Thanks!

I was wanted to thank everyone for all the comments they've been leaving on my last post. I wasn't expecting that much of a response. I really appreciate it. Due to the computer security settings and all the blocked sites, I can't actually get to my own website to make a comment even though I can make posts, which is why I wasn't able to say this as a comment. However, I wanted you to know that I was very excited about all the feedback, and thank you very much.

Long-winded Rant on Body Image

Sometimes, it seems like the Army almost encourages bad eating habits and negative body image. When I was in my Anthropology class on food and culture, the text book had a short section on eating disorders, and mentioned briefly that they were more prevalent in certain institutions, such as the military.

It's not that the Army has a higher standard than the rest of the society. However, the height and weight standards don't always seem to take natural body types into consideration. We have people in the company that can't pass height/weight, struggle to pass the tape test for body fat, but work out more and are more physically fit (and I don't just mean weight lifting, these people can run, too) than many of the more slim and fit-looking people. I think this may be the only place in my life where I've really heard men talk about how they really need to lose weight, and can't eat certain meals because they have to maintain weight (I didn't hang out with any wrestlers in high school). Every other time I've heard men go on about their appearance, they've discussed the desire to get big, and there is some of that going on here as well.

When I was a cadre member at camp, the cadets got weighed and taped as necessary two or three days in. Anyone who failed got redone two weeks later. One of my cadets went from failing his tape to not even needing taped within two weeks because he'd lost that much weight (about 15 pounds)*. On the one hand, good for him, he didn't have to worry about it for the rest of the summer. On the other hand, we're encouraging horrible dieting habits.

Back in college, a friend of a friend was in ROTC at a different university. Apparently, the week before a weigh in, he would only eat “onion soup” - meaning, onion boiled in water. He also wouldn't drink the day before the weigh in. Obviously this is an extreme example, and it's more of a crash diet than a life style.

I remember everyone in ROTC, especially the women, always dreaded getting taped. Especially for shorter women, the standards occasionally seemed a little extreme, so there wasn't any shame in it, but there's still a little voice saying, "damn, I'm fat." For most of college, I didn't have to worry about. When I gained weight, it happened to be at the same time my weight allowance went up due to age. I was still always very close to that line, and always fought for my half inch (half an inch means they have to round up and an inch makes a difference of about five pounds). Now, I'm definitely at the point where I need taped and I'm not exactly happy about it.

For the most part, I think I have a more or less healthy attitude about my body. However, I hate the idea of getting taped, and I am unhappy about the fact that I gained around fifteen pounds this deployment. On the one hand, I don't think I necessarily look that much worse (it's noticeable, don't get me wrong, but I'm tall and I have a build that can hide weight relatively well), but I know my jeans aren't going to fit comfortably. I don't want to kill myself trying to lose a few pounds, and I'm afraid if I start trying to diet, I'll get obsessive. Additionally, what exactly would be wrong with having a few extra pounds? Why should I feel some need to conform to society's beauty standards? To quote one professor's T-shirt (I always wanted that shirt), "Fuck your fascist beauty standards."

And yet, I liked where I was at before I came here (I admit even then I wouldn't have complained about losing five pounds, but I was comfortable with my body). Also, I think I still tend to be slightly superficial as far as what attracts me in men, so can I really expect them to date me when I don't meet a certain ideal if I wouldn't really be interested in them? Obviously, personality is important and all, but I've actually dated some rather traditionally attractive men.

I wouldn't say I've ever been completely happy with my body, but I've definitely learned to be comfortable with it, and would even go for long periods without obsessing about my weight or looks. It took me some time to get there, but I had reached that point with the occasional regression here and there in college. I think part of the reason it may have taken me longer to get there than it should have is because I was one of the "chubby" kids in elementary school and I didn't actually notice when I'd grown out of the baby fat, and continued to think of myself in that way for quite a while. Also, as a teenager, I was still under the impression that I needed to be a size 4 or 6.**

I went through a few diets in elementary school, junior high school and high school, some more short-lived than others. The worst one was my freshmen year, when I was taking my lunch to school and packing exactly ten Saltine Crackers every day (120 calories). My senior year I lost almost twenty pounds, somehow. I regained about 15 pounds by the time I started college.

I was basically happy with my body for the first two years of college. I worked out regularly with ROTC, and occasionally, I'd also do extra things on my own. The second semester of my junior year, I really started focusing on getting in shape for camp, and while I didn't lose too much weight, I toned, and my jeans definitely became looser. Yet, after the first month or two of working out at which point I was proud of what my body was doing and my improving PT scores, I started becoming more frustrated with my appearance than I had been before. I liked the muscles I had, but noticed flab in spots I hadn't even considered before. And I was unhappy that certain muscles weren't larger and more defined.

