Electric Lib

Happy Halloween

Good ol' Halloween. According to my father, we're bordering on 300 trick or treaters this year, and about to run out of candy. So it's been successful, however, I'm a little sad that I missed the Simpsons Halloween episode. But, as with most tv shows, it will be on again. Happy Halloween!

Troublesome Toys

Ok, back to the toy catalog for a minute. I just glanced over to an open page with some dolls on it (for a dollhouse), and one family is labelled as "Family Affair- Caucasian" and the other is labelled as "Family Affair- Ethnic." The Caucasian as you can guess is white, the Ethnic however... what could they be? Because "Ethnic" could refer to anyone, it could be another white family, an asian family a native american family... Nope, it's a black family. That just makes no sense. By not even acknowledging what enthnicity the family is supposed to represent they might as well be saying "if they're not white, who cares what they are!" I can just imagine the writers of the catalog sitting there being like "hmm, would it be offensive to call them black? We have a fancy word to say white. Hm, let's just say 'Ethnic'!" It also just makes it sound like an after thought like "well we made a white family, and this other family can just represent everyone else." Anyways, it's a little ridiculous. I think I'm done with my toy reports.

Just Call me Scooter

Oh Scooter, what have you done now? Giving us Libby's a bad name. Maybe Libby didn't realize that leaking CIA information was bad? Maybe Dick Cheney should have been a little firmer with Libby. It has been my experience (thanks to my family, particularly Martha) that the number one way to tell a Libby not to do something is to simply say "No Lib!" It works every time. Poor, poor Scooter. Maybe it was the nickname, Scooter, that did him in? I mean, crazy things are bound to happen to people named Libby, it's kind of a silly sounding name-- but the Scooter may have taken it too far. With a name like Scooter Libby you're bound to do something stupid.

"You Missed a Spot"

As the holiday season approaches, toy catalogs begin flooding the mail; though, they are sadly no longer intended for my enjoyment, but instead for my nieces and nephews. Anyways, I've put myself in charge of flipping through them to find the most appealing toys to ensure that the little kids and babies have some good presents coming their way. Although I've been aware for some time that toys are generally catagorized into "for girls," "for boys," and "for everyone," I've also noticed that many parents and certain labels try to catagorize a little less to decrease gender stereotypes and all that (then again, probably not so much toy companies and labels as they've really perfected their marketing techniques to target whomever they please without directly offending them). However, as I flip through these catalogs I notice that they've separated their pages as girl pages and boy pages--which is fine. What bothers me is that in a few different catalogs I've noticed that the girls sections, along with being filled with dollhouses and fun stuff like that, they have pretend cleaning sets. Kicthen sets are fine, that's pretty normal, but targetting cleaning sets to girls? In one picture they show a girl with her little broom and quote nearby saying "you missed a spot!" That sounds like a fun toy... And my guess is it won't do all that much to teach them to clean up. Whenever they get out their little janitor kit they'll just end up scattering that everywhere and then leaving it for another toy.

In all honestly, I could see myself asking for a toy like that when I was little, but that's because my mind was already corrupted from watching movies like Cinderella where your three options as a girl are: clean, cook and wait on people; wait for a handsom prince to sweep you off to his castle; or, be a mean spoiled step-sister that sits around and does nothing all day. It's one of my favorite movies though. I'm not trying to be hypocritical, I'm merely commenting on one aspect of our society. So I hope all those girls have fun with their brooms and dust pans and maybe for their sixteenth birthday they'll get a real vacuum, then they can grow up and sit at home watching "Desparate Housewives" on DVD. That's the life.

I also just finished Wuthering Heights (which I loved), and and one theme throughout it is disease, which related very well to the article I read for biology (I would post a link to it, however I don't know where it's from) about antibiotics. Just as I was saying it'd be interesting to look at disease as it relates to culture, a report came on the news about the apperance of polio in an Amish community. Very unfortunate, but also interesting.

Old Noodles

For those of you who have ever been to my house during the day, you may have noticed that we usually have NPR on in the kitchen (I say day because it is usually replaced in the evening by the 6 o clock news on tv). Well, occasionally when I'm grabbing a snack after school in the kitchen something will catch my attention; usually an interview with someone--anyone, most people are pretty interesting to listen to (notice my use of a semicolon and a dash? We went over it in English today, although thanks to my mother, who is well versed in all things grammer, I already had a pretty solid understanding).

