I HATE TWILIGHT

Now I'm going to talk about Twilight. 

Okay so this may SEEM like its irrelevant to my job, but its NOT because Twilight is actually anathema to human rights, and I'M GONNA TELL YOU WHY!

I wish I had a copy of the book with me right now, so I could pull out specific passages but

a) i don't and

b) I don't hate it enough for this to be a book report, its a rag that isn't deserving of that level of effort and I want to finish writing this in under ten minutes.

Basically, it can be seen as a fun piece of junk reading, fair enough, and there is nothing wrong with that. But my problem with it is that plenty of girls are reading it and thinking that this "vampire" is the epitome of masculinity and that the relationship between the two main characters is something they should strive for. The entire piece of crap is a metaphor for sexual abstinence, and demonizes normal human sexuality on the whole. Furthermore, the main female character is constantly noting and apologizing for her inadequacies, inadequacies which are dealt with when her overbearing boyfriend quite literally flies in to the picture and saves her time and time again. She creates a world where the woman is incapable of fending for herself, and is the source of temptation and sin. 

Politically its a nightmare because Stephanie Meyer is a member of the Mormon church, which takes a portion of each congregation members' income. The Mormon Church was one of the biggest contributers to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, which passed in 2008 and therefore facilitated retrograde motion for human rights. 

And lets be real here, its just a crappy piece of writing. I don't think a page actually goes by where this poor excuse for a writer doesn't describe the chiseled abs of her vampire leading man, or the intensity of the characters' contrived adolescent obsession with each other that is simultaneously devoid of any lust. She took the sex out of vampire lore, hell, she took the vampires out of vampire lore. Call me crazy for criticizing the fictitious traits she gives a fictitious creature, but COME ON, they cant SPARKLE IN THE DAYLIGHT. 

I really don't know why this makes me so angry, there is plenty of sexist crap out there that I am happy to ignore. I just hope that the vapid  religious nut who wrote it will take her millions and retire from the world of writing. Or at least take a writing class so that she can no longer inflict  work like this on the world. 

Lunch

A few weeks ago, I met a woman named Mia who used to work at the public defender's office. She took me to lunch yesterday so I could basically pick her brain and figure out if public interest law is really for me. Interestingly enough, we ended up talking about the issues that I mentioned in my first post... I've been wondering if feeling hatred towards the justice system was an inevitable by-product of working as a public interest lawyer. 

It was nice to talk to Mia because she has experienced injustice on several levels, but still believes that the system itself is based on admirable ideals. And its different because its not me, an idealistic student who hasn't experienced the kind of hardship that makes people jaded... these ideas are coming from a person who has plenty of reasons for feeling that the system doesn't, and can't work. The whole point for her though, is that it is a lawyer's obligation to fix the problems within the justice system so that it can actually become the institution it was meant to be, and that they are powerful because they can teach their communities about the rights that they have. She knows that there are problems, but still acknowledges the things about institutions like the courts and the police that are admirable. 

For example, she spoke with a transgendered woman who was harassed by a police officer. After he left, the officer's partner came back and handed her a complaint form, telling her that she didn't have to tolerate that kind of abuse. I can imagine that it must be difficult for someone to directly challenge a person that they work with, especially when it comes to a fellow officer, but I think actions like this have helped really redeem the police in my mind. I never harbored any hatred towards them before, but I never really thought of them independent of the context where they pull me over or beat the crap out of people. Now I guess I know that there are some out there that are not just likable, but are actually proactively supporting change. 

A GOOD DAY!

Last week I had the best day at work EVER. I'm lucky because my job isn't monotonous...yeah, I get a little bit of grunt work here and there because thats what interns do, and I don't mind paying my dues, but last thursday was INTERN APPRECIATION DAYY!!!! which means one very important thing, I get FREE YOGURTLAND! It was really great to be able to sit with the mini army of interns and talk about what everyone is working on, and generally get a sense of how everyone was doing. I worked on an article in the morning, which I loved because I really liked to write. Since I'm a total nerd I'm going to bring up the West Wing, because it's basically my favorite show ever. In one of the episodes a character named Sam is re-writing a press release that was poorly written by some random guy that isn't exactly qualified to write something of that magnitude. Well the whole point is that it got me thinking about the importance of precision when it comes to words, which I'm not exactly displaying with this post, but is regardless important when it comes to getting a message out. the more I write, the more I realize that every word that I use means something, and that I should ultimately be careful as to how I phrase something, especially since writing is so permanent. Anyways, the writing was fun, and the yogurt was fun, and then I temporarily ran out of work (which is hard to do, believe me). But then, a little kid walked in to the office and so I decided to color with him, which was really fun because I actually hadn't spent time with a kid in a really long time. I've never been a huge fan to be honest, not one of those people that yearns for motherhood or a baby sitting gig, but this was actually fun to just color and talk with a toddler and not really have to think about anything particularly difficult for a while. Anyways, it was a GOOD DAY!

