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On Education, Gratefully

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My word for 2012 has been “gratitude.” I have tried to be more mindful of the wonderful blessings in my life and express gratitude in all areas of my life. First things first: I have improved dramatically at writing and remembering to send Thank-You notes. I think that may be the only real deliverable; the rest of my gratitude practice has been solely in my own mind and heart.

As I’ve been crawling, inching, barely progressing on the series Breaking Bad, I’ve been reflecting on my own life, my own decision-making rationale, my gifts and support systems. Of course, the onslaught of gratitude and related emotions has been a refreshing reminder of how beautifully hopeful and heartbreaking life can be.

But the greatest gift I’ve ever been given was my education. From the age of three, I was enrolled in private, Catholic schools. While I realize that Catholic schools are a hot-mess of crazy (this is true), I also realize how valuable the emphasis on education is. I remember begging my parents – pleading my case every single year – to let me go to public schools. They didn’t.

I went to a Christian Brothers high school, but my real luck came from the Jesuit university I attended. The Jesuits are noted for their commitment to the education of the whole person. If there’s one thing I took away from my college experience, it was “solidarity.” While Loyola may not be known for their commitment to the betterment of Rogers Park (I think it’s a no-win situation, as far as land ownership goes, but on the plus side, the Loyola stop is in pretty good condition. and there used to be a Dunkin Donuts!), they’ve always emphasized service-learning and commitment to communities of all kinds, more than just their own student body.

My professors there were not all devout Christians, but they were all devout scholars and educators (give or take a few). One of my favorite professors was a women’s studies professor who taught some of my feminist theory classes. She was a devout Catholic, but freely admitted that as a woman, she had problems with some of the catechism. I so adored her commitment to her faith but her willingness to question it and call attention to its hypocrisies and flaws. It allowed me to see the Catholic faith in a new light, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

While attending Loyola, I lived in one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the city of Chicago, which is already a wonderful blend of everywhere. But that’s not the point, even though I will carry pieces of Rogers Park in my heart forever. The point is that my educational experiences have left me a more rounded, grounded, rational human being. I’ve traveled to Europe for a forensic trip because I was lucky enough to have the most badass forensic teacher (we had one of the only forensic science classes in the country at the time) ever. Loyola prepared me to open my heart and mind to the conditions in the townships in South Africa.

All of this education has left me curious, well-informed (mostly), and most importantly, someone who cares about the well-being of all human beings (solidarity, solidarity, solidarity, and so on).

Regardless of your religious views (trust me, I have plenty of opinions and don’t ever get me started about the current Pope), this article should give you hope for the future and hope that educations such as mine will continue to cultivate a love of learning in young minds everywhere:

By Carl Bunderson

Denver, Colo., Oct 16, 2012 / 03:03 am (CNA).- Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School based in Denver, Colo., has nearly doubled its enrollment in just one year by introducing a classical curriculum.

“This is something people want, and they’ve wanted it for a long time, and now it’s available,” principal Rosemary Anderson told CNA Oct. 10.

Our Lady of Lourdes is a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school. The parish’s pastor, Monsignor Peter Quang Nguyen, had helped turn around a number of schools in the Archdiocese of Denver which had been in danger of closing. He was assigned to Lourdes five years ago.

When Msgr. Quang hired Anderson to be principal in 2010, the school was in “quite a bit of debt” and had only 104 students enrolled. That figure is 180 today.

The school’s capacity is 235 and Anderson believes that by the next school year, “we’ll have to start wait-listing kids.”

“The biggest problem when I came on was that everyone thought the school was going under. The attitude has changed…Now people know this place will be there, and their kids are getting a phenomenal education, and parents don’t have to worry that it will close in a few years.”

“I’m very grateful for Monsignor Quang’s support. None of this would have happened if he wasn’t completely on board,” she added. “We were right in this together.”

Anderson noted that classical education is meant to help students learn how to think, rather than merely teaching them “subjects.” The program at Lourdes school was inspired by 20th century author Dorothy Sayers’ essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” and the work of Laura Berquist, who was involved in the founding of Thomas Aquinas College – a Catholic university in southern Calif. which uses the classical model.

“She’s a huge influence,” Anderson said, “she founded a homeschooling curriculum called ‘Mother of Divine Grace’ and is brilliant in the ways of classical education.”

