward knew this, and she took pride in it. It also drove her crazy due to the fact that my dad eventually became bishop and that meant constant visitors to our house.

I'm sure that faithful Mormons reading this will protest that the family's problems can't be blamed on Mormonism. I'd agree, and I'd even say some people thrive in Mormonism. But in this case (like others where there's real abuse and/or mental illness) -- even if Mormonism doesn't cause the problem -- it certainly doesn't help.

Steve grew up with his parents' terrible example teaching him what marriage -- eternal, celestial marriage -- is supposed to be like. And he grew up learning that that's the whole point of life, as he saw in his brother's "Plan of Salvation" poster:

It gave a drawing for each step of this poor sap's earthly sojourn. But what was missing, what scared me, was noticing that from age twenty to age seventy he had nothing going on, literally. His "earthly life" flew by as if nothing of note even occurred. I translated this to mean that the bulk of our lives have no meaning, whatsoever. You are simply a drone. You work away your life until the good stuff comes.

As he grew up, Steve was horrified and ashamed to discover that he had homosexual tendencies. It's important to realize that this part of the story took place several decades ago, and things have changed a lot since then, even for Mormon teens. At the time, homosexuality was totally taboo, and Steve naturally believed the common Mormon wisdom of the time: that homosexuality was an addiction, caused by masturbation, but could be cured by faith and prayer. Because he hated himself, he learned to hide his authentic self even from himself.

As a side-note, the book gives an interesting account of how he was humiliated and treated like a leper in his Mormon ward -- even though he was doing what a righteous man "afflicted with SSA" was counseled to do (namely marry a woman, have a family, attend Evergreen, etc.).

The catalyst that changes it all is a stunning scene of the watching the tragedy of 9/11. There isn't a short pull quote to do the scene justice, but you can read it in the book's preview here.

After that, you see Steve learning how to love himself, how to be himself, how to love others, and live life. This life, now. The book is rich with metaphor, so even if you've never experienced anything like this, you can feel what it's like. It's a passionate, dramatic, sometimes funny, human story.

Note that the book has a number of humorous chapters mocking Mormon history and doctrine, and faithful Mormons probably won't find those parts funny. But I don't think the book is written for them. I'd recommend it to everyone else, though, especially if you're interested in getting some more perspective on the experiences of (generation-X) gay Mormon men.

Yay Sunstone!

2010-07-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

It's too bad I can't go to the Sunstone Symposium this year -- so many cool people will be there! Just have a look at their nearly final program. Especially take a close look at page 40! :D

Alternatives...

2010-07-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

On my earlier post on wellness and woo, Eliza R. Snitch left a question that I think deserves a serious answer:

Acupuncture worked for me to get rid of terrible back pain. I'm a fan of alternative treatments. I don't really care if it's placebo-- whatever works, right?

I want to keep everyone guessing, so I'm going to have to say that that's a fairly reasonable solution in this particular case. To find out why, read this article.

In a nutshell, chronic pain (and back pain in particular) is something that's not as well-understood as other conditions. Some research indicates that retraining your brain's pain response is as effective as surgery or more.

Unlike prescription pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures aren't required to pass clinical trials to demonstrate that they're more effective than placebos. (It's not clear that it would be possible or ethical to give your control group sham surgery.) And just because surgery is doing something real, it doesn't mean it's necessarily doing something useful or relevant to your condition. The article explains how it's possible for a surgical procedure to become popular and widespread without ever really being proven effective.

For chronic back pain -- between acupuncture and disc fusion surgery -- here's the score: Acupuncture may be pure placebo effect or perhaps there's something about poking the skin that affects the pain response -- but either way, it's not going to do you any real harm. Disc fusion surgery is also not really demonstrated to help, but it carries a real risk of doing serious, permanent damage. So if you have chronic back pain that resists treatment, and you've decided you're going to try either acupuncture or surgery, the acupuncture may be the better choice. Of course physical therapy is probably a better choice than either of those two.

