schmorp

Relay for Life

Sat, 03 May 2008 05:43:21 GMT

So I decided to do Relay for Life with my work. If anyone wants to donate to my team you can go to this link .

Thanks,

I'll take any help I can get.

On being a woman.

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:48:39 GMT

When I was growing up I hated being a girl. When I went to Gloria Dei for school I had to wear a skirt or dress to chapel on Wednesdays. When we moved to Alsip and I started going to public school I refused to wear a skirt from the time I was eight until I was 14 or 15. I had quite the imagination and in our games I often played the part of a man. The only time I enjoyed playing the part of a girl is when my cousin and I were pretending we were Super Jenny and Super Kimmy. We were powerful girls who brandished tinkertoy weapons and and flew after the bad guys. Our arch enemy was Ravenway and her two henchmen, whose names I can't remember. (Kim do you?) We were powerful there. We fought crime and I lived on the moon. I can remember being frustrated that in the cartoons all the cool characters were boys. There were no females in Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, or old cartoons that I liked and in shows like Ninja Turtles, Tiny Toons and Popples and Care Bears all of my favorite characters were boys. I babysat a girl in Jr high who had the guts to be on an all boys baseball team and I really admired that.

As I got older I got more into sports than make believe so I was still with the boys. I wore baseball caps and huge Starter jackets. I was teased for being a lesbian or too boyish (before lesbian had really entered our lexicons) for most of my life. In high school I finally made the jump to cutting off my long hair. I have only really started to enjoy being girly ever. It's still only in spurts. I would rather watch football than do many more "female" activities. Sometimes though I love skirts. I will never again have long hair, that's for sure. But I think now I am becoming more proud to be a woman. It makes me unbelievably happy when I walk into a sports store and see little pink baseball mitts and soccer balls. I'm not a fan of the color pink, but maybe girl themed sporting goods would have made it seem more normal.

I have been getting into feminism a lot and also thinking about when I have kids how to treat gender rolls. Andrew and I are really not a fan of them. He got the gay teasing for being sensitive as much as I got the gay teasing for what I wore and what games I played. I guess I have finally gotten comfortable being a woman. I guess my goal will be to make my kids feel comfortable in the skin they are in regardless of what they like to do.

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:37:39 GMT

Holy hell I got the interview

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:08:25 GMT

I'm feeling restless the last few days. I don't know if it's the snow or the upcoming election, or the fact that I am listening to a lot of very political music while reading international news stories, but I feel the need to escape. I want to go hiking somewhere, I want to start a revolution. I want to protest. I want to organize people. I want meaningful political discussion. I want to raise awareness to several issues. I feel like jumping out of my skin or maybe just lighting a Hummer on fire. I want to teach kids to read while showcasing that white male privilege is still very much alive in our country. I want to raise awareness for mental illness while housing the poor. I want to fight the power, burn bridges, and sing from the rooftops....

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:35:04 GMT

It's days like today that I really wish I lived in Hawaii.

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:43:46 GMT

A few months ago I caught a guy using stolen checks at my store. He was on probation for robbing a home. I just found out the other day he got 6 years in jail for the check thing. Wow.

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:13:43 GMT

So I have been making it a thing to work out everyday because I am trying to get rid of the extra pounds. Last night it was 65 degrees. Being January and in Illinois I decided I needed to take advantage of the odd weather patterns. So Andy and I decided to go play some tennis. Unfortunately, being January, 10PM and with none of the students around none of the tennis courts on campus were lit. So I came up with a great idea. We ended up playing tennis on top of a parking garage until it started to lightning. It was a blast.

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:12:35 GMT

We gave my Grandma the TV we bought her. First she said "but I have a TV" and then when my aunt said, "Jenny said it's turning green." My grandma relented, "Well I guess the color is starting to go....and the picture really isn't that crisp anymore." Then when my uncle told her he would take her out to get a TV stand she said that she had already decided she wanted a wall unit...so I guess this was something she was already thinking about. So all in all I think she liked it.

