Girl Scout Cookies!

It's that time of year again! Before you know it, the new year will be upon us and that means one thing: time to order Girl Scout cookies!

Girls sell cookies not only as a fundraiser (actually, we only get 70 cents for each four dollar box!) but to learn a variety of life skills. Selling cookies gives girls a chance to set goals, manage money, and teamwork. In my troop, we have the girls decide what their goal from their cookie selling will be and calculate the math to see how many boxes they need to sell. And that's just from 8 year olds - imagine what they will be able to do when they're older!

There is also the Gift of Caring/Operation Cookie Drop portion of cookie sales. Cookie buyers can choose to donate a box (or three!) to Operation Cookie Drop, which goes to military troops or to Gift of Caring, which goes to a charity of the troop's choice (we're choosing ours tomorrow).

Please remember to support your community and go out and buy some Girl Scout cookies. If you'd like to buy them from my girls, let me know and I'll get you set up.

Talking about the Future

I need help.

My parents and I have an ongoing "discussion" about my future, mainly in terms of them introducing me to people (e.g. men). I am postponing it as much as I can because it's not part of my plan.

My plan is to get back to FTE status, work for a few years, and grow... get promoted, maybe be a manager, really just get the most I can from working for this wonderful company that I've wanted to work at since I was 8. After I feel like I've gotten the most I can out of it, I would like to be a stay at home mom, since that is something I value. And then once my kids are school aged, I want to be an elementary school art teacher.

I have a plan.

My parents however feel that I'm getting old and I need to start meeting men now. That's fair, but I want the chance to meet them on my own first. And this is something I can't seem to drive into them.

So what am I supposed to do? I'd love to get your advice on how you would handle this and what arguments you would make for my point of view.

The Curse of the Good Girl

Rachel Simmons has written a book called The Curse of the Good Girl that is getting a lot of attention, for good reason. It makes sense! Right now this book is 4th on my reading list, but it may be moved up =) The following is from the bit I heard on NPR; you can find the audio here.

I definitely think I fit under this curse. People who know me know that I always put others before myself, and yes, sometimes it comes back to bite me.

Let's take a step back. What is a good girl? Simmons calls a good girl somebody who is always polite, selfless, and modest. The curse is that people will walk over you, and sometimes it's not helpful to yourself or anyone else to be a good girl all the time. You don't have a full range of emotions because you're too busy being polite - so your anger builds up and you explode at improper times, or worse, you never get your anger out.

Good girls also grow up to be diminished in the workplace - they often begin sentences by "I don't know if this is correct, but this is my opinion." Do we want young women growing up to diminish themselves? Of course not!

This all leads back to how you were raised. I'm not sure how I was raised. Yes I know to put on a pot of tea whenever somebody comes into the house, and always serve food and drink on a tray, even if it's one person, but what does that have to do with giving my opinion?

I'm not sure there was enough discussion in my house when I was little to even have something to discuss. I know as I've gotten older, my parents do ask for my point of view because I generally have a complete 180 opinion than they do. And of course, if I ever do share it, they tell me I'm wrong. Is that part of this?

I have no answers unfortunately, just food for thought. If you read the book, let me know what you think.

Finding Satisfaction

I was talking to my brother today, telling him how this weekend had me stressed out. No no, not about work like a "normal" person, but about all my extracurricular activities (is that still the term to use when you're not in school?).

Girl Scouts has changed from bi-weekly to weekly, which I'm very excited about. This year we're going to start doing service projects, and slowly let girls take the lead in meetings, so they develop leadership skills. It's all part of the girl progression. However, weekly meeting also means more work.

Then there's the mentoring at SGS. I cannot wait to meet my mentee - she's a 7th grader, which was one of my toughest years in school, so I am so happy at the prospect of being able to help her. However, seeing as this is one of my passions, I want to do a lot of the suggested reading they gave us. Therefore, more work.

There's also all the projects I've taken on... Olivia, Bhailu, Mom, Tanya, Jolie... I love it all, but it's time.

And there's the ridiculous amount of television I watch.

Oh and the 200 or so books I have on my "need to read" list.

All this makes me happy, no matter how stressed I get about how much I want to complete. All of this is voluntary, but I want to do it. As my brother put it, this is a good problem to have - having so much to do that you love, that you don't have enough time for it.

However, I'm not feeling completely satisfied yet. Something is missing. I'm just not sure what yet.

Seattle Girls' School

"Girls in single-sex schools have higher self-esteem, are more interested in nontraditional subjects such as science and math, and are less likely to stereotype jobs and careers. They are intellectually curious, serious about their studies and achieve more."~Drs. Myra and David Sadker

As many of you know, something I concentrate a lot in my life is keeping girls interested in science, math and technology (see my post on Grace Hopper). I recently (as of yesterday!) started being a mentor at the Seattle Girls' School. It's a middle school comprised of grades 5-8 that focuses on integrated learning and developing female leaders. High schools that these girls go on to report that they can easily spot the SGS girls because they raise their hands in class, don't back down from an argument, and can manage projects easily.

What attracts me to this school even more is that they have commitments to diversity and meet or exceed them every year. For the 2008-2009 school year, 40% of SGS students are girls of coolor, and 20% identify themselves as multi-racial. This is VERY impressive in Seattle.

Since the school gets no government funding (they're technically a 501(c) - an education non-profit) they have to charge tuition. However, no girl will be denied admission based on money. So they dedicate to providing a minimum of 30% of its students with need-based financial aid.

I just wanted to do a quick intro post on this whiel it was fresh in my mind. Expect to see more posts as I get more involved in this, apply it to my Girl Scouts, go through the suggested reading list they gave us, and go to Grace Hopper in 2 weeks. I'm happy to have something I'm passionate about come back into my life!