That said, in general there are serious ethical concerns and dangers associated with promoting "alternative" treatments which are fundamentally bogus. For a simple explanation, see this cartoon about Homeopathy and my new Rational Moms post about placebos.

Paris, it's good to be home!

2010-07-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I went to Paris to meet some friends. As I expected, as soon as I stepped into the streets of Paris -- and especially as soon as I got into the Metro -- I had an immediate sense of the familiar; like going home.

Now I've read a lot of people say that Paris is overrated, that the Métro smells, etc. The thing is that Paris can't help but get overrated -- it's one of the top tourist destinations in the world. Naturally, it must have a whole lot of people recommending it, yet, like all cities, Paris has its particular character and advantages, which won't appeal to everyone. And, voilà, you have a recipe for a lot of people wondering what all the hype is about. Then, once you visit a few more European cities, perhaps you'll find one whose flavor suits you better, and you can show your sophistication as a traveler by picking a less obvious city to recommend to your friends back home.

It's a little like the Eiffel Tower itself. I remember, as a kid, wondering why the Eiffel Tower is so famous. It's not impressively tall compared to modern buildings, and it's just a steel framework like some sort of antenna. I figured (correctly) that you must just have to be there. It turns out that it's actually kid of pretty for an antenna -- and it's cool that you can see it from all over Paris, and it's fun to go up and see it towering over a huge plaza and park.

Personally -- as a kid and young adult -- I was skeptical about all the francophile hype. I don't know much about art history (or European history in general), so a trip to Europe was never really high on my priority list until I started learning to speak French (as an adult, in grad school). Then, when I first got to Paris, I was pleasantly surprised by how convenient the public transportation was. I could wander on foot or by Métro in any direction and always stumble upon something interesting. I was also surprised to learn how different a city can look from the way all the cities look in the US. Plus, the culture just exotic enough to be charmingly fun without being truly disorienting.

My first trip to Paris was magical -- I wished I didn't have to leave. And, since then, I've been back there so many times, with family and friends. So what if the Métro smells? It's a familiar smell now, and all of the crazy corridors with their shiny white bricks and their ad-posters all in French are like home.

Naturally, it has become increasingly obvious that a big part of the magic of France for me has to do with the amount of effort I put into learning French. It affects how I feel about the place, about the people there, and about myself. So I've recently started listening to some German recordings that are a translation of a series I used when learning French so many years ago. No matter how silly the story or how cheesy the music, I like listening to it at night -- it relaxes me -- because (for me) it's the sounds of success.

During this past visit to Paris, I loved hanging out with my friends, and I always love visiting art museums with people who know a thing or two about art.

Yet, perversely, I didn't love how all of this English-speaking made me feel like an outsider, not really part of the city. (It's a little crazy, I know, but back at my hotel -- if anyone asked -- I was from Switzerland, and I was ready to make it convincing with a few phrases of German, if necessary.) Two of the friends I was visiting, though, speak good German, and they were very polite about letting me subject them to some of my terrible German. And, while wandering around, I was occasionally reminded of Zürich, and stuff I like there.

At the end, I got back on the train and settled into a good book. And as soon as the train pulled into Zürich Hauptbahnhof, I had an immediate sense of the familiar. There's the big clock whose design matches my watch, the familiar poster-ads in German, the kinetic light sculpture and the giant flying lady hanging from the ceiling of the great hall of the train station. Then I got on the tram and sat back and enjoyed the sights as it squeaked and squealed its way to my apartment. There, I hugged my husband and sons, and thought: It's good to be home!

Sorry Switzerland!! (and France and US...)

2010-06-26T05:28:00.000-07:00

Luckily for my little family, we come from a lot of different countries! So we still have one left to root for:

Leo supporting Holland at an ancient Roman theater (ruin) in Switzerland

It's so strange for me to be getting into the World Cup. Growing up, my whole family basically viewed professional sports as a brainless waste of time and money. The funny thing is this: the fact that teams represent actual countries makes a difference.

