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Hi! My name's Cathryn... I'm a sophomore at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, majoring in English Education. I'm mostly here for the free food... um, information. Once in a while I'll step in to fix a spelling error or the like. Oh, and I wrote the article about the BYU Creamery, for which I'm pretty proud. (Actually, it was more like I had to write it, if I didn't want to make a liar of myself... but that's another story entirely.)
[edit] Interests
Other than--yes, you guessed it--English and Education, I've got "academic interests" (is that what they let us call nerdy obsessions now? Yesss!) in American Sign Language and Deaf culture, choral music/vocal ensemble performance, and developmental & educational psychology. I think my favorite literary period is the Elizabethan era, but It could change...I've still got a lot to learn. I do know that I detest Feminism as a critical method, however.
[edit] Minors
My current official Minor of the Week is Psychology Teaching. Last week it was Latin Teaching. Updates as the situation progresses.
[edit] Party Affiliation
Politically, I have a hard time siding exclusively with either the good ol' Red or Blue. If you want to oversimplify, I guess you could say that I consider myself more or less an anti-abortion, anti-gun, pro-education, anti-Socialist medicine, anti-Gay marriage, anti-gay (GBLT) discrimination, pro-family, pro-religion (of your choice!), anti-forcing my views on other people kind of person. (Boy, did I open up a can of worms there.) See? It's more complicated than Republican vs. Democrat...if all the big, important choices were as easy as one side or the other, life would be much simpler than it is. Vote with your head, not your party lines, I say. :)
[edit] A little political ranting
I've been asked to explain some of my viewpoints before, so I guess I should stick some kind of explanation in here. I didn't write this section--an individual from an online forum did. He words it much better than I could.
Medicaid funding
"Medicaid [...] is a socialistic wealth redistribution program that forcibly takes money from someone who has earned it and gives it to someone who has not earned it. [...]
"Individual charity, given freely is a wonderful trait and I laud [wealthy donors] for [their] most generous contributions. I similarly respect all others who chose to voluntarily give of their own money to help those who are in need. But I am well past weary of people who are unwilling to give of their own free will making ever increasing demands on my paycheck.
"I work hard for my money and every dollar taken in taxes to support socialism is a dollar I cannot donate to the private (and far more efficient) charity of my choice. It is that much more time I am not able to be at home with my family. It is that many more days I must work before I can retire and engage full time in some kind of charitable work.
"Private charity yes. Socialism under force of government, NO!”
"Compassionate Conservatives"
"There is nothing compassionate about socialism. There is nothing noble about being generous with other people's money.
"If you want to donate YOUR money to provide dental and vision benefits to certain persons, by all means feel free. But stop presuming to force me to support YOUR favored charities. Perhaps I'd like the opportunity to support some other charity, or even to truly DONATE to this charity without being forced to do so.
"Tax money is a sacred trust that should only be spent for the "general welfare" or the benefit of all of society. It should not be taken from one man, who has earned it, and given to another man who has not. That is "specific welfare" and it is morally wrong. Tax money is NOT yours to "give" to any individual or special interest group.
"And the fact that there is waste, or graft, or fraud in other portions of the State budget does not justify increasing socialism in this portion of the budget.
"If you are truly compassionate, you will DONATE YOUR money (and/or time) to help those in need, rather than supporting the forcible redistribution of your neighbors' money to your favored cause.”
Academic freedom at BYU
"Considering the way most current campus speech codes promote the most liberal and libertine and politically correct of agendas while doling out punishment for expressions of politically incorrect or conservative ideas, it is hard to take concerns about lack of "academic freedom" seriously until liberal colleges start getting citations. Until that happens it looks like it is only conservative schools that are being hammered on. It is a badge of honor that these schools are not caving to political correctness.
"BYU makes no bones about who they are or what they represent. They are a private school owned and actively run by a conservative, Christian church. Anyone at all uncomfortable with what that implies and imposes should probably not seek admission or employment there in the first place."
