Is a battle ever too hard to even bother?

I mentioned a couple of days ago that our student group was going to start fighting religious aspects of our public university’s graduation program (I didn’t get many comments, so I’m going to assume you all just sort of passively agreed with me). I sent out an email to our club for feedback, and I received a lot of great advice on who to contact, various things to consider, etc. Most of the feedback was positive and contained the humble comment that this was going to be a difficult battle. I’m fully aware of that, especially knowing Purdue. It’s an extremely conservative university, and it…well, generally ignores any student activism that takes place about its policies.

But I received one email that was a bit of a downer from a staff member at Purdue (who I know to be an atheist activist). He said the Provost would surely politely blow us off, promising to look into it but never speaking to us again. I thought, yeah, so what? I know it’s going to be difficult and we’ll have to deal with bureaucratic bullshit, but we know what to do. He then told me to not even bother, and to spend the club’s efforts doing projects we could actually succeed at.

Well boo on him.

At what point do we just sit down and shut up because doing anything would be too difficult? Because it would likely lead to failure? Even if we can’t get the obnoxious “Amen” singing removed, our fight is at least symbolic. We’re showing the university that we don’t agree with what they’re doing, and we’re showing others who agree with us that they’re not alone. I mean, you could have told all the Anti-Prop8 protesters to just go home, because judges obviously aren’t going to be swayed by some signs (well, hopefully), but should they have? No, I don’t think so.

I think this is a problem the atheist movement faces a lot mostly from the outside – people asking why we’re so angry, what’s the point, don’t we have better things to do? It’s just a bit disheartening when I hear a fellow atheist telling me “Don’t bother.” If we don’t bother, who will? If the national government wants to institute a time for prayer in school, do we just sit back and say “Well Big Brother is too strong. No way they’d listen to us,” and throw our hands up in the air? No, we try our damnedest to fight it.

I think this can all be summed up by one of my favorite quotes:

“Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” – Albus Dumbledore

This club has waited two years building up our good reputation before attempting something that will likely piss off the campus. Now’s the time to do what’s right.

Not Cool, California

“California high courts upholds same-sex marriage ban”

California, I am very disappointed in you. You’ve been moved to the list of “Very Uncool States.” Yeah, I’m grouping you with the likes of Alabama and Arkansas now. How does that feel?

Sigh. At least they’re letting all the marriages performed before Prop 8 remian. I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to tell someone “Nope, your marriage doesn’t count any more.” Probably only a little worse than “Nope, you’re love doesn’t count enough to get married.”

Grumble grumble.

Tylenol 3 + Benzonatate = Crazy Iron Chef Sleep Walking

I guess the meds they put me on are extra special. I’m feeling pretty good today (only mild stuffiness and medium coughing now!) but I haven’t slept well in days. Why? I’ve had crazy pseudo-sleep walking experiences that keep waking me up. I say pseudo-sleep walking because I’m sort of aware of what I’m doing, enough that I can remember it, but I’m like a slave to my bizarre dreams. And what have all my bizarre dreams been about?

Iron Chef.

This is what I get for watching almost nothing but the Food Network since Wednesday.

I’ll basically dream about cooking some sort of recipe, then I find myself sitting up in my bed with my mind telling me to move around the room to finish cooking things. I’ve actually found myself molding my sheets into shapes, moving around to sit at my desk, and walking to the bathroom. The part that makes this hilarious and scary to me is that I’m conscious enough to know it’s ridiculous, but I feel like I can’t fight it. To give you an idea of how surreal this is, this is almost verbatim what has been going through my head:

Dream Jen: Ok you need to compare the two dishes, are they finished cooking?
Me: Two dishes? I don’t see food
Dream Jen: Come on, the cuban is to your left and the hamburger is to your right.
Me: *looks at bundled up sheets to her left and right* Oh, of course.
Dream Jen: Well you better finish cooking them
Me: But..but what am I supposed to do? I don’t have cooking supplies here
Dream Jen: Yes you do! Use your grill!
Me: *goes over and sits by desk and stares at it* This grill isn’t working right… I think it’s just a desk
Dream Jen: No, it IS a grill
Me: ..But….
Dream Jen: Why haven’t you chosen the best dish yet? What are you doing?
Me: I’m so confused =(
Dream Jen: Well it’s time for dessert. Go get dessert.
Me: *goes into the bathroom, where dessert is apparently held* Why am I in the bathroom? I don’t need to pee.
Dream Jen: The theme is religious cookies. Grab the ones with the crosses on them.
Me: Oh, ok *grabs some toilet paper* I think I’m going to go back to bed now…
Dream Jen: No! You can’t sleep until you finish your challenge! Pick the best dish!
Me: But this is just my bed sheet. Gahhh =(