In U.S. professional sports, the teams are essentially a jumble of professional athletes -- all selected from the same pool -- by some random rich guy and/or corporation. Under the circumstances, it amazes me that anyone can feel any connection with a particular team.

In Europe, it's different. The teams in the various tournaments I've seen since living in Europe, though, really are citizens of the countries they represent. It seems like a trivial point, but it's not. It's not that I think a team's performance is a reflection on the country, but that the international interaction is fun. We were living in France during the Rugby World Cup a few years ago, and it was fun when our whole town was filled with visitors from Australia (as I talked about in the comments here). And we had a similar experience during the Cup of Europe that was held here in Switzerland a couple of years ago.

This time, it seemed like the whole country was excited about the possibility of Switzerland going beyond the first round. And, with my kids trading World Cup cards with their friends, it would be hard not to get into it. I even figured out the mysterious algorithm for deciding which teams get to advance! (In Friday's games, if only Switzerland had done better against Honduras than Spain had done against Chile, Switzerland would have been the ones playing Brazil next week -- sadly it didn't work out that way.)

Oh, well. As I said during the last World Cup "Maybe next time!"

Leo rooting for France in 2006 -- while sporting a haircut of his own creation.

“These beautifully flawed vessels”: The Conclusion of ExMormon!

2010-06-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love to joke around. I've got the perfect joke for just this occasion. It's an oldie, so stop Me if you've heard it:

Way back when Jesus and I were creating the world, I turned to Him and said "Hey Jesus, let's create a really gorgeous mountainous region, with lakes and rivers full of fish, beautiful canyons, waterfalls, valleys, and peaks..."

Then Jesus said "But Dad, that'll never fly! Everyone will want to live there, and it will get so crowded, it will suck!"

Then I said "I'm one step ahead of You Jesus, My boy! Why do You think I created Mormons?"

Hahahahahahahahaha!

I'm just kidding, of course! The Mormons are My chosen people these days, so that's why I love having a little fun with them!

Now this whole idea of leaving the only true church is so completely nuts that I couldn't help but be fascinated when I noticed that some of My children were organizing a whole conference just for people whom I was planning on sending to outer darkness. Being omniscient and all, of course I knew it was going to happen. But that didn't make it any less entertaining to watch! More ->

Paris!!!

2010-06-20T11:22:00.001-07:00

For the overview, see my Main Street Plaza post -- more details to come! :D

The Making of "Exmormon"

2010-06-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Exmormon was written over the space of a year, and not in chronological order. This is an article I wrote in 2006 to explain how -- and why -- I wrote it.

One day I was on a business trip, and to pass the time in the evenings alone in my hotel room, I'd brought along a stack of old New Yorker magazines to read.

I noticed one of issues I'd brought had a story about Mormon teenagers in it. Mormonism is obscure enough that it's fairly rare to find something about Mormonism in the mass media, so -- like most people raised Mormon -- I was fascinated to find this and to see what they had to say.

My reaction: Not too bad.

But it kind of rang false in a couple of places. Particularly the fact that the Mormon girl in the story tries to talk the non-member kid out of taking his prescription drugs -- on the basis that it's a sin to take drugs. Of course recreational drugs are a big-time sin for Mormons, but medications prescribed by your doctor are not. It's not even a question of "if you're really devout" or something -- the idea that standard western medicine would be a sin doesn't exist in Mormon thought. (Maybe confusing Mormons with Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientologists?)

Then there was the fact that the Mormon girl was using sex as a tactic to draw people into the church and keep them there. My reaction was, "close but no cigar."

In my experience, Mormon teens really do (deliberately or not) use flirting and unfulfilled erotic desire to attract other teenagers to join the church. And I'm not going to claim that Mormon teens never have sex. But for a Mormon girl to give a guy a complete B.J. explicitly as a missionary tactic would be extremely atypical, to say the least. The result would be exactly what happens in the story, namely that the non-Mormon guy thinks: "Thanks for getting me off, bye! (sheesh, these Mormons are weirdos)."

