Nathreee's thoughts

Moved

2007-03-28T13:11:00.001+02:00

My blog has been moved to http://nathreee.livejournal.com
nothing but a few posts remain here...

Let's see if I can tempt my readers to comment...

2007-03-20T13:48:00.000+01:00

If you comment on this post

1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you.
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.
8. If I do this for you, please think about doing it for me too.

If you took the time to read this, you should comment!

Feminism continued

2007-02-26T10:05:00.000+01:00

I didn't mean to say that the glass ceiling doesn't exist. I know it does. I know that most women doesn't get paid as much as their male colleagues. I know they that they are passed over for promotion or even fired, or simply not hired because they might just get pregnant and sit at home on the boss' money. Thank you Ivonne for pointing this out.

What I meant to say in my post the other day, is that the glass ceiling is not measured by looking at the number of women who have a career and comparing that to the number of men who have a similar career. The above mentioned things are correct ways of measuring the glass ceiling; salaries of male and female colleagues, promotion of male and female colleagues, that kind of stuff.

On the other hand, when a woman chooses to work less or quit her job because she wants to spend time with her children, that has nothing to do with the glass ceiling. That does not say she isn't a feminist. It simply says she wants to have a family.

I read an article once about a feminist who claimed that if you're an intelligent woman it is your duty to society to make a career for yourself, because there are not enough women in high places and this country is not emancipated enough. Duty to society? Whoa there! I know I can be unreasonable, but I just want to have children with my husband and make enough money to take enough care of them. I'm not allowed to do that because I have half a brain? I think this feminist got it the wrong way around.

That's really what I have against feminism. I know quite a few women who want what I want; half a job so that they have time for their family. Time to spend with the children and the husband. I want to cook my husband dinner, and then let him take care of our finances, because he is better at the latter and I'm better at the first. I want to work in order to live, and not the other way around. And that would make me unemancipated?

Is this for real?

2007-02-24T19:48:00.000+01:00

I was astonished at this article:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/article59280261.ece

The explanation sounds reasonable enough; flooded sewer causes a landslide, washes away the ground, wrecking some buildings. But look at that hole! It's humongous! And circular! And the walls look kinda smooth...

I'm having World of Darkness feelings towards this little newspaper clipping. Are there Mages in Guatemala-City? /cue spooky music

On Feminism

2007-02-23T09:53:00.000+01:00

Not many people would call me a feminist. Don't get me wrong, I do get pissed if someone claims I can't do something because I'm a woman, but only if it's something that I know I'm capable of. If someone were to say to me that women can't be boxers, I really see no reason to prove that person wrong. On the other hand, I have been very pissed at someone who assumed I had no sense of direction because I'm a woman.

Feminism is a difficult subject, which I have longed to discuss here for a while, but since I am prone to indiscriminate and rather blunt remarks, I have thought this one through. Maybe not long enough to make it into an eloquent and reasonable essay. This is my blog, the place where I express my opinions, no matter how stupid they might be.

Back on the subject. Equal rights is something I profoundly believe in. This is based on my theory that generalizations of any kind never apply to everyone; women with a sense of direction do exist, as do women who like and are good at boxing, and men who like and are good at ballet, and anything else you might think of. People are diverse, everyone is different, which is why generelizations are never completely true and for this reason we should all have the same rights. To be able to be who we want and need to be.

There is still a need to fight for equal rights between men and women in some countries, but I think that in most of the Western world this issue is more or less settled. Different kinds of education that might lead to different kinds of jobs are open to both sexes. Hairdressers, soldiers, personal assistants, bus drivers, nurses, lawyers and doctors, whether male or female, we are all free to choose one of these careers, and we will be able to get there. The fact that there are more male soldiers than female, and more female personal assistants than male, is in my humble opinion not a result of unequal rights, but of unequal tastes.

And here comes the bit that may sound offensive to some, but it is my honest opinion. I think men and women have different tastes on what to do with their life. Sure, I think that men who want to stay at home to take care of his kids while his wife goes out to work do exist, but I think there are more men who like their job and who like to work long hours and feel important and needed at work. And I'm sure that there are quite a few women who want to have a great career, but I think there are more women who want to spend time raising their kids themselves, instead of leaving that to their mother(-in-law) or someone who works in child-care.

There are studies that try to measure the feminism, in the sense of equal rights, of a country, and these studies measure a number of facts. One of these facts is usually the amount of women that have a job in a "high place". When they find that a country doesn't have a lot of women in high places, they conclude that the country has a glass ceiling. And to this I disagree. It is a fact that a high-profile career is difficult to combine with spending a lot of time with one's children. And I think that if faced with the choice, most women will choose their children.

Now this is a generalization, which means that I know that there are women out there who will choose their career. I just think there are more women who would rather take a few days a week off to spend with their family. And therefore I think there are too many people whining about the glass ceiling.

These are my thoughts on feminism. I think I have the same rights as anyone else, and I will be mean to anyone who tries to put me down. But I don't mind if someone holds the door open for me, and I will gladly do the same for the person who comes after me. My ultimate goal in life is to have a quiet job for a few days a week and raise two fine children. I am not ambitious, and I think that too many people confuse ambition with feminism these days.

Feminism is about equal rights, not about having an equal amount of women and men in every career. It's about not judging someone based on their sex, not about calling every man who likes to look at a lady a male chauvinist pig.

