After several changes of plans, I planned to go to see the Dream Garden in the curtis center and Washington Square around there, and also go to the "free" "PECO Family Jams: Recycled CD Ornaments" in the Magic Garden to make small ornaments today. My schedul was tight because my work ended at 12:30. Because the train got delayed, I decided to only go to the Magic Garden. It was apparent that I was the only one who showed up at the event. Even though the event was still on, I realized it was "free" with admission. So I left for the Dream Garden instead. On my way, I had this feeling that it might be closed and I forgot to check. And unfortunately, the security guard in the Curtis center told me it was closed for today.

Originally, I planned to see the mural arts in the city, but it is so hard for me to walk a lot in the snows. I know there are some mural arts along the Broad street and I choose a way I nerver walked before. It is a surprise that truning around the corner, there it is! I never imagine that the new way is even easier and faster. It was so cold that I bought a pair of gloves on the way. I stared the mural art near the Macy's for about 3 minutes and I can't focus, so I escaped into Macy's. Luckily, I saw the light show in Macy's. I can feel the enthusiasm people show to Christmas, but to be honest, I am not attracted to it but I still feel happy. I recognized that on the way to Anne's house, I just rushed across the street and just passed by some mural arts. I felt sorry to those mural arts that people just pass by them and it seems that they are not important. Also, because of the gloves, I can't type on my phones. And since I don't have internet on my Iphone and the map on Blackberry is not good, I check the information on blackberry and navigate the way on iphone; at the same time, I need to carry my camera and protect it from the snow! So I took off my gloves manytimes and catch two phones, one camera, and even one cup which has a leaking cap and rushed in a snow day!

Unbinding feminism has been the greatest challenge presented to me yet in this course.  All semester, our class has explored the confined of being a feminist—the varying components (and intersectionality) within feminist identities.  To deconstruct the goals and desires of feminism feels impossible without questioning the word itself.  The word suddenly feels inefficient.  Not incorrect, yet still inadequate for a form of activism that no longer relies on gender or sex to define itself.  I first question the possibility of feminism’s unbinding.  Then, alternate terms.  I’m pretty fascinated by the etymology of the word itself, and supplemental terms used by varying groups of intersectional identities to better define themselves.  As Wendy Brown asks, “Are we proposing to be after sex and gender, no longer bound by them or perhaps no longer believing in them, and yet in the peculiar offering that only temporality makes, bringing along what we are after even as we locate it behind us?” (Brown 98).  In the unbinding of a term that at first felt so simplistic, yes, that is quite what we intend.  But are we left with feminism?

This morning I ate 5 sugar cookies for breakfast. Immediately after I washed down the last cookie with some lukewarm English Breakfast tea, I began carefully planning the rest of my meals for the day, excluding anything sugary, whilst reminding myself that I exercise twice a week (but that’s enough to keep off the weight, right?). This worried, calculating, self-shrinking mentality accompanied my logic for skipping meals in middle school, telling my mom that the cafeteria food too hard to chew with my braces so, yeah, of course, Mom – I had eaten when I got home when, in reality, I hadn’t.

It’s nearly 2014. Never before has there been a time more centered on self-care and abolishing the extreme, inaccurate mass-media portrayals of women. Despite this, though, how can women still have these self-defeating, body shrinking thoughts?  

Some Huffington Post statistics have taught me that women experience an average of 13 negative thoughts about their body each day, while 97% of women admit to having at least one “I hate my body moment” each day.

And women are bound quite literally by their clothes. Skin-itching, thigh and stomach suffocating, sequined, short, skinny clothes. So much so that the damage is left irrevocably on their skin with grooves in their shrunken skin from skinny jeans and bras. Only 5% of American women naturally have the body type advertisements portray as ideal.

(the first picture is the view out my window, as I was waiting for your arrival,
and the last one is the same view, after the snow had stopped...)

            The phrase "feminism unbound" is strange to me. I thought at first I understood it, but when we began to discuss this phrase in class, I got even more confused. So I sat down to think about it on my own. I thought about the rigors of society, the boundaries have set for ourselves and others, the world we have been told should exist. As someone who has chosen to go to an all-women's college I know I follow certain boundaries within the walls of Bryn Mawr College, regulations the college sets for me. I began to think of similar institutions. A friend of mine also goes to a single-sex institution, Wabash College, an all-men's college in Indiana. Wabash sets regulations for its students as well. A potential new regulation is a gender studies graduation requirement. This debate struck a chord with me, especially when I discovered the contorted view of gender studies some members of the institution had created around this issue . . .

            "[The] wimpy, neutralized guys that gender feminists are trying to create:  men who are not committed to constructive struggle and conflict and fighting for a cause and coming out the winner." (Michaloski and Allman) This statement was made by Dr. David P. Kubiak, a Classics professor at Wabash College in relation to the debate at Wabash over the proposition of a gender studies graduation requirement.

Today is cold and snows heavily. I went to Barne's Museum in the afternoon. When I arrived at the museum, I was tired and upset because of the bad weather. However, the museum inside was pretty warm, which delight me a lot. Everyone has been there, thus I think I do not need to describ more. I enjoyed the artworks and found interest during the 30-minutes observation.

...during our go-round, after dim sum, @ my home this evening, to report on the time you spend on your own, during your final jaunt in the city for the semester, please do so here-and-now--with images, if you have them. thanks!

(I thought we were going to write a paper about this so I didn't wrote everything I wanted to say. So I added something later. )

The mural surprised me. I expected it to be color blocks and white letters according to the photos, but it was more than that. There were portraits on the color blocks and scribbles of very hopeful words on the letters. Comfort. Voice. Inspired. Dreaming. Attitude. Love. Soul. We believe life. I thought the letters should be completely white in order to shine and be seen from afar, but in fact they are filled with scribbles. I guess things don't have to be impeccable to be brilliant. 

The area can't be called aesthetically beautiful. It is run-down and imperfect indeed. But exactly because of that, it has potential for improvement. It has hope. 

The weren't much people on the street and all the stores were closed except Chinese restaurants, so I was having a hard time looking for a souvenir. Then I saw a girl's abandoned boot on the ground, bright pink in the white snow. I thought it might be a good representation of that area but picking it up and taking it all the way seems really creepy. So I just took these photos of different other murals.  

We spend our lives saturated with the ideas in media. We experience different types of media in varying degrees depending mostly on our positions in social power structures, but we all experience it. It is where the value system of our society is taught; it is where the foundations of our mythology our formed. Patriarchy is disseminated through media, where it affects the participants in and the audience of the media.