Basically it read as if the author had had some sort of bizarre experience with Mormons when he was younger and was trying to make sense of it.

That story inspired me to a little challenge: Let me paint you a portrait of what it's really like to be a Mormon teenager.

The result of this challenge was the four-chapter novella "Youth
Conference."

Youth Conference really is fiction and not memoir -- in that the characters aren't just re-namings of real people, and the events didn't happen in quite that way or all together like that. Yet the story is very strongly reality-based and autobiographical.

I was fond of my little story when I wrote it, but it was too long to be published as a short story and too short to be a novel, so I wasn't sure what to do with it. I vaguely had the idea that I could continue the story by writing other segments of the main character's life, but I didn't want to add a bunch of junk to it just to make it longer, so I just left it sitting around on my hard drive for more than a year.

Around that time, I was a big-time regular on the Internet forum exmo-social, and the occasional discussion of Mormonism -- plus the writing practice the experience afforded me -- finally inspired me to write two more segments to the story: one where the main character (Lynn) goes to Brigham Young University (and concludes the church isn't true), and one where she's a young adult ex-Mormon dealing with her LDS (Mormon) family.

The BYU segment is less autobiographical, although it takes elements from life. I've said many times that I was already a non-believer when I started attending BYU, but that wasn't the story I wanted to tell this time. I didn't want to show BYU through the eyes of the angry young apostate, depressed about not having the opportunity to meet other young non-believers and resentful of the enforced religion. So I took my earlier attitude of believing (but just barely hanging onto it) and transposed that mindset onto a lot of the trappings and details of my real-life BYU experience.

One of the ideas I wanted to express in the BYU segment was that the problem with Mormonism isn't that it's not cool -- it's that it's not true. So I invented the character of Paige as something of a composite of a lot of people I knew who worked on the independent student publication The Student Review, who were these hip, non-conformist, liberal Mormons -- easily cooler than the shy, nerdy main character Lynn -- yet who were true believers. (see ask a Mormon Girl -- she was one of my colleagues during my Student Review days.)

To have Lynn meet the cool Mormon girl (Paige), I decided to hold a little illicit slumber party in a cabin. The Student Review actually did organize cabin slumber parties, although they were supervised (unlike the little unofficial party in my story). I remember thinking -- way back when I was attending such a sleepover with a whole bunch of young people of both genders sleeping in one big room -- that the situation had a huge amount of suppressed erotic potential. It seemed a terrible shame at the time that there was no one there at the sleepover that I wanted to share the flirty secret erotic spark with. True to form for a first novel, I opened up this box of regrets and re-wrote the scene the way it should have happened. Thus, the character of Rex Wendell was created.

When I finished the BYU segment -- even though the plot and story structure left something to be desired -- I was well-pleased.

I was a little worried about starting on the family segment (later called Temple Wedding) because I didn't want it to end up as some junk tacked on to the other two pieces, dragging them down. so I spent a lot of time planning what should be included.

First of all, I was fond of the character Rex and of his relationship with Lynn, so I wanted to bring him back. Yet I didn't want it to be that they'd gotten together very young and consequently had grown up with little relationship experience and would eventually start wondering about all the erotic exploration they'd missed out on. I didn't want them to have that kind of relationship. So I decided to have their initial relationship be brief -- as they were attending different universities -- and have them get together again on a permanent basis years later.

Aside from that, I had an easy time thinking of all of the things the LDS (Mormon) family members could do to irritate the exmo (apostate) characters ;^) but I was unhappy with the list because I felt it came off as whiny, and it wasn't interesting, and it wasn't a story. I had to find a way to balance it out so that I wasn't one-sidedly presenting the Mormons as the only bad guys.