During summer camp, I gained about ten pounds, and it never came back off. I wasn't exactly feeling too confident about myself when I got to school, but I didn't obsess or spend too much time trying to lose it, either.

My first year out of college, I remained at that same weight but I finally stopped feeling uncomfortable about it. As bad as it sounds, it helped that more guys were interested in me that first year out of college than my whole time in college. Apparently not being around a bunch of perfect looking college women helped. And, admittedly, there aren't many women in the Army so that always increases opportunities. I guess I figured that if they found me attractive the way I was, I probably didn't need to conform to society's standards. Also, I realized that no matter what, I wasn't going to completely change my life over a few pounds. I like going out to eat, I like junk food, and even if I'd like to lose five pounds, I'm not going to give up eating something I want because of calories. I recently was watching The Biggest Loser on television, and this one woman had won a pass to go visit her friends and got a break from training temporarily. She went out to eat and ordered a pizza with no cheese and a salad with the dressing on the side. She then dunked her fork in the dressing each time before stabbing one piece of lettuce. I'm sorry, but the perfect body isn't worth that. I have no desire to revolve my life around what I'm not eating.

When I first got to Iraq, I was working out more (I had a work out partner), and once again while I wasn't losing weight, I was getting in better shape, and improved my PT score. However, I once again noticed that as soon as I started on an intensive work out program, I was obsessing about my appearance much more than I had before. I was getting pissed about the fact that I wasn't losing weight and generally felt like I wasn't seeing results soon enough.

I recently read Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, and really loved her discussion on the whole body image thing. I've since given a copy to one friend, and lent it to one of my Soldiers (who says she keeps getting pissed off while reading the book because "it's so true"). In addition to discussing women's body images, she discusses men's actions and influence on women’s thought process. And I have to agree, it can be so difficult to understand what men exactly think.

On the one hand, they say they understand the difference between Hollywood women and real women, but it can be hard to believe when every time you're in their room, they have a different scantily clad size 0 model with huge breasts as their computer wall paper (at some point, if they are so surrounded by certain images, aren’t they going to expect and want that at all times?). Or when they mention women in Hollywood they find hot, and it's like they're reading off Maxim's most current top ten list. "Jessica Alba, etc." Can't they at least be a little original and say Tina Fey - at least she's also funny and smart. Or Kate Winslet – she’s slightly more real looking, chooses interesting movies and appears to have a personality. Or when a guy says, "I'd get a divorce if my wife ever gained twenty pounds," how exactly am I not supposed to develop a complex about my appearance when I put on fifteen? Or when I say, "I would like to lose some weight," meaning five or ten pounds, and the guy of the moment responds with "if you changed your eating habits, you could easily lose twenty to thirty pounds," how the hell am I supposed to react? By the way, this was before the fifteen pound weight gain. And I haven't been below 150 since high school, and I can't even remember being below 140, so fuck you. 30 pounds, my ass.

Basically, I hate that my weight and appearance occupy as much of my thoughts as they do. And that I somehow feel like I should conform slightly more to society, and at the very least, lose the weight I gained. I know fat and fat acceptance is also a part of feminism, and while I agree that people should stop judging people on their weight and appearance, I have internalized enough of the dominant beliefs where I have to admit that I don't want to be fat. The stigma attached to being "fat" and the obsession with weight in our culture are ridiculous but I, too, want conform to it enough to not be labeled fat.

*There is a height/weight chart. Based on a person's height, he/she is allotted a certain amount of weight. If he/she is over that weight, he/she gets taped to check if his/her body fat percentage is within regulation.

**Now my parents have always complimented my appearance, and told me I looked great the way I was, but even they made a few comments in over 24 years of parenting that weren't exactly helpful. Such as when I was in third grade and my mom refused to let me have another slice of pizza, telling me I would thank her later. Or the time in high school when my mom asked if I'd put on weight because my dad thought my butt was getting big and he was afraid to bring it up to me. For the most part, when I got into arguments about my appearance with my mom, though, it was more about my clothing - she wanted me to put more of an effort into my clothes rather than wearing baggy T-shirts (junior high). She was always the one finding the mini-skirts, telling me I should wear them while I was still young and able to pull them off. Naturally, I didn't agree with her about my ability to "pull them off" at the time.

