Let it have its ears!

I'm not married and I don't have any kids, and, as such, I don't have opinions on raising children. I have OPINIONS on raising children.

Today's OPINION is about circumcision. It just seems like this topic has been coming up (so to speak) a lot lately, always in conversation with other women who aren't married and don't have children.

Except for one argument with my mother, who has children. She was shocked and disappointed that my views were so extreme.* But, as for the rest, we all have extreme views. I am strongly opposed.

I am sure that's a big surprise. The simple reason is, I don't believe that unnecessary surgery should be performed on infants. Unnecessary surgery on someone who is not only too young to make an informed decision, but who is also too young to make (or at least communicate) an uninformed one.

People either strongly agree or strongly disagree with that. I have not heard anyone say that she'd leave it up to the kid's father, who, after all, might have more insight into the situation.

Because people have such strong opinions, I never really try to change their minds. But I also think that, if "unnecessary surgery on an infant" doesn't do the trick, I don't really see the point in continuing the argument. To me, that's the only argument you need.

But today I have some time on my hands:

1. "It lowers the risk of HIV transmission/cancer/other horrible condition."

I am not trying to be funny when I say that I kind of want to have my appendix taken out just so I don't have to worry about it anymore. I have a friend who almost died because she didn't know she had appendicitis. If there were a way to have my appendix out for free with local anaesthetic, I would be all over that.

Most people look at me like I've lost my mind when I say this. Some people think I'm onto something.

But imagine I'm saying the same thing about a newborn baby: "Isn't she cute? We've scheduled her appendectomy for next week. Of course it will hurt, but it's healthier in the long run." I hope you would call child protective services.

2. "I don't like foreskins."

Speaking of calling child protective services... To be fair, I think that what they mean to say is:

2a. "Girls don't like foreskins."

Honestly, I hope this is true. I do not want my kids to be sleeping around! And I especially do not want them sleeping around before they're 18, at which point they can get whatever surgery they want in order to facilitate the sleeping around.

3. "But it will hurt later. If you get it done when they're babies, they won't remember the pain."

But it's not like it's something they'll need to get done eventually and therefore it's best to get it out of the way when they won't remember it. It's optional, and by having it done when they're babies, you're taking that option away. It's like giving your kid a bunch of tattoos because they might want them someday.

So, for the record, I am opposed. Honestly, I would want it to be illegal but for the fact that a lot of people would get it done underground.

I didn't address any religious arguments because it's not my place to do so. Also because nobody I've discussed this with is religious. Anyway, I think it's a change that needs to be made within the religious communities (Jewish, Muslim, I don't know of any others) that do it. For a not-so-good parallel, I'd find it weird if a Jewish or Muslim person questioned the practice of baptizing infants, but I'll listen to Christians who question it.

If you read the Bible (another Lent thing I'm doing), it's easier to understand why Jewish people continue this practice. It's more significant than I had realized before reading the Bible. I haven't read the Quran, so I can't really comment.**


* I didn't ask you this at the time, but what did you expect from someone who is opposed to dog ownership? I mean, I am not really known for my grasp of complexity and nuance, nor my acceptance of practices that I decide are unnatural.

** If I had a minute for every time I said this, I'd have read the Quran by now. No joke.

Vampire readers: feel free to weigh in

Because I know everything, I've concluded that, if I made movies then they'd either be about 10 minutes long or really, really boring. It would look something like this:
1. protagonists meet and fall in love
2. they arrange to be together then go on with their lives

Or this:
1. protagonists don't fall in love because it's inadvisable
2. they go on with their lives

I know this because during movies I tend to say stuff like this:
"He should just bite her and then they could be vampires together."
a few minutes later...
"Okay, he should wait four years, then bite her, so she can buy alcohol for them."

Yeah, so, I watched "Twilight" yesterday. I have to say, I liked it. I wonder if so many people hated it because it was so popular. I do kind of wish that it was either a dark and serious movie or a romantic one, and not trying to be all middle ground. What I mean is, the film is too dark and depressing for you to feel happy at the end, but at the same time I was left wondering why anyone wouldn't want to be a vampire. A less serious film would be mindless fluff, but there is a place for mindless fluff in the world.

A more serious film would have focused more on positive and negative aspects of vampirism. Do more recently-changed vampires shy away from eating people because they remember what it's like to be human? Is it that older vampires grew up during a time when there was less respect for human life? Or is it just a coincidence that the non-human-eating vampires in the movie tend to be younger? I thought it was interesting that they would kill an evil vampire but not evil humans. What's with all the self-hatred? Why hide from humans? Why not just be like "hey, we're vampires but we only eat animals. Unless you bother us. Is that going to be a problem for you?" I would like these questions answered.