Then I came up with the idea of having Rex buy beer for his sixteen-year-old younger brother. That was when I finally felt like "Okay, I can do this." That was the perfect scenario for this story because it was something I could easily see a young adult apostate doing -- and seeing as funny and no big deal -- that would make the Mormon parents completely flip out. (Thus illustrating their difference in perspective.)

The whole scene -- the dreadful dinner scene -- came to me all at once like a lightning bolt. That scene was really the turning point for me that changed this whole project from "look at me -- aren't I clever? I'm writing stories!" to "I have to publish this story and make a connection with people through it."

The funny thing is that for more than a year after writing that scene, I was patting myself on the back for writing such a thing from pure imagination since our family never had an explosive fight over the kids' apostasy like that. Since all of the circumstances and superficial trappings of the argument in the story were invented, I saw the scene as being wholly fictional.

It was only by reading my journal later that I realized how closely this scene portrayed (caricatured) a series of fights (and one in particular) that I had with my own parents. Again, like a proper first novel, it's all about exploring wounds that were smoothed over and forgotten but never healed; exorcising demons by reliving the bad parts and correcting them. In the fictional version (unlike reality), when Rex went off in disgrace, he had Lynn to tell him that everything would be okay.

The rest of the Temple Wedding section was just the icing on the cake. I was deliberately trying to cover a lot of details about Mormonism, and the story structure suffered for it. the funny thing, though, is that by throwing so many random things into the story blender, this segment ended up being kind of a seminal section, creating various character dynamics that I decided I wanted to explore further.

The part of "Temple Wedding" that I had the most fun with was the interaction between the Hobbs and the Wendells -- the one Mormon family with all of the signs of piety and righteousness (garden, uber-homemaker-SAHM, lots of kids on missions), and the other Mormon family with none of that but a lot more money. As both advantages are important for status in the LDS community, each family ends up jealous of the other.

When Lynn's three-part story was done, I gave it to my husband to read.

One his comments was that instead of being intimidated by Sister Hobbs' kids' (religious) accomplishments, Sister Wendell should have stood up for her (apostate) son and should have been willing to proudly recount his (non-religious) accomplishments to Sister Hobbs. I told him he was right, but that that wouldn't fit this story. I decided to go with his suggestion and write it up as a separate short story. Here I shifted voice for the first time, and instead of telling the story from Lynn's perspective, I told it from the perspective of Rex's younger brother Jared.

My plan was then to tack this story on to the little novel as an epilogue, but my husband caught me and told me not to. He pointed out that even though it has the same characters, it really doesn't follow as an epilogue -- it's completely separate.

I agreed, and decided that instead of using it as an epilogue, I'd use it as a starting point for a new story. I'd had fun with the Sam-Joe-Jared dynamic in "Temple Wedding" (which was an extension of the Wendells vs. the Hobbs), and I felt like I wanted to continue their adventures.

One of the million aspects of Mormonism I'd portrayed in the "Temple Wedding" segment was the connection between the mainstream Mormons and the (polygamist) Mormon fundamentalists. I'd gotten an email from a former Mormon fundamentalist (whom I'd met through exmo-social) full of details on the subject that he said I could use in my story if I liked.

One particularly dramatic incident the former fundamentalist had recounted (on exmo-social as well as in this email and his online autobiography) was that he had been allowed to attend a mainstream high school (despite being a fundamentalist), and there he fell in love with a mainstream Mormon girl. Naturally he explained his own beliefs to her -- what he'd been taught as true -- and when her parents got wind of it, they were horrified and forbade her from ever seeing him again. He wound up heartbroken (and maybe thinking it would have been better not to have gone out of his way to tell her about the fact that the mainstream LDS church is obviously in apostasy for giving up polygamy, among other things...).

His story was a poignant one. However, since my novel is fiction and not a retelling of some real person's life, I figured I'd take some details and piece together a different story. So I had my former-fundamentalist character Joe attending a normal high school (in my story it was because he had run away from his polygamist family), and had him fall in love with a girl from a mainstream LDS family, and had her family freak out when they discover she's frequenting a guy who was raised in polygamy, and have them forbid her from ever seeing him again.