Yes, because that's a reasonable reaction to being angry

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

 

The novel begins as two men attend their former lover's funeral.  Despite the fact that both men, Clive and Vernon, have since had several relationships and marriages, there is a distinct impression that Molly is the woman who had the most influence on their lives and was more important to them than anyone else.  Vernon and Clive are best friends, and both vehemently disapprove of Molly's husband, finding him boring, and one of her other lover's, the Foreign Minister, Julian Garmony.

 

Both of the characters are very successful, Clive as a composer, and Vernon as a journalist/newspaper editor.  As a result, it is perhaps understandable that they are rather self-involved.  At first Clive appears to be more sympathetic as the artist that is out of touch with the world, but he uses his inspiration and art as an excuse to completely ignore another human in need, and feels self-justified about it.

 

Vernon, armed with recently discovered scandalous photos of the foreign minister, sets out to destroy the man's career with an expose.  While Clive points out that by publishing these photos, Vernon will be villifying the man for something that shouldn't be wrong, Vernon believes he is pointing out the man's hypocrisy.  After all, Garmony is an incredibly conservative family man to the media who engages in some of the behaviors he more or less speaks against.

 

At first, Vernon appears to be the more ruthless of the two while Clive is the more likable.  However, as the novel progresses, it is easier to see the justification for Vernon's actions than Clive's.  Additionally, the ending just seemed like such a ludicrous turn because it was too extreme.  Of course once again, it is easier to see Vernon's perspective. Other than Molly, Clive is the most important person in Vernon's life, so it is easier to understand how incredibly hurt and betrayed he might feel by Clive's disapproval.  Clive's main reason for being angry and acting as he does, however, seems to be that he blamed Vernon for disrupting his creative flow at an inopportune time.

 

It wasn't a horrible novel, but it definitely wasn't one of McEwan's best.  I would recommend On Chesil Beach to anyone interested in McEwan, and say to only read this one after having read his other, better novels.

A Quick Summary of My Religious Development

I found this post a few days ago, and thought it was very funny.  I immediately sent it to a few other people who have a similar sense of humor to me, and also wanted to link to it right away.  But I then decided I should maybe do a more extensive post upon further reflection.

 

A few people in the company think of me as an atheist.  I have been accused at times of being slightly anti-Christian or intolerant of Christian views.  While I admit to being rather skeptical and cynical of many aspects of religion, I am not quite sure if I am a full-fledged atheist (even if I find humor in mocking zealous Christians).  When it comes straight down to it, I just don't think I care enough one way or the other.  I would describe myself as agnostic, but for me agnostic means someone who doesn't know if there is a god, but actually kind of wants to know the answer.  I feel like if I were truly agnostic, I would actually take an interest and read books on religious thought and so forth to educate myself and figure out what the answer really is.  I have no interest in even pursuing the subject and generally shrug my shoulders, or say, "I don't do religion."

 

I wasn't always like this.  I grew up in southern Germany, where almost everyone is Catholic, and religion was one of many other classes we had to take (in fifth grade, I would be taking Math, German, English, Music, Biology, Art, Religion, PE, Geology (or Geography), among many others; in sixth grade, history was added, and in seventh, Latin - I think I may have had as many as twelve to fourteen subjects at one time).  Religious instruction started in third grade to prepare us all for our First Communion.  Perhaps since it was part of school and I was an overzealous student, I got really into it.  I'd go to the Wednesday afternoon service and Sunday mornings, participated in a Bible group (which may or may not have been mandatory in preparation for First Communion) and always volunteered to participate in the service (which is actually how I lost my best friend since I went to church instead of a birthday party - the next day, my friend was barely talking to me and had replaced me with the birthday girl as his new friend).  The entire time we lived in Germany, my family never went to church regularly.  We'd usually show up to a service Christmas Eve, but my dad didn't want to go to a church service he didn't understand (the German Catholic Mass), and I don't think either of my parents had any interest in driving to base Sunday mornings.

 

Eventually, like almost every other German student I know, I lost interest.  Perhaps it would have just happened anyway, perhaps it was because I realized there wasn't really a place for me in the church.  When the religion class instructor asked if any of us would be interested in being "Ministranten" (or altar boys, though Ministrant doesn't actually imply the word boy in it), and I was told no because I was a girl even though I was the only one interested, I was rather unhappy, but also realized that I enjoyed sleeping in Sunday mornings and all this stuff just wasn't worth the trouble.

