martha

boy books vs. girl books

empty1288 — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:10:32 GMT

This year all the junior English classes have to read and annotate The Secret Life of Bees. I was disappointed when I found this out for two reasons. 1. I've already read the book. I had already read every book we read this year except The Grapes of Wrath, and I would prefer to read books I haven't already read. 2. I didn't like the book that much when I read it. Both of those are personal reasons, that obviously aren't universal for students.

However, I think that The Secret Life of Bees was a bad choice for the annotation book. First of all, it's a very contemporary book. I'm not saying that contemporary=bad. But it is harder to analyze a book that only came out four years ago than it is to analyze a book that was written even ten or fifteen years ago. I love reading and analyzing the classics in English classes. I do realize that while I am not alone in this, most high school students don't like reading books from even the early twentieth century. So I can understand why the department chose a contemporary book. It makes sense if the goal is not to analyze, but to find a book that many people will actually enjoy. I don't think there are Sparknotes or Cliffs Notes for The Secret Life of Bees, so students who normally rely on those sources will be forced to actually read the book and may end up liking it.

If that is the goal, however, the department should not have picked such a "girl book". I'm all for gender equality, but The Secret Life of Bees is much more a girl book than even Huck Finn is a boy book. I don't think that The Catcher in the Rye is a boy book at all. I can identify with Holden, and I don't think that a male protagonist should automatically make a book a "boy book". But The Secret Life of Bees is undeniably a "girl book". It even says in the little blurb on the back that mothers and daughters will enjoy the book together and pass it down through the generations, or something like that. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with girl books. I'm finding that so far I'm liking The Secret Life of Bees much more this time around, probably because it took me a good month to read it the first time. My favorite book is Jane Eyre. I would call it a girl book, but because it is a classic, I could understand assigning that book, or any of the Jane Austen books for school reading.

I think the main thing is that many people (in this case I'm mostly talking about girls) equate a boy protagonist with a boy book. But that is not true. Huck Finn can be called a boy book because the adventure aspect probably does appeal more to boys than to girls. but it is also a classic that everyone should read because Mark Twain was a satirical genius. If a teacher assigned mainly books such as Tom Sawyer or Johnny Tremain, I'd be a bit annoyed. While I love both of those books (Johnny Tremain is one of my favorite books of all time), I can see how they could appeal more to boys.

I can understand why the English department would want to assign a book with a female protagonist. Lily Owens in The Secret Life of Bees is a strong female protagonist, and the other female characters in the book are also strong. But by assuming girls need to read books about girls, that are "girl books", I feel like the English department is underevaluting girls. I love adventure stories. My father has always recommended (and sometimes insisted) I read the so-called boy books. But I also love books about girls. As far as historical fiction goes, I always prefered books about girls to books about boys fighting that included detailed descriptions of battles. But I can appreciate books about boys. And I don't think we've had that many boy books to read.

Freshman year we read: The Odyssey (an adventure story, but no way is that a boy book, it's just one of the major classics that everyone must read.), Romeo and Juliet (it's a romantic tragedy. definitely not a boys book. In fact, most boys insist it's a girl's book. I disagree... it's a classic, that's all), A Tale of Two Cities (once again, neither a boy book nor a girl book), To Kill a Mockingbird (told in first person by a girl. enough said), A Raisin in the Sun (I don't remember much about this one, but it's not a boy book), The Moon is Down (it's about war, but that's the only argument one could make for it being a boy book).

Sophomore year we read: Black Boy (I know a lot of girls who say this is a boy book, but I don't think it is at all; a boy is a protagonist, that's all.), I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (female protagonist. I think that this is the main reason why I don't think Black Boy is a boy book, because I find these two quite similar), Macbeth (puh-lease. it's Shakespeare.), The Joy Luck Club (well, my class didn't actually read it. But we were supposed to. All the characters are female, so it's more a girl book than anything. I'd actually probably call it a girl book), Inherit the Wind (it's a play, not a book. it's just a court case, so it's definitely not either boy or girl).

Junior year, we read (or will read):Catcher in the Rye (boy protagonist, but everyone can relate), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (could be argued to be a boy book because it's an adventure story, but more than that, it's a great example of satire), The Grapes of Wrath (Ma, one of the strongest characters, is a woman), Death of a Salesman (the characters are mainly male, but it isn't a boy book), The Secret Life of Bees (a girl book), The Great Gatsby (the main character is male, but it's not about anything girls can't relate to.)