But then instead of having her be a docile, obedient LDS girl who submits to her parents' wishes, I figured it would be more fun to have her be an ex-Mormon atheist girl who defies her parents and sees the guy anyway. I know I'm just being silly of course, but I liked that scenario much better. ;^)

Of course, to me it seems like a proper teen romance has to have a poignant, heartbreaking quality to it. It's a part of growing, learning, and gaining experience. So when I wrote Joe's romance, I kept the focus on Jared (Rex's younger brother), who loses out as he falls in love with the same girl. In the long run, however, he gains valuable experience.

And fortunately for Jared, he gets a great party scene. The party
sequence up through his chat about it with his brother Rex the next day is one of my favorite segments in the whole novel, including the parts that were written later.

At that point, I'd decided that I had two novels: Lynn's story and the sequel, Jared's story (eventually titled "Orem High"). My husband told me that novels don't really come in twos, and that I needed another to make it a trilogy. I was inclined to agree because I'd had fun so far and wanted to keep going.

(Despite this constructive advice, my husband hated Jared's story -- he apparently didn't like the idea that some dumb kid from Utah should get to have his own car and go to parties with girls, etc. -- and so he refused to read any more of my novel after that.)

I decided that next I wanted to explore a theme I'd alluded to back in the Youth Conference segment, namely the fear (as a chaste-not-entirely-by-choice Mormon teen) of things getting out of hand and getting pregnant as a result.

Looking around for a spot in my fictional universe to situate this story, I hit upon an off-hand comment I'd put in the BYU segment. In order to help illustrate the relationship between Jake and his jack-Mormon mom, I'd recounted how she'd laughed it off when Jake's uncle had made a disapproving comment about Jake going on a road trip to Las Vegas to gamble. I took that as a starting point, fleshing out that tiny anecdote as being a trip where Jake takes Rex and Jared's sister Jill to Las Vegas to get an abortion.

When I wrote this segment (eventually titled Saturday's Warrior), I had just re-read my teenage journals, so I wrote the whole thing in that voice and mindset. This prospect -- and this fear -- was clearly another big demon that had haunted my adolescence that I wanted to get out. I wrote the whole segment practically all at once, like a fever dream.

One nice thing about this part was that by this time I'd gotten over the idea that I needed to cover a list of particular details about Mormonism, so I could just write it as a free-flowing, reasonably-structured story. I ended up portraying additional aspects of Mormonism as they came up naturally in the story rather than bending and stretching the story to fit them.

Once I'd written Jill's story, I decided it was a prequel to Lynn's story and that I had a trilogy on my hands.

There were a few problems with this trilogy plan though. First of all, both Jill's story (Saturday's Warrior) and Jared's story (Orem High) were too short to be complete novels, even young adult novels. Then there was the fact that the Youth Conference segment of Lynn's story naturally came before Jill's story both chronologically and thematically. I felt like Jill's story really ought to be read between the first two parts of Lynn's story.

For a long time, I had a bunch of ideas on the back-burner for other stories to turn my "trilogy" into a "series" (called Exmormon) that could one day be published all together in a single volume. Eventually I realized that that single volume was where I really wanted to go with this work, so I selected a set of related stories I wanted to write up and include.

First of this new batch was the little interlude: Gratuitous Love Scene. I called it that as a joke because of the fact that Mormons always say things like "it was a good movie overall, but why did they have to include that one scene?" You know what scene they're always talking about. It doesn't matter if the love/sex scene is important to story, to Mormons if it's a sex scene, it's a priori superfluous and should be cut out.

In the case of the Gratuitous Love Scene, I added it because it was necessary for the overall story structure. It develops the relationship of Rex and Lynn, it's an important step for Lynn in terms of dealing with her conditioning, and I needed to include a sweet and romantic sex scene to counterbalance the more questionable sex scenes in Jill's story and Jared's story.

