Everywhere I look right now here in Spain there are advertisements for the New Moon film from the Twilight series. I have not seen the film, a good friend took my girls to see it. I have nothing much against it except like anything too sickly sweet I couldn't face it, I have overdone it. I read all the books. I don't like my kids reading books without me at least knowing what it is about. I have read all the Spiderwick and the Harry Potter series.
My father was in a Coma for eleven days and so I borrowed my girls books and read them one after another. I am not a fast reader. I have to read every word - a bit obsessive compulsive. I never grasped the talent to skim-read. But I read these books fast. I read them through the night and got frustrated that I could not get hold of the last book and begged my niece to lend me hers, thanks Elizabeth. To me these books are like chocolate; sweet, addictive and not necessarily good for you, but in moderation not bad for you either.
I think there is a place in literature for chocolate. My daughter Devon loves the Twilight books but she also reads Pride and Prejudice, Emma, books I would put in the category of main course. Essential nutrients to help us grow. But I like chocolate now and again and don't see any huge harm in it. I would perhaps ask the question, why are the Twilight books addictive? What is the chocolate? Stephenie Meyer writes addiction very well for teenage women and women in general. I admire her for it, she has found something that sells and sold it and made a lot of money in the process, how nice it would be to be financially safe! I think she writes infatuation. She writes about fantasy. The fantasy women have about love. Here is a cold, beautiful, vampire, a statue-like man, Edward. . . and she adores him? I read it thinking, no way would I want to cuddle up to a block of ice. But he is strong and protects her - our handsome hero women long for. Perhaps because the boys and men in our life disappoint, so we need to have a fantasy character to lust after. It balances out the reality.
Perhaps you might think lust is too strong a word? I am not sure. Have you seen the way most teenage girls behave when you just name Jacob Black after seeing New Moon? Reminds me of the way some of my parents generation behaved around The Beatles. I was just going to say that I have never behaved that way, but a group of Capoeira martial artists did a display on television the other day, and. . . well John is still teasing me about it. So I am guilty of a little feminine ga-ga-ness. My last blog post addressed the subject of image, how we should not look on outward beauty to see a person's worth. I am sure the Capoeira men have sweet spirits.
Does anyone remember the Pride and Prejudice film where Colin Firth walks out of the pool after diving in for a swim? Hmmm? Mr Darcy!
OK not as impressive as I remember it, but when I first saw it, I melted! So is this the chocolate? Is this OK? Women have always swooned! In medieval times it was seen as a masculine trait, then there was a transition and it became a feminine weakness, the word hysteria (which comes from the word womb) described our silliness. Men's hysteria was healthily expressed through art, poetry, song. Women were just seen as silly. Is it silly? We feel it's safe to have fantasies in characters such as actors, actresses (such as Jude Law, N :-) ). So to swoon or not to swoon? That is the question. Is it healthy fun? Just shout the name Jacob Black in a high school and see how many girls scream and swoon!! Healthy?
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Does my bum look big in this blog?
My daughter marched into the kitchen and announced that she was officially fat! She does not have an inch of fat on her. Of course I have more concern about this behavior because I was bulimic as a teen. I know how deluded you can be in your youth.
Image is so important here in Spain. The women are immaculate. While I look half dead, hair sticking up and wearing sweats at 7am when I go out to get the bread and walk Sid my dog, I see women heading out to work looking perfect, child under arm also looking immaculate rushing off to day care. There is no confusion, I don't wonder "is that a man or a woman" as I approach people here, the distinction is clear. The women wear designer skirt and trouser suits and their hair long. Short hair on women here seems to be rare. There is great pride in their femininity which does not in any way make them second class citizens. There is a strength that is clear in the way they carry themselves and the confident way they hold a conversation. Ok I am making huge stereotypical generalizations here. Of course there are exceptions to this image I am describing. The school my younger children attend has a large gypsy population around it and the women there are similar to the hippies and farmers of Wales where I have come from. When I reach the school gate there are women in pink slippers and dressing gowns, I actually look like I have dressed up to take my kids to school.
I watch my girls especially and wonder how this all effects them. We are not a rich family and most of their clothes are given to us or passed down in the family. I never hear a complaint, but I do see them choose carefully what they like and they all have their own very different style. I may be reaching 40 next year but I remember clearly being a teenager and the terrible clothes I wore. I can't believe skinny jeans are back in! My Mum would not buy me any when I was 16 back in 1986 so I sewed my own. Ha! They were ridiculous. Of course they were not at the time because it meant I fitted in, I thought I was being modern and different, just as my girls do. John refuses to buy our girls skinny jeans.
I was looking at some photos of an on line friend with her now husband in the 80's yesterday laughing at the familiar 80's clothes and hair styles, how we cared how we looked.