So I guess my main complaint about Twilight is that it isn't X-Men.

I also wanted to say something about how you shouldn't sneak into your girlfriend's house and watch her sleep, but that sort of implies that it's ok to sneak into other people's houses and watch them sleep, or to sneak into your girlfriend's house for reasons other than sleep-watching. My actual advice is, don't sneak into ANYONE'S house.

It's uter-us, Marge, not uter-you

I decided that I was going to try harder to understand other people for Lent. This mostly involves forgiving people who I know, as I have been amazingly unforgiving, but I'm also trying to be more understanding in general. So, while this post is pretty judgemental (hey, we're just ten days in), it is based on an honest question.

I'm putting this thought into writing because it's been bothering me for a really long time:

I do not understand people who need to have biological children.

Is that just me being weird again or do other people feel this way too?

I do know that it's not really my business. And I can understand wanting children.

I even understand wanting biological children because I understand loving somebody so much that you want to create a child together because you're sure that anything you create together will be awesome. But, in the land of unicorns and rainbows where I apparently live, you would also love that person enough to be like, "let's not put you through thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars worth of uncomfortable-at-best and dangerous-at-worst fertility treatments that may or may not work."

Personally, I would not want to stay married to someone who was pushing me to go through any unnecessary medical procedures.* He wouldn't want to stay married to me, either, so I guess that's win-win. It depresses me, though, that you'd marry someone who needs biological children so badly that your only options would be unnecessary medical procedure or divorce. I think that I deserve better. I think that everyone deserves better.

Incidentally, the church is opposed to both divorce and fertility treatments, so, from a religious standpoint, what are you supposed to do in that situation anyway?

But I'm being really sexist in assuming that women don't choose to go through these treatments of their own accord. Tons of women do. I can't even begin to understand them.

Adoption has financial strain and disappointment, too, but it doesn't affect your physical health. I suppose that's where I draw the line.

Other people draw the line somewhere else, and they have the right to do that. I just don't get it. Is it biological? Social? Do I have low self-esteem because I don't feel that I need to be copied?


* So it occurs to me that at some point I should discuss this with potential suitors. Third date seems reasonable. Over dinner I'll just be like "so if we get married and it turns out that I can't have children I have no intention of doing anything about that. Also, the bump on my nose is here to stay."**

** This footnote is intended to be humorous, but it is also based on an honest question. How does one bring that up? Or should I just stop trying to interact with people because they will never live up to my standards?***

*** ...which would be exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to do here. Obviously, I have got a ways to go.

I never thought you were a fool

Here is a test of your decision-making skills:

You wake up on Saturday morning feeling depressed. You:
a) drag yourself into the city to do something touristy
b) call your family
c) buy some shoes
d) decide you're going to sit this one out and buy enough provisions so as not to have to leave your apartment all weekend

So, about those provisions:
a) something healthy, balanced, with lots of potassium, because you have read that this is good for improving your mood
b) bread and water because there are millions of people in the world who live on less and why do you deserve any better than they do?
c) vodka, which you have also read is good for improving your mood
d) cookies 'n' cream because you are apparently five years old

Okay, FINE. But your apartment is pretty boring. Let's watch a DVD:
a) "Flight of the Conchords"
b) "Stranger than Fiction"
c) "Kung-Fu Panda"
d) "Atonement"

...I think you get the idea. Intellectually, I know that there are much, much better ways of dealing with a bad mood, though I actually do feel better now. Except my stomach hates me (but I am not alone). I have no idea why I keep thinking dairy products = comfort food.

Anyway, "Atonement" is seriously depressing, but it is a good movie, and I almost regret reading the book first just because it was so much better. Well, the book didn't have James McAvoy. So there's that.

You'll thank me when you share my politics

So I was in a wikipedia trance (that's what I'm calling it now) prompted by my friend's blog. As I was reading about Saint Hippolytus, I noticed a sidebar which gives information about feast days. "Neat!" I thought, "I wonder whose feast day it is today..."

Then I felt kind of stupid.

Then I looked it up anyway and it turns out that today is ALSO the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which doesn't seem quite fair. They have a bunch of different feast days, though, so I won't get too upset.

Here is what Dinosaur Comics has to say on the subject of Valentine's Day.