The foundation of classical education is a set of three methods of learning subjects, called the trivium, which is made up of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Lourdes school will focus on the grammar and logic phases, and will introduce the eighth graders to rhetoric.

The trivium “happens pretty naturally” using the classical curriculum, and ideas of grammar and logic and integrated into the subjects taught to students: “it flows naturally from the way teachers are teaching,” Anderson expressed.

This year saw the hiring of five new teachers, in a faculty of 15 total. And out of those five, four have either had a classical education or taught in a classical school,  Anderson reported. “I brought in people who know what the vision is…they’re confident in how to teach” classically.

Anderson noted that the school drew in numerous students who had previously been schooled at home. Several homeschooling parents enrolled their children as this type of education wasn’t available before. “Now they know there’s something that will sync up with what they’ve taught” their children.

Several non-Catholic families have also come to Lourdes just for the classical education, Anderson said. She expects that group to grow as well, “because it’s a great education.”

Parents at the school are very invested in the classical model, which she “welcomes completely.” She pointed to the Catholic teaching that parents are the primary educators of their children, and that “we’re just here to help them.”

Anderson was encouraged to differentiate her school, and with the “support and knowledge”of Bishop James D. Conley – former apostolic administrator of the archdiocese – chose to follow this approach to education as a way of imparting to students the art of learning.

“The classical approach is Catholic, through and through,” said Anderson. While “other schools are doing great things,” “no other Catholic schools in the diocese are doing this yet.”

The school’s re-organization will be a three-year process. The first year, which is occurring presently, involves a re-vamp of the English department and the introduction of Latin classes.

Latin was introduced in place of Spanish because of its importance as the basis of all Romance languages. Students “logically process things better when they know Latin,” said Anderson. She pointed to high school freshmen who “test into honors French, without having had any French before, just by knowing the root language.”

Latin is important for the grammar stage of the trivium because its nouns decline, or change their ending according to function they are performing in a sentence. This helps students to better understand how languages work, and it is coupled with the memorization of poetry.

The second year of the school’s rehabilitation will consist of a renewal of science and social studies.

“We’re not necessarily changing the material we’re teaching, but how it’s given to the kids, which is a step away from dependency on textbooks,” said Anderson.

Students will be reading more primary sources for history, and in English classes, reading historical novels to tie-in with their history classes.

“All the classes are very intertwined. What they’re reading in English should correspond to what they’re learning in history, and in history should be able to carry over to the virtues they’re learning about in religion, so it’s all very integrated.”

Morgan McGinn is in her second year at the school, and teaches second grade. She discussed how the move to classical education has changed her teaching style.

“I have to read and discover knowledge on my own before I can share it with my kids…It’s definitely changed my teaching; I can’t just look at a book anymore and read the lesson, and be prepared for the next day.”

“I’ve had to almost flip everything I know about education upside-down to teach classically,” she said.

Her students are now “required to think more,” rather than having “the information they need to know fed to them.”

The holistic approach of classical education, meant to build up the whole person, translates to an emphasis on the fine arts. “We already had a great performing arts and speech department here…so that was already very integrated,” said Anderson.

The school’s music and performing arts teacher, Patricia Seeber, is a veteran of the school, having taught there for 13 years.

“The feel where we’re at spiritually with the kids, that we’re making that the most important part of the day, has shifted for the better,” she said.

“It just feels like they’re really responding to it in a great way.”

In keeping with the introduction of Latin into the curriculum, Seeber has added Latin hymns among the songs prayed at the school’s bi-weekly Masses.

“We raised the bar I think a step or two higher than a lot of schools do, and the kids really rise to the occasion.”

Lourdes’ classical education is meant to help the students realize their full potential “spiritually, intellectually and socially,” and help draw them to God through the true, the good, and the beautiful.

The parish’s maintenance director, Bryan Heier, reflected on Anderson’s leadership at the school, saying “with enrollment as high as it is so quickly, she’s doing something right.”

On Apprehension and Draft Emails, Nervously

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My boss comes into my office. “I can tell you’re nervous,” he says. I am nervous. I imagined that root canals were for the very elderly, not 24-year olds who haven’t even had a cavity in years. He tells me to ask them for something to calm me down. I tell him I would have asked earlier but was afraid to look like a drug-hound. He laughs. “You’re going to be fine,” he says, and then directs me to listen to my body and ice and heat as needed. He gives me pain management tips. My stomach curls at the thought of waves of pain. I’ll be fine. I’m tough.

