This is a great idea

I'm sure making a blog while I'm half brain-dead from general sleepiness will turn out wonderfully.
Since I last posted some things with relevance to drag happened; I attended a drawing class this past Wednesday where I introduced myself using the masculine version of my name, "Li". This is the first time I've ever tried this, and I haven't tried it before because I still live with my parents and even have to still be chauffeured around by them. Up to this point I've mainly been trying to avoid "Your daughter Li..." occasions, which would turn out pretty awkwardly for me.
That and my school isn't the kind of place you can attend for three years, then walk in one day and say "I'd like to go by a manly version of my name now" without a similar outcome.
So yeah, it felt good to at least try it out. I'm sure many people care about my life, so I thought I'd share it.
IN OTHER NEWS, I thought I'd counter my first post, in which I dissed on womankind in general, with a post in which I list women I think are actually pretty badass.

Mother Teresa
The Virgin Mary
Mary (In Plain Sight)
Manamaraya (Soothsayer of Pontis)
Lisbeth (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary I have respect for mostly out of cultural reasons. Mother Teresa, in particular, strikes me(even though I know little to nothing about her) as a powerfully loving woman. The kind of woman who got up in the morning, put food out for the stray cats, and spent her day at the local soup kitchen, and spent every minute of her day attempting to serve the Lord and make people's lives better, regardless of her own. Not because it was the "Christian" thing to do. But because she truly, deeply enjoyed it. You don't get "Christian" by telling people how to fix themselves, and you don't sit there and wait for God's hand to move your heart. You go out there and you start doing things, and the "Christianness" becomes a by-product. Mother Teresa was a monumental example of this, and she accomplished great things in her day despite being a woman. People took her seriously. They still take her seriously.

As for virgin Mary, well. She faced some pretty deep shit. Getting pregnant in her day by anyone other than your husband was a huge no-no, and if Joseph had been any less than a pretty damn cool guy, Mary would have been stoned to death. Not likely would have been, not probably would have been--she would be dead. And despite that risk, she didn't run off and hide somewhere, she didn't freak out and tell God to take his baby somewhere else. She faced certain death and being disowned by her family, which in those days, for a woman, pretty much meant you were gutter meat. And she didn't even end up in that position through irresponsibility or sleeping around. She "followed the book", she "played by the rules" and she ended up in a hugely unfair situation. But she didn't blame anyone for it, and she didn't get bitter about it. She went on faith and saw it through. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to do that.

Mary from In Plain Sight, the tv show, is just a hardcore woman. Despite having hair the colour of sweetcorn, which in TV these days is usually the mark of horror movie fodder or whathaveyou, she goes forth and conquers while dealing with a seriously mucked up home life that goes beyond the idea of an impossible balancing act. Nothing in Mary's life is balanced. Her world is falling apart at the seams, and the only way she holds it together is by constantly slapping more and more duct-tape on it while dishing out scathing sarcasm and derogatory labels to her ditzy younger sister(horror movie fodder in a nutshell) and her impossible alcoholic mother(people who keep up with the series know that lately her mother is now attempting to stay off the alcohol, and things have improved somewhat.) Mary reminds me distinctly of Sil, my own character, who's pretty dysfunctional and kick-ass in her own ways. Both of them fuck up a lot, they hurt the people they care a lot, but at the end of the day they'll take a bullet to put down a bad guy(and they'd rather do that than apologize to said loved ones)and they'll do their best to fix said fuckups(preferably without apologizing, but maybe if there's no other way. Maybe.)

I gotta wrap this up, cause my popcorn's getting cold and I have homework to finish--GAH. THAT ESSAY. DUE THIS WEEK. FOUR PAGES. FFFFFF--so I'll excuse my hasty summaries of the last two by explaining that pretty much my only follower is a Scaly Bastard in California who throws a hissy fit if I ruin any literary or media experience for him ever by telling him ANYTHING ABOUT IT AT ALL.

Manamaraya somehow manages to be badass despite totally using her body to manipulate men whenever she can, having been bullied out of her job(in her world, basically commander of her entire country's military) by her husband, and desperately resorting to bringing in a soothsayer from the slums(also a MAN) to try and freak said husband into not running their city into the ground anymore. And she's STILL. AWESOME. I don't know how she does it, I really don't. And then later*SPOILER ALERT* she apparently, like, VIOLATES HER HUSBAND as one of her ongoing revenge schemes(not like really rape, I don't think Mana's one to give it to a guy in the ass, but still) among other awesome badassery.
So yeah.
You can read part one here: http://manamaraya.deviantart.com/gallery/12560041#/d2ltp52
The author is an amateur writer on her own part, but it's still pretty damn good. Some misplaced commas, and she has a habit of inserting "--" in places that throw off the flow, but she's extremely open to critique, so she's always improving.

Aaaand Lisbeth. She's just badass in all forms. She may be even closer to Sil than Mary. I can't really say much, because of aforementioned Scaly Bastard, but this is a heroine that truly kicks ass. I don't mean like that one time in the movie where she pulls a few fancy moves and puts down a few henchmen and still ends up needing to get saved by Mr. Man at the end. I mean Lisbeth will stare down the barrel at you and two seconds later your eyeball is hanging out of its socket and your gun is up your ass, and she's carving Swedish insults into your back with her pocketknife. That is the kind of kickassery we are dealing with when it comes to Lisbeth.
THAT DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN, MEK, I JUST PULLED IT OUT OF MY ASS AS AN EXAMPLE. SO THERE.
NOW I WILL SAY SOMETHING THAT DID ACTUALLY HAPPEN SO YOU CAN SKIP IT.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
And what I really love most about Lisbeth is that SHE'S the one who's always saving the GUY. Or herself. The only time he ever had to "save" her was after she'd already dealt with the bad guys(WITH AN AXE. AFTER CRAWLING OUT OF A GRAVE. THAT SHE SPENT THE NIGHT IN. AFTER GETTING SHOT IN THE STOMACH. AND PUNCHED IN THE FACE A LOT.)and was seriously about an inch from death.
I have such a serious mancrush on this woman. Like you don't even.