So in my three years at the high school, we've read one book that could be argued to be a boy book, and two that are definitely girl books. The Secret Life of Bees talks about Lily getting her period, buying a bra, and other things that boys can't relate to. We have yet to read a book where a boy talks about his first erection. Yes, most of the protagonists in the books we've read have been male. But that's because the protagonists in most of the classics are male. There's no way to get around that.

This has gotten way to long, so I'm going to stop rambling now. But my basic point is this: girls shouldn't need to read "girl books". If one wants to, one can. But it doesn't belong in school. It shouldn't matter whether the protagonist in a book is a boy or a girl.

empty1288 — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 04:51:25 GMT

I'm exhausted and i still have over 20 pages of history to outline. That basically sums up my day.

I want it to be the weekend. Well, no, scratch that. I want it to be a weekend without speech team so i can SLEEP.

empty1288 — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 02:53:15 GMT

So I found most of my files. Then I had to wait for ages while they all reloaded onto my iPod. I'm still missing songs, which is pretty damn frustrating, but I don't have the slightest idea where they are, so i guess i'll just live without them.

I forgot to say earlier--I love my mom. well, obviously, but she is the greatest. So i'm pretty obsessed with this actor Matt Raftery and I see every play he's in around here and all that jazz. So my mom decided to write to him care of the marriott and ask for an autographed picture. She didn't tell me, but sure enough, what should come in the mail today but an autographed picture! *squee*

oh, and laura, which style mugglecast shirt do you want? I'm thinking I'll probably get the ladies cut, because the normal one will be HUGE.

empty1288 — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:33:20 GMT

My itunes is fixed, supposedly. Except that I'm missing almost 100 songs from my library! So now I have to go try to find them somewhere on my computer, because I like them. Yeah, i'm a little mad.

empty1288 — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:03:27 GMT

The speech tournament was, eh... I thought I performed really well, so I was quite disappointed when I didn't make it to semis. I was even more disappointed when I got on the bus, looked at my critique sheets, and discovered that I'd gone 2-5-2. and the judge who gave me a five, which was last place in that round (and it was the one round that i felt like I was actually better than other people) said I was great. Didn't give me any criticism at all. It's the week before regionals, dammit! I NEED to know what I'm doing wrong that makes me the worst in a room! So I'm pretty frustrated about that. I got some good comments from one of the other judges though, thank goodness. So I guess I'll just work on those this week and hope that my judges at regionals are more like the ones who've liked me, rather than the ones who haven't.

Now it's sunday night and I'm going to go to bed nice and early for once. My mom accidentally moved everyone's music somewhere where we can't retrieve it from, so I can't update my ipod until our computer guy comes to fix it. I'm pretty frustrated, because I had some new songs I wanted to get on my ipod, plus this means I won't have my MuggleCast for a while.

empty1288 — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 01:58:33 GMT

I had a lovely day off today. I slept in, then went to see The New World. It was really good. The cinematography was amazing, and the story was beautiful. I thought it could have been about half an hour shorter. About an hour in I sorta stopped paying attention and just was anxiously awaiting the first glimpse of the most amazing man alive (Christian Bale of course). He was great. I got to hear his English accent again! FINALLY. sheesh, took long enough. It's great that he can do such a convincing american accent, but they should just make all movies take place in England so he can use his English accent, becuase American accents are boring. well, normal american accents are boring. I like southern accents. Anyhow, after the movie, we went to Chipotle and I managed to eat a whole burrito for the first time. Of course, I'm not eating dinner after that. Now I'm just relaxing. Tomorrow we are so kicking ass at the speech tournament. I mean, if we could get first last week with finals to worry about, think about what we could do this week.

empty1288 — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:11:51 GMT

I'm done with the application. I don't think it's very good, and certainly not what they're looking for, but I had fun writing the essays. I pressed submit, then went to print the application and oh shit. I saw that on the date next to the "i agree to these terms and conditions" box, I had typed in 01/26/1988. MY BIRTH YEAR! oh my goodness... i must be tired

I want to practice the violin right now. It probably seems rather out of the blue, but I've been practicing a lot lately. For some reason, I just keep wanting to practice instead of do other things that I should be doing. Like homework. I keep practicing for an hour when I should be doing math. I guess there are worse things I could be doing though.

empty1288 — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 04:35:09 GMT

I love emma. And everyone else who isn't as obsessed with mugglenet as laura and I are. my shirt came, by the way!

