Women Writers

Today, reading a list of "most reads" of the year, I realised what bothered me about the list. What has been bothering me about a lot of reading that I have been doing in the media lately.

It wasn't that there weren't as many women as men (the list I was reading was relatively well balanced, plus, I kind of expect that in the same way I expect more English-writing authors to be present in these lists), but the fact that whilst men dealt with pretty much any subject, women were limited (I hesitate to say relegated) to "women's interest topics", whether they be how beauty standards are enforced by the media, how women have it more difficult, how women are mistreated or abused, how women are raped, how women are not equal in academia (well, I lie, this topic has suspiciously been picked up by many men too, many of them defending how the issue doesn't really exist), etc. Occasionally, articles on fashion (but these don't make it to the most-read lists) or on decoration or on flexible working (although, again, this is too often portrayed as a "women's interest topic"). In any case, it worries me that we see women authors as only worthy of producing content about women.

The above sentence may sound awful: what? Aren't women worth writing about? Of course they are. As much as anyone else. But when women's issues are dealt with as a side topic, instead of being dealt with as a normal topic, when women are asked to write about women but not given other assignments (such as writing about finance, or politics, or airplane tragedies, which also involve women but which for some reason are mostly reported on by men) the message being sent is this: women are only important to women, and women are not capable of doing anything else than reporting on or for women. Both of these assumptions are horribly detrimental.

Part of me wants to think that part of the reason for this occurring is that women are more interested in themselves than men are; that women write about women because men won't and because women's problems need to be made visible. However this is of little help. I want to write about women, and I want women and men to write about women. But not in exclusion. Not just because we are women and so need some different treatment. I want people to write about women because women are human. And I want both men and women to write about women because I want both women and men to write about men. I want to be able to gain insight into the world through other people's views and experiences and I don't think this is possible while we pigeonhole "women for women and people for men".

If I believed that there were no differences between men and women this wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter that only men described the world because they would do it the same way women do. But I don't believe this. I believe that men and women are different, that individuals are different and that insights into the world should be gained through both. As a woman there are things that matter to me that men don't think about as much (rape, for example, or the wage gap), but this doesn't mean that I only want women's opinions on these topics. It also doesn't mean that I want women to only talk about these topics.

I've always wanted to be a writer. This is why I've been writing ever since I can remember and why I have a blog and more notebooks than I can count full of stories and articles and reviews. I love writing. Never before did I think that I would be limited in what I might want to write about depending on my gender. And I won't be. But I will be limited in what I can publish apparently.

All I'm saying is, it's not just about numbers. It's also about content. I've never been a fan of quotas or preferential treatment for women, but until such a day when "women's interest" stories stop being "women's interest" and I stop seeing a huge bias in journalists' genders depending on the topic I suspect I won't be able to trust most media outlets.

(By the way, I love reading women's interest stories, but not because they are women's interests. Perhaps because they have a harder time getting published or perhaps because they have a harder time being heard, women who write about women's issues are not only beautiful writers but incredibly good researchers with flawless logic. I don't always agree with everything they say, but I read them because they write quality, and I will read them if they decide to write about politics or finance or economy or poverty or class mobility or anything else they want to write about because they are brilliant. And because in the end, all issues are women's issues, because we're all human.)

Private or Public Education

Note: the title of this post is intentionally misleading. By Public I mean, of course, State education.

Today I was going through different websites trying to find something to read that would take my mind off my code, and found this.

Now, I'm not going to say that Rhiannon Lucy Coslett is wrong. In fact, I think she has a point in thinking that State educated students aren't as confident (actually, I would say as entitled) as private school students in the UK (this is important for later). I do think she makes a few mistakes in certain assumptions, such as the idea that the reason for State educated people having a lower salary is lower confidence: although this could be true, I'm almost convinced that it has more to do with connections. People born into families with money usually know more people with money in different industries.

But something I find quite funny is this idea of people coming from state schools not feeling comfortable in expensive/upper class (?)/"swanky" settings.

Although the example of her friend is familiar to me, I'm not 100% sure that this is the case because the place they were going to was expensive. I am chronically insecure, and for years I would have rather waited out in the cold than go into any restaurant on my own, let alone one where I had to ask for a table. However, after several years of enduring chronically late friends (you know who you are, don't be offended if you aren't) and living on my own in a foreign country, I have had to learn, not just to wait in a restaurant on my own, but also to have food on my own, coffee on my own and (only very rarely) a drink on my own. Once you do it a few times it stops feeling uncomfortable. And quite honestly, if I have to do it, I rather it be in an expensive bar/restaurant/caf'é, where it's more comfortable and staff usually make you feel welcome even if you're on your own.

I vividly remember an occasion in which, for some reason, I told my dad that he wouldn't go into a luxury shop in an airport. He asked me why, and I don't know what I said, but it probably amounted to "you're not dressed to that standard and we don't have enough money to walk into such a place". He almost laughed at me. And of course he went into the shop, and asked about a couple of things, and then left without buying anything. Now, I suspect he only did this to teach me a lesson: part of fitting in with rich/upper class people is feigning entitlement. No one cares what you're wearing when you go into a shop as long as you are confident and act as though you can afford what's being sold. I have been able to confirm this many times after that, both through rich/upper class people that I've hung out with and through walking into places with confidence. Look like you know where you're going and, most of the time, no one will bother you.

But the thing that got to me the most about the article was that comment by a state school journalist outside the Oxford Union "this place is not meant for me". See, Coslett has interpreted this as the other journalist being uncomfortable because he didn't feel confident enough. And obviously, I can't fault her in this conclusion because I don't know this man, and I wasn't there. But here's the thing: I moved to Cambridge at the beginning of October to pursue a PhD in Biochemistry. I can unashamedly say that I love Cambridge: it's small, which makes my life easy; it's lively enough that I don't get bored; it's close to London (in case I do get bored), it's beautiful, the people I've met are great, and professionally (or academically? For me both things are the same right now) it's fantastic: people who know and care about what they're doing, good facilities, etc. However, some of the undergraduates I've met are entitled brats who think they're better than everyone else, and I still feel like this place isn't meant for me. And what I mean by this isn't that I am uncomfortable here: far from it. I fucking own this place. I am as good as anybody here, and I deserve to be here, and I'm going to make the most of it. But a place that trains its students to believe that they're better and smarter than students at other universities, a place that is so entrenched in the past that grace is still read at some formal dinners (and gowns worn!), a place that instills a sense of entitlement into its students making them believe that just because they attended that university they are automatically deserving of more than their peers, a place where class and money are still extremely important and apparent (and I feel sorry for those who think they are not: living in Cambridge comfortably is extremely expensive, not to mention the cost of formal dinners, May Balls, etc.) is not a place for me. I never used to say this (because people would say I am lying) but I come from the working class. This doesn't make me embarrassed: in fact, I got where I am because I'm as good or better than those who had a private education and connections. So when I say "this place is not for me" it isn't because I feel uncomfortable because I'm not confident. It's because I don't like dealing with other people's bullshit entitlement.

Also: I learnt to dream from my family, and my books, and my friends and my travels and myself. My education allowed those dreams to flourish, but dreaming doesn't need to be taught. That's one thing you teach yourself.

Disinterest

Let me tell you, I am uninterested.

I read the papers, and the blogs and the FB posts written by my friends; I watch the TV shows and the news and the latest films; and most of the time I am uninterested.

Yes, to be honest, even when we have a chat in the day, it's not unlikely that I'll be thinking, same old same old, what's the point of this conversation anyway? when you tell me that your day has been alright.

And maybe (probably) it's just me, but quite honestly, you don't really care how my day was either. We might find an anecdote amusing, have a laugh, but in the end even that is mediocre. No, the truth is, none of this interests me.

I am more interested in my code, in what the data I'm extracting from stem cells might be than in how your day went, and sometimes I wonder if this makes me a bad person: not caring for the fellow human. But the fact is, I do care about the fellow human.

If you (or the papers) talked to me about injustice (real injustice, not how horrible it is for 30-year-olds to have to move to the north of England because they can't afford London) I'll be there. I want to listen. I want to know what you have to say, I want to know what's happening and I want to hear proposals for solutions, I want to propose solutions myself, and I want to make them happen.

If you talk to me about books, real books, the sort that don't have an agenda and are purely story and human experience, I'll be there, I'll listen, I'll want to know the books you're talking about, I'll want to read them.

Talk to me about music, films, art, but talk to me about those done in pleasure and for pleasure. I don't care for art done with a message (any meaningful art has a message in itself, because any meaningful art is profoundly human).

And last of all: talk to me about science. Talk to me about how doing science rips one apart (trust me, it does, I don't think I've ever seen a higher concentration of stressed people as I see in a lab) and talk to me about how it's exciting and how doing science makes one happy. Talk to me about how the coffee is horrible and the talks put you to sleep, and about how that tiny difference in the numbers which no one else will notice or know about means so much to you (and this sounds idealistic, but there are people out there who love quirks in the numbers that are not significant to anyone else).

I want to open a newspaper and read about how people are suffering police brutality in what we know as "the first world". And I don't want to hear it just one day, I want to hear it every day because it is ongoing. I want to hear how we're destroying the world, how so many species of amphibians are becoming extinct every year (when was the last time that climate change made the headlines?). I want to hear about what's being done to stop world hunger, because I don't hear anyone talking about Somalia, but much less about people in Myanmar who can barely pay for meat, let alone people in countries ravaged by war. And I also want to hear about how in countries in Europe, children are going without food and homes, and without an education.

