Rarity the Unicorn's Guide to Fabulous Glasses on the Cheap!

[Note: this is a website recommendation for people who wear glasses, along with a helpful spreadsheet, which I created, to assist my friends who may order glasses online (if you don't order glasses online, you really should). It is also, apparently, a MLP:FiM fanfiction (?!) No, I don't know why. I don't know how you can make origami with hooves, either.]

Hello, everypony! Rarity here! When you see me debuting my fall collection at the Harvest Foalstival, or stopping off for a lunchtime treat at Sugarcube Corner before going back to work, you may well ask yourself, "how did that unicorn Rarity get to be so fantastic, so fashionable--in a word, so fabulous?" Most of it is, of course, attitude *sparkle* and self-confidence *gleam*, but you just might be surprised at how much of that self-confidence comes from taking care of myself. When I feel good, I look good.

You might not know this, but I'll tell you a secret--a few years ago, I didn't feel so good. I got headaches all the time, and when I tried to attach the green and pink ribbon roses onto Derpy's special Post-Winter- Wrap-Up mail pouch, I couldn't even see to pin them in place; that's how blurry everything was! That was *not* fabulous--in fact, it was downright terrifiying! As a self-employed fashion-pony, my eyesight wasn't just an important part of my job, it was an important part of me! What would I do if I couldn't see to make the creative couture creations which were my life? Everypony from Manehattan to Dusseldhoof bought them, and kept fantastic entreprenurial me in the pink, so to speak. I could get glasses, but...wouldn't that cramp my style? What was I to do?

By that time, the problem was so bad that I could only go out on rainy, cloudy days--the bright sun was too much for my tired eyes! So, there I was, picking my way around the mud puddles *shudder*, when who should I see but Rainbow Dash, nudging along some rainclouds in her galoshes and--waterproof goggles! "Rainbow Dash--yoohoo!" I called up to her. "Where do you get your goggles?"

"Huh?" she paused for a moment. "Dr. Prism, of course! Everypony goes to her!"

"Everypony?"

"Yeah!" she said, confusedly squeezing the water out of her mane as she hovered in midair. "You know, everypony: *deep breath* the Mayor and Twist and DJ p0N-3 and the Wonderbolts and Hoity-Toity with his monocle and I think Pinkie got her x-ray specs there last year though now that I mention it I didn't see anything like that in Dr. Prism's office when I got *these* babies! Speaking of the Wonderbolts, I'll never make the cut for next year's team if I don't get these clouds all squeezed dry and blown away!" She zoomed off. I swear, that pony can't sit still for even a moment!

Well, didn't I feel foalish! I trotted right over to Dr. Prism's. She showed me into her lovely, sunshiny office, and I got fitted for my glasses right away. I could see! No more headaches! Much easier to thread the needle on my sewing machine! It was bliss! And my new glasses were just like me: cheerful, bright, and sparkly red! Not that I'm red, you understand.

However, the bill arrived. Let's just say that it did *not* make me feel cheerful. It made me feel decidedly un-sparkly. I had to make dresses and hats for a long time to pay for my fantastic glasses. And one night, up late making a blue-sequined roller-derby outfit for Fluttershy (she's fierce out on the rink), I thought, "what if my glasses break? How will I be able to afford another pair?" It isn't like me to worry or fret--alright, perhaps it is, just a teensy bit, mostly about hemlines and mud and etiquette and--well, anyway, most of the money I make from selling Rarity's Regal Regalia goes right back into my business for supplies or travel. One has to get the new outfits out to Photo Finish's fashion magazine and Hoity-Toity's boutiques *somehow*! So there isn't a lot left over. And I love red, don't get me wrong--but what if I wanted to wear *green* to this year's Sun-Raising Ceremony? Or, Celestia forbid, *pink?*

And then Derpy, who of course delivers every catalog to every pony in Ponyville and knows *all* the best deals because of it, told me about a fantastic way to get truly *fabulous* glasses on the cheap when I shared my worries with her! "I make origami out of recycled paper, Rarity; I obviously need to be able to see what I'm doing and need glasses. But I'm a contractor, and most of my pay goes right back to the Pony Express Union, so I know how you feel. But I go to the internet, where I can get my glasses for only $12.50"

"Really?" I asked. "But...can you see with those glasses? And how...fashionable are they?" Derpy is sweet, but she is not the most fashionable pony in Ponyville (that would, of course, be me).

"See for yourself!" She dug around in her saddlebags for a moment, and came up with the most *gorgeous* glasses, blue and yellow with little bubbles on the sides to match her cutie mark. My jaw may have dropped open: Derpy, looking stylish! "...and I can see great!"

So, I went online and was astonished: there were hundreds of colors and styles of glasses, and I could even upload a picture of my lovely self to "try out" the glasses virtually! And they were so cheap! I just put in the prescription Dr. Prism gave me, and I was done! I could hardly wait for my glasses to arrive, but when they did, they were every bit as good as the glasses I got at her office--*and* I still get to see Dr. Prism for my prescription! No more headaches! I even suggested glasses as accessories for a shoot with Photo Finish, and since the modelpony didn't wear glasses, Photo Finish just ordered the frames!

The one thing that I had a little trouble with was converting Dr. Prism's measurements into the correct prescription for Distance and Close-Up vision, so I made a spreadsheet--I figure some of my friends might want it,so you can download it right here (f you can't, just drop me a line)! Just replace my name, doctor, and prescription numbers with your own, and your close-up prescription will be automatically calculated from your distance prescription!