 

Even though religion was taught as part of the school curriculum, I never once had an issue with reconciling science and religion.  They were both separate but true.  As a result, when I moved to the States, and was learning about evolution, it seemed pretty evident to me that it was true.  It was science.  I didn't understand how it conflicted with religion.  Since some students told me they didn't believe in evolution because of religion, I came up with ways to argue that both could peacefully coexist ("we don't know what God's concept of time is - he says a day, that could be billions of years to us; he is all knowing so he intended for evolution to occur the way it did; he made the genes mutate but didn't actually build us from clay"). 

 

Equally, I didn't understand the sudden emphasis on saving one's self for marriage.  I'd never heard of that concept in Germany, and it wasn't because I was too young to be discussing sex.  I read German teen magazines, and those things used to have instructions on condoms, kissing, stories called "My First Time" etc.  It just wasn't an issue over there.  My parents, of course, had had "the talk" with me but they never said wait till marriage.  They said make sure it's love.  My 8th grade Health Teacher, who actually seemed rather liberal, progressive and hippy-like in many ways, had a guest speaker come talk to us about sex.  He explained to us that we were like roses and every time we had sex, we'd lose a petal until finally we'd be an ugly, empty shell of a flower.  I was thirteen, and I tuned the whole thing out (I had the rather unrealistic plan in my head at the time to get my first kiss at thirteen or fourteen, have a serious boyfriend at sixteen, lose my virginity at 17 after a year of dating, and then go to college - totally didn't happen that way; I ended being several years behind on everything except college).

 

America's interpretation of religion baffled me.  While in Seattle, my parents were friends with a family who are sort of related to us via in-laws, and they were much more religious than we were.  After eight years in Germany, my dad wanted to be a member of a church again, mainly I think for the social community, so we went to a few services with them on occasion, and I even volunteered at the youth bible group since I needed community service hours for Honors Society.  Still, religion tended to bore me, and it seemed much more conservative in the States.

 

Over the years, I became more disillusioned with the practice of religion in the United States.  While I know liberals who are religious and tolerant, so many of the people that we met who describe themselves as Christian are nice but very conservative and intolerant.  I hated how people used their religion to justify their narrow minded positions, especially since everyone just picks and chooses which Bible verses to follow.  This is wrong because Leviticus says so.  And yet they never bring up the many other things that the Bible deems as wrong that have since been accepted.  Nor do they discuss the conflicting verses.  "Don't marry your brother's wife, it's incest" vs. "marry your brother's widow and protect her."  I think maybe I take after my mom.  While she never went to church regularly, she thought of herself as somewhat religious.  However, she was critical of the church.  She felt the Catholic Church in our town in Germany took advantage of some of the older women that attended regularly.  Now, she is always critical of people that call themselves Christian whose actions speak otherwise.

 

When we discussed the Founding Fathers and some of their religious views, I thought there was a philosophy I could fall behind.  There was a Supreme Being, he created the universe, the Earth, whatever, and then he went away and let us do our own thing.  He really could care less what we do down here, who's sleeping with who etc.

 

I've noticed in the Army especially that people who are religious tend to be of the very conservative sort, as in they believe in creationism and think homosexuality is a sin.  Maybe it's just that those are the most vocal and noticeable.  I've actually become even less interested in religion during the deployment than before if that was even possible.  Before every mission, the chaplain comes down and prays with the troops that are about to go on the road.  I used to stay in the circle, respectfully, with my head bowed.  Now, I step to the back.  Maybe it's just me, but having a ritualistic prayer doesn't necessarily seem that sincere or spontaneous to me.  Shouldn't true faith be about spontaneity rather than simply routine?  So I step away for two reasons: I don't know what I believe, and I don't think that if I ever determine what I think that that would be a true expression of real faith for me.

 

While I probably am closer aligned to being an atheist at the moment than anything else, I don't necessarily have a problem with religion.  I have a problem with the interpretation of religion.  I have a problem with the way some people choose to practice their faith.  I have an issue with how some people use their faith to cast stones and judge others.  I dislike how some people use the Bible and other religious texts to justify their bigotry and ignorant, misguided beliefs.  And I know not everyone is like that.  But it scares me that this is who we see representing religion, that this is the side of the religion that seems to be gaining more and more power and getting more and more say in the world.  That's why I enjoy things that make fun of the overzealous religious who think that they are right and everyone else is wrong.  At least this way I know there is also a group of people out there that don't think that way and who also see the folly in some of the views of extreme religion, but Christianity in particular.