I know those who have read the "Gratuitous Love Scene" probably think I'm crazy to call this scene "sweet and romantic," but seriously I'm not at all a romantic person, so from my crazy perspective this is romance. ;)

After that, I decided exactly which additional stories I wanted to include. I wanted to add April's story (Young Women's) to flesh out her character a little better so that when her situation comes up in the BYU segment it doesn't seem like it's coming out of nowhere.

Additionally, I wanted to open with her story in order to illustrate what it's like for a young teenager dealing with church and trying to believe.

April's story was pretty easy to write since I wrote it mostly from my own journals and memories. The only tricky part was guessing what it would be like for a young lesbian to deal with all of the romance-and-temple-marriage indoctrination that the young women get. Basically I did my research by reading Queer 13 and The Indelible Allison Bechdel and did my best to extrapolate.

I wrote the wrap-up chapter next (Exmo Conference) which is just a fun little "what happened to everyone" conclusion.

Next I wrote Bordeaux Mission. I wanted to write that one because I've always been fascinated by LDS missionary stories, and all through my novel people talk about missions (with young Mormons, somebody's always setting off on one, or on one, or just back), so I wanted to include the actual experience. Additionally, in Jared's story I'd introduced the character Tanya -- who wasn't originally intended as a sympathetic character, but who ended up stealing the show in a lot of ways. So I wanted to explore her character further by giving her a new boyfriend -- someone with a little more self-confidence than Jared -- who wouldn't be intimidated by a woman who takes the lead. Thus the character of Spencer Hobbs was created.

I had a great time writing Spencer's story, largely because I got lots of fantastic mission details and inspiration from another person I met on exmo-social. With his help, I had an easier time writing Spencer as a clever jock, to balance out my character spectrum which had been hopelessly weighted a little too heavily towards scrawny math/science nerds (i.e. my own familiar social circle).

I was so pleased with the Spencer character that I had him play a leading role in the last segment I wrote (Polygamist, part 5 of the novel), which I added in order to introduce Joe's character and explain how it came to be that he was living with his uncle's family.

Writing a story in such a haphazard manner makes for kind of a random and confusing narrative structure. Yet the story is actually fairly well organized if you look at it thematically as a portrait of growing up Mormon and leaving the church as a young person:

1. Young Women's: Trying to be a good Mormon and live up to the church's expectations for you as a young teen.
2. Youth Conference: More serious indoctrination and the beginnings of cognitive dissonance.
3. Saturday's Warrior: The dark side of the resulting mindset.
4. BYU: The epiphany; realizing that it's not real or true.
5. Polygamist: Breaking free of the mindset.
6. Temple Wedding: Dealing with the family fallout.
7. Orem High: A second adolescence while exploring your new-found freedom.
8. Bordeaux Mission: Reflecting on your life, your choices, your feelings about the church.
9. Exmo Conference: wrap-up.

It's very clear that this is a first novel -- between the autobiography, the coming-of-age aspect, and the purging of those fantasies and demons that are closest to the surface. That's why I don't want to try to re-write some subset of this material into a more-reasonably-structured different novel. For the future, I'd rather start over with all new material and a plan. ;-)

Still, I think this one has a lot of potential interest and value as it is, which is why I'm posting it online, in hopes of making a connection with people who might relate to some of the characters and situations I've portrayed.

Don't forget -- the conclusion will be posted online this Tuesday!!

Wellness and woo

2010-06-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

I've recently taken up Yoga, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's a type of exercise I enjoy. And it is exercise -- it's basically gymnastics for old people, with a lot of emphasis on flexibility and strength. Plus, it helps with stress relief -- and is probably more healthful that some other stress relief options. So, given the positives, I figure I can overlook it if the instructor occasionally explains things in terms of chakras.

But sometimes I wonder...