If you read this comic a lot, then it is not really surprising if I tell you that I often remind myself of T-Rex.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was cleaning the kitchen and thinking about racism. As in, racist people now are obviously bad, but what about old-timey racists? They didn't have exposure to other belief systems, so what happened to them after they died? It's all well and good for us to ignore these things and judge people by the standards of their time, but I don't really think the afterlife works that way. I got distracted by something shiny.

So, the next day, I'm on the internet reading the comics, and I get to this. See, it's not creepy that there was a comic about something I was thinking about before. That happens all the time with this comic. It's that it happened at the same time. I have concluded that maybe I need to get out more.

Which I will totally do once people are speaking to me again (February always brings the drama) and I don't have a 101-degree fever (February also always brings the illness).

Happy February!

I am still alive, just had a really busy week last week and a really unpleasant cold the week before that. Since then I have:
1. Conducted a teaching seminar for the first time. It was about grammar. Two of the teachers travelled four hours to attend. I certainly hope they found it useful.
2. Recieved some Christmas presents, including two sweater dresses.
3. Stopped speaking to someone who I thought was a friend. It turns out that she is mean and backstabby and unreasonable.*
4. Been really cold.
5. Had everyone and their mother tell me that I am either too fat or too thin, to the point that I figure they balance each other out.
6. Watched the second season of 30 Rock.

I'll get back to Egypt soon. For now, horrifying student conversations: divorce edition!

Misha: We didn't get divorced. The court denied the appeal of my wife.

I would think that would be grounds for divorce. But I didn't say that because I am kind and sensitive.

The next is more of a horrifying teacher conversation. We will call this teacher "Teacher A."
Fyodor Pavlovich: I think one problem was that our ages are too different.
Teacher A: How old is she?
FP: Twenty-five.
A: Oh, that's ok. She's so young I'm sure she'll remarry very soon.
FP: ...
A: Sooo, have you got any questions about the homework?

I also had a creepy experience involving Dinosaur Comics, but it is late and I want to sleep, so I will write about it later.

* You know me. It's the unreasonable that really gets to me, but I'll be over it within a couple weeks.

Egypt Post 1

One problem that I have is that I tend not to do anything if I can't do it perfectly. That's how my room is generally a mess because I spent the day I set aside to clean it doing something totally insignificant. I don't care how clean the room appears; if your sweater dresses are not organized by hex code, it is all a lie.

It is also the reason that most of the trips I've taken remain un-blogged.

A big part of the problem is that I would really like to make a map of the whole trip, as well as each leg of the trip. But I need a map that:
- shows the places I visited
- shows the paths between places
- doesn't give so much information as to be unreadable (basically, I want all the major cities and famous places, and any non-main places I visited, and nothing else).

What I really want is a webpage that can generate that based on my itinerary. But, since I don't have that, take out an atlas and follow along:

20/12 - fly from Moscow to Hurghada
21/12 - leave really early in the morning, tourist van to Luxor, board boat
22/12 - boat to Edfu, Kom Ombo
23/12 - boat to Aswan, side trip to Abu Simbel
24/12 - Aswan, catch night train to Cairo
25/12 - Cairo
26/12 - was supposed to be Alexandria, but I got sick
27/12 - 03/01 - Hurghada

So, in the interest of getting over my stupid perfectionism, I'm going to do this in chronological order and just write and post pictures until I have to stop for the day.

December 20 - Hurghada

I'll come back to this later, because at this point Hurghada was just a place to stay before going to Luxor. But, in short, Hurghada is on the Red Sea and 80% of its tourists are Russian. It's sort of a less-rich man's Sharm el-Sheikh.

Hurghada has an international airport that doesn't really handle its tourists well at all. First, you buy a visa. This is no big deal. But then you wait in not-line for about an hour to get your passport stamped. I think I'm claustrophobic about people because waiting in not-line does bad things to my heart rate.* In the future, I need to make sure to:
1. warn people I'm travelling with about this.
2. stand in the line that's next to the wall, no matter how much longer it is.
3. bring more suitcases so as to make a little fortress around myself.

Anyway, once that was done, we were shuttled to the resort and told that we'd be leaving for Luxor at 5:30 am the next day. I didn't really have time to get an impression of the resort, except that the buffet was really good and there seemed to be mosquitoes.

December 21 - Luxor
Luxor day was a very, very tiring day. First off, we were picked up at 6 am. It turns out that they adjust times for Russian tourists, which is probably a good idea. It takes about four hours to drive from Hurghada to Luxor. Most of this is through the desert. We stopped briefly at a cafeteria where it seemed like all the tour buses stopped. Lots of people were standing around wearing old-fashioned clothes and tending goats and camels and charging tourists for pictures:

At some point I decided I was totally cool with being a stereotypical tourist.