I’m cleaning out my email drafts. One of them says, “There’s a tribute to Queen playing at the Bluebird tonight! Why are we not going?!?!” There are videos of me bungee jumping from the Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa; there are pictures of the bridge to nowhere over the M3 near James’s house in Tokai; there are unfinished graduate school entrance essays, emails to my friends with now-unnecessary life updates, itineraries for trips I’ve not yet gotten around to taking – although apparently winter hot springs features quite frequently in my future life plans.

There are Death Pool updates and spreadsheets, articles I’d like to blog about but haven’t, and tons of empty emails, conversations started but nothing said. It’s the ultimate “never mind.” I did, however, make some new inbox labels in an attempt to organize. Here’s hoping that sticks.

On Whom, Frustratingly

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I’m terrible at the word “whom.” It sounds so sexy and dignified, but in real life, I panic and do what everyone else does and use “who” instead. I guess I could just start throwing whoms around to see what happens, and then laugh it off like I was trying to be an ironic hipster Millennial when I get called on it.

So this article from The Economist was well-timed. I love watching language evolve….but not always: somewhere on the internet, I read a homework forum where a student asked about interpreting a passage and said that he couldn’t understand it because it was written in Old English. The passage in question was written in the early 20th century.

On Statistics, Offensively

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The Harvard Business Review emails me a daily stat every day. Why? I don’t know, maybe it’s the direct correlation between my assumed importance and the amount of email clogging my inbox every day. Or perhaps it’s the thought that one day, this stat will somehow come into play in the final round of bar trivia.

I can see it now – it’s the final question, we’re down by 15, ready to throw in the towel and bet zero to finish third, or worse. Everyone turns and looks at me, and I raise my chin in a combination jaunty-defiant smirk and then I lift the pencil (I hate pencils so much – they’re never sharp. They’re dull and sad and horrible) and scribble the answer. Then we will win, beating the second place team by a narrow 5. There will be cheers, and yelling, and confetti….

Since this is reality and that’s not likely to happen, ever, I stick to reading my daily stat, because I’m weak. I’m the worst at unsubscribing from things. I hover over the “unsubscribe” button and then I think, “Wait! What if at some point something contained in this or future emails is useful?” and then I don’t. And then I complain because my email inboxes are littered with junk.

But today’s stat made me laugh out loud in the grocery store.

Anti-Atheist Bias Is Based on Distrust of Nonbelievers

In a series of psychological experiments conducted in Vancouver, Canada, participants revealed that they considered atheists to be less trustworthy than a number of groups often considered to be outliers, including Muslims, gay men, and feminists, and only as trustworthy as rapists, according to a team led by Will M. Gervais of the University of British Columbia. The lack of trust in atheists may reflect people’s assumption that individuals tend to behave more ethically if they believe they are being monitored by a higher power, the researchers suggest.

My first thought was “What’s wrong with feminists?!” and then I forwarded the message to Maddie. My eloquent message? “Lol feminists.” Her response? “Haha, never trust a feminist. Or a rapist.”

I identify as agnostic, so I’m not nearly as terrible as the godless atheists, and thanks to Catholic schools, I definitely have some behaviors (like making the sign of the cross every time I see a fire truck or ambulance) that I can’t shake. I totally get the overarching idea that people who aren’t governed by their God are more likely to behave badly, but isn’t that basically saying that you believe that humans, when left to their own devices, are horrible people? Did Original Sin teach us nothing about blind trust? (Well, maybe the men didn’t learn much, but women have certainly been paying for it forever.) I personally don’t see myself as being an untrustworthy person, and that’s without a defined spiritual being keeping me on the straight and narrow with the threat of eternal damnation and the hellfires hanging over my head.

But regardless of the religion-induced distrust of the mysterious “other”, I’m seriously irked that feminists are outliers. What? Have we still not come to terms with the fact that each and every human being (biological sex markers be damned!) is an important part of our global community, so much so that we distrust people who believe in that kind of equality? I may not have the physical strength of ten God-fearing men, but I have characteristics and qualities that make me equally valuable and worthy of respect. Does that make me untrustworthy? Or just scary because I’m less obedient and therefore “unknown”?

Whatever, I guess the moral of today’s stat is never trust a feminist. Or a rapist. Or maybe, don’t trust someone who thinks that feminists are only slightly more trustworthy than rapists.

