This is My Baby

Here's a cute picture of my Lily, who is currently sitting next to me in her exersaucer checking out a kitty. She is so into the animals, she always wants to pet them and follow them around. Maybe she'll be a vet??? Maybe I don't need to plan her future career when she's 6 months old.

Political Rant Coming

The other day I was standing in the hallway chatting with colleagues, one of whom said (as though we all agreed) Glenn Beck said now you liberals know why we all hate the Clintons. I've been chewing this over in my brain since the comment was made because I can't figure out why we hate the Clintons. "Liberals" supposedly hate them...of course liberals tell me I'm a conservative which often makes me chuckle. Nothing cracks me up more than a non-political scholar telling me my politics as though I didn't understand what liberal and conservative was...but that's an entirely different tangent. Anyway - here's my list of possible reasons why "we liberals" hate the Clintons:

1. 8 years of economic growth where the poor didn't get screwed in every tax cut
2. health care that would have made all these children health care policies unnecessary
3. making the military stop bouncing homosexuals
4. the biggest scandal was the president got a blow job
5. no wiretapping
6. no enron - BTW it was Clinton who put into place the rules which prevented that from happening
7. worldwide acclaim for economic security as a way of handling international affairs rather than national security
8. surpluses that helped pay down the debt
9. no ridiculous wars
10. policy wonkiness rather than charisma being the currency of politics

Oh, no, wait, I just can't seem to hate them enough. Let me hate them more for all this badness they brought to the world and vote for someone who keeps saying he has vision but never actually says what that vision is...but hey, he's charismatic, right?

Why am I an Academic Again?

It's like being in college. For the rest of your life. You wait until the last minute to do work. Then you have deadlines and you are up all hours of the night to finish it. It's like finals week. Jeesh!

Now I have to go teach classes and I am exhausted. And I don't drink diet coke anymore, so no caffeine.

Elizabeth's Education

I live in Utah where about 60% of the people are Mormon. Mormons are getting quite a show this year what with Mitt Romney running for president. For those of us non-Mormons here in Utah we know what's coming. I am a firm believer in public education. If I were a benign dictator, there'd be no private schools and all the wealthy people would have to invest in their local public schools and make them better. As a result, more children would get a good education. As you can imagine, I am opposed to vouchers and home schooling. And, for the longest time, I was opposed to religious schools, specifically as a Catholic, parochial schools. Until I moved here.

Since I have lived in Utah a number of my non-Mormon students and friends have explained to me what it is like to live here and be a non-Mormon in the public schools.

• Catholics were not allowed to wear crucifixes in public schools while Mormons were allowed to wear their CTR rings - both a symbol of faith.
• In an identity politics course, 4 students wrote about the Catholic faith as an oppressed identity - um, nowhere in the world does this happen except here.
• One Jewish student was told that in the year 2000 the world would end and if he didn't switch to Mormonism he would go to hell - this from his physics teacher.
• Many many non-Mormon children were told they were not allowed to play with their neighbor children because they were not Mormon. I can cite at least four different sets of kids living in different parts of the state.

Now I offset this by the fact that a couple of my very dear friends here in Utah - the Eris's - are Mormon. They are practicing Mormon and are wonderful people. They have never been odd to us. They attended my daughter's Christening. So I figure you hear these stories and it must just be the crazy people because my good friends never say those things or espouse those things.

Last night I was told by my little Catholic babysitter - who is 14, very intelligent and a very good person - that her friend (a boy who would like to be her boyfriend but she is not allowed to date until she is 16) was in seminary (to which he was sent from school and had no problem missing school classes to attend) last week and was told that if he dated anyone other than a Mormon that girl would take him to hell with her. The entire seminary class was told this - last week. And, his grandmother, who loves my babysitter and has her over for dinner and thinks she's wonderful, said to him, what will the people in my ward think if they found out you were dating a Catholic.

Now I realize that my friends are the anomaly and that most of the people feel this way. The reason, probably, they are my friends is that they are okay with non-Mormons. I do not, when I teach Catholic religious education, ever tell my students who to date. I do not tell them that Mormons are going to hell, or any other religion for that matter. I do teach them that we believe the Catholic church is the best religion...of course we do, why would we be in it if we didn't? But we do not teach that other people of faith are going to hell because we do not believe that. I also know that what I teach my students in Catholic religious education is sanctioned by the Catholic church. I can only assume that what is taught in Mormon seminary classes is sanctioned by that church, thus the LDS religion is okay with telling young people that people who are not like them are going to hell.

How do I send Elizabeth to a school where she will be vilified for no other reason than the majority faith thinks it's okay to teach children hate like this? How do I send Elizabeth to a school where she will be told she is going to hell because she is not a Mormon? How do I send Elizabeth to a school where her opportunities may be limited because she does not see the teacher in the ward on Sundays? I'm not sure I can...I am almost pretty sure I will not be.

Working Out

So we're having another blizzard. So no one showed up this morning to body combat except three other women besides me. So the two crazy women at the front can see everything I do. So I had to actually shuffle and jump and punch and I could never cheat at it. So I am very sore.

But! I had a great time with my girlfriend Jaynie chatting at the coffee shop drinking Chai Latte afterward so it was totally worth it!