Have fun, everypony, being fabulous and healthy on the cheap--like me, Rarity!

End-Runs

So, the Dean of Admissions at Bryn Mawr (whose name and email can probably be found publicly, but I won't post right here) wrote back to me. She is probably pretty busy, so I appreciate that it took less than a month for her to reply. (I still haven't heard back from Smith's group, which isn't surprising, as I now realize they are almost all in finals or on vacation).

Some good news: BMC, based on the Transgender Task Force recommendations, apparently already planned on making a public website that "[articulates] just these policies and practices [ie, those regarding transgendered students and admissions]. [...] You will be pleased to know that the new Dean of the Undergraduate College has reviewed the Task Force recommendations, and has made this website a priority for the coming summer."
Conclusion #1: Yay. This is necessary. It's both good practice and good news they will be articulating their stance in public. It's possible such a public articulation wasn't necessary in 2000 (I wouldn't bet on it), but it's probably only going to become more necessary as the century goes on, which can only be a good thing. If I'd waited another six months, there would probably have been a website actually talking about some of this stuff, in public. That's a good thing.

Another good thing: The Dean has said she will forward my info and my desire to help out to the people who are already involved in dealing with these issues.
Conclusion #2: It looks like it's too late to get in on the ground floor of Transgender Task Force stuff for me, but it looks like there's an elevator going up, and there is still Useful Stuff Being Decided and Done.

A third good thing: "How an individual self identifies in terms of gender, or any changes in self-identification while a student is enrolled here are personal matters and not something the College tracks. As I hope you experienced, our students tend to be exceptionally accepting of each others' differences and we in the administration try to create as healthy and supportive an environment as we can for all our students."
Conclusion #3: Possibly, it's silly to list this as a good thing, because honestly it's a pretty basic expectation of human dignity, but not all colleges do this, so I'm going to give them props (although, apparently, if you self-identify as kinky while at the college, individual classes of alumni may not feel bound by creating 'as healthy and supportive an environment' as they can... ;P)

...But here's what I consider to be a grammatical end-run around the actual question I asked: "Bryn Mawr's admissions policy as a women's college is to admit female students only. If it is not clear that an applicant to the College is female, we would approach the situation on an individual basis to gain a better understanding of the student's circumstances. However, our policy to admit female students only would not change."
Conclusion: I was an English major, so I'm already inclined to parse sentences for minutae; and everyone I know from college, including myself, learned how to be a better critical thinker there even if they were already decent when they came in. If they didn't think I could see that they elegantly sidestepped my question, or hoped I wouldn't ask about it...well, let's just say that I hope they expected this line of detailed questioning from one of their own alumna. They should have especially expected it from an alum who has multiple kinds of personal investment in the cause of the college and gender equity, and actively wants to donate her precious time to both causes, and so is going to make darn sure those causes are actually going to be advanced before committing a lot of time to advancing them.
If they didn't expect such a pointed reply (perhaps they were hoping I'd accept the studied phrasings and implications of the sentences in the letter, from which arise answers of an almost elegant incompleteness), that's a shame.

Frankly, I expected it to be a blanket "no way, we don't admit MTF students," so I am pretty psyched that there is the possibility that BMC and its admissions office might instead choose to deal with similar situations on a case-by-case basis. However, the answer given obviously and almost totally sidesteps the question at hand: if your "policy is to admit female students only," how do you define "female," and make that decision on a case-by-case basis? For that matter, how do you decide if "it is not clear" that some individual applicant to the college may or may not "be female?"

I would *love* to see a driven young transgender woman just get admitted and study and graduate without anyone ever noticing or caring; it would be fantastic (and also fantastically fraught, though for all I know somebody's already done it, and I just haven't heard about it). See also: “Well, if I have no way of telling, the person wouldn’t be in violation...I mean, if you can’t tell, what’s the difference?"
Words aren't always the same thing as answers.

This is the email that I wrote in reply.

Hello there, [name]! Thank you so much for writing back to clarify. I am happy to hear that the Transgender Task Force's recommendations will be reviewed and updated on the website this summer! If there is any way that I can help the Transgender Task Force or the admissions office or indeed anyone involved with making these kinds of recommendations or decisions, now or in the future, I would be thrilled to help out. Please definitely let me know if I can be of assistance; you can email me at the below address or, if you like, call: [number].

In trying to understand your answer regarding Bryn Mawr's admissions policy on admitting "female students only," I am still running up against the fact that it is not clear to me how Bryn Mawr's admissions office defines "female students" (as obviously, there are many understandings of femininity, possibly as many as there are individual human beings). I very much appreciate the fact that in cases where a potential student's gender identity is in question, admissions deals with that applicant's admission on a case-by-case basis.

However, in the case of MTF transgender applicants, would such a clarification process would revolve around the potential student's pre-existing social/personal identity as a woman, such that MTF transgender applicants might be accepted to Bryn Mawr on a case-by-case basis? Or does "our policy to admit female students only" mean that such potential students would be denied application?

In short, does the definition of "female student" that Bryn Mawr and the BMC admissions office use include MTF transgender applicants by virtue of those applicants' personal and cultural understanding of themselves as women? Or does Bryn Mawr's definition of "female student" in use during the admissions process automatically exclude MTF transgender applicants, by virtue of the fact that such applicants possessed (or may still possess) male sex organs, and perhaps were originally socialized as men?

Or are such things decided strictly on a case-by-case basis?

Thanks so much! I hope to hear back from you soon.

Sincerely,

[Eredien] (BMC '04)
[email]