Another Isabel Allende Novel

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

 

This is the third Isabel Allende novel I've read in the last few months, and the first she published.  It took me a little bit longer to get into this one, because in the second part she discusses Esteban Trueba and at that point in the novel, I was much more interested in the deValle family.  Once she gets to the third part and back to Clara deValle, I was basically hooked.

 

The story spans three generations, beginning with Esteban and his wife Clara, and ends with their granddaughter, Alba.  Over the generations, certain themes repeat themselves: Blanca and her daughter Alba both end up in relationships with revolutionaries, or socialists, much to the annoyance and dislike of Esteban, a leader in the Conservative Party.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the reasons I had been hesitant to read Allende was my fear of overuse of magical realism.  Of all her novels I've read, this one makes use of that technique the most, but unlike other novelists, hers is more subtle.  Perhaps subtle is not the quite the right word, since Clara communicates with spirits and has telekinetic powers, and characters are born with green hair, but it seems like other authors just overdo it.  Or they focus too much on the grotesque and the absurd.  For example, in Günter Grass's The Tin Drum, the main character has basically adult consciousness from the moment he is born, but chooses not to grow up, remaining in the body of a toddler for several years, even trying to seduce and have sex with the babysitter while looking like a two year old.  Something about that just went a little too far for me.  I had similar problems with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and parts of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie bothered and distracted me, though I mostly enjoyed the novel (The Ground Beneath Her Feet, on the other hand, is convoluted, boring, and just not that interesting).

 

In Allende's characters, their unusualness is shown as more of an eccentricity than anything else as well as the progression of time - none of Clara's descendants have her skills or abilities, and there is an idea that the time of magic has passed with the rise of modernity and the violent upheavals of the country.  By the time the coup occurs, only few of the spirits still remain.

 

In addition to being about the deValle-Trueba family, the novel is about social change and struggle, as well as good intentions gone awry.  The family's destiny ends up intertwined with other people, and things that happened decades ago end up affecting the present.  And there are also great passionate love stories mixed in throughout the narrative, Blanca and Pedro standing out the most.

 

Now that I've read three of Allende's novels, two of which were probably her most well known and famous, I'm kind of curious which one I should get next (other than Zorro - I think that one's somewhere in a huge stack of unread books in my apartment in Germany) - any recommendations?

Where's My Cake?

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

 

I'd seen this on Amazon at a few different points, and while the title intrigued me (I like cake; I'd show up if someone told me there'd be cake, especially chocolate mousse cheese cake from the Cheesecake Factory), I wasn't sure if a funny title was worth the time or money.  Then I actually saw it recommended on two very different sites that I read, and ended up ordering it.

 

First off, the other websites praised it so highly that I was expecting to be laughing out loud a lot, despite my usual reaction to comic essay pieces.  So needless to say, it didn't quite meet my expectations.  However, there was one essay in particular that made me laugh quite a bit, and the others amused me enough.  I think my favorite one was about her being a bridesmaid for a middle/high school friend she hadn't even talked to in years.  Not only that, but she was the maid of honor, which Crosley didn't even realize until a few short weeks before the wedding.  She was chosen for this "honor" simply because she had inquired if there was one at the beginning of the planning process.  In response to this, Crosley "wondered if all her life's decisions since [she]'d known her had been based on such subtleties of conversation, and it took everything [she] had to stop from asking, Are you sure you're engaged?" (161)  I also enjoyed her piece on the Oregon Trail (I've played that!), and about her vegan/vegetarian diet.  There were definitely a few parts in all her essays that I could relate to or easily imagine happening, while others were more outlandish, and overall it was well balanced.  The first few were the most uneven and weak but even they had good parts, and as the book progresses, the essays also get better.

[Insert Clever Title Here]

Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan

Narrated by Yalini, this novel is told in a series of short vignettes. In the first few vignettes, I kept confusing myself because I thought the author was switching narrators when she'd start a new one off with a name, but that was just the narrator telling who she would be talking about in that particular instance.

After her uncle, who has been out of touch with the family for a long time, comes to Canada to die in peace, Yalini and her parents leave their lives in the States to spend his last months with him. Yalini's parents both immigrated from Sri Lanka, while her uncle chose to stay and join the Tamil Tigers. Yalini helps her doctor father care for her uncle, and also takes the task of family historian upon herself. Her cousin Janani is about to enter into an arranged marriage, and this partially influences the themes that Yalini focuses on in her family's history: marriage and love intermixed with ethnic violence.

It takes some time to get into it, but definitely worth the read. As the novel progresses, Yalini faces a bit of an identity crisis but ends up with a greater understanding of her past, her ancestors and their sacrifices.