Then I force myself to flatten out my entrées/sheets, sleep for two more hours, then repeat. This has happened the last two nights. Yeah, I think my mind is a little fucked up right now.

I shouldn’t be too surprised, since I used to do this as a little kid. In the middle of the night I would walk into my parents bedroom and ask for random stuff, they would just say “Go back to sleep, Jennifer,” I’d turn back to my room and sleep, and not remember a thing about it. My mom was always afraid I was going to sleepwalk and tumble down the stairs or something. I still occasionally do the weird sitting up in bed while still asleep thing (which I didn’t realize was sleep walking for a while), mostly when I’m stressed. It was never an issue until I got my first roommate my freshman year. She saw me doing it one night and she thought I was possessed or something, ahahaha.

But yeah, usually sitting up isn’t followed by a cooking competition. At least no one was sleeping next to me, or I may have tried to tenderize them.

To the dark side!

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve finally been lured to the dark side. Maybe this was just a moment of weakness caused by the drugs – yes, yes, I’ll blame them – but, well… I’ve joined Twitter. *sobs*

I tried to hold off for so long, knowing the last thing I needed was another internet addiction…but I guess I just couldn’t help myself. Sigh. Well, as long as I’m there, why don’t you follow me? I tend to have a lot of random silly thoughts, so it should be interesting to say the least.

Religion at Purdue’s Graduation

Hey everyone. First I’d like to thank all of you for your well wishes. I’m still feeling crappy, but my fever is gone so that’s a giant relief. I want to apologize ahead of time if my posts for the next couple of days aren’t as well written/coherent/witty as normal. I’ve been writing emails and IMing friends, and after I reread what I wrote I think “What the hell does that even mean?” Or worse, I’ll be in the middle of writing something and I’ll just end up blankly staring at the screen for a while. I guess these drugs are just that good.

Anyway, onto atheisty stuff. So, Purdue’s graduation ceremony (“commencement” technically) has many religious elements that our student organization is going to try to take care of. I have been to graduation for a friend and heard many identical reports from others, so that’s where I’m getting my information. Purdue actually has four separate commencements divided by schools since we have way too many people to fit in Elliot Hall of Music. Each of these contain these general elements:

– A talk by a religious leader from the community. There’s a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim. Sounds like a set up for a bad joke, eh? Anyway, each commencement gets one of these, not all four at one commencement. I’ll get back to this.
– Following the talk is a “moment of reflection.” Aka, prayer by another name – the vast majority of the audience prays during this time. But hey, maybe it’s not meant to be religious, right?
– Following this the choir breaks out into song singing “Amen” over and over again for a couple minutes while the backdrop screen shows clouds serenely floating by. Whoops. Guess it is meant to be religious.
– Other songs the choir sings are hymns (a friend had to point this out to me, since I wasn’t really listening to what they were singing).

Back to the religious leaders. The one I saw (the Muslim) wasn’t too overtly religious. He did mention God a couple times at the end though and finished with “Amen” (I guess my standards for “overtly religious” are pretty low). I’ve been told the other speakers were similar. I haven’t seen them myself – Purdue streams its commencement live online, but I could never get the stupid codec for it to work.

