An Art Exhibit about Islam and an Interesting Conversation

Well, it was a pretty average Thursday. I decided during my 12:30 Economics class that I was suffering from a rare disease known as lack-a-chinese-food-itis. My second class was special in that when I arrived there was neither a professor nor were there any students. Which is strange because the professor teaches in that classroom right before and many of the students are in both classes. No class! Weee. I went home. I told my roommate about my weird disease. He decided that he needed to leave the apartment sometime today so he went to fetch the food. It took him 50 minutes and meanwhile I was hungry.

I managed to get a lot of studying and schoolwork done though. I ordered the books I need for another class, met with a professor, and worked on rewriting a paper. I also spoke to David.

This evening I went to an art exhibit as required by my Monday night, slightly less than insane professor. (Because the truly insane label is saved for my screaming professor of course.) Mostly I think we had to go because the lady who was running it is her friend. I got there and was told by my professor to go get a glass of wine. I did. It was quite nice up until I put a hole in the side of my plastic glass. I figured that meant I'd had enough. The art exhibit was about women from the American culture trying on the Islamic veil and giving their opinions on it. Quite interesting, but very obviously designed to be positive because that is what the art exhibit was about. The interesting thing that I came home from the exhibit thinking about wasn't the art exhibit but a discussion I had with a girl from my class who was there. She was saying that more than anything she wanted to go to Australia and study. She said she couldn't though because she was married. I hadn't realized that marriage was such a major limitation and pointed out that she could probably take him with her. She told me that he didn't want to go and she had to stay where he would be happy. What about her happiness? Did that not matter? Would he not put up with her being gone for a few weeks or a semester to do something that she really wanted to do? Would he not consider doing something for her that she really wanted to do. I asked her what she would be doing for a living and her response was that she would just find a job wherever her husband wanted to live at. I wonder if it ever occurred to her that perhaps he could make a few sacrifices too. All of this and she is a year younger than me. It was quite an interesting conversation and one of the most interesting things is that two years ago it would not have bothered me as it now does. I would have just accepted it and probably said something about planning the same someday, doing as my mother did, and putting my life choices behind that of a man's. Now I find that future scary.

Sweden has corrupted me. I no longer feel like a normal girl. It's weird.