Today, they caught my attention with a story about Vivian Malone who was the first African American woman (alongside James Hood, first African American male) to attend the University of Alabama. The story was on today, because Vivian Malone died today.

Shortly after that story ended, there was a report on an interesting finding in China recently. In an archeological dig in a small village in China (or maybe they discovered the whole village), that had been covered up thousands of years ago (4,000 I believe), something really old, they found a bowl of noodles! The bowl had been turned upside down and along with the earthquake that destroyed the village came a flood and together they created an airtight seal on the bowl of noodles. Anyhow, this proves that they had pretty sophisticated cooking techniques even way back then, and it also lends support to the arguement that the Chinese created noodles, which was the fun little spin on the whole report.

This was also interesting to me, in part, because the CBL (commuity based learning) I'm doing in school involves meeting with a kid named Dan twice a week. How does that relate you wonder? Well Dan moved here two years ago from China (I would write out his whole name that sounds a little more Chinese than "Dan", but I'd rather not risk embarassing myself with spelling mistakes). We mainly discuss the stories he's reading for his English class, but tied into those stories are a lot of cultural topics. So we discuss the differences between here and China. And I learned something interesting today that I thought I'd share. According to Dan, there are 56 different "types of people" in China. When I asked him to elaborate further he explained that they speak different languages (he speaks two himself), wear different types of clothing and celebrate different holidays. In the ignorance that comes from living in one place your whole life, I had always assumed that if you were Chinese, you were Chinese. So this was a little earth shattering to me. I asked him if an average American would be able to tell the difference between the different groups of people and he said they would not. So, comparing it to the U.S., a place I know very well, I decided it must be similar to the different cultural groups we have here, probably most similar to the Native Americans. Because China was never colonized by anyone (as far as I know), it must be what North America, or both America's, would have been like had they not been colonized; meaning if the Native American populations hadn't been oppressed and killed and had been allowed to grow. So that's how I made sense of this new, exciting information about China.

What's Boring?

Jules and Allen, I love your sites, they aren't boring. Plus, isn't it bad to point out (what you think are) your weaknesses? Just tell everyone how fabulous it is and maybe they won't notice that the main points of most entries these days are college, SAT's, and homework. Plus, a large majority of your readers are probably thinking the same things, so really it applies very well. Keep up the good work!

Ring Ring

Say hello to the newest employee of Downs, Rachlin and Martin! Yep, that would be me. I am officially answering phones for the Montpelier office for two hours after school on some days. Today was my first day and it was very successful (I only messed up one call out of six, not too bad). That's all the news for now.

My Lovely Car

Haha, Alice, I sense a bit of nervousness about the whole writing on my car thing? Well it may help to also point out that I wasn't being sarcastic in my brief note of the "LIB" on my side mirrors, I actually thought it was really cute. But I guess the thanks for that should go to Evan, and the thanks for decorating the area surrounding my car to Beth and Alice. That's all!

Sniffle

So Kate and I were hit this weekend with a terrible cold that's been travelling around the school. However, it's really just a test for my absolutely incredible immune system, it needs some practice fighting illness. Anyways, it reminded me of a song I wrote when I was really little about having a cold. It's really a genius song, and sadly I can't share the tune with you seeing as my site consists of merely visual things as opposed to any audio, and also I probably won't sing it for you if you happen to pass by me. But go ahead and make up your own tune.

Sniffles and Snuffles

Sniffles and Snuffles in the air

Cough-es and sneezes everywhere

Hot little hands and cold little toes

Yucky feeling tummy, runny nose

Paper cup, medicine, yucky pills too

Which one sounds the best to you?

So that was my brilliant song. However, my song writing/singing days are now over (because as I've told you before, certain family members used to think I was a little tone deaf, oh wait, no, tone dumb, when I was little).

When I advised you to make up your own tune to that song, that reminded me also of all the stupid childrens books that are supposed to be songs and always lead to really awkward situations. I'm sure Kate knows what I'm talking about; you start reading the book to the kid and either the kid or the mom chimes in to tell you you're supposed to sing the lyrics, and then over the painful silence of the room you have to sing some really unappealing tune.

What else, ah yes, I went swimming this weekend with Kate and Tyler. It was the refreshing kind of cold that chills you to the bone, literally. It was very nice.

Note: Al told me earlier today to check out my car when I got a chance, and I checked it out after school and she wrote "LIB" on the back of the side mirrors, haha. Thanks Al!