STARING AT THE SUN

I'M SO TIRED.

The drive to and from work is becoming longer and longer....I don't know if it's because the whole experience is no longer fresh and therefore more bothersome, or if there are genuinely more cars on the road every day. ITS KILLING ME. It's really unfortunate because I enjoy my job, but dread the drive home more than anything else. I think it's worse because I have to stare at the sun the whole way, which I think would be exhausting under any circumstances, but is made worse by the fact that it takes me an hour and a half to get home everyday. Then, if I'm feeling motivated, I drag my carcass to the gym where the other day a woman who is LITERALLY no younger than seventy kicked my ass by RUNNING 7.5 on the treadmill next to me while i WALKED. 

In between drives, I actually do some work, which is both rewarding and incredibly frustrating. I sometimes find myself working on projects that really seem to have no true solution, a situation which is aggravated by cultural circumstances. Sometimes, the solution to a problem is staring everyone in the face, but we can't actually do anything about it because the client won't go for it. Why? because it doesn't fall in line cultural norms. In my head I chalk it up to stubbornness, to chauvinism, to a million other factors that I understand on a basic level but can't bring myself to accept. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, and she made the point that a lot of cultural and religious practices exist for a specific reason- to ensure survival. But as things change, those mechanisms aren't necessarily purposeful anymore. In my mind, they should be cut away, but people hold on to them anyways, to the point of impracticality. And I know that It's not my place to tell someone what to do and what not to do. But in this case, it would make my life SO MUCH EASIER! But I know that the only thing I can do is really learn to accept their choices even if it makes my job harder, as long as the people involved aren't completely blind to reality. It's always been easy for me to advocate for widespread personal choice and freedom when it made my life easier. I suppose now, when it means that I'll be staring at a computer screen for hours trying to find a unique solution to a not- so-unique problem, It actually means something to me. 

If you need to reach me, my new address is 

Silver Honda Civic

Interstate- 5 fwy

Los Angeles, CA

ILLITERATE!

I'm watching a hindi movie right now, and I don't know what anyone is saying because I'm sitting behind the couch to plug in my laptop and it's blocking the subtitles. But I still know what's going on because a) I've seen this movie a thousand times, and b) most hindi movies are the same (but this one is REALLLY GOOD especially the scene where the man and woman meet in the rain under the gazebo and are dancing and then they see each other's engagement rings and remember that they cant be together and RUN AWAY AHHH its so fantastic!) okay so anyhoo all this reminds me of the fact that I CANT SPEAK HINDI, which is shameful and sad and makes me utterly useless as an intern at SAN. Okay, not totally useless, but strange enough that people look at me with pity when they find out what a whitewashed freak I am, even though I do speak an Indian language (its just inconveniently obscure). I constantly find myself picking up phones and having to run it over to someone who speaks hindi, or just smiling and nodding politely at people who start speaking to me in hindi until they figure out that I don't know what they are saying. So NEW PROJECT! I'm going to start learning hindi piece by piece, and start with all the phrases I need to know to function at work. For example!

Hello

He/ She is not available

Can i transfer you to his/her voicemail?

my name is

what is your name?

Can I take a message?

What is your phone number?

how are you?

I'm good thanks!

Where is the free food?

once I learn these key phrases, I will be totally ready to take on new duties at my exciting job!

You want to abolish WHAT?

Okay, so basically I’m a fascist. Or at least it seems like it, because I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by so many people that are so far left of me…so far left that if they take one more step they’re going to come full circle and become republicans. That said, they’re all brilliant and dedicated people who know incredible amounts of information about the people they help- and not just in a statistical way. I’ve only been working at SAN for a week, but the people who work here are actually connected to the people they fight for. I suppose that’s the best thing about working for a CBO, you can actually learn about the issues that are affecting real people. I like that I’m not just filing and shredding. I like that I actually care about the work that I’m doing, and that I’m writing and thinking about things that are important to people, and important to me. But I don’t like the feeling that arises when you watch people getting screwed over and over again while the institutions that are supposed to protect us do nothing or actually worsen the situation. You lose all faith. I think I’ve always been a romantic; call me naive but despite all the crap that goes on in this country I’ve always believed that there exists a potential for justice. So I was more than a little surprised when the people around me began talking about abolishing PRISON (which i get, but disagree with), and the evil that is all policemen. okay, it makes sense when members of your community are getting the crap kicked out of them by cops or you finally make the link that most of the people in prison are people of color. But the solutions just don't make sense to me. So now I'm both naive and a realist. What can i do? pay attention and actually understand the harsh reality of things, without letting it make me a cynic. At least, not today.