The GirlAlive Blog

Drusilla

When we got our two Chinese dwarf hamsters about two and a half years ago, we were told they were boys and we named them Nobby and Carot. Then after a few months when they very definitely did not grow any testicles, we realized they were in fact girls. We changed their names to Drusilla and Winifred, and called them Dru and Fred. Fred passed away early on from birth defects, but Dru survived until last night.

Dru loved to dig. She burrowed little tunnels in her woodchips to get around the cage. We’d see some of the bedding moving and then see a tiny head pop up under the water bottle for a drink. She also loved running on the wheel, but never when we were around. She’d wait until we turned off the lights for the night and then we’d hear a tiny “squeak-squeak” noise of the wheel turning when the house was quiet at night. It should have been annoying, but it always made us smile because she was so cute.

A couple days ago Dru heard me reaching into the peanut bag to give a few to our big Syrian hamster Jayne and decided she wanted in on the treats. She climbed the side of the cage and begged. Normally, she had trouble handling more than one peanut at a time because she was tiny. She was about the size of my thumb. That day she must have had a good grip on the cage wires with her teeny tiny paws, and she managed to shove an entire peanut in her cheek pouch and beg for more, just like the big hamster. So I gave her another peanut and another and some sunflower seeds, and watched as she easily filed them away in her tiny cheek pouches. Then she climbed down and deposited her treasure in her favorite hiding spot under the wheel.

Then the night before last night I saw her out by the water bottle when I was on my way to bed. She was staggering a little, and couldn’t open her eyes all the way. I offered her a peanut and she couldn’t grab it from me. I went up to bed and told my husband that the tiny hamster didn’t look so good. This was no surprise because she was two and a half years old (which is fairly old for a hamster), but at the same time, it was a shock because she had seemed so happy and healthy only a day or two earlier.

All day yesterday she was declining. She would come out of her bed and just stand in the middle of the cage like she was confused about where she was. She didn’t eat or drink. She didn’t react when we touched her. She was so ill that she wasn’t regulating her body temperature, and she felt cold to the touch. At one point she collapsed in the wheel. My husband and I both thought she was dead. He even put her in her favorite cardboard tube, which we planned to bury her in. Then she moved. We put her back in her cage and a short time later she managed to haul herself out of the tube, only to collapse just outside it. I could still see her breathing shallowly. She just looked like she was sleeping.

We said our goodbyes and went to bed, knowing that chances were good that she would die during the night. Which she did. I’m going to miss her a lot. I’ll miss the squeaking wheel. I’ll miss the tiny paws grabbing my finger, trying to wrest a peanut from my grip. She was never a cuddly hamster. She liked to bite, and never was acclimated to being handled. But I’m still going to miss her.

(Don’t forget I’m still accepting writing assignments. Submit your ideas in the post before this one.)

Following Orders 1: A new food review.

Okay, so a couple people demanded a new food review. I have done one, over on my British Food site. I reviewed beans on toast, which I think is a very British thing. I don’t entirely understand beans on toast, but I have eaten it.

Anyway, that’s the first task done. Time for you to come up with more ideas for me. Do you want me to draw something specific? Do you need completely unprofessional advice about something? Do you wish you knew more about the digestive tract of a guinea pig? And don’t bother demanding more food reviews. I’m not doing that two times in a row.

What should I write?

I have no ideas. I’m depressed and bored and I still have no job. Oh, and I’m also no longer eligible for unemployment benefits, so I have no money and can’t afford to pay my bills.

So here’s my idea: tell me what to write about. I’m trying to prove myself as a decent writer to potential employers, so I want you, my readers, to tell me what to write about. What do you want to know about? The last book I read? The reproductive habits of anglerfish? My favorite sideshow freak? A short story about a hamster? Suggest a topic in the comments, and if I like it, or if enough people second the idea, that’ll be what I’ll write about. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever. Then at the end of that post, I’ll ask for more suggestions. This will continue on an approximately weekly basis until I get tired of it or until I get a job.

So let me know what you want to hear about. Nothing is too weird or obscure. I will probably not write anything that violates my personal privacy or morals. And my husband has veto power over topics that are borderline. Go for it. Tell me what you want to read. Pass this post around to your friends. Spread it around. The more ideas I get, the better.

Just a few more items about drawing Mohammed.

The big day was yesterday. People all over the world drew Mohammed and Muslims all over the world had hissy fits. Pakistan banned Facebook and YouTube, only to re-open YouTube when they caved to terrorist demands and deleted a bunch of videos for being “blasphemous”. I didn’t know that YouTube was my religious authority, but apparently they have decided they are. By this morning the main Everybody Draw Mohammed page was removed from Facebook. (At this point it is still unclear whether the Facebook page is down due to Facebook spinelessness or hackers – again. It is back now, and the admins tell us that it was down due to Muslim hackers tracking the personal information of one of the admins and sending him very specific death threats. That admin panicked and took the page down, but now he has stepped down as an admin and the page is back up.)

