In Ukraine, we have this wedding tradition where somebody steals the bride’s shoe, fills it with champagne, and the groom has to drink the champagne out of a shoe in one gulp.

Can anybody guess what this folk tradition is supposed to symbolize? Like all folk rituals, this one has a very profound meaning.

To give you a hint, I will tell you about another Ukrainian wedding tradition that is much easier to decipher. The guests at a wedding load the groom’s (just the groom’s, not the bride’s) mother onto a cart and drive her to a garbage heap where they throw her into the garbage. This tradition is linked to the first one and is supposed to precede it in time during a wedding celebration.

I’m very, very tired, people, so I’m entertaining myself by rereading the old entries from my own blog. And I have to tell you, it’s a damn good blog. With all due respect to everybody, I think I’m my favorite blogger.

Do you make efforts not to perpetuate gender stereotypes? Like not wearing pink if you are a woman? Not lowering your voice closer to the end of a sentence, not ending every phrase with a question, not caring excessively about fashion and make-up, not being nurturing and an organizer of social occasions?

Or if you are a man, not interrupting, not having a very loud voice, not talking about sports all the time?

There must be other stereotypes of masculinity but I can’t come up with any more at this point. What are typical men supposed to be? Insensitive, disorganized, what else?

I stopped knitting and concealed my love of cooking to avoid being a total stereotype.

As you all know, I’m half Ukrainian and half Jewish. The stereotype of Jews is that we are all greedy. The stereotype of Ukrainians is that we are sly and also greedy. This is why these are two vices that I’m extra-careful not to indulge in. I can be lazy, angry, loud-mouthed and anything else because that will not feed into a cultural stereotype. But cheap and crafty? Never!

Do you feel the need to do this? If you are Hispanic, do you make efforts not to seem non-punctual and disorganized? If you are Russian, do you put extra care into not drinking alcohol in public? If you are German, do you strive to avoid being too anal? If you are Italian, do you try to mention your mother less often? If you are American, do you try to show respect of other cultures? If you are Canadian, do you manage to repress the urge to hunt squirrels and eat them raw wherever you go? (Come on, if you are Canadian, a sense of humor is a must). If you are Estonian, do you make a point of reacting fast and being more animated?

In short, do you feel responsible for creating a good impression as a representative of your culture?

My very first psychologist said many years ago, “The people who come to me and say, ‘I have low self-esteem, I’m shy and self-conscious’ have no idea that they actually have a much better self-esteem* than anybody else. It’s those who have no idea that their self-esteem is in the toilet who are very hard to help. They bustle through life without even beginning to realize that all the noise they make is motivated by huge self-esteem issues. You think it’s the quiet kid reading alone in the corner who has the greatest psychological problems? You couldn’t be more mistaken. The loud kid who is the center of attention and seems the most confident is in so much pain inside that the quiet kid cannot even begin to imagine what the loud one is going through.”

This is why I always prefer shy, quiet people. They are the healthiest ones psychologically.

* Can we avoid doing yet another rounds of comments on how the word self-esteem is traumatizing people because American media something-something? This conversation didn’t take place in the US.

Look at the tree and choose the one that is immediately most appealing to you. Don’t think about it too long, just choose, and give me the number. I will reveal to you what the choice says about your personality under the fold.

Also check out these great quizzes:

What is your professional persona?

How much of a Soviet person are you?

Continue reading “Personality Test” →

I got this exciting (for me) meme here.

1. How did you arrive at your most recent project of considerable scope?

2. If you could go back and teach your grad school self one important thing about reading/writing/teaching/etc. that you learned after grad school, what would it be?

A Russian TV show announces one of the participants.

“Rastiam, a plumber by profession, is especially proud of installing the toilet bowl in the house of a famous singer. Currently, he is working as a stylist.”

Policing pregnant women. It is beyond annoying to see all these instances of folks policing women’s bodies instead of concentrating on their own severe psychological issues.

I completely agree with this blogger in that looking for your “second half” in a romantic relationship is unhealthy and counter-productive.

“So far the message most Americans are receiving from this Keystone Kops style campaign is, “Hey I’m Mitt Romney, and I can’t do shit right. But hey hire me to run the country, and I promise I will figure it out somehow.”

“”Values” Voters: Life Still Begins at Conception and Ends at Birth.”

“According to a Pew research study, two-thirds of women say that career success is one of the most important things or very important in their lives, while 59% of men say that career success is one of the most important things or very important. That’s right: women are more likely to prioritize their career.”

“The conservative fried chicken restaurant chain Chick-fil-A has agreed to stop funding groups opposing rights for LGBT people, some of which have been labeled as hate groups.” That’s fantastic! Although the food there is still crap.

And this is what happens to excruciatingly ugly people who can’t get anybody to touch them (a short answer for those who are too lazy to click: they become completely nuts.)

Feminists shrink penises. Which is probably what happened to the author of the previous link.

Does the status of the press where you publish your book matter? Of course, now I need somebody to teach me how to choose a good press.

I’m also starting to suspect that “Mitt Romney is throwing the presidential race.”

“”They,” of course, would be those meanie Democrats who dared to point out that Ann’s super-fancy, super-expensive dressage horse, who competed (and lost) in the Olympics this year because that is somehow the recommended treatment for Ann’s MS, is one of many reasons that Ann is not actually like the average American who doesn’t have the means to pay their medical bills, let alone purchase six-figure horses.” Actually, it is a great treatment for MS and a host of other medical issues. And you don’t need to buy horses, you can just spend time with them. It is very annoying to see how the elections are turning people on all sides of the issue into jerks.

“The mantra that ‘schizophrenia is a brain disease’ and only needs to be understood in terms of brain function has been most strongly championed in the United States.” It’s all true. Nobody else believes this shit. Only in the US have the pharmaceutical companies managed to brainwash people into buying the “chemical imbalances in the brain” mantra.

“And fuck that, i don’t want to be forced to be a parasite, I don’t want to be the fragile pixie who’s character is defined be her romantic entanglement, I actually want to be allowed to be a person who loves another person, and is that actually too much to ask?” Not much at all. And since you need permission to all these things, I grant it to you. Here, you are hereby allowed. On a serious note, whenever you feel like a rant of this kind is coming on, try to identify who you are addressing it to. Whose face do you see while you are ranting? Whose voice do you need to hear say, “I allow you to do this”? (Hint: “society” is not the right answer.) Rants are useful but only when you know how to make them productive.

And here is an example of a productive rant. Causes are identified, the problem is explained, advice is sought.

Do feminists care about men’s issues? A great list of useful resources.

And here is a post provoked by the controversy surrounding the previous link. I’m linking to it even though I’m jealous that its author never dedicated any posts to me as the perfect example of the correct feminism. Yes, this is a hint.

Steve Hayes finally moved his great blog to WordPress. I’m happy because it will be much easier for me to comment.

The Man Booker short list has been announced. Like I wasn’t drowning in reading already. Don’t listen to me, people. I love Man Booker lists. I’m just grumpy.

And the post of the week from one of my favorite bloggers: on research as relaxation. Very inspirational.

One of my students named me as one of the Spanish intellectuals who exiled themselves in the US after the Spanish Civil War.

I’m now urgently booking an appointment at my favorite beauty salon.