On Rape, Legitimately

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Earlier this week, Representative Todd Akin, a Republican from Missouri, was discussing his views on abortion when he said, “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s [pregnancy from rape] really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

Understandably, a bunch of people flipped out. We’re not talking “take shelter until this blows over” freak out, we’re talking intense, election losing freak out, and rightfully so.

Just for the record, the body does not have any “ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” What methods does Mr. Akin imagine the female body might have to avoid pregnancy? I’m curious. Click here for an article discussing the science behind rape and pregnancy. You’ll note that around 32,000 pregnancies occur as a result of rape each year.

So, realizing that this comment wasn’t just going to be hidden under the rug, Mr. Akin responded. From the New York Times:

Mr. Akin quickly backtracked from his taped comments, saying he “misspoke.”

“In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview, and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year,” Mr. Akin, who has a background in engineering and is a member of the House science committee, said in a statement. “I recognize that abortion, and particularly in the case of rape, is a very emotionally charged issue. But I believe deeply in the protection of all life, and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action.”

 

I highly doubt that’s going to make it any better, Mr. Akin.

As a country, we spend an awful lot of our time and energy discussing and fighting about abortion, but I’m not entirely sure that we spend enough time trying to understand abortion. If you’re feeling curious, why not go over here and check out some stats?

But let’s skip the abortion debate, because we’ll get trapped into that abyss of conversation and lose our way.

Let’s talk about rape.

I am guilty of spending a large part of my life believing that rape was just uncomfortable, like bad sex. I didn’t understand. I still don’t, since it’s not something I’ve experienced, but I have a much better idea now.

I knew about rape as a child because I spent so much time buried in magazines like Time, Newsweek, and Reader’s Digest. During the 90s, I feel like there were a lot of news stories focusing on rape – particularly during and after political conflicts and wars abroad. That, coupled with the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, really cemented the idea of the vulnerability of women during times of war and the idea that rape is tied in with power and masculinity.

But my understanding of rape was still clinical and journalistic. It wasn’t until I was ten or eleven or twelve (somewhere in there), and received a book of murder mysteries for Christmas that I started to understand. In one of the stories, there was a rape and murder of a young girl. I won’t go into detail. It was graphic. It terrified me. I wrapped the book and hid it in the bottom of my desk drawer because every time I looked at it, I had nightmares. That was my first visceral reaction to the idea of rape.

Then came high school, followed by college. We were in a feminist class, I think, and the professor showed this scene from the movie A Time to Kill, which really put it in perspective for me. I don’t know why it was this that did it, or why it’s haunted me ever since, but in that moment, somewhere in a dark classroom, I felt my heart tear open and begin to ache as the understanding spread through my body to settle deep inside my mind.

Rape is not just bad sex. Rape is destructive, violent, painful, terrifying, and scarring. We as a society do so little to protect and comfort victims. You’ll notice that it’s comments like this one by Mr. Akin, or the one by the officer in Toronto who said that women should avoid dressing like sluts to avoid being raped, that really set us off. They’re the comments that create awareness, promote discussion, and prompt change.

But even so, the change comes too late for so many. The rapists take shelter in the gray areas of the law, and often walk away without having to face consequences due to lack of evidence, or a “he said, she said” argument. Rape is covered up, hidden, made a secret. The victims are left shattered and alone, abandoned by their peers due to lack of understanding and social stigmatization.

Instead of working to protect the result of rape, why are we not working to end rape? Why are we not trying harder to educate our children about the consequences of rape, about the actual definition of rape, about date rape, about assuring consent? Why are we not working to provide a save haven for victims? Why are we not working to end the shaming that we put on the shoulders of victims?

I was the result of a one-night stand. I could just as easily have been the result of a rape. Am I glad that I exist? Of course. But imagine what might have happened to my birth mother had she struggled to support herself and her child (baby me!). Where would we be now?

Something that these lawmakers (so often male) neglect in their utter dismissal of the magnitude of rape as a crime is also the magnitude of the aftermath. Personally, if I were to be raped and become pregnant, I would be furious if I were to be suddenly expected not only to carry that child to term, but then take on the financial burden of raising that child. Would I be able to be the best mother possible for that child? Would I be able to provide for us adequately? Would I need social services like welfare to help me?