Andrey bought a hat from a vendor. He negotiated the price down from 400 Egyptian pounds (about $80) to 50 ($10). I really hate negotiating, so I was impressed. The vendor congratulated me on my new president.

It's immediately obvious when you are approaching the Nile because everything turns green and habitable. I'd like to say that the desert has its own beauty, and I'm sure that I will say that in a later entry, but I really wasn't feeling that on Luxor day.

As for the city of Luxor, I can't say much because we just drove through there on our way to different tourist attractions. What I could see looked very agricultural, with no offices or shops, but it's entirely possible that we just never drove through the commercial district. I saw a lot of apartment buildings being built up while people had already moved into the lower floors. I am guessing it's due to a housing shortage, stopped construction projects, or both. I wish I had asked the tour guide about it. I didn't because I thought it was a rude question, and it probably is. It took me a couple days to realize that answering tourists' rude questions is the tour guide's job.

All the women I saw walking around were mostly dressed in black, totally covered up except for their faces. This blog tells me that this is either a Khimar or a Chador. I was surprised and a little bit worried. I wasn't prepared for it to be quite that conservative.

[Marin takes a couple hours getting lost reading someone else's blog].

So, as I was saying, I didn't get much of an impression of the city because I didn't spend any time there. The tourist attractions were more than enough for one day. But they will have to wait for the next blog entry, because I have work tomorrow.

* It depends on how tall the people around are. If they're around my height, I'm fine. If they're taller (or I'm sitting down), it really bothers me. In this case, a flight from Switzerland got in at the same time as ours.

To the left!

New president! Hooray!

Apparently people all over the world are celebrating, which I find...distressing. As in, I like Obama and I think he'll do a good job, but I feel like a lot of the enthusiasm from other countries isn't because they think he'll do a good job, but because they think he can't possibly be worse than the last president. I agree with that, but it makes me sad about how the last eight years have been spent.

Well, I think that's true of Europe, anyway. People I met in Egypt didn't talk about politics but were excited that America was going to have a Black president, or they didn't mention it at all (I suspect that there are some serious racial issues going on in Egypt, and I won't pretend to understand them, but it was pretty easy to predict who was going to talk about Obama and who wasn't).

Russians mostly know not to talk about politics with me because a) from a professional standpoint, I can't, and b) they have no room to talk, and, to be fair, I'm not sure they discuss politics with each other. I think they are mostly happy that George W. Bush is gone but also worried about the economy.

But occasionally you come across nutjobby Russians who think that Nostradamus predicted that the last president of the US would be Black and that therefore the US will collapse soon. Do you have these people in America too? The best way to deal with this is to just accept the prophecy and point out that there could be Black presidents after Obama. This really bothers them because a) they were all prepared for you to argue with them about the validity of Nostradamus' prophecies, b) they are most likely racist, whether they know it or not, and c) they really can't argue with that. I have been having fun with this.

Just your typical prototype

This poll was brought to you by iTunes (and not locking your door when you know you have friends coming over)

What is the most embarrassing song to be caught singing along to?
a) Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'"
b) Dragonforce, "Through the Fire and Flames"
c) Cabaret, "Mein Herr"
d) All of the above, though certainly embarrassing, still play into the whole self-conciously nerdy thing you have going on. The right answer is "Piece of Me" by Britney Spears.
e) Having heard you sing, I can tell you that it's embarrassing no matter what the song.
f) Sorry, but this is really bothering me. Aren't prototypes, by definition, typical?


On planning a trip to Egypt

"I just want to be respectful of the local culture. And buy some new clothes."

Yes, I am finally going to Egypt! I started to make a packing list and then realized that almost everything I own, save for my orange scarf, is not really suitable for Egypt. I'm pretty sure that Russia is the exact opposite of Egypt in terms of cultural climate and climate climate.

Which is kind of funny, since a lot of the stuff I'm reading about Egypt is also stuff that I read about Russia years ago. Specifically:
- beware of pickpockets and don't leave your passport in your hotel room
- don't drink the water and be wary of street food
- don't bother driving and look out when crossing the street because drivers are crazy
- health and safety standards are lower, and fatal transport accidents are not unheard-of
- do not even go anywhere near illegal drugs
- don't take photos of government buildings or military personnel
- you will stand out more and might be harrassed if you have dark skin/light hair (I'll let you figure out which country is which here)
- don't go anywhere with strangers who approach you (find me a country where it IS advisable to do this and I'll cash in my life savings and move there)
- I came to Russia just after Beslan, so even the terrorism warnings sound vaguely familiar to me.

