February Post

So a lot of things are happening this month that are crazy.

And some things are making me mad.

So where should I start?

Let me just make a long story really short, I'm looking for a new job.  For the rest of this school year, seriously.  The place I currently work is taking a turn for the worst.  I'm not comfortable there.  It's a hostile environment. 

So I'm looking around and I'm excited. 

My sister is going on her mission to France.  She leaves on Weds!  Her and my parents are coming here on Monday so we can spend time together.  So that is grood.

The saddest thing about leaving my school is that I will miss my kids (I call my students my kids).  I will miss them so much. I love them all.  Today I showed my 8th graders a video that posed a physics question, and I asked them to figure out the answer, and they all actually started doing it and using their knowledge from what we've learned.  It was awesome.  And then in Earth Systems we were learning about clouds and I gave them all cans of shaving cream so they could make the cloud formations with the shaving cream.  I told them they had to make one big giant cumulonimbus cloud in the middle of the room (I had a dropcloth) and we ended up with a half a meter of shaving cream in the middle of my room.  It was awesome.  My 7th graders are doing body systems and we're learning about the circulatory system and taking care of your heart so we did aerobics today and took their pulse and then did corpse pose which they really did not grasp the relaxingness of it but it was still fun.  And I love them and I'm really going to miss them a lot.

And finally, I'm really sick of these Mormon Feminists.  I read this list of "grievances."  And all I could think is way to be offended by things you made up.  I'm starting to think that Mormon Feminists are girls who liked to start drama in Jr. High and never got over it and then of course hipsters because they always have to be "better" than everyone.  And what way to be better than everyone than finding fault?

So anyways as I was reading this list half the list made me react like this:

"You made that up in your head, because that is not even true." 
Like the one about turning a baby blessing into being about the man.  Guess what no one is thinking about the men as they are blessing the baby.  They probably aren't even thinking about the mom.  And if they are even thinking about anything it's the BABY.  Because the baby blessing is a blessing from our Heavenly Father for the Baby.  It's not like priesthood holders got together and were like "How can we make births about men?"  That didn't happen, I promise you.

And the other half made me think:
"You don't have to take everything people say in church as doctrine."
I just have never heard from a general authority that man has the final say in the home.  Just because some one says something in church doesn't mean it is true.  Doctrine is given or clarified at a time when the whole Church will be able to hear or have access to that information (General Conference anyone).  Not from Brother Smith in the Young Men's Presidency on a random Sunday in your ward.  I was in church once and the RS teacher kept quoting her mother on 'doctrine.'  This did not make me feel like questioning the church.  This just made me wish the girl had actually prepared for her lesson instead of talking to her mom on the phone for 4 hours.  Or when I was in RS and all the girls kept saying how we don't need science.  There is no official Church doctrine that says that.  So I just move on. 

I have never felt inferior when I go to the temple.  Or when I'm in church.  Or at mutual.  Or when I got my Young Women's manual instead of a Duty to God manual.  If you do, it's probably because you aren't understanding what is happening.  And you don't understand gender roles. 

I guess I just feel like maybe if they read and studied The Family: A Proclamation to the World they would understand a bit better.  I was telling Adrian how great the Proclamation to the World is.  It came at a time when same-sex marriage and relationships wasn't as big of an issue as it is today, and Mormon feminists were not even on the radar.  And it came because God knew that these issues were coming and we needed a resource and a guide to tell us of our sacred responsibilities as men, and women and as husbands and wives. 

And comments like this:
"I feel unequal when women have less prominent, prestigious, and public roles in the church, even before and after childrearing years." {via}
Make me feel like they just want the prestige of being seen and I just don't think that's why the men do those things.  I don't feel like they aspire to be Prophet or a general authority.  They may aspire to be like Christ in their actions, which I feel is worthy and something not exclusive to men at all.

And if men do aspire to those positions they usually don't get them.

and yes I realize that this sounds judgmental.