Let’s not regress to where we’re arguing about what counts as “legitimate” rape. Let’s focus on eliminating rape. Let’s focus on providing services to the victims. Let’s move forward. Let’s provide choices and options, but most importantly, let’s remember that rape victims are so much more than their reproductive organs. They are people who deserve our respect, rather than our insistence that we not punish the child. (It’s an argument that gets made over and over again, along with “so and so was the result of rape, and look at them.”)

And for god’s sake, is this not THE prime example of why we need more science and sex education in schools?!

P.S. Check out these Onion articles. They’re sad, but pointed and definitely worth reading.

 

 

On Humanity, Realistically

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I am not fun to watch movies or shows with. My friend Anne will tell you that I begin asking questions immediately and don’t stop. It’s as though I can’t just wait and see. (I can’t. I read the last page of romance novels before I read them even though I know exactly what’s going to happen from the outset.)

I got the new boy started on Game of Thrones this weekend. I am hooked. I love the intrigue, the strategy, the double-crossing, the cliff-hangers. (Just kidding, there’s nothing worse than an episode fading to black just as something critical happens.) I watched the first few episodes with him, and told him to stop where I’d left off. We resumed last night, I slept through the second episode of the second season, and then, revived by my late evening nap, stayed awake through another two.

The show is sort of medieval fantasy, so it’s far removed from our present reality. But it’s a   story that is beautifully applicable to our current times (as history and epics so often are). At one point, there are a bunch of prisoners in a terrible situation (when are a “bunch of prisoners” not in a terrible situation?). Daily, one of them is chosen and then tortured and killed.

I find myself blanching at the thought. Somewhere deep inside me begins to feel pain, a singular discomfort. It’s the same reason I can’t watch the Saw movies, the same reason I had to hide the book of 100 Little Murder Stories (or something similarly titled) that I was gifted during my youth, the same reason I will never forget the episode of Law and Order: SVU where the transgendered inmate is brutally beaten and nearly killed: I can’t stomach the thought of a human being doing terrible things to other human beings, for any reason at all.

The idea of murder is so romanticized, our glorification of violence so tolerated and accepted, so expected. James Bond does it so well, he does it for a noble cause, he kills those who “deserve” it. There is something heroic about the whole affair, something so clean and cold and detached that you sympathize with the killer and champion his efforts.

For me, it’s not the just murders that offend me, it’s the sadistic that stuns me. The fact that human beings, for one reason or another, are so able to cause pain and misery, inflicting cruel punishment for little or no reason at all. I can’t imagine what would possess someone to derive pleasure from those actions.

I look at the warning signs: people abusing animals, etc. I look at the black cats that fill our shelters. I look at my own black cat, who was feral until someone decided he’d be an excellent house cat. I think about someone hurting him. (I think about the sad yowl he let out when I accidentally cut his nail too short – the yowl that haunts me and makes me feel terrible.) I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine it for even a single moment.

I think of our disregard for life. It’s a societal epidemic, our lack of respect for others. I am guilty of the same, Chicago-me flipping off cab drivers that zig and zag through the crowded intersections. In those moments, those cab drivers aren’t people. They’re terrible caricatures in cabs, determined to destroy my commute.

Is that how it begins? I wonder. (Obviously it’s not.) But at what point does the casual disregard turn into something more sinister? Is this the ignition point? The gateway? (Again, it’s not.) But as we move toward a more individualistic society, forgoing the “it takes a village” mentality for the “do it yourself, crush all others” mindset, are we losing a vital piece of our humanity? Are we losing shared experiences, community, and ultimately, the true value of this life?

We can study the causality all we like. At the conclusion of our studies, our research, our newly enacted laws attempting to restrict and mitigate their movements, we will still find that people – human in constitution just like ourselves – will go to great lengths to hurt and injure and ruin other people. We cannot stop this.

It will continue in perpetuity. It breaks my heart. It hurts my soul.

I’ve been enjoying the different perspective that the boy (I can hardly bring myself to say his name, I’m so excited about this and I’m terrified to do anything that could potentially destroy it….like getting a lover’s name tattooed right across your chest only to go home and find that they’re leaving you for someone else) brings to my understanding of life as I know it. I’m finding that even though he’s fairly conservative, we have a lot of shared views.  We’ve been able to discuss politics without our conversations falling into the traditional tropes that seem to define oppositional discussions. He’ll call me a hippie and I’ll call him a gun-owner and we’ll kiss and continue our conversation. (I guess that is exactly the traditional trope you’d expect…) He’s logical and rational, and I am thrilled by the opportunity to pick his brain and ask endless amounts of questions. I’m thrilled by his responses. I’m open to his ideas and experiences. I see what he knows as an area that I’m lacking in, and I’m determined to understand his mindset and his opinions.