While talking about what I would write my last essay on, emma and I had the following conversation:

martunibenuni: ok... i think i'll take laura's old advice and talk aobut stalking emerson
idanslikeapnguin: there u go!
idanslikeapnguin: oh emerson, now i remember who that is
idanslikeapnguin: nature, right?
martunibenuni: huh?
idanslikeapnguin: he wrote nature?
martunibenuni: haha! maybe, this is the other emerson
martunibenuni: emerson spartz, creator of mugglenet, object of my obsession...
idanslikeapnguin: okay you don't know it but i'm making the sign of the cross right now

Don't worry, i'm not actually talking about stalking emerson. Although, I actually had a conversation with my parents about stalking at dinner. We were talking about Christian Bale, and they were asking what I would do if I were at a job interview or whatever and someone mentioned christian bale. Then they called me a stalker! I have never even THOUGHT about stalking christian bale. goodness gracious! I was sure to tell them that stalking isn't a crime, it's actually the highest form of flattery. *points to icon*

empty1288 — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 01:19:23 GMT

Thank god my finals are over. Jessica went and found out what she got on her history final, but I've decided my week has been bad enough already. I don't need to make it worse by seeing my grade. My chem final was harder than I htought it would be. There were more factual questions than on the practice test, and I didn't know any of them. I think I got most of the questions I answered right though, and I feel confident about the reactions. well, except that I just remembered that I combined H20 and SO2 and got H2 and SO3, when I'm pretty sure the answer is H2SO4. Damn. The french final was pretty easy. I'm glad I studied. I know I got most of the vocab right (except I put "chercher" for to search... but I know that wasn't the type of search he meant...), and I only left one problem out of 181 blank.

Now I'm frantically writing essays. I have two more to write by midnight. I'm just hoping that the system isn't on Eastern time, becuase I'm probably going to need that extra hour.

empty1288 — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:14:12 GMT

I've now taken my history, calc, and english finals. The history final was impossible. There were questions on there about periods we haven't even studied yet! I think I probably guessed on about half of the questions, so I'm just praying for a C. The Calc final was really hard. I know I got some problems wrong, but I think that I have a shot at having done well on it. The English final was pretty easy. I'm just hoping that my teacher liked my essay.

Tomorrow I have chem and french. After the history final, anything will seem easy. I'm not at all worried about chem, and I just have to study french a lot tonight.

empty1288 — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 04:26:30 GMT

damn you migraines.

I had an awful migraine starting basically first thing in the morning. It was mild enough that I could fully concentrate on my math final, thank the lord. But by the time I got home, there was no way I could study. So I lay down and watched some TV in the dark until the fiorinal, then basically took three in a row (along with an inderal that I took without thinking, assuming it was my fiorinal. oops...) My migraine finally went away by 7:30 or so. So I've basically been studying history since then. Unfortunately, I've only done about half of my studying. Great. These migraines could not have come at a worse time. My finals are going to be hard, and I need to be able to spend all my time studying, instead of sleeping off migraines.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

empty1288 — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:40:29 GMT

Guess which speech team won first place at the tournament this weekend? OUR'S DID! YEAH!!!!!!

it was amazing. We have a gorgeous, red, tall trophy to add to the speech team display case now. Not that anyone will see it, since the speech team display case is in the middle of nowhere (second floor A-wing).

As for individuals: I got fourth for verse. I'm happy. But I'm sorta confused, because I thought the girl who got first wasn't that great. Sure, her piece was good. But her performance wasn't amazing, and she had terrible enunciation. It had improved since I last saw her, but I still could barely understand her. However, she went straight ones, so there must have been something the judges liked.

Biz and I got sixth for DDA. I'm quite happy that we finally placed.

As for studying... it's not going so well. I was too exhausted to do anything on friday. I even slept through dinner. Saturday, I was exhausted when I came home from speech, so i just collapsed in front of the TV. So today... I studied a lot for chem. I did the practice test, except for the reactions, becuase i don't really understand what it's asking you to do. Then I went to the library with Kassi and Ruth and we studied for a few hours. So chem is fine. I need to study more tonight for history, becuase I don't want to have to rely on all studying tomorrow. And I need to work my ass off for math. I haven't even started that, and I have the multiple choice part of the final tomorrow. It's too late to do all the study packets, so I'm going to just have to study the chapters I'm weaker at and assume I know the rest.

empty1288 — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 03:51:38 GMT

When you look at a wall with a slanted ceiling upside down, anything on the wall looks crooked. I never noticed that, but it's a very interesting sensation, seeing a whole wall suddenly become crooked.