And yet, I open the newspapers and all I read about is politics.

And they dare to accuse me of being apolitical. Of being disinterested. Of being radicalised.

On gender neutral language

First, let me make this clear: in Spanish, I am not generally in favour of gender neutral language. The reason for this has to do with the structure of the language: in Spanish there are words that are "masculine" and "femenine" and the word "género", which gender is usually translated to, usually refers to this linguistic construct rather than what we refer to as gender in English (many people will argue that this is not true and that género refers to both, and I am not going to have that discussion here, just check the definition in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española from the RAE and you'll see that I'm formally correct). More than this: I do try to use collectives when I speak in Spanish (rather than the masculine plural, which is the usual voice used to refer to a group of people), but I don't feel that using the masculine plural to refer to a group of people invisibilises women at all. This is because I tend to think of language as economic and practical, and the fact that one form or another is used to generalise doesn't really affect how I think of things. Many people disagree with me, arguing that generalising using a masculine makes men the norm... Well, ok. I disagree, I think thinking men are the norm makes men the norm, but maybe I'm wrong.

Now, as to gender neutral language. In English, a language unburdened by géneros using gender neutral language is easy 99% of the time. When referring to a group of people use "they", when referring to a single person of undetermined gender use "they". This solves most of it. But I admit to having a huge problem when it comes to the use of words for, erm, sentimental partners (the erm is because I don't know how else to work this but sentimental partners sounds weird). Generally, I think that I don't have any reason to specify whether my partner is male or female. No one should care about this, and it should be up to my partner whether they want to be identified as either or neither, but until that preference is made clear, a gender neutral should be used. It's easy, many will say, just use partner! Yeah. Well, here lies my problem.

First of all, I find the word partner extremely serious. When people say partner, to me it sounds like "life partner". To me it implies a long-term commitment similar to marriage where the two people involved haven't gotten married. And I know this is a personal thing, but I don't like it. I wish there were a gender-neutral equivalent to boyfriend or girlfriend that at the same time were as casual. I don't mean that everyone who says "x is my girl/boyfriend" means that they're in a casual relationship with x, but there is a lot more room for variation. A girl/boyfriend can be someone you've been seeing a few weeks, but who isn't that serious yet, or someone you've been seeing for a couple of years, where you're perhaps not an established couple the way a married couple is but where things are quite serious. To me boy/girlfriend seems to allow for a lot more gradation.

Another point, again purely in my head, but also why I find it troubling, is that when introducing your partner to someone else, a lot of the time their gender is obvious, so saying "partner" instead of "boy/girlfriend" could be confusing (it could be a business partner, a lab partner, etc).

Now for another situation where I find so-called gender-neutral language uncomfortable: I like using the word "guys" to refer to a group of people, and a couple of people have called me out on it. Funnily enough, these people weren't annoyed by my use of the word (they weren't offended that I'd identified them as male) but rather they were pointing out that someone might be offended. Anyway. I like using the phrase "you guys", especially in written communication, to imply a plural. Since you is both singular and plural in English, I find this an easy way to make the distinction, without the negative connotations that "you people" has (I mean, "are you guys coming to the theatre later?" sounds a lot better than "are you people coming to the theatre later?" I think). Now, many people have argued that guys is becoming a gender-neutral word (more and more it's being used by girls/women to refer to groups where everyone identifies as a woman), so maybe there's my solution right there.

I don't know. On the one hand, I see the need, especially in a language like English where it's so easy to do, to use gender neutral language. It means that when putting an example, our example isn't male by default. On the other, I feel that we should maybe start considering language for what it is: a tool to communicate. It tends to simplicity and to saving words, and this leads to generalisation.

Considering above all that pigeon-holing people into different classifications (male/female, single/married, etc. etc. etc.) is part of the problem when it comes to discrimination (it is divisive and non-inclusive, even anti-inclusive, but this matter is for another blog-post), and considering how easy it is to adopt a language that is gender-neutral (of course not all discrimination is gender-based, but this is what I'm dealing with in this post), I think we should do our best to do so. Not because changing language will make people feel better, but mainly because language has, to an extent, power to change how we think and view things.

Menuda sarta de tonterías

Soy lectora de El País desde hace muchos años. Supongo que mi afición a este periódico se debe, más que nada, a que es el que se lee en mi casa, y eso tira mucho. Leer otros me cuesta, no por la marca política (todos los periódicos la tienen) sino más que nada por la edición. Me he acostumbrado y otros periódicos me resultan extraños (aún así, he seguido a Enric González a El Mundo y leo Público y El Periódico casi todos los días).

Curiosamente, digo que soy lectora de El País, pero si tengo que ser sincera, normalmente echo una hojeada a la portada, a lo mejor leo alguna noticia, pero realmente lo que leo sin falta cada día son las Cartas al Director. No sé porque esta sección me atrae tantísimo, pero tiene que ver con varias cosas. Primero, es un baremo (por supuesto muy elegido y censurado, ya que no se publican todas las cartas que recibe el director) de lo que piensan algunos de los lectores del periódico, lo cual de alguna forma da una idea de lo que piensa la gente de lo que pasa por el mundo. Por otra parte son cortas, las puedo leer en diez minutos. Por último, me dan la falsa ilusión de que cualquiera puede aparecer publicado en un periódico. Pero tengo que reconocer una cosa: la mayoría de los días, la mayoría de las cartas son tonterías. Y no digo que hablen sobre tonterías, que no siempre, pero sí que son tonterías. Están mal escritas, mal argumentadas o no dicen nada.

Lo preocupante de esto no es que haya gente que no sepa escribir, o que no sepa argumentar, o que no tenga bastante materia en la cabeza como para decir algo que merezca oírse. Incluso puedo admitir que no es preocupante que esta misma gente se siente y decida escribir una carta a un medio nacional (aunque la verdad, ¿por qué? ¿de dónde habrán sacado la idea de que a alguien le interesa su no opinión?). Estas cosas no son preocupantes porque la libertad de expresión existe, con lo cual cualquiera puede decir lo que quiera y lo único que podemos hacer los demás es taparnos los oídos o pedirle que se calle, pero no podemos impedir que digan lo que quieran. Lo que me resulta preocupante es que si, como creo, el director de El País recibe más cartas al día de las que publica, decida publicar las que publica.

Puede haber varias razones para esto, puede ser simplemente que las demás cartas sean todavía más insípidas y estúpidas que las que elige. Pero sospecho que no es así. Sospecho que muchas de las cartas que se publican se publican porque de alguna manera parece que apoyan la agenda política del periódico. Y sospecho que muchas no se publican porque no apoyan esta misma agenda política. Y aquí sí que me encuentro con un grave problema. Porque me gustaría poder leer estas cartas. Al fin y al cabo, el no publicar ciertas cartas (el elegir que cartas se publican) es censura, y aunque es comprensible que no se haga en prensa impresa (por falta de espacio), en la edición digital sería facilísimo publicar todas las cartas recibidas.

Pues eso. Que quiero que El País elija mejor las cartas que publica y que sean buenas, defiendan lo que defiendan (incluso lo indefendible puede escribirse de una manera atractiva, y mientras no se quebrante la ley no habría por qué no publicarlo, de hecho, es importante saber que hay gente que piensa lo indefendible). Y que quiero leer lo que se publica y lo que no, y por qué se publica y por qué no.

Arguing

I love arguing. I really do. Don't get me wrong, I don't like confrontation or fights (they make me unhappy), but arguing points entertains me, distracts me and I find it's a phenomenal way of getting to know how people's minds work. It also happens to be a fantastic way of winding people up (especially because I am a terribly bad arguer and I will argue one side of a point today and the opposite tomorrow, and I like to be convinced by people of things, and sometimes I know that I'm wrong but refuse to admit it; but most of the time because people get annoyed when they realise they don't have a good argument for what they're defending and/or because even if their argument is good it does not answer the criticism they are receiving).

This said, I believe certain rules should be followed when arguing (this is not to say I follow them), because otherwise arguments can become violent and personal and cease being fun.

First of all, it's important to take the argument seriously. This involves two things: take the subject being discussed seriously and take your opponent seriously. This doesn't mean be solemn, or don't make a joke. It does mean don't insult your opponents intelligence (unless you really have to) and be knowledgeable about the subject and your limitations when discussing it. It doesn't matter whether the subject is science policy in Eastern Europe in the 1990s or whether Harry Potter and Hermione should have ended up together (if you are an HP HG shipper get out of here, it was never gonna happen).

Secondly, and something I'm terribly bad at, be honest. If the other person is right, admit they are right. If your argument had a logical fallacy, admit it. Neither of these things have to end the debate and they contribute to people not getting exasperated (or, in other words, slamming their pint glass in anger before getting up and leaving).

Thirdly, and this is the one where the real meat is, don't get into arguments you can't win. By this I don't mean arguments where you are arguing the losing side (that can be fun) but arguments with people who have such a clear mindset on the subject that they don't see the point of the discussion. Internet forums are a perfect example of this. Most of the time, the people who comment in these forums are just there to show off their opinions, they are not interested in discussing things, or in learning, or in seeing someone else's point of view or even someone else's reasonings. Arguing with these people is pointless, not because they won't change their minds, but because generally they won't see any point in trying to explain why they think the way they think or in trying to convince you to think like them. Most of the time they will consider you an idiot for thinking differently or have bigoted views on your opinions.