They’re obviously picking four different faiths to try to be diverse and inclusive, but this ultimately fails. The day you graduate depends on your school, not your religion – what if you’re a Muslim stuck listening to the Catholic? A Jew listening to the Muslim? I hope this wouldn’t matter, but when you’re trying to seem all inclusive, it doesn’t help when the people actually attending only see one. More importantly, how about the students who aren’t represented? It’s not just atheists – I know Purdue has a fairly significant Hindu community thanks to the Engineering program. What about them? Conveniently they’ve chosen all the Abrahamic religions…

Though honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the fight to get rid of the religious leaders all together. One, knowing Purdue this would be an impossible battle. But honestly I don’t mind having a religious person talk if they’re saying something intelligent. If we could just enforce a rule like not explicitly mentioning God or using religious terminology, I’d be okay with that compromise. If we had a local humanist chaplain I’d suggest having them talk, but unfortunately we don’t. My biggest beef is with all the “Amen” excessive singing and hymns business. That’s obviously completely inappropriate. Let people have their moment of reflection, but don’t beat us over the head with the message that we’re supposed to be praying.

Any advice on how to go about dealing with this? I’m basically thinking a petition or letters from students/staff/alumni about how graduation should remain secular, plus a long main letter from the club explaining why this is inappropriate at a public institution. Tips on successful petitions, who to talk to, what to include in the letter, etc would be greatly appreciated!

Religion at Purdue's Graduation

Hey everyone. First I’d like to thank all of you for your well wishes. I’m still feeling crappy, but my fever is gone so that’s a giant relief. I want to apologize ahead of time if my posts for the next couple of days aren’t as well written/coherent/witty as normal. I’ve been writing emails and IMing friends, and after I reread what I wrote I think “What the hell does that even mean?” Or worse, I’ll be in the middle of writing something and I’ll just end up blankly staring at the screen for a while. I guess these drugs are just that good.

Anyway, onto atheisty stuff. So, Purdue’s graduation ceremony (“commencement” technically) has many religious elements that our student organization is going to try to take care of. I have been to graduation for a friend and heard many identical reports from others, so that’s where I’m getting my information. Purdue actually has four separate commencements divided by schools since we have way too many people to fit in Elliot Hall of Music. Each of these contain these general elements:

– A talk by a religious leader from the community. There’s a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim. Sounds like a set up for a bad joke, eh? Anyway, each commencement gets one of these, not all four at one commencement. I’ll get back to this.
– Following the talk is a “moment of reflection.” Aka, prayer by another name – the vast majority of the audience prays during this time. But hey, maybe it’s not meant to be religious, right?
– Following this the choir breaks out into song singing “Amen” over and over again for a couple minutes while the backdrop screen shows clouds serenely floating by. Whoops. Guess it is meant to be religious.
– Other songs the choir sings are hymns (a friend had to point this out to me, since I wasn’t really listening to what they were singing).

Back to the religious leaders. The one I saw (the Muslim) wasn’t too overtly religious. He did mention God a couple times at the end though and finished with “Amen” (I guess my standards for “overtly religious” are pretty low). I’ve been told the other speakers were similar. I haven’t seen them myself – Purdue streams its commencement live online, but I could never get the stupid codec for it to work.

They’re obviously picking four different faiths to try to be diverse and inclusive, but this ultimately fails. The day you graduate depends on your school, not your religion – what if you’re a Muslim stuck listening to the Catholic? A Jew listening to the Muslim? I hope this wouldn’t matter, but when you’re trying to seem all inclusive, it doesn’t help when the people actually attending only see one. More importantly, how about the students who aren’t represented? It’s not just atheists – I know Purdue has a fairly significant Hindu community thanks to the Engineering program. What about them? Conveniently they’ve chosen all the Abrahamic religions…

Though honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the fight to get rid of the religious leaders all together. One, knowing Purdue this would be an impossible battle. But honestly I don’t mind having a religious person talk if they’re saying something intelligent. If we could just enforce a rule like not explicitly mentioning God or using religious terminology, I’d be okay with that compromise. If we had a local humanist chaplain I’d suggest having them talk, but unfortunately we don’t. My biggest beef is with all the “Amen” excessive singing and hymns business. That’s obviously completely inappropriate. Let people have their moment of reflection, but don’t beat us over the head with the message that we’re supposed to be praying.

Any advice on how to go about dealing with this? I’m basically thinking a petition or letters from students/staff/alumni about how graduation should remain secular, plus a long main letter from the club explaining why this is inappropriate at a public institution. Tips on successful petitions, who to talk to, what to include in the letter, etc would be greatly appreciated!