I practiced the violin for 45 minutes or so this afternoon, simply because I decided I really wanted to practice. Now I wish I hadn't, as it's 10 pm and I can guarantee I am not going to be able to study anymore. I'm just too tired.

I stayed up till 1:30 last night working on chem. A lot of good that did. I was still completely lost when I took the test today. For one of the first times in my life, I think there's actually quite a large chance that I failed that test. Great. I was really looking forward to going into the final with two As so that it didn't really matter, and now this test could have ruined it all. wonderful.

I've been slipping in and out of sleep all afternoon. I guess that's what happens when you only get 8 hours sleep over two days. Ineed to finish the paragraph soon, or I might fall asleep during the aural french test tomorrow.

1:30 next thursday cannot come soon enough.

empty1288 — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 01:39:21 GMT

Now I know why you don't stay up till three writing a paper. It comes back to haunt you the next day when you are so exhausted that you sleep through half your classes and can't even begin to start your mountainload of homework. At least I only have two more days of this insanity. Then it's on to finals, which are another type of insanity altogether. But at least it's an insanity that doesn't keep me from sleeping.

empty1288 — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:05:42 GMT

It's 3:04 AM, and not only have I finished my essay, it's also pretty damn good (if I do say so myself). I knew I wouldn't be able to come back to it to edit it at six in the morning, so I just edited it and I think it's pretty coherent now. well, enough of this wasting time. I'm off to get three hours of sleep.

empty1288 — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 06:52:43 GMT

so it's almost 1. I've given up on getting any sleep tonight. It's mainly my fault I'm up this late--time just slipped away this afternoon. But now I'm screwed. I have absolutely no idea what to write the rest of my paper about. I just spent two pages discussing the background of the topic and I'm just now addressing the question. crappity crap crap. And I don't htink I can talk about William Jennings Bryan for any longer than a page. argh!!!! If i die from an overload of homework, i leave laura all my shit that she would want (knitting, harry potter, etc...) and Sara my Christian Bale memorabilia.

empty1288 — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:23:54 GMT

holy shit i'm screwed. Mom left for jazzercise. That means I have to walk. no biggie, right? WRONG! Ihave every single binder and textbook in my back pack, and I couldn't even zip it this morning. I can barely lift it off the ground. shit shit shit. i'm screwed.

empty1288 — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 05:23:46 GMT

I'm screwed. I have a research paper due wednesday that I haven't started writing. Believe me, i've tried. But I don't feel like I even fully understand the question! and I certainly don't feel ready to write a paper on it.

My migraine hasn't gone away. If anything, it's getting worse. I don't think I can deal with this. I wasted hours this afternoon just watching TV in hopes that lying in the dark waiting for my meds to kick in would kill the migraine. Wrong. It just wasted prescious hours that could have been spent on homework. I have an absurd amount of homework due this week. I don't know how I'm going to do it. And I don't know how I'll deal with finals if I have this damn migraine. I can't concentrate with a migraine. I certainly won't be able to concentrate for three hours of intense testing, which is basically what I'll be doing on Tuesday. I just want to be able to forget about these damn migraines. Sure, I convince myself that I'll be fine once they're steady at no more than 2 a week. But that's still 2 days a week when I can't fully concentrate. 2 days when I just want to go to bed. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this. Not just now, but in life. My teachers are helpful now. But if my grades weren't this good? Somehow I doubt my teachers would be as helpful. And when I enter the real world, I won't be able to just not do my homework if I have a migraine. There are things that need to be done, migraine or not. I know, I should be thankful that it's just migraines. I could be incapacitated with pain all the time, instead of just when I have a migraine. But there are still people out there who have no pain. Why couldn't I be one of them? Why do I have to have these damn migraines that get in the way of everything? Right now my head hurts. Not too bad, but enough that it's hard to concentrate. I'd love to go to bed. But tomorrow's a B-day, so I'm taking advantage of this and staying up late to work on my paper. Maybe it's a better idea to go to bed now and get up in the morning. But what if I have a worse migraine then? I can't miss school. I'm about to NC all my classes and I can't miss any school the week before finals. But if the pain is bad, am I actually goin to get anything out of class? probably not. damn. I'm so sick of this. I think I've had migraines for quite long enough. Five years, maybe more. I think that's enough. Can I be done now? Please?

