Yo soy ardiente, yo soy morena,
yo soy el símbolo de la pasión,
de ansia de goces mi alma está llena.
¿A mí me buscas?

No es a ti, no.

Mi frente es pálida, mis trenzas de oro,
puedo brindarte dichas sin fin.
Yo de ternura guardo un tesoro.
¿A mí me llamas?

No es a ti, no.

Yo soy un sueño, un imposible,
vano fantasma de niebla y luz;
soy incorpórea, soy intangible:
No puedo amarte.

¡Oh ven; ven tú!

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rimas

Translated:
I am passionate, I am dark-complexioned,
I am the symbol of passion,
my soul is full, eager to enjoy.
Is it me you seek?

It is not you, no.

My brow is pale, my braids golden,
I can offer you words without end.
Out of tenderness I keep a treasure.
Is it me you call?

It is not you, no.

I am a deam, an impossibility,
vain fantasy of cloud and light;
I am incorporeal, I am intangible:
I cannot love you.

Oh come, you come!


I just think it's nifty, and an interesting commentary on the preferences of men.

From my Facebook feed:

Stacy joined the group Yes, I am Christian, and Yes, I Support Gay Marraige.
Lucinda Mahafey likes this.
Laney Smith hmmmm........how is that? What other sins to you support?
Laney Smith NOT judging!! Just asking.

Nothing like starting your morning arguing with people on the internet.  For those not in the know, Laney is my oldest sister.  She's also staunchly conservative, like Dad and the rest of my older siblings.  Curious as to what I responded with?

Stacy Breland I don't know about that, asking me what other sins I support sounds fairly judgmental to me. But since you asked, I also support a woman's right to choose, equality between men and women, and wearing clothing made from two different types of fibers. What I don't support is heartless discrimination against other children of God.

Now, you might be thinking, wearing clothing made from two different types of fibers?  How is that a sin?  Oh trust me, darlings.  It's in Leviticus.

As a side note, I'm fairly sure the Bible condemns divorce, but I could be wrong, and it's beside the point since I'm the big sinner here, not you.

But this exchange has gotten me wondering: what is sin?  In my confirmation class we defined sin as anything that pulls you further away from God.  Lying makes me feel further from God.  So does cheating.  Which is why I try not to engage in these behaviors, yes?  Being a woman wearing pants (also in Leviticus)?  Not so much.  Makes my legs feel warm.  Believing that everyone deserves happiness?  Makes me feel closer to God, if anything.  Same goes for treating non-heterosexual people like HUMAN BEINGS.

But I realize this is only my personal definition of sin, and other people may have their definitions of sin.  I can just hear my conservative family asking, though, "How can you have a personal definition of something that's so obvious, like sin?"  To them I say, hypothetically anyway, since nobody but Perry and my mother read this, "What is tall?  It's obvious what tall is, but there's nothing anywhere that says you have to be over 6 feet to be considered a tall person.  I consider anyone over 5'8" to be pretty tall.  What is good?  I think coffee is pretty damn good, but there are those who would disagree vehemently with me.
(Incidentally I think these differences in definitions are the main reason for so many different faiths and interpretations of faith.  And that people would fight less if they realized they believe in basically the same thing, only they interpret it slightly differently.)

Now I know the Bible is the instruction manual for Christians.  It's a pretty bloody complicated one, though, with contradictions since it was written by multiple people.  However, I personally believe that you as a human being created by God should honor him by using the brain he gave you.  He gave us minds capable for interpreting text for a REASON!  So interpret, don't follow blindly!

EQUALITY.  THINK ABOUT IT.

So, what sins do you condone?

So I went to see the school's showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show last night.  That was....an experience.  And I'll explain it later.

My Halloween Eve evening began with going phone-banking for Planned Parenthood Votes!.  Basically sat in a cubicle and made phone calls encouraging people to vote for Dow Constantine.  It was...less terrible that I thought it'd be, since 90% of the people I called had either already voted for Mr. Constantine, or were planning on it.  We were calling people in King County, so I was terrified I'd have to call someone I knew.  But nope, only one person from Maple Valley ever came up.  So, as successful as I felt the event was, I still got a couple of interesting responses.
My personal favorite:
"Hi, my name is Stacy and I'm a volunteer with Planned Parenthood Votes!.  Is ________ available?"
"You're from whuh....?  NO NO NO. /hangup"

Also this:
"Hi, my name is Stacy and I'm a volunteer with Planned Parenthood Votes!.  Is ________ available?"
"Yes, but I'm against abortion so this conversation is over. /hangup"

For the record, we were encouraging people to vote for Mr. Constantine because he's worked to keep open womens' health clinics in King County that service something like 20,000 women.  Go you, Mr. Constantine!

