i know i only post when i’m amazingly depressing. deal with it.

i haven’t been able to truly breathe since friday. i have really bad asthma. i was diagnose when i was six months old. my meds make me shaky and fidgety and unable to concentrate and also gave me a panic attack during an exam yesterday.

i sound like an axe murderer because i can’t get enough breath into my lungs to breathe out right when i’m talking. and then people go, ‘oh yeah, i have asthma too.’ bullshit, no you don’t. not like this. if your attacks never last more than a day, don’t even talk to me. mine never last less than a day so shut up about how much your asthma sucks when it’s getting better and mine is getting worse.

On awesomeness

So today should be awesome. It really should. It’s the first day of the school week. I have friends. It’s warm. There are protests on Wall street. There is green in my hair. Also I can knit. So yay.

But today is not awesome. I realized a couple minutes ago that my favorite stripey dress has such a high waist that, when combined with my really long legs, it looks like I’m wearing a really short skirt. I realized a couple days ago that I only ever attract guys of the moderately to really creepy variety. I realized that I’m happier with my ex as a friend than as a boyfriend, but that I miss having someone to be so close to and to cuddle with. Troy is a lonely city sometimes.

Watch this

creeping creepers who creep

You know how people always warn you not to meet people over the interwebs? Of course you do, this is the blogosphere.

So I met this guy who’s going to go to the same school as me and he seemed reasonably real and I friended him on facebook. And don’t worry, he’s real. But then he started being creeeeepy. He started hitting on me all the time while we chatted and sending me smilies and hearts and demanding I reciprocate them.

Then one day we were videochatting and he starts talking about the gender ratio at our school, which is about 75% boys, 25% girls. And then he says how he wants to get a girlfriend early so he’s not alone for four years. I went and looked at his wall….it’s filled with conversations with other girls at our school. Can you say desperate? and creepy?

I was just a little bit creeped out. Yeah, I’ll be friends with the guy. No, I won’t date you until you STOP BEING A CREEPER. But I was majorly uncomfortable with just saying, “Um well actually I’m dating someone right now.” So instead (I’d been married to one of my friends on facebook) I made my relationship public. So far, so good. No more conversations with creepy guys. And hopefully it’ll keep up.

So I’m going to this school….

Shocker, right? No, really. I’m going to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 2:1 male:female ratio. Theses are required for graduation. The whole tech school nine yards.

There’s a problem with going to such a tech-y school. Every time I tell people where I’m going, they say, “Oh, you’re a pretty girl. You’ll have fun there since you’re pretty. There aren’t pretty girls there.” Every time someone says this, it bugs me.

Saying there aren’t pretty girls at RPI is wrong. There are plenty of pretty girls there.  Sure, there are also girls who won’t ever be on the cover of Vogue, but that’s normal. We’re not really a biased sample. This statement also implies that pretty girls won’t go to a science-y school, for whatever reason. That they’re not smart, or not interested, or whatever.

But what really annoys me is the statement that I will have fun because I am a pretty girl. I don’t need to be pretty to have fun. I don’t need guys, popularity, etc. I’m going to college to learn. To make some really good friends. The kind who don’t care what I look like. My type of fun does not rely on my prettiness.

To people who are considering engineering schools: go for it. It’s fun. Don’t worry about the gender ratio, or pretty girls. Worry about your education first.

P.S. I should probably address the ‘pretty’ thing. I have a nice face. Average breasts. Big hips. If that’s your thing, then yeah, I’m pretty. I, honestly, don’t really care if people think I’m pretty.

Clothes

are sadly not optional. It’s really fucking hot in NY right now. And I have to wear clothes to go outside. Damn.

The NY Times published a piece recently on how women like dresses. Everyone they interviewed said something about how they were convenient and easy to wear. Someone said they’re more sensual than pants. I would like to note that I personally wear dresses because I can get a nice breeze on (and between) my legs. Dresses and skirts are, simply put, cooler. It’s nice to not turn into a sweaty ball sometimes. I wondered why no one mentioned that? Was the Times just too embarrassed to publish that?

Skirts and dresses aren’t really easier to wear than pants. Yeah, they can be prettier. But there is no chance of having a practical pocket. Should a breeze happen, your skirt can fly up without warning you (to the point where I’ve occasionally said, I give up, let ‘em look). If you have to sit on the ground, you have to work at not flashing people. And if you try to run in one, especially with heels, you’ll understand why people say that girls run weird. It is impossible to run efficiently if you care about etiquette.

Wearing skirts does get easier with practice, at least. So that’s a plus.

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Hmmm….I think probably Antarctica. Since that’s pretty hard to do, my second choice is Italy.

I’m the crazy girl you all know you love to hate.

The one who doesn’t care what you think, and will let you know. I’ve always been a feminist, which has always annoyed many of the people around me. But lately, I’ve become more and more vocal about it.

I’m going to an engineering school. We consider a 2:1 male:female ratio to be wonderful….although my major has a significantly worse balance. There are still people out there, at my school even, who think women shouldn’t be engineers or scientists or so forth. During one speech, the boy sitting next to me made some derogatory comment about women. I punched him in the arm, even though I’d just met him. I don’t need friends like that. He, of course, immediately apologized and passed it off as a joke.

Anyway, there’s this piece, which asks, “What is the least ladylike thing you’ve done?” Which got me thinking. I noticed at lunch at orientation that the five boys I was eating with were eating slowly and sedately. They were sitting upright, like there would be a posture examination. I, however, was bent over my plate, shoveling food as fast as I could. I ate chicken fingers with (*le gasp*) my fingers, and talked with food in my mouth. So sue me. This is college, and I’m hungry, damn it.

So, some unladylike things I’ve done:

1. I swear

2. I stand up for myself and other people

3. I’m more muscular than most of my guy friends. I can take care of myself.

4. I’ll tell you whatever I want to. If you need to be told off, I’ll tell you off. I’m not a girl who will give a wishy washy answer when confronted with a question. I know what I think, and I’ll let you know too.

That said, I can be perfectly charming and ladylike. Keep my knees together, eat with the right fork, sew, cook, etc. I just choose not to.

So, thoughts? On life? Feminism? Etc.?