Death and Destruction

I almost ran over a blind person today. I was driving down W. Anderson going about 40 mph and I saw a presumably blind person being led by her cute dog. I was thinking while slowing a bit, wouldn't it be terrible if that dog led her into traffic... and it started to right before I went past. I slammed on my brakes and honked my horn. The sound of the horn made the woman jump out of the way. Scared the shit out of me. I felt most sorry for the dog for almost being the cause of it's companion's death. Something wrong with me I guess.

And now some obligatory foster kitten pictures, to lighten the mood...

Poor Kraken

I have been riding my bike pretty much non stop. I am exhausted so there's warning that this post may be scatterbrained.

Our poor little sea monster has kitty herpes. So this means we have to keep little kittens away from her. Don't worry, humans are immune. But poor little Kraken can't have any more friends to beat up on. We'll just have to save big kitties from now on. (Shh, Henri hasn't quite come to terms with it yet. It's a soft spot).

I think a profession involving four legged beings is what fits me. Now I just have to convince the A&M interviewing committee of that on Tuesday. Please send positive brain energy my way.

The other day was the first in eight years where they didn't euthanize ANY CATS at Town Lake Animal Center. Being a part of the solution forgives all transgressions. And I love that my inbox is cluttered with people wanting to make the world a better place for animals. Thank you EmanciPet, AustinPetsAlive!, and all the other Austin organizations that are striving to end the insanity.

Flux of reality...

For me, coming into adulthood has two stages. The first part was regret - realization that things are not like they used to be, and ignorant longing to make them that way again. The lack of responsibility and ability to do bad things without the consequences - I wanted that back. I was somewhat sad. But I think I am mostly over that part. Now I am finding myself in the second stage: feeling comfortable in my own skin. I am not so much afraid anymore for backlashes of being truly Kristen, because I think the world needs more people like me, regardless of whether or not they want it. I had realized that life was always going to be hard in stage 1, but now I'm okay with it. Life would be pretty bland if it were never challenging. Like the holiday break - I pray all semester for it, then when it gets here, I find myself dreaming in a few days about the classes I am taking next semester. I see that love doesn't make marriage come easily, and I will have to work at it. But I am happy because I think I have the best person in the world to work at it with. Strangely, I look forward to all the hard, depressing, mundane things we will have to go through together. Because it will only make the short breaks of awesome better. And I am realizing that I always, always, always have to pursue the true, changing Kristen. Because you can't be awesome by just doing, it's the being that matters more.

I took Travis back to the shelter yesterday. I'm gonna miss the lil bugger...

It's finals time...

which means that it's time for Kristen to torture herself for weeks, causing her to realize all of the bad habits and methods of procrastination she has ingrained into her daily life are destroying her ability to efficiently assimilate knowledge.

Kristen notices how she is talking in 3rd person and thinks about how often she updates her facebook status, and how hard it is to avoid starting to Twitter. What happened to our private lives? Why am I not bothered by this loss of privacy? I demonize Prez Bush for taking away my privacy, then turn around and display every move I make on the internet. And I love to do it.

Another mistake I made this week was saying I could work one day at EmanciPet, the day before my most important final. I don't think it's all that bad though, because if I just had myself to myself for a week straight studying the likelihood of insanity would be of immense proportions. It was an interesting day to say the least. This woman threatened to euthanize her dog at the end of the day because we didn't spay her, because her gums were practically white, she had a wheezing cough, and was creepily lethargic for an 8 month old puppy. So one of our vet techs convinced Psycho Cold-hearted Satan Woman to relinquish the dog to us. My co-workers never cease to impress me. We of course have our differences, but everyone I work with has an automatic disposition to saving the life of an animal. Without any thought or discourse. And they follow through. It's a beautiful thing, and sometimes makes me teary-eyed. Which is a pretty big deal when you're on Prozac.

Turkey Day

Animal Control: the animals are in control of us all.

be yourself

so easy to mutter the words
for me it's like
answering a question in class or
giving a public speech
absolutely terrifying.
although chemicals make it easier.
or do they?
have I just changed coincidentally on the chemicals?
I seem to have become more comfortable
in my own translucent skin
in past year.
I enjoy knowing myself better
I enjoy putting myself out there and caring less about the reaction
of the masses
being motivated by entertaining the small group of people
who can see the same strange shades of colors that I do.
I enjoy skydiving. at least for the first 30 seconds
after that it gets kinda boring
but since physical danger is so hard to come by
I've started replacing that adrenaline rush with a social one
say what comes to mind
one of two things will happen
nothing or
I'll make the world a little bit more interesting.
it's win/win.

Gender Inequality

I am taking a class called "Global Gender Inequality," and we are currently reading a book about immigrant domestic and sex workers in the global eye. Before this class, I still thought that the inequality in the United States was appalling, but it is much much worse in other places. And there are good steps we have made in the US. For instance, I consider my career as important as my future husband. But the price of female equality (at least in terms of occupation) is rarely discussed. For if both the man and the woman are working full-time, who is going to take care of the kids? Who is going to cook and clean?

One solution to this is to do as much as you can yourself. Once the kids are in school, you can find them a few hours of after school care, and then pick them up on your way home. But then when you get home, you might not be able to spend much time with your child as you and your spouse are maintaining the home, cooking dinner, and taking care of whatever else your busy workday makes you put off. The result is equality and independence for the wife and husband, but what's the cost? To the child and to your own sanity? You spend less quality time with your child and leisure time is a rarity. Besides this, what are you going to do until the child is old enough to go to school? If you continue working, you're missing out on being there for a critical time of the child's life, while that time is instead spent at daycare or with a nanny. The benefit of this is that you get to have your own career, pursue your own personal dreams.

For those parents that turn the child over to a nanny, most of the time this nanny is a woman. And more often than not, this nanny is an immigrant worker who left her home country in search of better opportunities. She might have children at home that she never sees, that she left with her mother or sister or nanny. This situation reveals equal opportunity for the American woman, while the basic gender inequality exists, it is just being imported from another country.

I consider myself to be a feminist. I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be an veterinarian, and astronaut some day, and still have children. So what can I do to make things equal for everyone? It seems that regardless of how I do it, someone must suffer for my opportunities. There is no such thing as a free lunch.