After phone banking I came back to Alissa's apartment (she's a Voxer who lives in the next complex over, yay college) and we glammed it up for Rocky Horror.  Her friend Corrina came over too, and then her friend Shanna just before we left.  We braved the wind and the rain and drove over to where the event was taking place.  Stood in line (oh God I was so hot, I was wearing more clothing than probably 99% of the people in line, dressed as a gypsy as I was) for quite a while before they let the people who'd bought tickets at the dance earlier in the evening go inside.  Katie was among these, and our new friend Keith.  And they saved us seats in the front row, the darlings!
While we were waiting them to open the doors for general admission, the guy playing Rocky (they were doing it cabaret-style, which made it lots more fun I think) came up and chatted with us.  He was really nice, and very pretty.  After a bit we were let in, and then while we were waiting for the show to start, the guy playing the criminologist (AHHHH!) chatted with us too.  He was really cool, and I get the feeling I know him from somewhere, but cannot remember where.  Rats.
And then the Virgin Game.  It wasn't as terrible as people tell me. /shrug  Might be because there were so many virgins in the audience (at least a third).  So all I had to do is find a buddy, and pop a balloon between us without using hands.  Our balloon wasn't quite full all the way, so whenever we tried to pop it it just deformed. /shakefist  But anyway, we finally got it popped and got to sit down.
The show itself was...meh.  I understand it's a cult film for a reason, but I'd be interested in seeing the movie by itself so I know what actually went on.  There were so many audience call-and-responses (which were really fun) that I sometimes didn't know what was happening.  My favorite audience response had to be:
Movie: "What other indignities must we be subjected to?" (or something similar)
Audience Memeber: "Well, you could go to Western!"
Yes, much lolz were had.
Many, many man-legs were ogled. (Seriously, there were so many men cross dressing, and I'm totally jealous of how nice their legs looked in heels. D: Not fair.)

But yeah, didn't get home until 2am, slept until 10 this morning, went back to bed around 11:30, got up at 2.  Good day.

So I feel terrible since I haven't blogged about this quarter yet.  Sorry, mom.  Anyway, there was some weirdness in the beginning of the quarter where one of my instructors (who teaches two of my classes) was gone for the first week, so I didn't want to post my initial impressions of the quarter without having had his class.

So here we go!

From 10-11 every day except Thursday I have Literature of Spain.  It's pretty cool.  The first couple weeks were freaking intense since we were reading medieval literature from before the invention of grammar, evidently.  The Spanish from those pieces (El cantar de mio Cid, La Celestina) is a lot closer to Latin than Spanish spoken today.  A lot closer. O_O  Anyway, it's been pretty okay I guess.  The instructor is really good.  Fairly strict, but really a good teacher.  Our final project consists of an annotated biliography that frankly scares the hell out of me since we went over it on day 2 and she recommended we begin the project that night.  Dang.

From 12-1 every day except Thursday (the Spanish department hates Thursdays, evidently) I have Advanced Spanish Grammar.  It's probably my hardest class but I love it.  My instructor, Dr. Gynan (the one who was gone at the beginning), is quite possibly the best professor I've had since Ferro at Green River.  He's so excited and passionate about teaching and grammar and the cultures these languages come from (he's also the advisor for the linguistics department).  It's infectious.  This class also keeps me on my toes.  Since homework is assigned, but not part of our grade, it's entirely up to the students to decide whether or not it's worth our time.  The answer, of course, is yes it is worth my time, but sometimes I have a hard time applying myself to something I don't get graded on.

From 10-12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays (why yes, that is a time conflict, how astute of you to notice) I have Morphology.  Again with Dr. Gynan.  This class only has around 15 people in it, which is super awesome because it means we get more individual attention from the professor.  Last week we learned about morphemes applied to nouns, this week it's verbs.  Whee.  We have a term paper for this class which involves examining either the morphology of a certain language, or comparing some aspect of a couple different languages.  For the uninitiated, morphology is the study of the little bits of meaning that make up words.  Think prefixes and suffixes, basically.  FASCINATING.  I know this makes me an epic nerd.  Shut up.

Annnd from 2:30-4 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have Phonetics.  Oh how I hate this class.  The subject matter is interesting (phonetics is the study of the little bits of sound that make up words), but I don't care for my professor at all.  I had her for Spanish phonetics over the summer.  She takes forever to explain everything, and she chooses the most complicateed, confusing ways to explain the simplest concepts.  Thank God my friend Lily has the class with me or else I would expire of boredom and frustration.  Adding to my hatred of this class are it being later in the day (getting out at 4 seems so laaaate) and Lummi Man.
Lummi Man is a kid in my class who sits next to me and Lily.  The Lummi are a tribe of people from this area.  Lummi Man (I have no idea what his name is) is part of this tribe.  Evidently the Lummi language is dying, as the few native speakers left are very old, and he's trying to preserve his language through taking linguistics classes and learning to do phonetic transcriptions so future generations can be taught the language.  Very Noble Cause.  I totally respect that.  I do not, however, respect Lummi Man.  He basically sucks at phonetics and linguistics in general, but he acts like he's way smarter than everyone else in the class.  Just because you have a plan for what you're going to do with this information does not automatically make you good at the class.  He basically mooches answers off me all day, then calls the teacher over to see if he's right and takes credit for having come up with the answer so quickly.  If he does this again, I'm going to directly call him on it.  This isn't high school; you actually need to do your own damn work now, dude.  He's going to fail the exam, I bet, and frankly I'm going to laugh.

So there you have it.  Three classes I love and one I hate.  I applied for graduation today.  I am one step closer to being an adult, and it terrifies me.

So, I really want to post a blog about the service at St. Paul's this morning commemorating the laying of the cornerstone of the church in 1925, but I'm stuck reading about imperial Spain.  Hopefully I'll get to it later tonight or tomorrow.

I also owe a blog about my classes, but it's been a weird first week, which I'll explain in that post.  So you get to wait. :P