I’m deeply disappointed in the cowardly reactions from YouTube and other American corporations (like Viacom). Since when do we just give in to terrorist demands? This protest from Muslims was not about drawing Mohammed. They don’t even have any true religious backing for their claims about drawing Mohammed (which I’ll get to in a minute). This was about the Muslim world trying to impose Sharia Law on the western world, the way they do in their own countries. Their goal* is to make the entire western world dhimmi, which is to say a person with no protection from the Muslim world, but with an obligation to follow Sharia Law anyway. We do not need to cave in to these demands under the guise of political correctness. They are stripping us of our religious freedom and our free speech, and that is not something we should ever give in to for any reason. Not after all the wars we’ve fought to get to where we are.

There is nothing in the Quran about drawing pictures. Nothing. There are some passages in various hadith that are very anti-art. But they are against all art depicting people, animals or plants, not just the Prophet and other important figures, as Muslims will claim. These writings also do not prescribe any earthly punishment for people who draw pictures. Mohammed himself believed that their punishment was God’s business. (And Mohammed was not shy about prescribing beatings and death for various sins.) Please read this brilliant article if you want more detail about this. This is important: I do not want to hear from any Muslims who have not read that article. Please make the effort to understand your own religious texts before forcing them on others. Because the truth is, if you’re here on the internet you are already breaking Sharia Law, and you have no right to try to impose that law on me, when you don’t find it important enough to follow for yourself.

To end with, I found a great video that expresses very well how I feel about this issue. It is a vlog from a religious studies teacher who stuggled with this issue on a very personal level because he truly does have love and respect for people from all types of religious background, including Muslims.

And one more site if you’d like to do some more reading on Islam:
TheReligionofPeace.com

* This reference of “they” refers to the leadership elements of Islam, not the average Muslim going about their daily business. The average Muslim has no idea what their leaders are using them for, so unless they are getting in your face and starting a fight with you, they should be treated with the exact same respect you’d give to anyone else on earth (with maybe a hint of pity).

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

I’m giving you fair warning right now that there are people who will find this blog post offensive. Probably offensive enough that they’ll threaten to kill me.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” -First Amendment of the US Constitution

If you are a fundamentalist Muslim and you believe that viewing depictions of the prophet Mohammed is a sin, please scroll carefully because I have no intention of forcing anyone to do anything they believe to be a sin. There will be a drawing of Mohammed below and if you believe that viewing such things is wrong, please don’t look at it. Maybe it is a drawing of your prophet. Maybe it’s just a guy named Mohammed. It’s hard to tell, since half the Muslim men on earth seem to be named Mohammed.

In the last couple years, cartoonists in the Netherlands and Sweden have had death threats against them, and even have had their houses firebombed and have generally been terrorized by Muslims who are offended that they drew pictures of Mohammed. Most recently, an episode of South Park was censored into meaninglessness because Trey Parker and Matt Stone depicted Mohammed. Even though they didn’t really. He was in a bear suit or in a trailer the whole time. It was censored because Comedy Central recieved death threats from Muslims.

Where does this come from? I’m not even sure. The Quran does not forbid depictions of Mohammed. This is a rule that was brought in later, probably around the 16th century. Until that time it was common for Muslim artists to draw full depictions of Mohammed and it was no big deal. Then sometime in the 16th or 17th century they decided that drawing pictures of the Prophet was wrong. It was originally supposed to be to prevent idolatry, but the spirit of this rule seems to have been completely lost to those who follow it to the letter.

Now the entire Western world is being bullied into following this debatable rule of Islam, whether we are Muslim or not. They argue that we are not respecting their religion. I would argue that freedom of speech requires that we be allowed to be disrespectful. Trey Parker and Matt Stone frequently depict Jesus (who is my own savior whom I love) as a dimwitted cable access show host. And whether I am offended or not, I would not deny them the right to depict Jesus any way they want to. Because how people depict Jesus does not change who Jesus is. Yeah, South Park is disrespectful and blasphemous. They offend everyone. But so far, the only people who think it’s okay to kill someone for being offensive are the Muslims.

This is not okay. Grown-ups use words to work out their differences. They debate ideas and try to understand each other. They do not scream insults and threaten violence, which has been the overall most common response from Muslims to the movement on the internet to have an Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. I’m sick of living in a world where adults think it’s okay to act like bratty toddlers in the name of religion.