I don't have any more rules for arguing. I disagree with making arguing too complicated (well, I love debating, but I think that's one of the simplest and most beautiful forms of arguing), and I won't to add any rules about listening, not interrupting, etc. (because I think it's sort of part of being engaged in a debate to be a bit agitated, and occasionally interrupt, and say "I'm sorry" when it happens and keep going, because if you are engaged you are listening and just wanting to make your point).

I sometimes wonder whether other people I know like arguing. I know a couple of people who get slightly annoyed for my love of discussing stuff for no other reason than to have an argument, these also happen to be the people I talk with the most and have the most discussions with, so fair enough. But I am surprised at some people's dislike of argument, of intelligent discussion, even for the sake of intelligent discussion. Personally, I just see it as a fantastic way to pass the time.

New shoes

The other day I put on a pair of new shoes. They are beautiful castellanos (if you don't know what this is... google "Zapatos Castellanos". They are fantastic shoes for walking around that aren't trainers and are reliable and will last a long time. But because they're made of very rigid leather it means that they need to be broken in.

Usually, I never buy shoes that need to be broken in, except a few high heels (and my experience with high heels is as follows: if they kill your feet within the first five minutes of putting them on, no amount of breaking in will help, they will kill your feet. The only thing to do is to accept that pain is something you have to accept to look good in those heels and look a few inches taller. That said, I have bought a few heels that were not painful to start off with, and only needed getting used to. Still to find a pair that I can wear for longer than 4 hours without my feet being in pain though), but these were an exception, because I know that once they're broken in they will last me for at least two or three years, and they are shoes that I can use for pretty much any occasion that doesn't require a dress (or exercise).

Now, why do these shoes need to be broken in? Basically, because of the rigid leather, which means that they are a bit tight on the toes. In a way this is a good thing: if they were tight at the heel and caused blisters there, that would mean they were too small and I would probably not succeed in breaking them in, however, because they are tight on the toes, I know it's just a question of wearing them enough and making the leather a bit more flexible. So I have come up with a few rules as to breaking in of shoes.

1. Plan the day. Make sure you will not be wearing the shoes for so long that if they actually hurt they'll cause blisters, but also that you'll be wearing them for long enough that you'll make a difference to how they feel.

2. Wear thick socks. They will both protect your feet and also make the shoes give away a bit.

3. Make sure you walk in them. Despite point 1, what you actually want is to be able to walk in the shoes. So walk in them. Going on the bus, and then on the tube, and then sitting down for coffee, and then going back isn't really breaking in your shoes. You can take breaks, but make sure you walk in them quite a bit. I recommend about 20 minutes walking between every break.

4. Smile through the pain. Yes, it hurts, but nobody else should know about it. (This doesn't apply to other times when you're in pain, but for some reason, when you're breaking in shoes it really helps to just smile and pretend it does not hurt).

5. Give your feet a break. At the end of the day your feet really need to just rest after trying to break shoes in. Check that they're not damaged, get a good foot massage if you can (or give it to yourself) and don't wear shoes if you can help it for the rest of the day.

6. Finally, keep on at it. I've found with my new pair that one day hasn't done it completely, but they feel a lot better than when I started, so there. Don't give up on the first try.

PS: This is probably a post that is out of character for me, but I really felt like writing it after walking around central London with a stupid smile on my face trying to forget about my feet hurting. If you were expecting something different... well, maybe next time.

On tolerance

Tolerance, in its first definition: a fair, objective and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

One might read this definition and think all's well with the world. "We should all be tolerant!" one might exclaim.

I, however, have a problem with this definition. I do not understand how one can be fair and permissive. I also have trouble comprehending how one can have an "objective attitude". An attitude is a completely personal, it is a disposition towards something. It may be "good", it may be "open-minded" but I have trouble imagining how it can be objective. But this is the least of my worries. I have a lot more of an issue with a person having "a fair and permissive attitude".

Fair: treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination. (I have problems with this definition too, I cannot treat people equally if I want to treat them fairly: I cannot treat the victim of an attack the same way as I treat the perpetrator, it would not be fair. It would be different if the definition specified "treating people who are in the same situation equally without favouritism or discrimination).

Permissive: allowing or characterised by excessive freedom of behaviour.

So. How can you have an attitude that is at the same time "equalitarian without favouritism or discrimination" and "characterised by excessive freedom of behaviour"?

You're either fair (and you treat everyone equally, and if there is some sort of morals or justice it holds everyone accountable for their actions in the same way) or you are permissive (and you allow people excessive freedom and you don't make them accountable). Fairness and permissiveness don't mix.

But my other thoughts have to do with this "permissive"part of tolerance. Tolerance has been touted as a banner for acceptance of "other cultures" in the west (this is important, even today, in the west, we consider our culture the culture, and everyone else's "other cultures"), and it has been waved so violently that to say you did not agree with a practice that came from a different culture marked you as intolerant. I agree with this. That isn't a problem in itself. The problem is that being called intolerant was, for some time, equivalent with being set in your ways, with being racist, with being xenophobic, with being unwelcoming.

Well, here's the thing. I am intolerant. I am intolerant of things that I consider unfair. I am intolerant of things I consider to be bad, to be harmful, to be denigrating to human beings, to be humiliating. Take this as you will, but essentially what I mean by this is that if you consider it part of your culture to hit other people if they disagree with you, then I am going to be intolerant of your culture. Or at least of that part of your culture.

And this goes for everyone. If there is something in the way you think that I feel is wrong, I will tell you. If I think you are unfair, or mean, or a downright brutal person because of a praxis you uphold, I will tell you, and more than that, I will fight you if I can. And if you think something I do is wrong, or brutal, or cruel, or unfair, I hope you will tell me. And I hope you will fight me.

Now, let me be clear. I am respectful of other people. I believe people have a right to their own bodies and to their own minds, meaning that they can have their own opinions and expose their bodies to what they like. What I will not accept is the imposition of those practices on other people.

People have been too tolerant for too long, because being intolerant was seen as a negative. There is nothing wrong with being intolerant, in the same way that there is nothing wrong with being tolerant. It is always tolerant or intolerant of certain things.


Note: definitions have been taken without a lot of systematics from Google search. I'm usually more careful about this (using only one dictionary and being consistent) but I felt lazy today. So feel free to correct me based on dictionary use.

Movie day

WARNING: do NOT read if you have not watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yes, it contains spoilers. Yes, it contains my thoughts on the film. No, you won't get most of it if you haven't watched the film. So even if you don't intend to watch it, probably reading this is pointless.

Today I was supposed to get some work done. Instead, I've been in bed all day, ordered pizza, watched quite a bit of Masterchef (US, second season), the first episode of the new True Blood series (it's the last one right?) and when that was done I decided I wanted to watch a movie.

The idea was to watch a romcom, but then I came across Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Let me tell you my history with the movie first. I hate Jim Carrey. Really hate him. And when I first went to watch this movie, Kate Winslet wasn't as big as she is now. And yet, when we got to the cinema (I was with my mum and dad, must have been around 13 at the time?) either nothing else was showing, or what we'd decided to watch wasn't on at the hour advertised, or my parents had already decided to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind without telling me. Long story short: I wasn't really keen, but we went in anyway. I haven't watched it since until today but it has been since that day one of my favourite films.

And yes, I love this film. It gets a bit long at times, rambling through the memories in Joel's mind. It's not perfect. But for all the little things it gets wrong, it gets almost everything right. The first scenes, from Joel waking up to him getting on the train to Clementine saying she'll get a toothbrush are perfect. Yes, he is a bit of a loser, and clearly he is sad. Yes, she is aggressive, and a bit strange. But we all have days like that. Days when we feel like shit and skive off work. Days when a person catches our eye and we can't help but say hello. Days when we come on a bit too hard.

I don't know, but I suspect that Joel and Clementine are both archetypes. She is the wild, unpredictable dreamer, the woman in her late twenties or early thirties who refuses to have what others might consider a stable job or lead a "normal" life, but whom others see as a bit of a waste, because in the end she's not really fighting the system: she does have a job she hates and she needs to pay the rent like the rest of us and drinks a little bit too much at times. But at least she is alive. And at times that makes her happy, even if she does (and she admits it) get bored.

Joel is the "safe" one. He is socially awkward (but not in an "I don't have friends and don't know how to talk to people" way, but in a "Certain social situations engineered to make us talk to each other are just weird and I don't know what to do with them" way, which I suspect most of us can relate to once in a while). He does his job. He is (at his own admission) not spontaneous, and he's worried about breaking the rules. And he also wants to be happy. Clementine makes him happy because she's carefree and breaks the rules and lets him have fun, but it goes against his beliefs that someone like that can also be a responsible partner, so he has trouble having a relationship with her. Because deep down, he doesn't trust her. He doesn't see her as a long term thing.

Part of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about breaking these archetypes. It is about showing that people are not a mold, they're not what they're supposed to be. That people who are sweet can also be hurtful and mean; that people who are wild and crazy can also be incredibly loyal (this might be just my interpretation of Clementine saying at the end "I wouldn't do that. I am not like that". Joel has a preconception of how she will act based on the idea he has formed of her as a carefree wild spirit, and it turns out that he is wrong. She might be wild and crazy and carefree, but she means it when she says "if you're with me you're with me").

