int'l women's day

happy international women's day, mes soeurs.

"All of us – men and women, soldiers and peacekeepers, citizens and leaders – have a responsibility to help end violence against women. States must honour their commitments to prevent violence, bring perpetrators to justice and provide redress to victims. And each of us must speak out in our families, workplaces and communities, so that acts of violence against women cease."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

I salute you all in your loveliness, courage and strength.
I pray for you.
keep fighting.
change will come.
and if it doesn't,
we're better because of the fight.

premiere ...

... of the very first ever
aka va weekly internet round-up.

enjoy!

stay tuned for the ongoing series
of the weekly internet round-up

(of loveliness, inspiration, & awesomosity)

* all from weheartit.com

chameleonized

I wish I were a very old woman. someone who has seen her share of joy and sorrow, adventure and commonplace wonder. someone who looks ahead to more sorrow, but with the experience and hopefully the wisdom and peace to temper it.

today I could be 90 years old and I would be satisfied.

sure, you say. everyone feels not their own age. but do you ever feel like you're in the wrong place, too?

I used to feel like I belonged in another time and place, but it seems I'm getting used to here, or at least feigning comfort. I act like I belong, but that's all it is, an act. chameleonized. I wonder, if I pretend enough, will I begin to blend? and end up neither here nor there, a phantom in your midst.

I don't even think I'm at home in my own self. like if I look far enough inside I'll find an understanding and a wisdom that comes from a place I'm completely unaware of, that came from someone both before and after me.

you know how writers describe characters who look young but are actually really old? or reincarnated or reformed or something? they look young but their mind and their eyes tell otherwise. on the inside of me, it feels that way.

there's more I have to say
so much more
but I disappeared

peter lombardy guthrie the third

I'm sick.

I'm a very monotone sickling. no matter how sick (or not) I get, I pretty much veg out the same way. if I feel at all sick, I complain. but if I get any sicker, the complaining doesn't get any worse.

claire and jesse came up to provo for the weekend so jesse could participate in a graduate student aesthetics in writing conference. I chilled with them for most of the afternoon and got to hear jesse read some of his own poetry for the first time. I've been bugging both of them to send me some of his stuff for months now. it was wonderful to hear his poetry. I am impressed. and I love to hear him read it too, he has a good poetry voice. not pretentious at all.

I went to the byu ballet with oceane tonight. it was west side story and romeo & juliet. west side story was fun, but frankly, I wasn't much impressed. the dancers who played romeo and juliet, on the other hand, were incredible. it was just ... beautiful. I could feel the emotion. I've seen better technical work, but not much better soul.

I love the name beatrice in italian. it is such the best.
just like peter lombardy guthrie the third.

I am not much accustomed to fear. I am also not much accustomed to taking things as they come. the fact that I'm doing both is disconcerting, to say the least. I'm not sure what to do about it other than think about it constantly. and wish God would stop trusting me so much and just be explicit.

I wish I had time to write poetry every day.

I wish I had a hundred lifetimes to be everything I've ever wanted to be.
or maybe just one lifetime as a tree. I imagine it would be just as satisfying.

instinctive poetry

a tribute to a most awesome kid
named david
and the note I wrote
that turned out to be a poem
quite unconsciously

david, you're great!

david
i haven't heard from you in awhile :(
i hope you're doing alright
i hope you're not killing yourself with the webseries
i hope you will call me whenever you need to
rant or unwind or chill or sing or otherwise help yourself
by helping me because whenever you hang out with me
i feel wonderful because you are wonderful
and i want to keep being your friend
much love ♥
christina

you've already read it, I know, but I still mean it.

photoshop is a beast

I like photoshop, I really do.
it just happens to be punching me in the teeth at the moment.

I took a photoshop 2 class for mandatory training for work and I've been working on the competency project. it's really not that difficult, but the program only operates on the citrix server on the campus computers, which is so annoying to work on. and I don't have photoshop on my computer. I really ought to get it I think. so I've been working on this project on campus. well, I worked on it for almost 2 hours yesterday and when I was working on a text gradient, the program froze and suddenly closed itself and left me project-less. it was incredibly depressing.

hence my angry twitters of yesterday.

so I got a one-day extension and missed dinner to stay on campus tonight and do it again. well, I spent another 2 hours doing it, saved it multiple times, and the stupid server ate it. did I save it to the wrong place? was 6 times not enough? I don't know. but I had to do it a third time.

hence my angry twitters of today.

at least it only took me 45 minutes by the end. so I got a lot of photoshop practice. and wasted many hours of my life on something that should not have taken that long. well, I guess I'd better post it now so you can all mock me for spending so much time on this dumb project. owp wait no I can't even do that because it's saved in the wrong format. lucky you.

CURSE YOU PHOTOSHOP!!!

d&c blog #6

I'm kind of a feminist I suppose. I actually just checked out a ton of books from the library on feminism because I feel like I really ought to know more about it. I've just discovered the movement of ecofeminism and I think I will like it very much. that said, growing up in the D.C. area, I've always noticed the prevalence of phallic symbolism in monuments and stuff, like the Masonic temple and the Washington monument.



I've been noticing a similar prevalence in church memorials. because my family vacations in vermont, I've been to Joseph Smith's birthplace a couple of times, which includes an impressive granite obelisk. I just learned at the church history symposium that similar obelisks were built in memorial for Hyrum Smith and John Taylor.


I guess I'd always imagined it to be a rather undesirable hold-over of the male-dominated western society we've inherited. which is really a male-dominated world history, since phallic symbolism existed thousands of years before Christ's birth. what I didn't realize was that this was not necessarily an all-bad symbol. as we were reading in class about the institution of the temple ordinances in nauvoo and the prophet Joseph Smith's preparation of the people in the days before its institution, we were looking at some of the symbols in the facsimiles of the book of abraham. let's take a look:

number 7 is upside down, but using your wonderful brain capacities, imagine it turned around. the figure sitting on the throne has a clear phallic symbol on the back of his head. professor holzapfel said that the phallic symbol here represents eternal seed. the figure on the throne is God and, being an exalted and celestial diety, God has the right to eternal procreation, which is a blessing companion with exaltation. suddenly, it all makes sense. though I wouldn't mind a feminine symbol of eternal fertility, our religion is patriarchal, organized through God's priesthood authority, and referring here to abraham's promised seed, so I guess I can handle it.