I absolutely adore Steven Moffat’s Sherlock and Benedict Cumberpatch , but I don’t think ANYONE will ever beat Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. What an actor.
Month / November 2012
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
When I was 14 years old and at confirmation camp, I remember someone asking me if I was a feminist.
“Yes, I’m a feminist” I said, rather hesitantly. And he (who was a perfectly nice guy) laughed mockingly and said: “Well, that’s stupid.”
The general image of a feminist is someone who is loud, unfeminine, unshaven and manhating, basically wanting to get rid of all men and turn society into a colorless, unsexed blob.
And isn’t that just sad? There is so much more to be said about this, and so many who have said it better, but I’ll just say this:
Feminism for me is about everyone’s right be to whoever they want. And it’s about providing opportunity for everyone to be able to do exactly that.
It’s about a girl not being blamed and shamed because she was raped.
It’s about a man being able to cry without being called a fag.
It’s about homosexuals being able to marry.
It’s about not shaving your legs because you don’t want to.
It’s about being able to go outside the door without makeup and not have to excuse yourself.
It’s about equal pay for equal work.
It’s about being able to be friends with a girl or a guy and having that be ok.
It’s about daughters growing up to be all sorts of awesome and fierce and sons growing up to be gentle and kind.
About someone being able not just to say they’re a feminist, but for the norm to be a feminist, because how can you not be?
And so many other things.
But in the end, it’s about truly believing that all people, not matter what look like, how they act and who they love having the same rights.
Curious? Lady Dahmer for Swedes, Finally Feminism 101 for English speakers.
“Donna Noble. Oh, you are brilliant, you are!”
“Donna, I don’t-“
“The stick turned blue,” she says.
“Sorry?”
“The… stick… turned… blue…” she says, enunciating each word very carefully.
The Doctor blinks. “The crow flies at midnight,” he says after a moment.
“What?!”
“Oh sorry, I thought we were speaking in some sort of code.”
– Million Dollar Baby by pocketmyriad
I laugh everytime I read that. This is why I love fanfiction.
“Self-deprecation is not the pathway to success.”
I read this interesting article by Anna Latimer at XoJane today.
What stuck with me was this paragraph:
You will not be proud of every single essay you submit in college. Whether you’re overworked and panicked, you procrastinated way too much, or you just don’t care about the topic, some of your essays are just not going to be that inspiring.
Don’t admit it to your professor. Don’t wince and say, “Sorry about this,” as you turn it in. No matter how well your professor knows you, he or she will not give you extra credit for self-awareness.
Part of me totally agrees, sometimes you need to fake it until you make it. The other part of me rebels and means that self-awareness and self-deprecation are two different things. To be aware of your efforts and how you present yourself is in my opinion never bad. Perhaps it’s my Swedishness bleeding though, but without self-awareness you become arrogant very fast.
Self-deprecation, however. It’s one of the things I struggle with most, actually. That pity really isn’t something that you want from other people, no matter what it may feel like. It’s so easy to deflect a compliment or to excuse something that you’ve done. Perhaps it is a female thing, as Latimer suggests, but I think it’s more than that. Not all women are self-deprecating and not all men put themselves in the spotlight.
Self-pity and deprecation are not the same as being modest or to ask for help. I feel many mix these concepts and that’s part of the problem. Going for modest but overshooting.
“Love Thyself”
Hi!
My name’s Cicci.
I’m fat.
Really, I am.
Don’t pity me for it. There’s nothing innately bad about being fat. It’s as much a fact about me as my hair color or my eyes (even though my eye color is somewhere between green, grey and blue and thus rather hard to define.)
And you know what? Being fat doesn’t make me a worse person in any way. It doesn’t even make me less healthy. It’s true, I promise.
And while I still want to lose weight (working on not thinking that), no one has the right to respect me less even if I didn’t. No one has the right to comment, demean or belittle my body. I have the right to dress however I like, have sex (and enjoy it), exercise or not exercise, eat whatever I want and not be judged for it.
I’m fat, healthy and beautiful. And a host of other things not related to how I look that are even better.