Another (to me huge) part of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the science fiction. Because let's face it, this is a science fiction film. There aren't machines out there that erase your memories. The consequences of deleting memories are not a known variable. So Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a science fiction movie. And to me, that makes it even better. It shows what matters in science fiction. I have met a lot of people who maintain that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't science fiction, that the deleting is only a construct helping the film. To me, this is the best kind of science fiction. The kind that does not use sci-fi as a setting, but as a medium to explore possibilities, a medium to tell a story. The best kind of science fiction is the sort that is necessary to the story, so necessary that it is believable, so necessary that people will argue "it's not science fiction, it is just a way to tell the story". A strictly realistic author would not have been able to tell the story at all. A truly realistic author would not have had as much fun with the van, and the machines around Joel's bed, but most of all, a strictly realistic author could not have told the story, because so much of it hinges on memories being erased and how that affects people and how discovering that it is happening or has happened affects people.

The Mary back story I always found weak. But it is brilliant in itself. It is one of perhaps three parts played by Kirsten Dunst that I admire profoundly and make me think she is actually a fantastic actress with an unforgivable preference for bad scripts. I don't like it because the part is clearly a ploy so that Joel and Clementine can have their tapes back. I do not find the romance between her and Stan believable at all. And I also have trouble believing that Howard would let her keep her job and keep seeing him every day after she had him removed. I think that part of the plot is weak, but no less well executed (when Howard's wife turns up, now that is powerful) in parts.

I read recently how Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a metaphor for how people fall in love and deal with break ups and a criticism as to scientific manipulation of the mind (the message seems to be, if you invested so much in someone then you won't actually be able to forget them). But to me the last conversation in the film sums it up quite well. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about how when we fall in love, we almost forget that we've been hurt before, and most of us, most of the time, will risk being hurt again.

Anyways, time for another film. Doubt it will be as good, but at least it won't be a rewatch (nothing wrong with rewatches but I've been doing a lot of that lately). If you have any suggestions as to movies in the spirit of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, please comment below. I'd love to watch more.

On tone policing

Most probably, the first time I came across tone policing was on a feminist blog. Tone policing is a social justice issue because it is one of the ways that privileged people exert control and establish superiority over others. If I'm screaming because I am in pain, and the person who is causing that pain reacts to my scream by saying that my screaming makes it impossible for them to listen to me (and therefore makes it impossible for them understand that they are causing me pain and that they need to change their behaviour), then we are in trouble. If we add to that that if I stop screaming in pain, try to breath in and out and calmly inform them that they are causing me pain, they will say that obviously I am not because I am not screaming it is completely maddening. So yes, I can understand where rejections to tone policing come from.

But here's the other side: when it comes to arguments and anger, I personally have a lot of trouble with people screaming at me. If I have done something wrong, and you tell me politely, I will listen to do and do all I can to rectify (if I believe I am in the wrong), or in the very least I will have a discussion with you about it and try to figure out what I can do to make things better. However, if you start screaming at me, I zone out. I can't deal. I feel I am being violently attacked and my reaction is to disappear. I hide within myself, stop listening and just want it to be over. On some occasions, out of pure fear/discomfort I might smile nervously or laugh. It's not that I find the person shouting funny, or the situation funny, it's that I have trouble processing it and my brain has trouble coping with it. No, I do not like being screamed at. And yes, I do understand that when you are angry and in the heat of the moment sometimes you can't help but screaming, and I am never going to criticise you for that. I just ask that in return you understand that if you scream at me I'm probably not going to listen. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. The only way I can explain it is like this: when someone starts screaming at me, at a certain point I can only hear the volume. I have heightened awareness of how close they are to me and what gestures they are making, probably because I am afraid they might strike me), I feel unable to move, and unable to react a lot further than to nod or agree because I just want the situation to be over. At some point, I stop hearing them. I become more aware of my surroundings than of the person I am interacting with because it is making me so uncomfortable that I block them out. And more than anything, I try to efface myself, and hide, I usually hang my head. These reactions are mostly unconscious, and even worse, when I say something in this situation (for example, if I try to apologize) people tend to think I am not being genuine. They are right. I am not. Not because I think they're wrong, but because usually in this situation the only thing I want is for it to be over. I am not thinking about what I have done, or whether what you're saying is reasonable. I just want the aggression to stop.

So I have a dilemma. I am against tone policing in principle, because I believe that people should be heard and that it's natural to be angry about certain things. However, I am one of those people who probably tend to tone police, because it makes it harder for me to listen when people are using an aggressive tone. I do not know how to solve this issue. It is problematic, especially because it means (amongst other things) that I can't work with certain people. It's funny, because in a way I love confrontation. I like heated debates, I like people who are passionate about what they're saying, I love people who get angry about unfairness. But yes, I tone police. If you're shouting at me I won't listen to you. And yes, a lot of the time this is purely involuntary, but a lot of the time it is entirely intentional. I don't want to be screamed at, and I have a right to have conversations in my own terms.

I have been known to say to people, "If you're going to scream at me, I'm not going to listen to you, I would rather not have this conversation". This is a perfect example of tone policing. And I dislike myself (a little bit for it), but here's the thing: I'm not doing it to stop you from expressing your ideas. I swear I'm not. If I could handle people screaming at me violently, I would try to listen. If you're screaming at someone else rather than me, I will listen. If instead of screaming you are aggressive in your tone (pitch) but not your volume or gestures, I will listen to you. I do not have a problem with anger. I think anger is necessary and it drives people. But screaming just shuts me down completely. Basically, in the same way that when I'm telling you "I won't listen to you if you shout at me" is tone policing, shouting at me is content policing. If you shout at me it's a sure way of not ever getting a response from me (or at least a real one, a constructive one). You will win the argument, not because I agree with you, but because I am unable to argue against the shouting. And I will probably be very wary of engaging with you again.

I guess the point of this is that I respect and understand that tone policing exists and that it is not good, and that it is a form of exerting control over oppressed minorities. But I also understand that some people refuse to engage with people who are violent in how they express their views, either on principle or simply because they have trouble dealing with that violence. So, the next time someone asks you to express your point without screaming at them don't shut them down directly by saying "that's tone policing! You have to listen to me because only the content is important!". Some people can't do this. For some people being shouted at, or being spoken to violently is a huge trigger and is unproductive (when not dangerous). So be angry. Be passionate. Say what you think. But be aware of other people's issues. Not everyone can take being shouted at in stride.

Backlog

Currently there are 33 unpublished posts saved as drafts in my blog. Most of them will eventually be deleted. Failed stories, posts where the argument was lost, posts that I couldn't be arsed to work on more. They are mostly a reminder of my incapability to sit down and research before I work. I admit it, I write on impulse, when I need to write. Occasionally I do research (I try not to quote when I am uninformed) but sometimes I am lazy.

There are two drafts that particularly annoy me each time I see them but I can't bring myself to delete. One of them is (actually, two, I started twice) is about the Nobel prize winning work on vesicle traffic of Rothman, Scheckman and Südhof; the other about the evolution of horses.

The incompleteness of each of these entries bothers me for different reasons: in the case of the vesicle trafficking is for my lack of ability to write about a topic in biology that I am truly not interested in (even though I do know a little bit about it, including quite some knowledge I have somehow collected on membrane fusing proteins and hole punching proteins); in the case of horse evolution it is my incapability of making interesting a topic that I personally find fascinating. Both of them failures on my part, failures that reflect my tendency to procrastination and impulsiveness. Even right now, I am writing this post to avoid writing my final year project report, the first draft of which is due in tomorrow. I am a terrible human being. I will probably stay up all night working. I might show up in McDonald's in a couple of hours to pick up some diet coke, or directly go to sleep.

What is this incapability to finish what I begin? I have concluded that it is quite simple: most humans are failures. Not complete failures of course, but mostly failures. We console ourselves with the fact that we are doing a little bit better than others, but very few of us are truly extraordinary. In fact, extraordinary humans (the truly good scientists, the writers, the artists, the intelligent politicians, the doctors, or the people who make the world a little better) sometimes pretend to be normal! You read interviews with them and they pretend like they have defects. But I'm sure they don't. They're good. They're better than any of us. They just don't want to show it. That's one side of it.

The other side is ours, the side of the lesser people. I cannot remember when I first read that Condolezza Rice slept five hours a day. But since then there are two different ideas that go through my mind every time I think of that. The first one is that she must be lying. It is impossible. I can't live without less than 8 or 9 hours, it is impossible that she can be a world class politician, in incredible shape and also a concert level pianist on just 5 hours. It cannot be true. Maybe at times in her life she has lived like that but it can't be her routine. The second one is, I suspect, even worse: it gives me an excuse. Well, of course she's that good! She's got an extra three or four hours on me. Of course with three or four more hours I could do better.

No, the fact is that I waste my time. I admit it. I have watched more TV than I care to admit, reread more books than I should have, enjoyed many bottles of wine in the company of friends. The fact is, I don't work harder because I don't want to. I don't like it. I am lazy. And I'm not doing all that badly, which only leads me to suspect that most people really don't work that hard. Or once again, maybe I'm just consoling myself.

