Okay, so I was pretty upset today. This is why.

For a while now I've been a member of an online forum, GreekChat. This forum caters especially to sorority and fraternity members, and because of this, joined up. I like the forum as a whole, but it really infuriated me this morning after breakfast. I'm sure you remember the posts I made on here about wanting to go through rush a second time, so I won't bother to reexplain all of that. But anyway, I mentioned this on GreekChat, and in addition to that, asked if I was being stupid.

Well, I got a huge reaction to posting the thread, and most people said I wasn't being dumb and ridiculous. But one reply to it really got my ire. This person (I will NOT state her name on here) had the nerve to say that I was being "stupid" by trying to validate my life choices on there.

What the FUCK??? Since when was I trying to "validate" my decision to go through rush a second time on this forum? I was only asking their opinion. But you know what, I guess I was being stupid by asking initially.

Well, as you might have guessed, this really upset me, and I ended up asking a few people on ScribeFarm the needed question: "If I asked your opinion on something, would you think that I was trying to validate myself?" And this is what they said:

They would not.

So where does this person get off. You know, thinking about it, the person was just being rude and callous. I was tempted to retort back, but my conscience bit me in the nick of time, and I decided not to do this because by doing so I would show others on the forum that I am irrational.

From now on, I won't ask anyone's opinion on there unless I REALLY need to.

Note: If you're a member of GC and have a Xanga membership, I'm sorry. But I need to get this out of my system.

Update: My thread got closed, LOL. Oh well, I guess that means the drama can end. It needs to, anyway. 

So shit hit the fan when I found out this morning that the Blast Writing message board absolutely refused to post my essay on there. I got wind of it while checking my UCF email inbox.

I posted it on ScribeFarm earlier this month, but I decided to post it on Blast too, because I was and am still proud of it. I was like, "Why not? It can't do any harm."

Well, it turns out, dear reader, that I was wrong.

The idiots (and filtering bots) at Blast decided NOT to post it on the Writing message board chiefly because...NOTHING. This is what burns me up the most. They clearly did NOT cite a proper reason for cutting my essay, they just said "Oh, it broke the House Rules." I am not kidding here. After reading and rereading that surprising email many times I decided to go back and read the House Rules. And believe it or not...I'm STILL fucking confused.

I'm going to let YOU, dear reader, be the judge and see what's "wrong" with this essay and why it DIDN'T make the BBC/Blast bots cut:

Marriage and the College Student

Hey there, this is just an essay I recently unearthed a few days ago, and that I wrote either last fall or winter. I wrote this essay because two people I knew were getting married or going to be married, and I felt left out at the time. This is a critical and reflective view on marriage, and being a college student.
Enjoy! :)
Like most everyone else, I want to get married someday. I have it all planned out: I want the medium to big wedding ceremony in the English countryside with the fancy five-course reception afterwards, the custom-made (by me) wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses, the exiquisite flower arrangements, the elaborate pastel color schemes, and the diamond-studded wedding band from Tiffany and Co. I want to hear "O Taste and See", "Laudate Dominum", or "Cantine de Jean Racine" (which are all religious in nature) during the ceremony and a string quartet playing during the reception; forget "Here Comes the Bride" and the overly-sought DJ.
That is my dream wedding. But being a college student, the last thing I really need to do is actually throw it, namely because I have more important things to worry about like getting into graduate school and my GPA. While I am studying for exams, slaving over seven-page essays (with in-paragraph citations), and putting up with well-meaning but (sadly) disorganized professors, other girls (my age) are busy at work palnning perfect color schemes, shopping for lovely (and not hideous) wedding gowns, and deciding when and where to throw their bridal showers (which I will not have), weddings, and wedding receptions. It almost scares me, but I know I will be seeing a lot of that. I myself have witnessed two bridal showers, wedding ceremonies, and wedding receptions. But unlike me, the girls who planned all that were not college students.
Now, I am not bashing marriage and insulting these girls because they decided to forgo higher education and to get married in lieu. To me, getting married is a feministic choice, and it does not matter what hardcore and stuck-up feminists (and career women) say. It is as feministic as going to college and majoring in a particular field, which is the choice I made. And it is as feministic as going to college and being married.
Nowadays, finding a husband or wife is no longer a reason to go to college. It used to be, but not anymore, because today's social conventions are different. Most people are getting married later in life, past the college years and are after academic degrees and successful careers. But that does not mean that there are married people in college, because there are. I especially respect and salute those women who are, and I personally think that they work harder than the women who choose to be married but not college-educated and the women who want to be college-educated and married afterwards (or not). They work doubly hard to finish college and graduate school, and yet manage to keep marriage in the delicate balance. Not everyone can do that.
I have a story to tell. I once went through rush to see what it was like. I knew that if I were offered a bid to pledge from one of the ten sororities, I would take it and absolutely not try to depledge. I knew that once I joined a sorority, I would be in it for life, no matter what happened.
In a way, marriage is like that. I call it the "sorority analogy"; when a girl gets engaged, it is like she is being extended a bid to pledge a sorority, and she has eagerly accepted it. That "bid" is not a bid card, but an engagement ring. She wants to be "Mrs. John Wieck" or "Mrs. Ryan Matthews", like a rushee (or PNM) wants to be a Theta or Tri Delt. That ring is the sealed deal that she has an intention to become a "Mrs"; then follows the period between engagement and marriage.
That period of time is equivalent to pledge period, even though it has no real name. A girl prepares for her "initiation", or wedding day, and receives a ton of home appliances like toasters and chinaware, the equivalent of a sorority jersey and other little sister gifts. Also, it can be rather stressful, and longer than the normal pledge (or new member) period, depending on financial or other conditions.
A wedding day is an initiation ritual in its own right. It consists of oaths, proper behavior, strict attention to dress, and "member badges" (the "member badges" being the shiny new wedding bands). At most initiation ceremonies (including mine), every pledge getting initiated has to wear white; at most weddings the bride has to wear white. Well, they don't have to; but it is the social norm anyway. White is the color of purity, by what I mean symbolic purity.
When that wedding band is on the bride's finger, it means that she is finally married. She is assured that she and her spouse will be there for each other, until death. But unfortunately, not all marriages are created equal, and while some can last forever, others cannot and feel utter failure with the intensity of a hemorrage.
This is where the "sorority analogy" ends. Marriages can be like sororities, but there is no real guarantee that it will last for life, like sorority membership does. When a divorce happens suddenly, the woman is no longer a part of that marriage, and her membership is now considered void. But she can cope and deal with it over time; it is not an absolute stigma. On the other hand, if a member (already initated) of a sorority chapter is kicked out, then she is barred from joining another sorority. She is done. The divorced woman, in stark contrast, can remarry as much as she wants.
I said before that I especially respect and salute those women who are facing the worlds of marriage and academia at the same time, and that they work the hardest out of the three kinds of feminists in this world. But those who marry at the ages of 19 and 20 are very brave to face the world of housekeeping, raising children (or not), and monogamy (no offense!). They manage to put up with the stress of planning a full wedding and still keep a hopeful outlook about the future. Women who choose to face the world of academia instead are brave as well, and four years of college is extremely daunting. They would have to be. There are exams, papers, dissertations, jobs, internships, and professors to deal with, and all that takes a lot of patience and hard work.
One thing I have come to realize is that you don't have to be literally married to be married. You do not need a wedding band or wedding gown to prove it. As a college student, I am already married. I am wed to my college major, and activities. And the best part of being in college is that I can have more. I could be married to a sport, a minor (if I had time), and more activities.
Like everyone else, I want a real wedding someday. But until then, I am committed to my college, major, and activities--the pastel-colored affair in England can wait.