Edit: Interested? Start by reading Kate Harding or The Rotund. Or Julia Skott, if you’re Swedish.
“I’m not looking for the perfect man. I’m looking for the man whose imperfections I can put up with.”
This is some of my favorite things/men/Time Lords.
From I Waste So Much Time
“What if the ability to menstruate was the prerequisite for most high-paying jobs?”
“What if all women were bigger and stronger than you? And thought they were smarter? What if women were the ones who started wars? What if too many of your friends had been raped by women wielding giant dildos and no K-Y Jelly? What if the state trooper who pulled you over on the New Jersey Turnpike was a woman and carried a gun? What if the ability to menstruate was the prerequisite for most high-paying jobs? What if your attractiveness to women depended on the size of your penis? What if every time women saw you they’d hoot and make jerking motions with their hands? What if women were always making jokes about how ugly penises are and how bad sperm tastes? What if you had to explain what’s wrong with your car to big sweaty women with greasy hands who stared at your crotch in a garage where you are surrounded by posters of naked men with hard-ons? What if men’s magazines featured cover photos of 14-year-old boys with socks tucked into the front of their jeans and articles like: “How to tell if your wife is unfaithful” or “What your doctor won’t tell you about your prostate” or “The truth about impotence”? What if the doctor who examined your prostate was a woman and called you “Honey”? What if you had to inhale your boss’ stale cigar breath as she insisted that sleeping with her was part of the job? What if you couldn’t get away because the company dress code required you wear shoes designed to keep you from running? And what if after all that women still wanted you to love them?”
— ”For the Men Who Still Don’t Get It”, Carol Diehl.
Taken from the Girls’s Guide to Taking over the World Facebook page.
“Encourage, lift and strengthen one another. For the positive energy spread to one will be felt by us all. For we are connected, one and all.”
I go to a great school.
The Stockholm School of Economics.
It’s really good. And I mean that in every sense of the word.
It’s not quite the Swedish equivalent of Harvard or Yale, but the closest we get over here. It means that most of the day, I’m surrounded by highly intelligent, utterly brilliant and ambitious people. I go to class, and listen to top researchers. I do projects that are presented to attractive future employers and that challenge me and my fellow students. I haven’t bought hairspray in four years because we always get some in a goodie bag or other.
And sometimes it’s utterly miserable. Because everyone else feels smarter than you. Because you never, ever get to take a break. Because no matter what, you feel like you never catch up. And believe me, sometimes it feels unbearable.
There are tales (urban legends, I’m sure) about the law school students in Sweden. That because they need top grades for certain jobs, they’re ultra-competetive. They are said to rip out pages from important books or hide them so others students can’t find them.
I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but you’d expect that sort of culture at SSE as well.
That’s the one thing that makes it all worthwhile, sometimes. That it isn’t like at the law schools.
Because I’ve met some of the most caring, most helpful people at my school.
Need to retake an exam? Someone will have their old notes for you.
Missed a few lectures? There is probably a summary of the course someone can send you.
Stuck on an assignment? Just ask someone in the computer room.
A month or so ago, I was working with some others on a group project, and we were well and truly stuck. We were in the computer rooms, discussing how to proceed when the girl sitting next to me turns around and says:
“Oh, is that the management case? I did that last year, do you wanna look at our presentation?”
She had no idea who we were, but she recognized the situation we were in and wanted to help. And next year, I’m sure we’ll do the same.
Pay it forward, as they say.
And that makes everything bearable.
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”
And I’m going to fly.
I, like many others, have attempted to blog in the past. Usually, it’s been just for my close friends, but I want to attempt something a little more ambitious than that. I’m about halfway through my last year of college, and partly, I want to document that. I also want to write about the things that interest me, and believe me, there are many.
It’s just that I’ve never properly tried to put them in words before. In the last few years, I’ve become so much more aware of what’s important to me, and even if I’m the only one who’ll ever read this, I’ll have proved to myself that I really care about some things; the proof is right here.
And I expect I’ll write a lot about school as well. Since I spend most of my time there and all.
The Light Bulb 