Except for one thing: I can write. On here, and to the people who read me, it probably sounds pretentious. "She's not that good a writer". But I am. I swear. My short stories are mostly written in Spanish, but I was reading one collection the other day and I was impressed. The girl who wrote them (me between the ages of 10 and 17) has talent. She can fucking write. She's a bit young, of course, the stories are, not infantile, but not exactly mature, but they're good. Some of them are even excellent. And yes, I am giving myself praise. But not myself from now. I have said it, now I can hardly work on a short post for my blog. But that girl would work for hours and days and weeks on those stories. She had help, let me tell you, she did, but those stories are hers. So yes, sometimes, when I think of how great everyone else is, and how I can't finish anything in time, I go back to my stories, or I write one. It's what I know how to do. And the funniest thing is that if anyone asked me, I could not say it was effortless, or that I am gifted or anything like that. All I can say is, writing a story takes luck, hard work, and very good critics. And more work. And hours, and days. Coming back to it. Being harsh on yourself. Deleting that sentence that seems so perfect but just isn't part of the story. Yes, when I think of writing suddenly I believe all of those people who claim they are normal. But only then.

On the border

Occasionally I find myself arguing against people who I would usually not want to argue against, and arguing points that I know will make me seem (in their eyes) intolerant, conservative, etc. etc. One of these typical cases is when I mention that the world is dangerous, and that people should take precautions to keep themselves safe. As sound as this argument sounds when I say it, if I took it into the context of rape I would probably instantly be accused of victim blaming. I am not going to go into it. The blame is on the raper. It always has been. It always will be. I still suggest being watchful when you walk home on your own at night, I still recommend being careful who you drink with.

I feel at these times like I am on the border. I consider myself left-wing. Very much so. I think abortion is a right of all women, I don't believe in the death penalty, and socially I believe on relatively high taxes in order for a good health system and a good education system to be in place. I am a pacifist (and generally against armed intervention in conflicts), I am an environmentalist (though you probably wouldn't believe this if you looked at how I live my life, unfortunately I cannot defend myself, I have let my standards on this are slip considerably), I believe people should have equal rights and equal access independently of means (to an extent).

And this to an extent is why I'm on the border. Yes, I believe that education of a high standard should be provided for all children by the state. This does not mean that I believe that everyone should go to University (especially not "because it's the right thing to do").

I believe that there should be an excellent healthcare system that provides for people when they are sick. This does not mean that I believe every intervention and every treatment should be paid for by the government.

In general, I believe that the state should provide (within its means) systems to make societies more equalitarian, I believe that the state should take care of the people who want to be taken care of. This does not mean that it's a free for all and that everyone has a right to everything for free. And it doesn't mean that the state has any right to tell me how I live my life.

A few years ago now (was it 2006?) smoking was made illegal in bars in Spain. I disagreed with the measure. Not because I smoked, but because I thought it was reducing the freedoms of smokers. People told me I was in the wrong: it was smokers who were making it impossible for others to enjoy bars, it was them who were reducing freedoms. And as much sense as this argument made I couldn't help but be annoyed by it. Any bar could decide to make smoking illegal on its premises. No one was stopping them from doing so, yet very few did. Making it illegal to smoke inside takes away the freedom of choice. I would never have been against campaigns to make bars smoke-free (I personally love smoke-free bars, and have welcomed the difference the law has made), but I am against making things illegal. The idea that the government has any right to take away my freedom of choice horrifies me.

And yes, the following question is where do I set the limit. The government illegalising anything at all is the government taking away freedom of choice. Should we legalise murder? Stealing? Assault? Rape?

No. I don't know where to draw the line. Previously, I thought that any laws regulating things that are outside causing physical or mental harm to other people or their property were out of order. Then I realised that good educational and health systems were impossible without these laws. I have said it, I don't know where the line of the law should be drawn, but I think it's definitely a step before what they should do in private spaces (bars are by definition a private space, since they belong to the owner of the bar who has the right to refuse admission).

What is a trigger?

Today I'm going to talk not so much about trigger warnings (there has been a lot written about it lately, especially since US students started requesting trigger warnings on potentially distressing material taught in class) but about content. Obviously, this isn't saying much: trigger warnings are about content. But I'm not so much keen to discuss what type of content requires trigger warnings or why these warnings are good or bad. As I've said, enough has been done. What I will do is discuss an article by my usually much admired Laurie Penny.

First, a short history on trigger warnings in the internet can be found here. This is important because in order to understand what I am going to say next it is essential to understand where trigger warnings first appeared. It is important to know that trigger warnings have been used predominantly in feminist spaces, which is directly related to what I want to discuss.

Secondly, link to the aforementioned Laurie Penny article that I want to discuss.

Thirdly, it is important for me to say that I agree with the content of the article. I agree with what Laurie Penny is saying and I agree with her emphasis about trigger warnings and context. I agree.

And now, to what bothers me about the article:

"potentially disturbing texts - reading material that might, for example, contain graphic descriptions of violence against women"

"The objection seems to be that since so much classic literature involves violent misogyny, racism and brutality against minorities, whinging leftists should pipe down and read without questioning, analysing or reacting to the canon."

"stern dismissal of "trigger warnings" has become a proxy for dismissing women, people of colour, queer people and trauma survivors as readers"

Firstly, the article seems to imply that only people who have been discriminated or attacked need or benefit from trigger warnings. This is not true (I personally enjoy having trigger warnings, especially when it comes to very graphic violence whether on film/television or books), and as much as I hate it, I feel that it weakens her argument (I hate it because I feel like I'm saying "me too", when the conversation isn't about me, which I hate because I realise I'm using my privilege a little bit here).

Secondly (and to me this one is more serious) it seems to imply that content that requires trigger warnings always has to do with violence or discrimination against minorities. And here I don't feel like I'm just seeing it from a privilege point of view. I happen to think that a trigger is a trigger, and that extreme or graphic violence against a human being might be just as triggering, independently of who the person being subjected to the violence is. I also happen to think (even though this goes into "what trigger warnings should go where") that triggers are different for each person, and something that 99% of people will not consider triggering (the description of a certain set of clothes, for example) may be a trigger for another person. Ignoring that triggers can be everywhere, that nothing is "safe" and that the world isn't safe, is important.

I won't go into my thoughts on whether material in class should come with trigger warnings or not (in essence, I am not against it, though I'm not for it, and I worry that practically except it could mean that students will have an excuse not to study part of the curriculum, and some students might use that to their advantage rather than to protect themselves).

Anyway. Just wanted to say. Enough for today.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia (from Greek: εὐθανασία; "good death": εὖ, eu; "well" or "good" – θάνατος, thanatos; "death") refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering.

Taking the Wikipedia definition it's hard to tell who is responsible for ending the life. Would suicide count as euthanasia?

The way I understand it, euthanasia only applies when a person's life is ended by a third party, because the third party considers that the person in question is in too much pain or suffering too much to want to continue living.

This is why I was surprised reading one of El País' "Cartas al Director" ("Letters to the Editor") today. It was talking about sick people's right to die, and it says that "people who are against euthanasia claim that it's not within the list of human rights". Indeed, this is true. But of course it's not. Because the problem isn't whether someone has a right to commit suicide (in fact, in many countries one doesn't, but it's a difficult act to punish), the problem is whether anyone in any circumstance has the right to take someone else's life. Especially in a situation where the "someone else" can't decide for themselves.

Personally, I whole heartedly agree with the right to being euthanised, as long as one has signed a document indicating in which circumstances they would like it to occur or as long as one has the mental capacity to decide that it should happen (if one weren't able to commit suicide due to physical circumstances beyond their control). I think one should have the right to die, because one should be able to have a choice over their own life, and whether they want to live it or not. The discussion in euthanasia is not about the person dying. It is about the person ending the life.

The person ending the life is effectively killing someone. They are committing a homicide, or a murder or whatever one wishes to call it. Personally, I would not want to do it. But I would, depending on who asked me. If someone close to me were suffering and they asked me to end it I would do it. If I thought there was no other way out. If I thought all they had left was either suffering or being passed out under the influence of narcotic drugs, I would euthanise them. If they asked me, I would do it. They would make me a killer, but I think I would still do it. Because I respect people. And I respect their wishes.

Laws should be made to protect the individual from the actions of others. No one should ever be able to decide for me. But laws should not exist to protect the individual from themselves (except in cases of mental incapacitation). Individuals have the right to choose for themselves.

Some may say that choosing to die is wrong because it affects others, it harms others. I am tempted to agree. But if someone is ill, and they're going to die anyway, suffering, why does the state have any say in the choice of when or how they die? But it's more than that. An able bodied person, who is not in pain, can choose to die (almost) whenever they want. This can be made illegal, but it cannot be stopped, and it cannot be punished (I repeat this, but this is important: laws should make sense, and one that punishes a person killing themselves is ridiculous). Why is a person who is physically incapacitated stripped of this choice? Of course it will be said that a physically incapacitated person is being stripped of many other choices, such as murder or robbery. True, but this one choice makes a difference only to them. A huge one. Most of the time, their families support them in this choice even if they don't like the idea. Most of the time, these people have thought about it. For months. For years. Why can't they just decide over their own lives?

And I go back. Because it's not about them. It's about the person helping them.

I don't know what should be legal. I know I would do it if someone close to me asked me, but I don't know if that should make it legal. Maybe there should be a legal blank here, a no man's land. A hole in the legislation, where it wouldn't be murder but it wouldn't be "right" either. I don't know.

All I can think is that the person who has helped a loved one die (or not a loved one, simply someone, a person who asked) has to live with that for the rest of their lives. They probably did not want to do it but did it out of love and respect. They probably did not enjoy doing it. Is that not punishment enough?