I watch him play video games. (I am an amazing not-yet-girlfriend, if I must say so myself.) I do the same gasping and squeaking, nervous for him as I watch his character fight off strange post-apocalyptic demon-creature-things, and I watch as their bodies disintegrate into nothingness, leaving weapons and money and health for his character to pick up. I champion his efforts, and yet, I’m left wondering about the disconnect between this pixelated violence and the violence on a global scale.

Are we hurting our young people by allowing them to perceive these kills so coldly? The real effects of death and war and bloodshed are far greater than these valiant missions in video games. I’m not anti-video game, not by any means; I’m not saying that they are THE social ill, but I am saying that I think they are symptomatic of our cultural neglect of the soul.

They’re just as bad as my willingness to cut off a cab driver who’s trying to squeeze into my lane. They’re just as bad as our neglect of shelter animals, our blind-eyes turned away from the neighbors who punish their children too harshly, our blanket declarations of individualism – the glorification of the “self-made man” in a world that no longer allows for the opportunity of the American dream nor respects the contributions of the global workforce.

Life is everything you’d imagine it to be. Life is personality, drive, hopes, dreams, fears, goals. Of course there’s no way to identify with everyone, but in trying to truly  understand people, there is so much to be learned.

How can personal, societal, national growth happen unless there is learning, understanding, community? Every body breathes. Every body desires, wants, needs. It’d be good to remind everyone of that simple fact, especially as the body counts continue to rise worldwide – from all sorts of crime and conflict – and the world continues to struggle between turning a blind eye and striving for peaceful solutions for all. It is far more difficult to work for love and understanding, but I feel that the benefits would far outweigh the alternative.

On Being a Twenty-Something, Defensively

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I’ve had a blog since I was fifteen. I wrote posts on MySpace, I posted to (and obsessed over) my LiveJournal account, and finally, when I went away to college, I got a Blogspot to document adventures for my family. Three (give or take a few) iterations later, you have the present form of the same thing: a place on the internet to write about my life.

There is something so entirely humbling about reading back to a post that I wrote when I was little.

Stuff like:

“I stood there, in the company of many, but I knew so few.”

and

“I smiled, trying not to make eye contact. I’m sure my dejected look detracted from my approachability.”

or

“The drive home, in the cool night air, windows down, music up, was immense. No other cars on the road, just me and the night, speeding slowly home. I set the cruise control, just for fun, so that I could just be in the night. I was sixteen again, fresh with ideas, taking the turn to the song, letting the music take me elsewhere.
The lights in Denver have begun their countdown, a simple way of informing pedestrians of their impending restriction, and at night, the countdown simply hits zero and reverts back to the little light man walking. I found myself timing it so that as I drove, I’d be crossing the intersection as the change occurred, the ultimate end leading back to the same beginning.
There is nothing better than the promise of summer, no matter what life is holding for you at the moment, standing outside in the night and smelling the air will change your life. Floral scents intermingle with the city’s hot fresh air and the animals of the night seem to be more alive.
We saw a skunk mosey past, on his way somewhere fast. As I drove away into the night, rolling down the windows, I passed the skunk again, still running, still on the street, getting somewhere.
We’re all getting somewhere, even if we have no idea where we are.”

These posts become a place for me to mark my growth. They remind me that I’ve always been some things, and they reinforce that I’ve always been others. Sometimes I am struck by how insightful Past-Me is, and others, I cringe at her insecurity and wish her all the self-assurance in the world.

I’ve been reading posts about my generation. We’re the Millenials, the ones who are supported by their parents, who have no work ethic, who are vapid and shallow and marked by their sense of entitlement. All of those authors are so wrong.

Yes, we’re wallowing, wandering, lost, and afraid. (And yes, some of us are total dicks. But your generation had some not-so-pleasant people in it too, admit it.) What we were raised to see as our future is crumbling in front of us, as though arriving at the desert mirage to find more and more of same, too-hot sand. We’re thirsty. As I’ve said before, we’re the Next Lost Generation. We have no idea what to expect, because the expectations change daily.

Struggling to find the balance between youth and maturity is a difficult one, particularly when any move toward “grown-up” is criticized, and movements to remain “youthful” are equally stigmatized by both my peers and my age-superiors. What I find interesting is that many of these authors criticizing the Millenials are Millenials themselves.