We are taught on the one hand that beauty is within yet we also spend a lot of time on our images. I have found it interesting that the general young womens president in our church, Sister Elaine S. Dalton, is teaching our young women that beauty comes from within and she looks Barbie doll like, with her perfect unnatural blond hair and extra white, white perfect teeth. I think she is an amazing young women's president, so down to earth and fantastic for our young women. But for me a mother of teen girls I listen to her talks and wonder what our young women hear? She jokes about how she knows what boys are looking for as she has been told by her own sons. She says they are looking for inner beauty and virtue. I don't doubt this. But if I lined up a group of young women who were all amazingly inner drop dead beautiful (I know that is not grammatically correct lol) the choice would also be made from outer beauty too - I have teenage boys too. I am just talking about image here and what our young women see. When I was a young woman it was much more important what I saw than what I heard. I believe we should do the best with what we have of course, and I am not being critical about Sister Dalton, she is fantastic and it is not her fault she is beautiful. I am just observing the facts and that is when you are a spotty, greasy teenager who has challenges with her own weight, shape etc. as most young women do. Surely seeing a general president who looks like Sister Dalton would make you want to diet, dye your hair and whiten your teeth. I have no answers here. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that. I know if I had more money and time I would do the same.
I know that now at almost 40 I am happier with my self. I don't spend much time on myself. I have 11 children! But I know if I had felt about myself at 17 as I do now I would have had a completely different life, completely. I wish I could inject some of that into my girls. A knowledge that they are incredibly beautiful and any man in the future would be so very lucky to be with them. But I also know that my Mum used to tell me I was beautiful, she still does, and as a teen it meant nothing - of course she feels that way she is my Mum. So sometimes I look in my girls eyes as I tell them how fantastic they look and I see myself. Yea thanks Mum - whatever! The only answer I have is there has to be a balance between the two. Our bodies are temples and should be cared for and not abused, we should present ourselves the best that we can. But we should also have in perspective that it is just our body and if we are not nice people it means nothing. I honestly think that the reason I feel better about myself is that I am more secure, more secure about my talents and abilities, this I think makes me more attractive. Sister Dalton presents herself as a confident, virtuous, humble person, which of course is attractive and who shines with love for the young women she leads. I am grateful for this and know she is called by revelation to do the wonderful job that she does. I just worry that image becomes so important that the really important things in life get lost.
Image is so important here in Spain. The women are immaculate. While I look half dead, hair sticking up and wearing sweats at 7am when I go out to get the bread and walk Sid my dog, I see women heading out to work looking perfect, child under arm also looking immaculate rushing off to day care. There is no confusion, I don't wonder "is that a man or a woman" as I approach people here, the distinction is clear. The women wear designer skirt and trouser suits and their hair long. Short hair on women here seems to be rare. There is great pride in their femininity which does not in any way make them second class citizens. There is a strength that is clear in the way they carry themselves and the confident way they hold a conversation. Ok I am making huge stereotypical generalizations here. Of course there are exceptions to this image I am describing. The school my younger children attend has a large gypsy population around it and the women there are similar to the hippies and farmers of Wales where I have come from. When I reach the school gate there are women in pink slippers and dressing gowns, I actually look like I have dressed up to take my kids to school.
I was looking at some photos of an on line friend with her now husband in the 80's yesterday laughing at the familiar 80's clothes and hair styles, how we cared how we looked.
We are taught on the one hand that beauty is within yet we also spend a lot of time on our images. I have found it interesting that the general young womens president in our church, Sister Elaine S. Dalton, is teaching our young women that beauty comes from within and she looks Barbie doll like, with her perfect unnatural blond hair and extra white, white perfect teeth. I think she is an amazing young women's president, so down to earth and fantastic for our young women. But for me a mother of teen girls I listen to her talks and wonder what our young women hear? She jokes about how she knows what boys are looking for as she has been told by her own sons. She says they are looking for inner beauty and virtue. I don't doubt this. But if I lined up a group of young women who were all amazingly inner drop dead beautiful (I know that is not grammatically correct lol) the choice would also be made from outer beauty too - I have teenage boys too. I am just talking about image here and what our young women see. When I was a young woman it was much more important what I saw than what I heard. I believe we should do the best with what we have of course, and I am not being critical about Sister Dalton, she is fantastic and it is not her fault she is beautiful. I am just observing the facts and that is when you are a spotty, greasy teenager who has challenges with her own weight, shape etc. as most young women do. Surely seeing a general president who looks like Sister Dalton would make you want to diet, dye your hair and whiten your teeth. I have no answers here. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that. I know if I had more money and time I would do the same.