Truths and Promises

"No cuentan cuentos si no son verdad, ni prometen lo que no van a cumplir"

("They don't tell stories if they're not true, or make promises they won't keep")



These are two lines from a song. The song is less than memorable, but the lines have stuck. For some reason they seem like rules to live by: tell the truth and keep your promises. I personally don't take the first one too seriously. Not because I think the truth is worthless, but because I value lies. Not just my own, but other people's too. The lies we tell to protect ourselves, the lies that don't hurt others, I have nothing against. It's when lies hurt someone else that they begin to be problematic.

I have been lying about being late my whole life. It all started when I was 9 or 10. Our neighbours had a dog, an Alsatian, a gorgeous creature. His name was Agus, and his owner let him out every morning. Agus was a fantastic dog. He always came back, rarely got into fights with other dogs. He died of leishmaniosis when he was 7 years old, but that's another sadder story. I loved him, and he liked me quite a lot.

One morning, we were heading off to school, and Agus saw us as we left. He started following the car. Our drive to school usually took about fifteen minutes, but that day, about five minutes in, we had to stop, put Agus in the car and drive back to leave him at home. He was chasing us in the street and might have gotten run over by another car.

I wasn't late for school that day, but the story has served me (in a couple of occasions) as a fantastic excuse for being late. No one has questioned it. It's just original enough not to be counted as one in a long list of excuses, it contains a good action, and (because it's rooted in truth) it rings true.

That's the single most important thing when telling a story: invent as much as you like. Tell your wildest dreams, your darkest perversions, your scariest nightmares. But make them yours. Make sure they are deeply rooted in experience, that there is a bite of truth in every single story you tell. It is not just important, it is necessary.

A friend once said to me that he didn't read fiction, because he had enough with the lies he was told every day. I didn't say anything. I tend to respect people's stupidity. But he was wrong in thinking that fiction means lies. Good fiction is an exercise in telling the truth. The author's own truth, for sure, but the truth. Anything that isn't the truth, anything that is an imitation of the truth but not the truth itself, will unfortunately not be good.

That is why I can never write the story Deyanira, the princess who had a snake as her best friend, and her first day of school (the diskette is lost, must be somewhere in the attic, I think I made it to chapter three), but I could write Trotski's story. That's why I can't tell you about aliens, but I can tell you that there is a witch. She has a pumpkin head that looks like it's computer animated, and a broom. And she tried to kill me on top of a tower once. And that was the last real nightmare I had when I was 11 years old.

Promises are different. I don't understand people who break their promises, because it's easy not to make them. Don't give your word, you don't need you, few people expect you to. And if you do, only do it if you mean it. Otherwise it's worthless.

People say "you must keep your promises" and what they mean is that without them you're worth nothing. I say "don't make promises unless you mean to keep them", because all I ask of anyone is that they don't betray their own word.

In general, I couldn't care less if you lied to me (unless the lie is designed to hurt me, or to hide something from me that will hurt me), but I will probably never trust you again if you break a promise. Not because you gave me your word, but because I never asked you to give it.

The last thing I say is: promises should be given freely and truly. One should never ask for a promise. After all, promises are like drinks: if you've had to ask for it, they weren't buying you a drink, and if they weren't buying you a drink, it means you owe them one back.

Final Few Weeks

The 6th of June I'll be handing in my final year project thesis or report or whatever you want to call it. The week after that, I'll have my project viva. And after that most likely I'll be free. Done. My degree will be finished. No more exams, no more assignments. Done. And it scares the hell out of me.

I've not been as diligent as I could have been during my project work, and that scares me. I am really scared that I won't be able to pull off a good enough report, that I won't be able to get a good enough grade to either pull the rest of my grades up, or in the very least, not pull them down. I am petrified, and as usual, my reaction to fear is not working harder or attempting to do my best, but hiding. I hide when I'm scared. I do less, I work less, I try less, because what's the point? The scariest part is that I can't listen to my own advice. If it were a friend telling me this I would tell them to calm down, get a schedule, stick to it, and work through it. It's only a few more weeks after all. But it's myself and I can't seem to do it.

Instead, I read. I go out. I write. I write a lot. I look at the internet and at what I will hopefully be doing next year if I don't fuck up monumenatlly in the last minute. And when I think about it I stress out and I'm scared. I don't like it. I had thought that by now I had learnt to do things right, to work through things, but apparently I haven't. Apparently, I'm still better at exams than I am at coursework, apparently, I'm still better at telling other people to work hard and to organise their time than I am at doing it myself. I'm not disciplined, I'm just scared.

Who cares anyway? I've got A Song of Ice and Fire to read and shows to watch, friends to hang out with and generally time. A lot of it. Especially if I do no work. (Or this is what I tell myself when I think about the worst case scenario.) But this isn't what I want, is it? No. I hope I can get over it and just work. That's what I need. To get over it and work.

Wish me luck.

Choosing

I'm sitting in the office area of the lab. Been here for about... an hour and a half now? I'm waiting for a protein gel to finish running. It should have finished over an hour ago, but the machine doesn't seem to be doing too well. Sigh. This is science. I know this is science. I might not like that this is science, but I do love doing it.

As a scientist, you live for the moments of excitement: this morning we spent twenty minutes huddling around the microscope, looking at some crystals. Maybe we had successfully crystallized our protein with calcium! Maybe we would get a structure! As luck would have it, the excitement soon died down: the crystals were hard, most probably potassium sodium tartrate (the salt used in the crystallization screen) and not protein (though we will X-ray them tomorrow to check for sure). Doesn't matter, those twenty minutes we spent checking the crystals were fun, hopeful. And the disappointment wasn't as bad as some might have thought. In science, you learn to expect disappointment, that's why success is such a celebration. I should have taken a picture really, the whole of our lab, all looking at a computer screen or directly at the plate, all hoping.

Now I'm writing this blog when probably what I should be doing is getting started on my Final Year Project Report. I don't know what's going to go into that report. It's going to be incredibly strange. A succession of failed or semi-failed experiments? There's at least some common thread, but I have no idea how to put it together yet. However, put it together I must, so I can finish my degree and move on to the next thing. The next thing being a PhD. Occasionally, I wonder if I was crazy to accept the offer. Yesterday I was in the lab, working, from 10AM to 8PM, and that's not even a particularly long day for most labs. How will I do this for four years? Somehow, I know I just will. What scares me even more, is the fact that I might want to continue doing this after. Once my PhD is done. The plan for now is to go into science writing, to become a science journalist and stop researching... but the thing is, research is fun. If there weren't pressure to publish or get grants, if you could (really) structure your days how you wanted, and work at your own pace, biological research would probably be the best job ever. You fiddle around with cool machines, you make solutions and gooey gels, you get to do stuff to animals (not everyone likes this, but some of it can be very fun and not painful for the animal, I swear)... It's fun. It's hi-tech. It's exciting. And you can discover new things. Who would ever want to stop?

Yes, the idea is to give up science to do what I love to do (what I don't get tired of doing, that is), writing. I love to write. I write almost every day, and if I don't, there are ideas in my head to be written down. I write when I'm sad, but also when I'm bored and stressed. I write when I'm angry. And I write because it makes me happy. It makes me smile. It makes me think of how ideas go from one place to another. But science is ideas. How to choose?

I probably won't. I probably will give up the "writing professionally" thing for doing it on my spare time, when I have a few minutes in the lab when I should be doing something else. Because, yes, I could write all day. But writing does not challenge me. It's pure pleasure.

Pleasure

Today I read two pieces defending, or appreciating, literature. One of them was openly lamenting the low appreciation for literature in the current economical and social climate, with many people claiming that the arts are unnecessary. The second, pointed out a link between literature and innovation. (Here, and here, links are in Spanish, but definitely worth a read, especially the first one.)

I happen to be of the group that thinks that art should be done for the pleasure of the artist, that money comes later, and only if you can get it. I will never begrudge a successful artist their riches, but I do not think they should be appreciated more than anyone else's work.

On the other hand, both of these pieces reminded me of pleasure. The pleasure I take in reading, and in knowing what I have read. The pleasure I take in having read certain authors comes from the fact that having read them and loved them, I become a part of an exclusive club: the club of the readers. This may sound ridiculous, but let me explain.

I first started reading "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" when I was 8 years old. A friend lent it to my parents for me to read. I read the first few pages and hated it. Returned the book to the person who had lent it to me and forgot about it. A few months later my parents took me to Madrid and we went to Pasajes, a bookshop in Madrid that sells books in many languages. I found a copy of both "Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and for some reason I decided to buy them. I cannot really tell you why, I had hated it so much initially, but I bought them. And I read the first book in the series and I fell in love. And for ten years (fine, for a bit less than that, for 9 years) I obsessed over the Harry Potter books. Didn't miss a release or an article or anything. They were part of my everyday. By the end, films had been made and it was stranger to find someone who didn't know Harry Potter than someone who did; but for a brief period of time, between 1998 and 2001, finding someone who'd read the books and loved them as much as I did was a special treat. I was part of a club, and the members of that club were automatically on my team, and we could talk for hours, and we had more in common than I can imagine.

Literature is always a bit like that. It is a source of joy and pleasure, but also a secret vanity and pride: to have read someone fantastic, someone that not everyone else has read; to have discovered a new author (or an old one you hadn't known); to have someone recommend a book because they know you will like it. Because they know you are a person of good taste and discernment and you deserve the pleasure of that book.