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 16:18:05 GMT

Happy Christmas Everyone!!

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:53:46 GMT

It took me an hour and a half to drive home tonight....it's a 17 mile drive. That probably goes in the top 5 worst experiences of my life.

I-L-L!!!

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:22:43 GMT

So my Bears suck, my Sox did suck, my Bulls suck....but my ILLINI!! Rose bowl bound!!! Time to get obliterated by USC!

Jen Vs. the Ice Storm

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:03:20 GMT

Yesterday when I woke up it was raining. It wasn't until I went downstairs to go to work that I found out that rain was actually turning to ice everywhere. I had to chip my car out of an ice block. So I called work, told them I would be a little late and started on my merry way. I work these days about 17 miles north of Urbana. I drive through the middle of nowhere on a state route to get there. The roads in Urbana were fine. In fact, I spent the time getting out of town 2 cars behind a salt truck. So, I didn't really think the middle of nowhere roads would be bad. I have never made this drive in really bad weather, well, other than a tornado warning. But in central Illinois I don't really worry much during those because they happen quite a few times a year.

Anyway, so I am chugging along doing my thing when my car starts to shake. I change lanes and try to slow down a bit. I was driving slower than I usually do, but probably faster than I should have been going, given the weather. So than my car shakes for a second and starts to fishtail. I take my foot off the gas and try to slow down and steer out of it. The fishtailing just gets wilder and all I can think about is how I'm gonna smash my car off the guard rails. The next thing I know I have stopped, but in the left lane....and facing the wrong way. Thankfully since it is a road not used much there were no cars around me when it happened. So I pulled over into the left shoulder, calm myself down and waited for some cars to pass. Then I turned around and continued on my way, but much more slowly this time.

I made it to work safely despite my incident. Oh and on the rest of the travel I did see a pickup truck stuck in the ditch in the median and a spot where all the mud had been sprayed up by another car. So at least I wasn't alone.

So the lesson here is don't underestimate the ice storm.

Holiday Blues

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:00:21 GMT

Every year around the holidays life always seems a little rougher to me. It's not that I don't like Christmas, I do. I actually really love Christmas. I like the cheesy music and decorations and buying gifts for people and lame movies. Actually it has more to do with the other two holidays. I don't like Thanksgiving or New Years. Well, that and ever since moving to Champaign holidays are a huge hastle. Thanksgiving this year I went to Andrew's parents house. It was only about the second holiday I didn't spend any time at grandma's and to be honest I felt pretty guilty about it. I felt like I was contributing to the splintering that has been happening throughout my entire family for years. Also, I guess I felt a little out of place. Andrew's family is really nice and all and I really like some of the people a lot, but they talked about a lot of family stuff that didn't pertain to me at all. I mean, I'm not really family, well not yet at least.

New Year's always makes me feel lonely. I think it has done so since I was in grade school. I just don't like it. I hate the parties. It doesn't help that the last two years when I have tried to throw parties on my own terms I got sick and couldn't do anything anyway. Oh well.

I guess the worst part is that the holidays make me feel really panicky about everything. I just worry a lot more about just about everything.

Mud Hen

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:52:21 GMT

Just in case you thought sports had lost their humor...

Amazing

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:07:09 GMT

OK, here is a message to conservative Republicans. If you want us to take you seriously, you should stop voting against gay rights and then having sex with men. This does not help your credibility.

HAHAHAHAHHA

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:44:02 GMT

Fuck you Fred Phelps!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/31/funeral.protests.ap/index.html

Texas Sheet Cake (my favorite cake)

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:44:18 GMT

Cake:

2 cups flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream (approx 6 oz)
2 sticks of margarine
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 Tb cocoa
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp. baking soda

Boil the water, margarine, and cocoa together. Separately, mix sour cream, sugar and eggs. Slowly beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Then add boiled mixture. Bake in 10X15" pan for 20 min. at 350 degrees. If you use a smaller pan, this will take longer, but can be done.