I first got the idea to try Yoga from a colleague who was always raving about it. This same guy was horrified by Sarah Palin's young-Earth-creationism and her general anti-science outlook. So I got the impression that Yoga and critical thinking are perfectly compatible. Enough of it is real to be worth the effort.

More recently, however, this same colleague was talking about how he's been taking his dog to get alternative-schedule homeopathic vaccines (instead of real vaccines). Fortunately he doesn't have any kids to endanger. (Actually, I'm a little surprised it's legal to license a dog without real rabies shots -- I know people have a lot of leeway for using faith-based treatments on their own offspring, but it's not quite the same for animals.)

Then, last week, I met a lady who is currently working on some sort of diploma in "wellness." She is an intelligent lady, interesting to talk to, speaks several languages, has had a successful career in finance, and wanted to switch to something else. The first part of the wellness program was an intensive course in different types of massage. She explained that she had to learn quite a lot of anatomy for the class, not to mention learning about a variety of health conditions which might make some types of massage risky for some clients.

Then she explained that the next course will be acupuncture and acupressure.

And part of me wanted to ask, "Um, you know that stuff isn't real, right?"

Yet somehow that didn't seem like an appropriate thing to say, under the circumstances. Even though it's theoretically a secular "alternative" treatment, it's a little like religion. It's like the time I ran into one of my friends at the bus stop and saw that she was sitting there reading the Bible. Obviously it would be impolite for me to say, "Um, you know that's all a bunch of hooey, right? Much of it rather offensive hooey..."

So what do you think I said to the lady who told me she's going to be studying acupuncture and acupressure? Can you guess?

Naturally, my pathological desire to fit in under any circumstances struck again. I told her all about how I'm taking Yoga.

A problem with the two-body problem

2010-06-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

Does everybody know what the two-body problem is?

In a nutshell, it's this: If you're a professor (or would like to be), you generally have only a handful of appropriate job options, and they're scattered around the world. To advanace your career, it's best to be willing to move to wherever the job is. But then -- what happens if two professors are married to each other?

The field I'm most familiar with is Mathematics. As you may know, I have a Ph.D. in Math, but immediately after earning it, I switched my career path to software engineering. However, socially I've stayed in contact with mathematicians around the world -- playing hostess and attending receptions and dinners as a professor's wife. From this vantage point, I've observed a strange dynamic about the two-body problem.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot more men than women in mathematics. Most of the highest-level hotshot researchers are men. Why that may be -- and how/whether it can be changed -- is beyond the scope of this discussion; I'm merely stating the current situation. Also note that Mathematicians often meet (and later marry) other Mathematicians (see the mating game).

When a university wants to recruit a particular professor, arranging a position for the professor's spouse is often a necessary part of the recruitment package. Otherwise moving to the new job might mean that one spouse would have to drop out of academic research, which is out of the question for many couples.

Then the problem is this: Sometimes women -- women who are perfectly capable of getting a research job on their own merits -- end up taking jobs where they're perceived as "affirmative action cases" by their colleagues. In other words, they may be surrounded by colleagues who are thinking "You're not quite on the same level as the rest of us -- you're just here at super-prestigious-U because the university wanted him."

Now, I'm at enough of a distance from the whole situation that readers may rightly accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about. However, I've heard too many stories at parties, etc., (from people around the world) where the wife is talking about how they were recruited by university X, and throws in "Of course, they were really interested in recruiting him."

In some cases, it can certainly happen that the wife is the one the university is most interested in. Or the wonderful situation where the university really wants to recruit them both. But, ultimately, I think the perception is a bigger problem than the reality. Regardless of the reality, if your colleagues perceive you as "less competent", it affects your opportunities for advancement, and it affects the dynamic when doing research as part of a group. As objective as Mathematics can be, people aren't immune to having their perceptions and conclusions colored by prejudice.

At least it looks like a potential problem to me. Anyone have any more experience with this situation?