For a long time, whenever I went to a birthday party, I gave a book as a present. After a time I realised a lot of people weren't into books, and this saddened me slightly, but it also gave me something. Nowadays I only give books to people I really appreciate. People who I know will enjoy them and will return the favour. And even then, not everyone gets books. Not people who don't like reading. Not people who have never recommended a book back. The people who know me best probably know that giving me a book, especially giving me a book they have read and loved and think I will love, is (almost, most of the time) the best present they can ever give me. Yes, reading brings me pleasure. Incredible amounts of it. And for some time I have thought that movies and certain shows could give me the same sort of pleasure. I was wrong. To me, there's nothing quite as good as reading. There's nothing that gives me as much freedom as a good book in my bag.

So in defense of books. I don't think they are necessary. I think the world could exist without them. But we would lose so much: ideas, shared experiences, understanding the pain of others, and also the pleasures. Fiction, and literary fiction at that, is an effort not only to tell a story, but to give someone an experience. I admire authors who publish their work for their work (writing is hard work) but I also admire them for giving people they don't know, people far away, people who may not be their friends and people they might not like a piece of themselves, of their life and their view of the world, and also a piece of joy. Reading is pleasure, and I hope it is never taken away from me.

Storms

It was raining, but it wasn't the usual boring rain of London that she'd come to know so well. It was  a storm. A real storm. A storm that reminded her of childhood summers, of nights spent curling up on her blue armchair looking out at the rain, waiting for flashes of lightning and counting until the thunder could be heard. She hadn't seen a storm like that here, so she had gathered her warm covers around herself, and sat next to her bedroom window, staring at the rain.

She couldn't have told you what she found so enthralling, the raindrops hitting the earth violently, the plays of shadows and light, the darkness and the damp, but she knew storms were special, she knew that on storm nights magic was closer to her world than ever, and strange things could happen.

She must have dozed off watching the rain, but when she woke up her throat was dry, and her muscles felt cramped, she opened her eyes frowning, uncomfortable and tried to stretch out, thinking she should go to bed, but the storm hadn't ended, her curtains were drawn and the window was open. She tried to think back in alarm, wondering whether she'd opened it before she'd fallen asleep. She was having trouble moving, as though her limbs were responding too slowly, and the panic started settling in, spiraling into her stomach, flooding her mouth with the metallic taste of blood. She spat out, tears in her eyes, scared, but it was only saliva.

Taking deep breaths she tried to look around. Nothing seemed different in her room, but she could feel a presence, she could sense something was there that shouldn't be. Yet everything seemed to be in order, exactly as she'd left it, except the window. She tried to move again, and this time it came easier, as though her limbs were waking up from a long sleep. She stood up, bunching her covers around herself as though they could somehow protect her. She closed the window, feeling uneasy as she did so, wondering if she was trapping in something that should not be in her room. Then she turned to face the mirror. She looked pale and scared, her hair was messed up from the position where she'd been sleeping, but there was nothing unusual about her. She almost laughed out loud. She had always been scared of mirrors, a fear born of the stories that she'd read in her childhood, that if you looked into a mirror at midnight you would see your own death. She had dared the mirrors many times, alone and with her friends, and all she'd ever seen was herself. She had always felt relief afterwards, and a sense of foreboding: maybe seeing nothing meant something, maybe she was misinterpreting what she saw in the mirror. Then suddenly she let out a panicked gasp. The window reflected in the mirror was open. She turned around, but her window was closed. She had just closed it. She turned back to the mirror, petrified with fear and stared at the storm raging, the curtains flapping in the wind, the wrong reflection. She blinked and it was gone. The window was closed, and she was there, trembling in fear, and next to her, overlapping, was a shadow of herself, a ghost, a copy that wasn't solid. She looked scared too, rooted to the spot, staring at herself, or at her other self, in the mirror.

-Liz? Are you alright?

She heard her dad's voice, his footsteps coming down the corridor, and suddenly understood. This wasn't her house, that wasn't her father, and she was the intruder.

-Yeah! I'm... I'm OK, just fell asleep with the window open. -she lied, her voice shaking, knowing that she did not want to see this stranger who would look like her father and treat her like his daughter but who was just a stranger, who didn't love her, who did not know her.

She wanted to go back to her room. To her real room. This other place was horrifying. It was the same, and she knew no one else could tell the difference. Her parents whom she was supposed to have known for 20 years would not be able to understand that their daughter wasn't the same daughter, that she wasn't her, that they'd somehow changed places in the storm.

-Do you always watch storms with the window open?- she asked the ghost of herself, or perhaps herself, not really caring about the answer, but trying to concentrate on something different, something that wasn't the fact that she was trapped somewhere else, where nobody knew her and she could not get back.

And suddenly something snapped. Lightning and thunder came together and she woke up, sitting on her armchair, her mouth dry, her limbs a little sore, but perfectly capable of moving. The window was closed, and when she looked into the mirror the window in the mirror was closed too. The ghost wasn't there anymore.

-Liz? Are you OK hon?

And that was her dad.

-Everything's fine Dad, I had a nightmare.

He walked into the room, and saw her sitting on her armchair.

-Watching the storm?- he asked, smiling. She remembered they'd watched them together when she was a child. She nodded. -What did you dream?

-It wasn't a dream exactly. I think I woke up and I had this horrible feeling of irreality, like I was in a parallel universe, like you and mum weren't yourselves. Everything was the same, but I felt like I didn't belong, like nothing was... mine... -she could not explain it exactly in words. -It was scary.

He nodded and went over to her bookcase.

-I'll never understand how you have your books organised- he said.

She smiled.

-I think I'll go to bed- she said, watching him pick up one of the comics he kept in her room.

-Do you mind if I borrow it? -he said.

-Go ahead.

And as he left the room, she felt the shadow of another leave with him. But she wasn't scared. And for a second, she wondered.

Moral dilemma

The other day, while talking to my dad, he posed a moral dilemma. It was more than that, since this is a real case that has taken place in Italy recently.


Four (or six, depending on the sources) couples go to a hospital for assisted fertility treatements. One of the women gets pregnant with twins, but when she goes to get her babies tested for genetic abnormalities, she and her husband discover that the babies aren't theirs. There's been a mix up with the implanted embryos.

It isn't yet known whether another couple has been implanted with these woman's embryos, and if so, which couple this is, but there is another couple who is sure the babies are theirs and are threatening to sue for the children.

So. Who's the mum? The woman who goes through the pregnancy or the woman who provides the genetic material? Who are the parents?

My immediate answer was that the parents are the genetic parents (I hesitate to say biological, is there anything more biological for a mother than to go through a pregnancy and give birth?), and I still think that, if the embryos weren't donated for a couple who couldn't conceive on their own, the birth woman isn't the mother. She has the right to have an abortion since she is carrying the babies possibly against her will, but she doesn't have a right to them (unless the genetic mother gives them up). My dad thinks I'm wrong though. He thinks that it's more complicated than that, that the birth woman has as much right to the children or more than the genetic mother.

Do any of you have a different idea?

(Hint: The Italian bioethics committee has said that the correct (morally correct: in Italy, the legal mother is the woman who gives birth to the children) thing to do is to share the rearing of the children between the two couples, which is problematic in the sense that it isn't yet known whether a) another couple is pregnant with "this" couple's embryos, or b) who the actual parents of "this" couple's embryos are.)

Goodbye

Gabriel García Márquez died today. It is a gigantic loss, an immeasurable loss. We will never know what more he could have written, what other novels, short stories, what other magic.

I never met him, so I cannot write about him. I can only write about myself, about what I thought and felt about his writing. And he was a writer. One of the best Colombia has produced, one of the best South America has produced, one of the best writers in Spanish I have ever read. And let me tell you, it is not easy to write in Spanish. It takes a feeling for the grammar, it takes pace, it takes phrase construction, it takes talent. And he was talented. He could write a short story because he understood it. He knew exactly how to write it.

I only ever read two of his novels "El amor en los tiempos del cólera" ("Love in times of cholera") and "Cien años de soledad" (A hundred years of solitude"). The first was the greatest love story I have ever read. The second was an epic, the story of a family, of a village, of history, of the world. Truthfully, they are not novels, but epics. Gigantic, all-encompassing, indispensable.

I have read many of his short stories. My favourite is probably "La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y su abuela desalmada" ("The incredible and sad story of candid Eréndira and her soulless grandmother"), a sordid story, a story with all of the greater points that make a story good. Because let me tell you, so many stories nowadays, specially children's stories are watered down, sweetened, unsordid. The wonder of stories is their hardness, the fear they instill. A short story has to chill you to the bone, and then bring you back to warmth, but never let you forget that the mysterious, the awful, the monstrous exists. This is especially true in children's stories. Their magic is in the evil enemies and the punishments, not in the happy endings (many of which were not present in the original versions).

Anyway. That doesn't really matter today. Today Gabo died, and anyone whoever read him feels that the world is a little more boring, a little sadder for the loss. Goodbye.

Identity

After a lot of Twitter, a bit of Facebook and a fair bit of being back home (somehow I always get pulled down to earth when I come back home), I have concluded that I need to back off feminism for a bit.

