Summer Lovin'

Okay, I'm out of school and what do I do? My job doesn't really start until the end of this week, sort of. Besides, I've told myself I'm going to make up for my lack of resolutions for New Years and Lent by working at self-improvement. Not letting myself sleep in until noon, working on creative projects, exercising every day...getting my life back on track after losing my mind for a semester. I really feel that this past semester I lost my focus and with it my drive and motivation to succeed. So I'm trying to fix that; little steps.

So, to keep with this do-it-yourself idealism, I went to the library to keep myself busy with interesting but non-academia books. I came out with Zorro which should be fun, and Female Chauvinist Pigs. I recommend this book to all women. (I think guys should read it too, but this is one of those 'for women, by women, about women' type of books). This book is so eye-opening. I need to keep this up, periodically reading books to fuel the feminist flame. Anyway, FCP looks at the way women present themselves. It asks why we let the "raunch culture," whose biggest feature is selling women as objects. Ms. Levy's most important point is that women today are making sex objects of themselves, by elevating the Playboy image, young girls giving out oral sex to the neighbors, young women looking to be sexually 'like a man' because being feminine is a lower place.
Anyway, read the book. It's revealing.

Hm. What else has been going on? Oh, my friend got engaged. Now, I'm really hoping he doesn't read this and get upset with me, but yesterday we were talking and he mentioned that he'd realized he was the first one in our group to get engaged. And the way he said it, that was a point of pride for him. And that's great. Good for him, I'm so glad he's happy and engaged. Good for him. My problem is, when he said that, and as I stood there while he got a plentitude of compliments, was that the message I was getting was that I was 2nd best because I was single.
I would like to remind you, readers, that I am twenty years old. I don't think I should be feeling that I'm slightly less important merely because I don't wear a ring on my left hand. If my pal has truly found 'the one,' I have nothing but happiness for him. But I don't want to feel like I should be in for such a longterm relationship when I'm twenty. I want to live my life, be an independent woman, pursue a career, be happy with my boyfriend.
I know, maybe I'm taking this out of hand, but it seems like everyone around me has relationship fever. A friend at school is on break with her boyfriend of more than a year because she felt she could either marry him or break up with him and the options, as she saw them, were too overwhelming; my roommate from last year has been married a year; a church friend is engaged; this year's roommate was always in a furor about finding a boyfriend... it's ridiculous.

Live life. We are young, with plenty of time ahead of us. Don't let yourself get into the relationship whirlwind.

And read Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy.