Because Spartans shouldn't wear high heels

I am not on Twitter, willfully so, but I occasionally become aware of a thread and check into it.  Because of what my computer throws at me while I'm on it, I have come across, repeatedly, #1reasonwhy.  (Today's title comes from @GooseChecka's tweet.)  This is a response, spawning #1reasontobe and #1reasonmentors , to the question of why there aren't more women involved in the gaming industry.  I've gone into the blog posts some people have provided, reading stories of harassment of women simply for getting a job within the industry.  I play videogames, sometimes, but I have little intention of entering the field; it is an analog however for where I want to go.  And let's be honest, it scares me.

I am analytical, and my interests mean I invade the "male geek culture" with my analysis because I can't (and don't want to) turn off that part of my brain that says "Hey, what's this doing?"  I play League of Legends, and get frustrated constantly by the women whose body types are either 1) buxom, thin, long-haired, or 2) childlike, while the men range from childlike to thinnish young adult to muscular and fit to non-humanoid to grotesquely modified by SCIENCE!. (I may go into this more one day.)  I analyze comic books.  I look for how they represent positively and negatively the women portrayed within, and I hate that any conversation about women in comic books seems to start and end at how large Power Girl's breasts are, and I hate that in trying to find the story about those breasts on Wikipedia (Wally Wood, her initial artist, assumed Marvel wasn't paying attention to his work, so he enlarged her breasts each issue to see how long it would take them to notice: 7-8 issues), I instead found out that, canonically, Batman suggested that they were one of her superpowers.  But most of all, I hate that #1reasonwhy seems so necessary, even now, and that as many tweets I've read scare me as encourage me.  Why is my appreciation of art and storytelling, and the expectation that it actually represent the reality that it provides, seen as invasion?

TenTen

I've been back home just over two months.  Well, home being the general state of Colorado, rather than the exact building I was living in previously.  My former roommate/landlord is planning on getting married....one day, and wanted to live with his fiancee.  So DB and I moved out of that house and into an apartment with my ex.  It's wonderful, and so not like the sitcom I've been told it sounds like. 

I'm getting there on the thesis.  I sent the last round of edits to my adviser (pending major issues with those edits) before it gets sent on to my other two committee members.  Today in one month, I should be completely finished with the thesis process.  COMPLETELY.  And taking the GRE subject test so I can apply to a doctoral program.  Because I'm a masochist who never wants to leave academia.  For the moment, I'm not working and not really looking for a job, though I would take something if it fell into my lap and seemed reasonable.  Between my class, my thesis, and that test coming up, plus prepping the applications for grad school (again!), I can manage a little easier without, especially since returning from Korea is often like being showered with money for a little while.

In knitting news, I'm producing.  I'm currently working on (shhh!) making a Where the Wild Things Are hoodie for my ex's son, and I have the yarn to make one for him as well.  Because the Boyfriend Sweater Curse seems silly once we've already broken up.  Also, I've been using an iPad for...I guess about 6 months, which has done neat things to my knitting productivity in two ways.  1) I can always read and knit, so I can do homework while knitting.  2) I downloaded KnitCompanion on the recommendation of a friend, and love the crap out of it.  There's something of a learning curve on putting new patterns into it, but once the pattern is set up, it's incredibly easy to keep track of where you are in both a main pattern and a chart.  I kind of enjoy the process of putting patterns into the program too.

I won't make promises on actually updating.  I'll try to actually get pictures eventually.

Six months, no waiting (I warned you!)

This year is flying by. This surprises me, given how rough it has felt. I guess that's how things go sometimes though. I've been thinking about this blog, and coming back to it. I love the idea of sharing my knitterly creations with ....anyone, really. But fact is, I get distracted mid-project and don't finish it, or take a long time, and then forget to take a picture when it is finished. So I've been thinking about other stuff I'd like to write about. Like book reviews. Since I've sent off my thesis to my advisor for its first draft review, I've devoured numerous non-thesis books. But I analyze, it's what I do. I'd like to put some of my thoughts on the things I've been reading down. Let's try this again.