Some pictures of kittens I googled

2007-02-06T16:01:00.000+01:00

Cute web comic

2006-10-31T12:39:00.000+01:00

Chocolate

2006-10-24T14:18:00.000+02:00

I'm a woman. I can't help it. Once a month I just have this incredible need. I can't explain it, I can't tell you why, but I just need chocolate. Badly.

M&Ms are not good enough. BonBonBloc is a bit too much. Bars like Kitkat, Mars or Twix simply don't contain enough cacao and too much other stuff. Better buy me a good, old-fashioned chocolate bar from the supermarket. Or two. Chocolate icecream is also goooooood.

Only a few days per month, chocolate is my most important food group.

The difference between cats and dogs

2006-09-21T15:47:00.000+02:00

Writer's block

2006-07-20T09:35:00.000+02:00

It's silly. A writer's block is an extremely silly situation. The added fact that I'm only 24 and I've already dealed with quite a few writer's blocks is even more silly.

Wikipedia says: Writer's block is the phenomenon in which a writer temporarily loses the capability to continue writing. It is characterized by the loss of inspiration or confidence in creativity. For me, it constitutes the inability to make my story go on, because my characters are mixed up with either each other or the plot. Told you it was silly.

I know what you're thinking; I'm the writer, I decide what happens to the characters and the plot. Unfortunately that's only true up to a certain point. I'll try to explain. For the story and the characters to be believable and to make sense, I can't just do anything I want. If the hero of my story hides from his enemies, this immediately has consequences. His hiding says something about him. It could mean that he knows that they're stronger than him, and he's biding his time to take them out later one by one. It could also mean he's afraid of them. If my hero is neither a coward, nor smart or patient enough to bide his time, he shouldn't be hiding. This was just an example.

Right now, I'm wrestling with my main hero again, Jareth. Ever since Remmelt pointed out to me that he was behaving like a sissy (very logical, since he behaved a bit like me), I tried to rewrite him to make him more manly and powerful. I'm rather happy with the result, I even managed to give him motives that drive him forward (he wants revenge for the terrible accident that happened to his best friend) and with a little tweaking I also made him a powerful and fearsome mage.

My next problem is predictable and a real "D'oh!", to speak with Homer Simpson. The next logical thing Jareth would do is find the person responsible for his friend's accident and make him or her pay. The problem is that this person is of course a vital character for the story; it would kill the plot if Jareth got rid of her. Luckily Jareth is not overly smart, so I might be able to find a way around this problem. It's still silly, though.

Luckily, my roleplay friends are very helpful when I find myself unable to find a solution to my character's problems. When I ask them what they would do if they were a powerful mage looking for revenge, I get all kinds of inspiring answers. It leads to very long and animated conversations.
I love being a writer, despite the silly problems it generates.

Babies' names

2006-06-30T12:22:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine is pregnant (I'm not saying who, because I'm not she wants everyone to know yet) and it stirred up a conversation about names. While surfing, I came across this site about what kind of silly names american parents make up for their kids, check it out, if you like: http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html

My family is profoundly christian; which is why all my nephews and nieces have names from the bible. My one cousin has three kids, who she named Daniel, Ruben and Deborah, which is not so bad. But my other cousin went a bit over the top: his sons are called Boaz and Levi. Who wants to name their kid Levi these days? Hello? Have you heard of the jeans?

Some of my best friends have unusual names; Amras, Kazimir. I find them very fitting and nice, but it's true that a strange name can make a person unhappy (my mom is a nice example: Ike-Hindrikje. She likes people to call her Ineke). It takes some time getting used to it.

Luckily, I am not ready to have kids yet, and I can still think on it for a while.

Mum proud

2006-06-13T15:08:00.000+02:00

(yes, the title of this post is an inside joke for people who play Hackmaster)

I have always felt I could never do anything right in the eyes of my mum. She wanted to teach me knitting, embroidering and sewing. She wanted me to do girlie stuff, and I indulged her by spending some time horse riding and I even did some ballet.

At the age of 10, my mind of my own kicked in though, and I wanted to play computer games and read fantasy. She tried to chase me out of my room; she wanted me to go play outside. None of her schemes ever worked; I got rid of my barbies and demanded my own pc. I spent warm summer afternoons playing Final Fantasy while she would have liked to see me play hide and seek in the park.

Ever since I started roleplaying when I was 16, she nagged at me. The roleplayers I hung out with were the wrong crowd, according to her. ("What do you see in those guys?") And she still wanted me to go outside and hang with neighbourhood friends or do sports. ("I don't want you to become as pale and puffy as they are.") Sorry mum, I never listened.

When I was above 18, she gave up. She still talks about her own knitting and sewing, about how nice the weather is, but she knows it doesn't interest me. She doesn't ask about roleplay, or about all the nerdy guys I know. She sometimes comments on how pale and puffy I've become and that some exercise would do me good, but she knows it's not her business anymore.

But recently, something changed. I started live roleplay, which she still thinks is weird, of course. But it has some very interesting side effects. I have taken an interest in sewing, especially costumes for my characters. I sometimes spend a whole weekend outside, with plenty of exercise (running and hiding from all the people who want to whack me). With a triumphant smile, my mum agreed to help sew a costume when I asked her today. She is looking forward to it and has all kinds of ideas about what we're going to make.

Maybe my mum's proud of what I've become after all...

English

2006-03-24T15:18:00.000+01:00

Right, this is an issue. Why would I write this blog in English? I know some of my friends might wonder. The same reason why I write my novel in English. Though I speak several languages and I live in the Netherlands, English is still the language of my toughts, and I guess it always will be. So, to save the trouble of having to translate my thoughts, I'll just let you do the translating for yourself.