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What do YOU think? I would really love feedback on this.

And something completely unrelated:

According to the Social Security people, Emily and Jacob did it again by topping the boy-girl baby name charts.

So, today is officially Mothers Day, and I wish every mother out there in the world absolute happiness, peace, and quiet for one single significant day.

I want kids someday. I mean, who doesn't? But I don't want more than two children...I doubt that I could handle eighteen. To me, anyone who actually wants that amount of kids is too ambitous for my taste. If they can afford it all, I wish them the best of luck. But if they cannot...what the hell are they thinking???

I am sure that being a mother brings a lot of happiness and all, but it also brings a whole lot of stress, especially if the children are teenagers. What I have learned is that parenthood is NOT associated with emotional well-being, and it is more likely to offer stress and raise levels of depression than happiness. Now, I am not saying all parents suck...because that is not what I am even trying to say...but children do cost money, and some of their antics may cause a whole lot of trouble.

Recently I posted an essay, titled "Marriage and the College Student". In it, I said that motherhood was a form of feminism, and it is. Most radical , PETA-loving (LOL) feminists might think different, but I stand by my words. It is a way of expressing feminism because women get to do what they want to do: raise children and take care of the household. But not all of them stay at home and become homemakers...no, no, they go out and enter the workforce. Studies have shown that more than half of women with children under the age of three are in the labor force than the household.

Now, this may or may not be related to what I'm talking about, but here is the comparision between the cultural dream of families in the U.S. and the cultural reality:

1. Couples get married and then live with one other.

Cultural Reality: More than 10 million unmarried couples share a household.

2. Pair-bonding takes place between one man and one woman.

CR: Approximately 3% of the population live in two-person, same-gender households.

3. "Normal" people marry in their early 20s.

CR: About 40 million people aged 25 or older are unmarried.

4. A couple's first baby is conceived after the wedding.

CR: About 30% of all first births are to unmarried women.

5. First marriage endures until the death of one spouse.

CR: More than half of all first marriages end in divorce or separation.

6. Children live with both their biological parents until age 18.

CR: Only 42% of childrenlive with both biological parents.

7. Children are raised by both a mother and a father.

CR: More than 10% of all family groups with children under age 18 are headed by a single parent.

8. After a child is born, the mother ceases employment until the child has left home.

CR: More than half of women with children under 3 years old are in the labor force.

Of course, I've already mentioned number eight, but the cultural realities of numbers one to seven are surprising, aren't they? Well, they may not be, but they certainly are different than the contrasting cultural dreams.