I work three jobs and don’t get financial support (except health insurance premium – Mom, you’re the best), and I make it work. I have work ethic, drive, desire, and passion to create a sustainable and secure future for myself. I happen to enjoy a few gin & tonics and some dancing. So be it. Yeah, I get frustrated at my peers. I find people with no drive infuriating and weak. I am prone to the occasional meltdown of desperate wallowing.

But I’m also not wallowing for the sake of wallowing. This life is a journey. Right now, the age-superiors are controlling a large stake of this world that we live in. It’s hard to get past the entry-level job, it’s hard to ascertain whether or not our place is as adult-equal or child-mentee. It’s difficult. It’s like being seventeen again, being all lost and insecure and afraid.

The reason that there are so many twenty-somethings actively writing about their lives is because they’re finding an outlet.The internet has opened lines of communication that hardly existed twenty years ago, and has fostered equal parts community and isolation by “social networks.” Growing up with access to technology will change – has already changed – a lot of the ways that people example typical milestones. There’s a lot more comparison, more evaluation, but also less of each.

Pressure on young adults to be “perfect” is a very real thing. They want to succeed, and want to be able to do that, but are often so coddled and cared for that they lack the tools with which to do so. Or, alternately, they want to succeed but instead of being coddled and cared for, they’re tough enough to make it on their own but are constantly fighting external circumstances. It’s life, just like you lived it, just like your kids will live it. It’s just always a bit different.

Yeah, some of those blogs are insipid as all hell. Some are lame. Others are personal. Each blog inhabits its own space. It is exactly what it is. And I’ll tell you something that I always tell people: If you don’t like it, don’t read it.  (For those of you who think the Millenials are strange, you should delve into the world of middle-aged bloggers, some who are fascinating, wonderful creatures and others who are like reading something reminiscent of listening to nails along a mile-long chalkboard. The grass is always greener, dear Baby Boomers.)

My blog marks my growth from adolescent to young adult and beyond. I’m humbled by, grateful for, astonished by, embarrassed about, aware of, and immensely proud of everything, even the parts I hate. This blog, while both public-facing and well-trafficked, is an account of growth and the stages that mark a life. My life. It is meant to be self-pitying and triumphant in equal measures.

When I look back on my posts, I am able to mark the moments at which I grew and changed. I am able to see how my opinions and tastes have changed and grown. And I am  content to see how the journey has progressed thus far, and excited about the glorious future that awaits.

So, remember: If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Problem solved.

On the Best of Craigslist, Inspiredly (not a word, whatever)

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I’m not sure how much time you spend on Craiglist. I visit the site a few times a week to read the “Missed Connections” because I think they’re sweet, but super weird. I once saw a missed connection that was directed at one of my friends! They had both been walking their dogs in the park, stopped to chat, and then parted. He wrote a missed connection for her, and then I saw it, and they went on a few dates. It didn’t turn into anything, but the possibility that it could have remains.

I also get most of my babysitting gigs through Craigslist. I’ll post something, then weed out any weird responses – and the grammatically incorrect ones – and then interview a couple of families.

In addition to the awesome community and flea market that is Craigslist, there’s also a “Best of Craigslist” website. That’s where I found the sweet Pontiac Grand Am ad you just saw. I think this is hilarious. It’s also going to be great inspiration for my own used car ad when I finally decide to sell Simon in eight years. “Duct tape!” “WOW!” “Glove compartment!” “AMAZING!” “Wheels!” “FOUR OF THEM!”

You’ve got to admire the chutzpah that went into the creation of this ad. You’ve got to admit that even though women do not want to get all up in your business when you drive a car like that, they might appreciate your sense of humor and still date you. I mean, I’m walking proof that a thriving love life can still exist when you don’t drive a Bugatti Veyron. Not going to lie, that car looks a lot like a HotWheel that I had and loved as a child. Not sure I’d want to get in a car that reminds me of being 8. On second thought, it does make me want to find that town/road mat we had and play with toy cars.

 

On Gloria Anzaldúa

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The first time I came across Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, I was 17 and a senior in high school. I hated it. Like, really hated it.

I came across Anzaldúa again during an exploration of feminist literature for a women’s studies class in college. I liked her a little better, but found her style of inserting snippets of Spanish into her writing annoyingly pretentious.