empty1288 — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 04:40:34 GMT

I was thinking about the pain scale the other day. You know (well, actually those of you who are IRL friends probably don't...), that scale they use in the hospital: "Rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10". I think I've mentioned before how hard it is to use, but anyway, as I said, I was thinking about it the other day. It's so difficult to rate your pain. I mean, I say that a mild migraine is probably about a 3. The pain is a bother and keeps me from really thinking, but i don't feel like my head is being chopped up. I rate most of my migraines closer to a five or a six. There are only a few that I'd rate as a 7 or 8. and I have yet to find one that's a 10. Once the pain gets up to six, as it often does, i reach the point where I think that having my brains blown out would probably be an improvement to my current condition. Should I be ranking these higher? Who knows. The one time I went to the ER for a migraine, they seemed surprised that I only rated it at about a 7. But I've only been at a 10 once. Which is how it's supposed to be. After all, a 10 is the most pain you can imagine.

Then there's expected pain versus unexpected pain. If I stub my toe, the pain is very different from the pain I had following my spinal fusion. It feels worse, because I don't expect pain when I'm just crossing tthe room. But obviously the pain following a spinal fusion is more intense. It's just expected, so in a way it hurts less. Most of the time in the hospital, my pain was less than my average pain for a migraine. I was drugged up, so I couldn't really feel the pain, but there was also the fact that it was so steady. I almost forgot about it sometimes. Then again, the one time I've reached a 10 was after the spinal fusion, when a stupid nurse gave me tylenol instead of tylenol with codeine.

There's also where the pain is located. Of course something in my head is going to hurt more than my back pain. Basically, rating pain is impossible. I shouldn't be thinking aobut it this often, but I do. It's probably weird that I was even thinking about how immpossible it was in the hospital after my spinal fusion, when I was so drugged up on morphine that I had no sense of time.

empty1288 — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 04:02:35 GMT

I'm exhausted. Which is weird, since I got 12 hours of sleep last night

Well, i'm not going to fight it. I'm off to bed, where I'll finish my researching for my paper, then go to bed. I've been quite irresponsible lately. I haven't been working on homework nearly enough and I have yet to mail in my camp app. I really need to get going on that, especially since it's just sitting there. I've filled it out, I just haven't mailed it in.

My migraine better go away soon. I don't think I'll be able to study enough for finals if I have a migraine all week.

empty1288 — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:07:32 GMT

I'm home nice and early, thanks to no one making it to finals. I'm rather frustrated about that. I felt that my verse rounds were very consistent, but I went 2-6-1. I don't understand how I got that six! I saw two people in the round and both were pretty awful. The judges only comments were that I was very good but was holding the book too high and was a bit low on the emotion. Well, i think that's a load of crap. I've never been told I hold my book too high before, and it just doesn't make sense that I would hold it higher that one round. As for the emotion... As I said before, I felt really consistant about my rounds. So if I wasn't showing emotion that round, then I wasn't on the other rounds either. Eh, I guess I'll just work on improving my emotions and assume that the judge was also being overly picky.

I didn't have a migraine for a week and a half over break. Yes, that's right. Not a single migraine in ten days. But now I've had one for the last three days. They haven't been too bad, so I'm hoping it's just that I had too much caffeine this week or something like that. I don't think I can deal with another never ending migraine, especially at exams.

empty1288 — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:26:04 GMT

I'm already sick of finals and they haven't even started. Wonderful.

empty1288 — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:46:37 GMT

why me?

We're doing phySUCKS in math right now.

WHY OH WHY?

If I wanted to do physics, I'd be taking physics. but i'm taking calc instead.

I hate it. And I'm no better this year than I was last year.

empty1288 — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 03:18:03 GMT

today wasn't bad for the first day of school after break. I got my grades in a bunch of classes, didn't do much, and got little homework. Of course it is 9:15 now and I've only done half my homework, but I can do my math pretty quickly...

empty1288 — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 02:02:56 GMT

It's 8 PM and I still haven't finished my homework for tomorrow. I'm working on my history paper now, but it's hard, especially with my sister wanting to write a rough draft of a paper that isn't due for weeks. Her main argument is that I should have started working on it earlier. That's a terrible argument since she could have started earlier too.