I can't figure out how to get my blog to go side by side with my links, and that's quite literally all I've been doing for, like, a week. That and watching home improvement telivision, but I don't want to sound too pathetic. It's funny coming home. I felt like I so desperately needed a break from Ithaca that I took a semester off of school. Now I'm home, only I'm realizing I don't really belong here anymore either. Why won't someone just offer me a job at a dude ranch in Hawaii? That' would be so much easier than slogging through the unapproachable mess of internships, grants, references, and senior thesis advisors.

One of the main ideas I'm pursuing is my Fix-It-Herself school for women which I blogged about earlier. I've gotten such a positive response from men and women alike. Home Depot is even starting to offer free classes for women. This is going to be seriously mainstream.

Right now Amy Wynn Pastor is an incredible role model and idol of mine. Amy Wynn is a carpenter on the TLC show Trading Spaces. There's an interview with Amy Wynn in the Philly City Paper. She mentions how thrilling and unexpected the feedback has been from women of all ages. She is a role model for young girls and an empowering icon to older women. She also says she never expected to have this sort of impact, but truthfully, she's why I watch the show.

She also seems completely natural on the show. I think it's great to see a woman just be herself when assuming a role traditionally filled by men. I think too often women take on hypermasculine characteristics when invading male dominated space. It's the same problem I have with "Girl Power." Girl Power is a way of telling women that they need to be violent to be powerful. Girl Power says it's not OK to just be a girl, you have to be a ninja, and a ninja in a bikini at that. Emmulating masculine violence is far from empowering to women or girls. (Whew, just needed to get that off my chest)

Girl Power aside, Amy Wynn is a fabulous carpenter and a women whom I have the utmost respect for. She's also the same zodiac sign as me. In her bio she said the book she'd most recommend to a friend would be Harry Potter And what do you think happens to be on my bedside table these days? That's right. Oh, also she just married my boyfriend's high school friend's older brother. I don't know how to type the Twilight Zone sound, so use your imagination . . .