Well - They Didn't Ask Anything About Gender

83% John Edwards
81% Mike Gravel
80% Barack Obama
79% Chris Dodd
78% Hillary Clinton
75% Dennis Kucinich
75% Bill Richardson
74% Joe Biden
43% Rudy Giuliani
36% John McCain
32% Tom Tancredo
31% Mike Huckabee
27% Mitt Romney
23% Ron Paul
20% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Body Combat

This morning I did body combat, as I do most Monday mornings. It generally kicked my butt, which is the point. I end up being so sweaty that my eyes hurt from it running into them. Today I was feeling okay. I wasn't the fattest person in the room and I certainly wasn't the most uncoordinated person, which was good. I was doing well, kicking and punching with the best of them. And then we went down to do push ups. I've never been too good at push ups so until my abs come back more I do my push ups on my knees. I happened to look up at the mirror while we were doing this and all the good feelings I had went away. Let's just say, thank god no one was behind me!!!

Plowing

I have often discussed the differences between Utah and New York. But this is the one that makes me so annoyed my head explodes. In New York we have snow. We have wet, blinding Nor'Easter snow. You can stand beneath a streetlight and know there is a light there because the snow looks a little whiter, but there is no pole that you can make out. And you could drive everywhere - why? because we were taxed and we had plows. I have many students who come through and who think any type of government means communism. I have friends who think this. And I always wonder what they think as they go slipping and sliding into other cars because our free western society (that doesn't let us drink beer or wine or liquor or go to the movies on Sunday...but that's a different rant) doesn't tax and therefore doesn't have money to plow.

This morning I got up to go to the gym to work out with my girlfriends. 20 minutes later I had gone 3 streets, so, I'm pissed.

New Year's Resolutions

Due to a challenge from the Numismatist, I am posting my resolutions here. And yes, I do write them on New Year's Day, so these are from last week.

1. Eat healthier - basically track everything I eat.
2. Exercise every day - my plan is to be at the gym MWF, yoga TR, running when I can.
3. Take the puppies out for a walk every day - since I got pregnant last year my puppies have been seriously underloved, so it's time I get back to it.
4. Practice piano every day - I want to be able to be good again, again, it's been since I've gotten pregnant that I've let that slide.
5. Run a race that allows me to earn a t-shirt - this is the 5K that the Numismatist is talking about...but mostly I want a t-shirt that makes me look like I'm cool...um, this requires 1 and 2 since now it would take me about 2 hours to run a 5K.

None of my resolutions have anything to do with other people, isn't that horrible, but this year is all about me...

Parking at my Campus

In most of the world professionals are given a parking spot. Here in the academy, we have to pay some amount of money to get a parking pass and then we are launched into a Darwinian competition with everyone of the 17000 people coming to campus a day to find a spot. I arrived for my first day of the semester 1 hour and 15 minutes early, thinking I'd have time to unwind, settle in and then teach. I drove around for 45 minutes, thus arriving almost late and had to hike through the cold weather to get to my office.

Insert all sorts of big swear words here.

The Juice

On New Year's I decided to drop the juice. I am no longer drinking diet coke. For those of you who know me, you understand this is my one vice (other than eating too much dessert) so this is a big deal. On January 2nd I called a friend who I know doesn't drink soda and I said, what do you drink? She said water, lots of water. I've stuck to it, basically because I won't let Elizabeth have soda and it doesn't seem fair to me that she can't and I can. If I am going to make healthy food choices for my daughter (and hopefully spare her the years of weight battle I have been engaged in) then I need to also make them for myself. I had crazy headaches for the first 3 days, one was so bad I had to nap through it to survive. I've been drinking ounces and ounces of water.

Interestingly, today when I hopped on the scale I had dropped 4 lbs since Tuesday. If it is the case that diet coke makes it more difficult to lose weight, I will be really pissed. The only reason I drink it is because when I was a young dieter I needed something I could order out with friends that had no calories. But it feels good, so no more diet coke!

Classes

Holy crap!

Classes start Monday here at WSU. What is wrong with these people? I mean, seriously, 2 weeks for Christmas holiday? We need more time. More time. I have been working like crazy to get my courses in order. CRAZY!

How am I going to ski more if I am expected to be at the office so much?!?

My Husband

So this morning I awoke from a very deep sleep because my husband had fallen out of the bed.

Let me let you laugh at that.

Apparently the alarm went off and he went to get up to turn it off. His first motion, unfortunately for all of us, was not to sit up but to roll over which sent him careening off the bed into the bedside table and onto the floor. Any of you who know me well know that I had to suppress laughter. Once the swearing was done I was able to laugh, and he laughed with me.

I am still tearing up when I laugh.

Holy Skiing

Well, clearly this is why I moved to Utah and I didn't know it until now because I didn't go skiing until now. I am never moving anywhere else and I am saving a ton of money so next year we can get a season's pass. Here's what I forgot I missed about skiing:

1. the smells, nothing smells so good as snow outside
2. the sounds, the swish of the snow when you stop
3. the breathing, fresh air on a mountain is fabulous

Oh and, Utah is SO much better than New York.

1. The snow is better.
2. The air is cleaner.
3. The view is amazinger.
4. The runs are longer.

Thank God for Utah!