A lot of this turned out to be very good advice, and a lot of it is just common sense. I would say that they are all true, or at least not-untrue. Taken all together, though, it makes Moscow sound a lot scarier than it actually is, so I try and keep that in mind when I read the exact same things about Cairo, or anywhere else I travel, for that matter.

Even worse, before I came to Russia, somebody told me that I could be kidnapped and they would cut off my fingers and send them to my parents one-by-one until they agreed to pay millions of dollars for my release. Hasn't happened yet. The other day somebody told me that foreign women in Egypt can get kidnapped and shipped to brothels in other middle eastern countries never to be heard from again.

Honestly, these stories mostly just make the people telling them sound creepy. These both sound like things that could happen, or even have happened in the past.* But do you tell visitors to America that they might get all serial-killed?

I don't mean to minimize the risks of international travel, especially to a country whose culture is so very far removed from your own, and, yeah, I am a bit nervous. But I do what I can to minimize risks (in this case that means using a reputable travel agency, dressing conservatively, and not going alone**), and I read a lot about any place before I make the decision to visit it. So I ask everybody to please trust my judgement (about travelling -- I certainly won't ask you to trust my judgement about music).


I have changed

Yeah, when did that happen? Still look like a robot in photographs, though:

This was taken at the Polytechnic museum in Moscow last weekend. This is an awesome museum and I cannot believe I did not visit it earlier. It was a robotic tour guide for an exhibition, but I don't know if it was ever actually used.

* The ONLY similar account I found for either scenario in either country was the tourist kidnapping in September, which had a happy ending. Plus, I won't be anywhere near that part of the country.

** I feel really conflicted about these last two concessions. As in, if I can't travel alone and dress however I want without the risk of being harrassed, does the country deserve my tourism dollars at all? I could argue that Egypt is making progress in this area, or that being in the country as a polite, respectful American can only have a good influence on people's attitudes, or even that I have no right to ask this question in the first place. But I really just want to see the pyramids.

No title to tie all these together. I'm not *that* good.

Happy Thanksgiving! Of course I am sick today (this seems to be a Thanksgiving tradition for me).

I don't have much to write about. My teaching hours were reduced when I was promoted, with the consequence that this year has been depressingly devoid of horrifying student conversations, just a couple of mildly amusing ones:

This isn't technically a student conversation, but I'm counting it because I was in character for some reason, and because it was totally wasted on its audience:
Vladimir Petrovich*: You never do anything stupid?
Me: No, never.
V: I think it is okay to do mistakes sometimes.
M: Well, evidently.

Funny student:
Fyodor Pavlovich: Have you found a new boyfriend yet?
Me: It's been two weeks!
F: So, more than one.


I got tagged for a meme, but I don't know seven bloggers to re-tag (and, for the record, it really is bothering me that there aren't seven rules), so I'm just going to tell you seven weird things about myself:

1. I'm allergic to all fruit except citruses. I'm not allergic to cooked fruit at all, and salad dressing makes me less allergic to tomatoes. I haven't tried it on other fruits (and, honestly, have no intention of doing so). I'm less allergic to unripe fruit.

2. When I first came here, I was so self-conscious about my accent that I just wrote notes for everything I wanted at stores and restaurants. I was also self-conscious about my handwriting, so I often asked my boss to write notes for me.

3. I dressed up as a boy for the last Halloween party. I didn't condition my hair for a week, studied the way that guys move, borrowed clothes from a coworker (who was dressing up as me), padded my shoulders and waistline like crazy, gave myself a dreadful moustache using some mascara, and resolved to only drink beer all night. I was very proud of this costume. My coworker told me I looked like Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry." "Is that a compliment?" I asked. "I...guess."

4. I haven't dyed my hair since 2006. I wanted to dye it gray for a while, but exactly nobody thought this was a good idea, and the amount of bleaching it would require made me give up entirely.

5. I eventually learned how to use chopsticks at age 17 because I was at a restaurant where they didn't give me a fork and I was too embarrassed to ask for one. Years later, I was in China and every time I walked into a restaurant people would watch me just to see whether I could eat with chopsticks. It would have been kind of embarrassing if I hadn't been able to.

6. I really really miss swiss orange and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Not together.

7. I think I remember conversations better than most people, to the point that I find myself pretending not to remember stories that I've been told before because it just makes the conversation easier.


* No, these are not real names, just really pretentious aliases. Please do not stalk my students.