I know that now at almost 40 I am happier with my self. I don't spend much time on myself. I have 11 children! But I know if I had felt about myself at 17 as I do now I would have had a completely different life, completely. I wish I could inject some of that into my girls. A knowledge that they are incredibly beautiful and any man in the future would be so very lucky to be with them. But I also know that my Mum used to tell me I was beautiful, she still does, and as a teen it meant nothing - of course she feels that way she is my Mum. So sometimes I look in my girls eyes as I tell them how fantastic they look and I see myself. Yea thanks Mum - whatever! The only answer I have is there has to be a balance between the two. Our bodies are temples and should be cared for and not abused, we should present ourselves the best that we can. But we should also have in perspective that it is just our body and if we are not nice people it means nothing. I honestly think that the reason I feel better about myself is that I am more secure, more secure about my talents and abilities, this I think makes me more attractive. Sister Dalton presents herself as a confident, virtuous, humble person, which of course is attractive and who shines with love for the young women she leads. I am grateful for this and know she is called by revelation to do the wonderful job that she does. I just worry that image becomes so important that the really important things in life get lost.
Monday, 23 November 2009
No hablo Español
No hablo Español
OK we have lived in Spain for two whole months now, it is time I blogged. The photos above show us in our beaten up old mini bus traveling as a family to Spain and a few photos I have taken since we have been here.
Well if our plan was to shake up our life a bit, it worked. The drama, problems, and fun we have had since leaving Wales two months ago would take me months to write. So here is a brief summing up/report –
1. We left Wales! We stayed with John’s brother Dave in Birmingham for a couple of days and then drove to Oxford for John’s academic paper. We then left Oxford for the tunnel, next stop France, we had every intention of stopping at hotels on the way and taking the weekend to drive to Seville. But John and I just kept on driving. Except for a few toilet and food stops we did not stop - as one slept the other drove. We finally arrived at our home at 2am Sunday morning after leaving the tunnel into France, late Friday night. Our now dear friends from church helped us unload our van into our new home – we slept.
2. Paperwork! Oh how they love paperwork here in Spain and we are not even half way through. We spent the first week filling in forms going from one office to another. What took us a week would have taken us months and months doing it all alone, but our friend Jordi had prepared everything in advance of us coming and drove us around and translated everything we needed to know. After a week we had all the kids in school and had most of the official paperwork we needed to live here.
3. Injuries! Our children have become so unbelievably accident-prone. Jared fell from monkey bars and could not stand up for half an hour; we thought he had broken something. Jared has also fallen head-first off a park bench winding himself, fallen while his brothers chased him and his little finger swelled up and is still purple and bruised . . . well to count all his bruises would take days. Similar stories for all the children. Caitlin was rugby-tackled by Cam and ended up at a local clinic in terrible pain, she then had a whole week off school while her leg healed. The list is too long. Watchers of Michael Moore's SiCKO will be glad to know that health care is free here too.
4. Emotional drama! Of course we knew that this was going to be difficult. But we didn't know that it would be this difficult. The children are all starting over. They do not know the language here. They had no friends. I do appreciate the fact that we are a big family, which of course has its benefits, no one is lonely. But there have been a lot of tears and drama, which has left me drained. I don’t want to highlight any particular drama as it may upset some of the children, but for John and I this has been the most pushed-to-the-limit we have been as parents. Yet I sit here with everything calm and well. The children happily went off to school; they have all quickly made friends and are slowly learning the language. We knew that their education would suffer a little but decided as a family that learning a new language was more beneficial and they can catch up on the subjects. I do still worry about their education though honestly.
5. Everything keeps breaking! Our van wheel fell off as we were driving a few days after we had just had it fixed by a local garage! Our washing machine has broken twice and there does not seem to be any launderettes here in Spain – wth? Our car got broken into and is still missing the window as we still have not had it fixed. I accidentally smashed the kitchen window moving a chair, we still have not had that fixed so there is a lovely cool breeze blowing through the house night and day. We are on much less money than we were in the UK so affording to fix anything is interesting. Owen sat on Cameron’s laptop breaking it, which we did replace immediately to protect Cameron’s mental health.
6. Nothing is going in! I have been learning Spanish since we have been here and I still look blankly at anyone who talks to me. I pick out a couple of words I understand, like 'tambien' or 'algo', etc. But it just seems to be the little words I remember, I have no meat yet, I just seem to have a few side dishes. John and I have both been given callings in our Spanish speaking church, John is second councilor on the bishopric and I am first councilor on the relief society presidency. John was promised in his setting apart blessing that we would be blessed with learning the language here – so here’s hoping!
That all sounds very negative. There are so many wonderfully good things. We have no regrets and know that we were supposed to be here. We have visited some amazing places, we have enjoyed beautiful weather, we have had the honor of meeting some amazing people. There is no doubt in my mind that forcing yourself out of monotony changes your life. It is a humbling experience learning a new language and finding your way around a new country. I still do not drive very much here as the one-way roads and confusing road systems still scare me a little. But I feel that I have given my children a gift coming here, the gift of experience, a new language, new friends, an important new aspect to life with tolerance and acceptance of other people’s differences. I hope they will look back in a few years and see it that way. I hope they do not look back and hate us for forcing these new changes on them and shaking them up a bit. One thing I do know, they will never forget these experiences, their days will not be a blur of doing the same thing day in, day out. Their memories will be clear and lasting because of the break from the norm. Clear and hopefully wonderful!
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