Umm, as far as everything else goes, like it says: my personality can be summed up in a few userboxes. :P And yes, I know the list is obscenely long, but hey--I like it that way. :)
[edit] Speaking of userboxes...
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Hi! I am a userbox with a POV. I won't hurt you, I promise! Pretty please don't delete me. |
Rant of the day: why are so-called "polemic" userboxes being deleted with reckless abandon? Why is it wrong for me to say that I have no problem reconciling my belief in God and my understanding of evolution? How is that different than saying I like reading Shakespeare? Both are simply statements about myself. It's not like coming into contact with this page is going to magically turn you into a Christian just because I have a userbox proclaiming myself as such.
I'm not going to force you to read Shakespeare; why is it so threatening to say that I believe in God? Stating that I am Christian does not mean everyone on Wikipedia is. I don't claim to represent all of Wikipedia when I say that I like Shakespeare--plenty of intelligent, wonderful people working here can't stand the guy. My lone userbox does not speak for this encyclopedia, and deleting it is censorship.
No one thinks the article on Buddha needs to be re-worded so that Jews or Wiccans or what have you aren't offended by it. It's perfectly fine--important, even--to state that certain influential people held certain beliefs about the world. That doesn't suddenly make their articles biased or non-neutral. What's wrong with me saying the same thing about myself? Information on Wikipedia should not be arbitrarily censored just because people hold different views from one another.
Here's a great quote from the Talk:Userbox page:
- What does T1 Mean? --Shanedidona
- T1 is a new speedy deletion criterion that includes divisive/polemical/inflammatory content. --Cyde Weys
- T1 means that the admins can delete whatever the hell they please because anybody can stretch a subjective criterion. Rogue 9
Deleting userboxes, in general, is a problem. For example, why was the userbox for {{User Palestine}} deleted, but {{User Israel}} wasn't?? This is getting ridiculous. I don't give a flying rat's behind if good ol' Jimbo doesn't like certain userboxes threatening his WASP hegemony. Jim Wales may have "created" Wikipedia, but he can't play supreme dictator much longer. His "little community"--yes, that's a direct quote--has exploded into about a jillion users, like it or not, and he isn't a hair smarter or more correctly-opinioned than a single one of them.
I don't think I would mind so much if it were maybe one or two userboxes taken off the radar; userboxes advocating breaking international law or blatant threats to other users are probably inappropriate. But sweeping out every statement of belief that might threaten someone else's delicate self-image is not the answer. "Ooh, look at me! I'm a poor, pitiful PC user! Please get rid of all those nasty Apple userboxes." Honestly. I thought Wikipedia was a place to share ideas and learn something new about the world around us, not a platform for declaring what is "appropriate" to say about oneself and what is not.
In short, it's not about the userboxes. It's about what is fundamentally wrong with this organization. If we have learned nothing else over years and years of compromise to present the world's most divisive issues fairly and accurately, I thought it would be respect for someone else's opinion. Userbox censorship is isolationist nativism in its worst form: when we reject that which is different than ourselves simply because it is different, we break critical ties that have been years in the making.
[edit] And here you go...
The obligatory pro/anti/whatever-deletionist template. Behold.
[edit] Wikipedia Projects
Just a personal list of things to work on in all that spare time I have...
[edit] New Articles
- Deaf members and the LDS church
- Paper snowflakes
[edit] Need Work
[edit] Contacting Me
It's probably easiest to leave me a comment on my talk page. As a matter of fact, I don't really care what you write (within reason)...just don't delete stuff, because I'm not very good at reverting vandalism just yet. If you want to yell at me, though, that's okay. I'm one of those silly people who like getting all kinds of mail, even if it is just junk mail, spam, or nasty comments on WP. :) If the matter is urgent (and/or I seem to have abandoned ship here), you can email me at cathryn8 at gmail dot com, but it's probably easiest just to drop me a good ol' Wikipedia line. I'll write back on your talk page, unless you want me to somewhere else.