Yay hospitals

So I finally broke down and went to the hospital today. If you know me well, you know I have to be feeling pretty horrible to actually go to the doctor. I was raised by the “unless you’re dying, just suck it up” method, which was fine because I was never really seriously ill as a kid (just colds and such). But once my fever hit 103 and I was continuously hacking up a lung, I thought it may be smart to go. My friend was nice enough to drive me there as I tried not to cough all over him.

While I got in almost immediately, it ended up taking almost 3 hours. Twice I sat alone in the room for 40 minutes just waiting for the next test. I wondered if they had forgotten about me a couple times, and how long a normal person would wait before wandering out into the hallway. It went oddly fast to me since I think I ended up microsleeping a bit, but I felt bad for my friend sitting out in the waiting room. I really hoped he had brought something to do.

Him: Don’t worry, I got through a lot of my book. I thought it might take a while for you to get in.
Me: Well that’s good. What are you reading?
Him: …Twilight.
Me: Nooooooooooooooo my sickness has enabled someone to read Twilight!!!

A lot of things about hospitals are kind of ridiculous. The first time I coughed they slapped one of those flu masks on me. I felt like I was in some weird post apocalyptic movie or something. I asked one of the nurses if they were standard or just for the swine flu scare, and she said they do them during flu season but they were specifically doing them for swine flu now. As cool as it would be to say you survived swine flu, I was kind of hoping it wasn’t that.

They also wanted to do a chest x-ray (to make sure I hadn’t literally coughed up a lung, I suppose) and they wanted to wheel me out on a bed to the x-ray room. A little odd, I thought, since I’m feverish and coughing but I can still, you know, walk, but whatever. Maybe that’s just hospital protocol. So I hop on for the ride…and the x-ray room is literally across the hall. Really? Was that necessary? Though my favorite thing about being female and going to the doctor is how they ask you if you’re pregnant a thousand times.

X-Ray lady: Is there any chance you may be pregnant?
Me: Probably not
X-Ray lady: Probably not? Here they marked you as “no.”
Me: Well she asked if I was on birth control, and I am.
X-Ray lady: *not amused* …Well we can do a quick pregnancy test to make sure. Do you want to?
Me, What I Wanted to Say: Honestly, it’s highly unlikely that I’m pregnant. Yes, it’s theoretically possible even with birth control, but you know what? If I was, I would without a doubt abort that thing. So x-ray away, you’ll just be helping me out.
Me, What I Actually Said: Nah, I think I’m fine.

It’s probably a good thing that she couldn’t see me smirking under my flu mask.

Three hours and many (probably expensive) tests later, the nurse tells me “It’s just (just?) bronchitis.” You know, you think they would have just guessed that when I walked in coughing and feverish, and immediately told them that my friend had bronchitis. Sigh. Oh well. I’m still hacking to death, but now I have a slew of drugs that will hopefully kick in soon. Mmm tylenol with codeine. Maybe I’ll actually be able to sleep tonight.

There is a god, and she hates me

So in less than 48 hours I:

– got a flat tire
– developed a bad cough
– failed to get my tire fixed at Walmart
– got trapped in said Walmart for almost 2 hours
– developed a fever
– didn’t sleep because of coughing and fever, even with Nyquil
– completely lost my voice
– had our water main break, so now we have to boil all of our water
– drank a glass of water before finding this out
– found out my flight to the Evolution conference in Idaho (which someone else booked for me) has a 9 hour layover in Seattle

I’m just waiting for the roof to collapse on me at this point. The fever bugs me the most. I hate the whole “I’m freezing where’s the blanket, jk now I’m sweating, omg I’m freezing again, nope now I’m hot” thing. To add insult to injury, I have Katy Perry’s “Hot N’ Cold” stuck in my head, even though I don’t think that song is supposed to be describing body temperature.

FML

Walmartitis

Not only could Walmart not fix my tire (nail pierces the rim, apparently) and it took them 1 and a half hours to figure this out, but now I have a fever and I’m all achy. I blame extended exposure to Walmart =(

I’m going to go curl into a ball and take a nap and die now kthxbai

Trapped!

Oh god I’m trapped in Walmart for over an hour while they fix my car. Gahhh what do I do? There aren’t even any good videogames on display!!! Aaaahhhh!!