Europeans fought and died during the Reformation because the Catholic church forced people to be Catholic or die. Then some governments became Protestant and killed people for being Catholic. Out of this mess, America was born with the core belief that no government has a right to tell its citizens what religion to follow. We fought hard to create a society where people can live in peace, knowing that their religion is a protected personal choice.

There are a lot of things that non-Christians do that I find offensive. Using God’s name as a swear word is offensive to me. I find smug and condescending athiests who are constantly trying to convert everyone to athiesm offensive. I find Westboro Baptist Church offensive. There is nothing about the KKK which is not offensive. But there is no law that says that Americans are protected from having their feelings hurt. Hurt feelings are the problem solely of the victim of the offense, not the offender. As one of my freedom-loving friends said, “That’s why it’s called ‘taking offense’ and not ‘having offense forced on you.’” I may feel offended by these people. I may even occasionally harbor hatred of their actions. I may believe that they’re going to hell for their actions. But I still defend their right to be stupid and offensive. They have every right to offend me and hurt my feelings. They even have the right to insult my God. My God is a grown-up and He can handle it.

That is why I’m drawing a picture of Mohammed. If you don’t want to see my drawing, I warned you at the top of this post, and you have no one to blame but yourself for seeing it. I am not a Muslim, and I will not be bullied into following your religion. It’s not about hating Muslims because I don’t. It’s about freedom. And if you cannot handle this kind of freedom, maybe living in America and Western Europe is not for you.

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Picture below.

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I’m posting this 2 days before the Draw Mohammed Day to give other people a chance to think about how important freedom is, and maybe give them a chance to take a stand. (And the main largest Facebook group about Draw Mohammed Day has degenerated into a lot of crying Muslims and very happy trolls. If you go there, be prepared to have to ignore morons of every type and variety. Some of the smaller ones are a bit more rational.)

(By the way, the llama’s name is French. If you understand that reference, DFTBA!)

Note: On 20 May Facebook removed this picture from my account as “offensive” and violating their terms, yet they refuse to tell me in what way it violated anything. It does not attack a group or individual. It promotes peace.

I really need a job. Seriously.

I was laid off from my job last August. Since then, I’ve had one interview, and I didn’t get the job. I’ve been sending out hundreds of CV’s and applications, and they lead nowhere. No one wants to hire me because I’m an immigrant. Not that I really want to be an immigrant. I’m stuck in the UK because I don’t have enough money to move back to the US. I don’t have enough money because I can’t find a job.

My unemployment benefits have expired. I have about £300. Which seems like a lot until you realize that I have to spend about £150 a month on loan repayments, and another £60 or £70 to pay for food. My husband has a job that pays most of our bills, but not all of them. And we also have three guinea pigs and two hamsters to feed.

It’s not that I’m not qualified for jobs. I’ve done a lot of stuff. But the most recent jobs I’ve had have been so far below my actual skill level that I look both underqualified and overqualified at the same time.

Here are jobs I’ve done:

In college I worked at 911. I was a general office assistant for the summer. I did a lot of filing, data entry and audio typing.

I also cleaned and did laundry for my grandmother in college. I didn’t need more income than that because I had scholarships that paid my tuition and I lived at home.

Then I moved to Seattle. I was a webmaster and network admin for a company that rents cameras to the film industry. I also worked as the receptionist a few hours a day.

After that I was an HTML coder for a now non-existant web company. Then I also did some artwork and testing for the same company.

My next job was with a company that provided secure corporate file-sharing software. I was a tester, proofreader, and HTML coder for their web site.

Then I worked at a company that runs a big database of nursing home facilities. I researched the facilities and updated their database to reflect the most current information about each place.

From that job, I moved to a job doing health insurance claims data entry. I trained other data entry clerks and worked in the mailroom part of the time.

After that I moved back to Minnesota and worked for a health insurance company, processing claims. I did that until I moved to Scotland.

Once I moved here, I worked for the NHS. I was a clinical coder. I read patient records and provided statistical data about their hospital stays for the World Health Organisation.

After that, it was more data entry. This time it was for a company that does paperwork for clinical drug trials. It was fun, but there wasn’t enough work to keep me busy after the economy collapsed.

Which brings me to now. I’ve been looking for work for months and my benefits are running out. If anyone in the Edinburgh area knows anyone who needs an employee who has a near-photographic memory, an anal-retentive eye for detail and a talent for writing, editing, and web stuff, please let me know. I was on the borderline of being a child prodigy as a kid, and I graduated from high school and the University of Minnesota in the top 5% of my class. I have always done well at any mental task set before me. Now I’m an unemployed data entry clerk. No one wants to hire me because I’m too smart to be a data entry clerk, but too “inexperienced” to do anything else.