Even as I write it, it doesn't read right, you can't really "back off" feminism, you either are, or you aren't a feminist (this is, you either identify as a feminist or you don't). Problem is, I am a lot more than a feminist, and feminist writing and feminist activism takes up a lot of time, a lot of mental space, and a lot of energy. At some level, I feel like I'm betraying some ideals by saying this, but deep down I know I'm right. I am not a feminist first. I am a person.

I am a person who loves reading and writing, creative writing. I haven't done a lot of that lately. I am a person who is about to finish a degree. I am a person with the world at her feet (sort of), a person who loves traveling, languages, biology, music, art (sometimes), history, American politics, arguing, debating. I am a person who talks and talks and talks and talks about pretty much anything I have any idea about. I am a person.

The reason I feel like I need to say this is because, people (especially women) who take up writing about feminism seem to lose all of this in favour of their feminism. They are feminists first. They see the world from a feminist viewpoint and they view nearly every issue as being feminist affected. Though I understand this, because I tend to do it myself, in their writing it tends to invisibilise who they are. There are some people who I know as feminists, and I don't know anything else about them. I like feminism. I think it is necessary, and I feel incredibly grateful to the people who are dedicated to it, to the people who are feminists first. But I feel that in a world where feminism wasn't necessary, where women and men were treated equally, people would be people. They would read books, and listen to music, and write stories and walk their dog. I want to be a person first.

This doesn't mean that I am going to stop writing about feminism. If I find something that I find blatantly sexist, or a matter that interests me that has a particularly large feminist factor I will probably write about it. All I'm saying is that I'm going to slow down a little bit. There are things that I will not look at from a feminist perspective, because I don't believe that feminism necessary permeates everything, I will write about other things, I will try to reflect here that I'm not just a feminist.

The title of the post is Identity. It is common to hear people say "I identify as a feminist". I do. I will not stop saying that I am a feminist. But you know what? I'm also the owner of the handsomest dog in the world (Trotski), the hugest Harry Potter fan, a (bad) viola player, a student, an adoptive Londoner and a native abulense, a music enjoyer, a drinker of bad wine and good rum, and a lot of things more. I am not just a feminist. This is not a feminist blog.

Tired

I've just started my third argument since I went on Facebook and Twitter this morning. Trying to make someone understand that publishing and sharing personal information about people on the web, whatever they may have done, is not a legitimate way to go about things, especially if their families might be affected.

I believe this.

The first argument was about the pay gap between men and women and whether it exists or not, the second was on Twitter and wasn't so much an argument as a discussion, again about the pay gap, how it affects Latina and black women disproportionately (women of colour in general, but these were the groups I had information for, and the fact is it affects Asian women slightly less than other women, including white women, but anyways)... Anyway doesn't matter.

The fact is, that by the time I was writing the third reply to this third argument I was tired. Tired of getting angry, tired of not understanding how people don't see basic injustice, tired of the argument. And it made me understand why people don't argue more, don't protest more, don't get angry more. It's exhausting. The easy path is to let things go, to pretend they're not happening, to go to sleep without giving the argument all you have.

And this leads me to admire every single person out there who has raised their voice again and again and again against injustice. I don't care if it's on the mainstream media, on Twitter or on the bus. Whether you're arguing with a friend and calling them out on something they said or going to a protest, whether your part of all the human rights societies you can find and you're an activist or you just try to do a little bit for your own community. I want to say thank you. Because it's exhausting. Not just trying to make other people understand why it's wrong, not just trying to change people's minds, but just making the effort to educate oneself, to try and not make these mistakes.

Yes. Today I'm tired. I don't want to argue anymore. I don't want to fight. I want to give up and go to bed. But I worry. Because if we all just gave up and went to bed the world would be a much more terrible place. So thank you to all the people who don't give up the fight.

Good night.

On books and readership

The first time I realised this was true was when I read it in one of Michael Chabon's essays. We've separated what we call "real" literature from "genre" literature. All this generally means is that good books (for lack of a better example I'm going to say H. G. Well's "The Invisible Man") are considered Literature even though it is obviously a science fiction book. J. R. R. Tolkien's books are considered Literature even though they are obviously fantasy books. "Lolita" is sometimes referred to as an erotic novel, but anyone who doesn't agree Nabokov writes Literature and is possibly the best user the English language has ever had has not read him. No, "genre" is only genre because it's bad, or because it's not good enough. The only genre this doesn't really happen in is in children's books, or in young adult's books.

Children's books have a magical quality: because they are children's books, and children are expected to live in worlds of their own and have active imaginations, they can be either realistic or fantastic and no one will categorise them differently for it. After all, they are children's books. They are possibly the only genre that isn't really a genre (what's the common definition of "children's book"? They go from "Alice in Wonderland" to "A Christmas Carol" to "Oliver Twist" to "Harry Potter" to "Peter Pan" to "The Chronicles of Narnia", and yes, while we may agree that they generally avoid the hugest "adult" topic, sex, many adult books do too, and they deal with most other "adult" topics quite in depth), and because of this children's books have no stigma: there is no "fantasy" children's books versus "science fiction" children's books vs "real" children's books. The wall between genre and Literature disintegrates because children don't divide their books based on the subject matter, children just know good stories from bad. And here is my problem.

For many years, it has been common to go to the children's section (the adult's section too, but this is expected) and find a lot of crap. A lot. Most children wouldn't go for most of the books in the children's section. How do I know this? I've been asking for books to be bought for me since I was about 4, have been buying books for my younger cousins ever since I had an allowance, and now keep occasionally going to bookstores with children. If you leave them to their own devices, children don't like crap. They like good stories. It's the adults who buy the crap, thinking it will be more appropriate, more instructive, better. But children just want to be entertained, they just want a good story. And this is why some of the most famous and successful books are children's books, and why they are actually not just fantastic children's books, but fantastic books point blank: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Harry Potter. 

And yes, I may be biased. I was raised in a house where everyone read a lot, and I was encouraged to read. I've owned books before I could read, and they were read to me, and I learnt to read to read them and I have been obtaining and reading books ever since. Children's sections nurtured my bookcase for a really long time, and if you look at it now, it looks more like a 16 year old's book case (or maybe a 13 year old's one) than a 23 year old's. This is partly because I moved out of my house (where my real bookcase is) when I turned 18, but also partly because most "adult" books I have bought or read are in my parents' bookcases rather than in mine. Mine is a shrine to my childhood and adolescence. And the fact is, most books on it have been reread several times, and I still read them. And I still think they are fantastic.

I guess all I am trying to say here is that children love stories, and generally know how to choose good ones. I am also saying that most of the books considered "children's books" should just be books. They are fantastic. Any of the books I mentioned above is a fantastic read, at any age. Not to mention children's stories: some may say that the Grimm's tales are too grim for a child, but I loved them as a kid and I love them still, and I keep reading them.

We grow up, and we become more serious, and we decide that certain things are "niche" and shouldn't be read by "responsible adults". We decide that science fiction and fantasy are for geeks, and romance is for women, and only Literature should be read without shame. I say this is bullshit. Children have it right. A good story is all that matters.

Letters

Yesterday I went to the cinema and watched Her. I didn't hate the movie, I didn't love it either. I didn't think the story was that good. But there was something in the movie that I have to admit captivated me: Theodore Twombly, the main character (played fantastically by Joaquin Phoenix) is a professional letter writer. He writes letters for other people, love letters mainly, but also letters from children to their parents and letters between friends. He has a gift for it.

The notion made me wonder if this is currently a profession, and if it's not, whether it really will be one day. I find the idea fascinating and disturbing, beautiful and worrying.

Personally, I have not sent a letter, a real letter, in years. But every year, when I travel, I send post-cards to a few people. And I love the idea of letters, especially love letters. The physicality of them. An e-mail is not the same. I want something that I can touch, I want a physical object, something that another person has taken the time to write by hand, I want the handwriting, and the paper they chose. I want to open the envelope (because it's always exciting to receive mail) and take out the letter carefully and read it over and over, and know that it has been held by the person who sent it to me. I want them to feel the same when I write them back. More than anything I want something I can actually hang up on my wall, a reminder that someone thought of me.

Recently, one of the people I send post-cards to every year showed me the collection. I had forgotten many of them. A lot of what was written was routine, the same thing in each one, asking about how they were doing, telling them where I was when I wrote it. Nothing special in any of them, but special because every post-card says "I was far away, and I thought of you, and I wanted to tell you about where I am and what I have seen because I wish you could have been there and seen it too".

Theodore's letters raised many questions. Does the person receiving them know that it was Theodore that wrote them? Does the person who asks Theodore to write them read them before they are sent so that they know what they have said? How much does Theodore know about the people he writes about? Have they ever met in person? And, possibly because the idea of publishing the letters comes up in the movie, I had to wonder, who do a person's letters belong to? The person who sends them? The person who writes them? The person who receives them?

Writing is an act of nakedness. One exposes their own thoughts to others, their beliefs, their private worlds, their ideas. One risks being disliked or adored, being hated, being persecuted. Writing to someone is even more than that. Writing to someone is telling them you care about them, you took the time to form the words and think of what to say. Writing a letter is special because more thought goes into it than into a text or an e-mail. There are things I would only say in a letter, and I have many written in my notebooks, to many people. I write them when someone has hurt me, and I need to tell them, when someone has helped me, and I want to thank them, when I feel strongly about someone and I want them to understand. I don't send them. They hold too much of me and I am not brave enough, but sometimes I think that letters are the real diaries, the holders of the real secrets and the real feelings.