Frosting:

4 Tb cocoa
1lb powdered sugar
6 Tb milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 stick margarine

Boil together cocoa, milk, and margarine. Add in vanilla. Sift in powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Frost while warm.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:19:49 GMT

They are delaying the release of Smash Brothers until February. Those bastards!

Great 2 days for sports.

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:20:58 GMT

Illini become ranked for the first time since my freshman year of college after beating Wisconsin. The Bears beat Green Bay. The Cubs loose. I don't feel like I could have asked for more.

Aurora and Religion

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:48:51 GMT

In the past few weeks I've been paying a lot of attention to the opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora. For those of you not in Illinois, or who don't read Chicago news, Anti-choice protesters almost got the city government to buckle and not allow the clinic to open. It took 2 extra weeks of investigation to get it open. Monday it opened. I was reading a commentary on the Chicago tribune about it and the first comment on the article told the person that by supporting the clinic they were evil people spreading lies and killing children. I got really upset about it and it really got me thinking about my own relationship with religion.

I used to be really really active in my church in high school. I was a member of the youth group, an acolyte, an usher. I worked fundraisers and went on camping trips. And just before college I completely gave up my faith.

I believed in religion because of the people aspect. The mysticism seemed like a bunch of crap since I was old enough to figure out such things, but I really did, and still do, believe in treating others well. I believe that love is always stronger than hate and that most of the world's problems could be solved by just listening to each other. I thought that Christians felt that way too.

As I grew up, however, I faced increasing amounts of hate in the church. I was singled out and teased to the point where i feared my safety by my peers for my perceived sexuality. I heard about how people of those sexualities were damned. I heard people speak of the evils of those who didn't believe what we believed (could a just God really damn someone simply for not believing in him? It seems like a selfish God.) I heard about the evils of women who make certain choices (premarital sex, abortions).

I went to a huge gathering of Lutherans my senior year of high school. During it I saw seminars about the evils or rock music (what I listened to), the occult (it seemed like a joke to be threatened by this), a seminar titled "Homosexuality: how to love the sinner but hate the sin" (this is my least favorite phrase of all time), and finally during a pro-life speech where everyone was giving a standing ovation but me I felt that connection to religion finally snap. It was something i really did feel inside of me. I got really calm and decided there that I would never be a part of this again.

I still get really angry when I hear "Christians" spew hate. So I ask this, if you are religious how do you reconcile being in a place that justifies hate if you, yourself, disagree with these stances? I really want to have a reasonable conversation with a Christian I guess. I want to know people have faith in whatever they believe when the people running the show are full of such bullshit. I know none of the people who read this are super conservative so I guess I don't really fear that.

I'm not saying that I ever want to go back to religion. I know I won't. I just want to know how young people deal with the fact that their church leaders are becoming all the more corrupt and hateful in a religion that as of the New Testament teaches peace.

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:48:19 GMT

Rex isn't our quarterback!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_snby3Plh7k

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:52:33 GMT

If I hear "Rex Grossman is our quarterback" one more time...someone is gonna die.

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:32:13 GMT

There is something beautiful about an airborne Brian Urlacher.

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:04:12 GMT

I talked to my uncle today. He actually broke 6 ribs, several were fractured in several places. He punctured his lung and that's why he is still in the hospital. He sounded like he was in a lot of pain. He said he felt better today than yesterday. I guess he was riding his motorcycle to work when a car suddenly pulled out in front of him. He swerved to avoid it, got rear ended, hit the car he was trying to miss, flew over his handle bars and landed on LaSalle Ave. chest first. He said he was really really glad that he had worn a helmet.

Hopefully next week will look better.

How is Iowa more on top of this than us.

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:07:51 GMT

This morning Andrew said he might apply to grad school in Iowa. He told me it would be just like Champaign. I told him it would be just like Champaign if it had less stuff and more corn. Then I came home to this...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/08/30/iowa.samesexmarriage/index.html

I have said I won't live in a state with an amendment against gay marriage. But how did Iowa beat Illinois to this?