(This stems from an upper-level Shakespeare class I took the summer between my junior and senior years of college. On the first day, the professor asked us to go around the room and give an example of “fool.” When we got to the girl sitting next to me, she said smoothly, “I have a highbrow and a lowbrow example for you.” I rolled my eyes. I would later go on to hear the professor telling the girl that it was unnecessary [subtext: pretentious and douchey] to put so many French quotations in her papers.)

I have no idea why I initially disliked Anzaldúa so much. Her writing isn’t really pretentious.  It’s honest. It’s the product of her cultures, and her experiences, and her feelings. (After I post this, I’m going to find my box of file folders and dig through it to find notes on why I hated Borderlands so much the first time. I bet it’s a seriously silly reason.)

Her writings influenced the lesson that my AP English teacher taught about segmentation in the mind. I remember it as this: as the human brain learns new information, it attempts to categorize that information, and puts it into the boxes that it already has established. Woman. Dog. Boy. Adult. And so on. Each box exists as a separate container for information.

(I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’ve never been great with a straight line. I am also aware of the fact that I have the handwriting of an 8th grade girl. I was one once,  you know.)

The identity of a person doesn’t fit into just one box. An identity is a combination of boxes, all jumbled together to form a bigger picture of the whole.

Anzaldúa’s writing focuses on her lack of a concrete identity (belonging entirely to one box) since she is mixed-race and a lesbian, and therefore inhabits many boxes within many other boxes, hence the title Borderlands. Being both of those can get difficult, especially in a society that does not seem to value diversity.

As a college student, I was more receptive to her writing style, although I’m not sure that I was as gung-ho on her as I was on other authors (Judith Butler, I love you).

The idea of not fitting in entirely is not a foreign concept to most people. Granted, as a straight white chick, I will never quite understand the implications of being part of both racial and sexual orientation minorities, but the inability to truly identify as something concrete is something that I struggle with as I attempt to accept that I’ll never know who my birth father was and as I process the larger implications of being adopted as I enter adulthood (although the possibility of being part Vulcan or Russian or English or German or Elfish or Canadian is always exciting, I guess).

Anzaldúa definitely brought a different perspective to American feminist writing, which was (and still is) primarily driven by a very monochromatic subset of our society, and I think it’s really good to continue to acknowledge that even in feminism, minorities are under-represented and overlooked, and then work to change that.

Girldrive – which I highly recommend reading, highlights the importance of looking at feminism from outside academia – also brought my attention to the importance of identities for women, particularly as they navigate the various roles they identify with. (Are you white first? Or a woman first? Or a feminist first? Eventually, you have to accept that you’re a mass of all things all at once, even if people see and identify you as one thing or another immediately.)

Anzaldúa’s contribution was a giant one and as much as I hated Borderlands then (I have since come to respect both the author and her works, and sincerely appreciate being exposed to them earlier than most), I think it needs to remain an important part of our educational curriculum far into the future.

What sparked this? This article in Bitch.

BiblioBitch: 25th Anniversary of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera

Books post by Devyn Manibo, Submitted by Devyn Manibo on July 11, 2012 – 1:14pm; tagged 25th anniversary,BiblioBitch, books, Borderlands, feminist, Gloria Anzaldúa, La Frontera.

If you read Bitch, you are likely at least somewhat familiar with Gloria Anzaldúa and her work with feminism, her beautiful writings, and her advocacy for women of color. She was a Chicana-Tejana-lesbian-feminist poet, theorist, and fiction writer, born September 26, 1942, in Raymondville, Texas. She passed away on May 15th, 2004, but still remains one of the most widely read, respected, and loved queer woman writers of color in history.

As someone who identifies as queer and mixed race, her work was bound to play a pivotal role in the way I construct and understand my identity, the way I live my life, and how I interact with others. I picked up a used copy ofBorderlands/La Frontera (the first edition) when I was 18 years old. Her semi-autobiographical collection of memoir and poetry was older than me, and I had no idea of the gravity of the impact it would have, but I began reading it, slowly–swallowing her words, and digesting them into my being. It was a lot to take in. Quickly, she helped me realize that the comfort I thought I found in labels was simply an assimilationist value I had adopted, not for myself, but for the comfort of others. I never knew how to answer the question, “so, what are you?” It was what I had been grappling with for my entire life; I was living between worlds–the borderlands. I am not either or, but rather, on the edges of all, in an unstable, and ever-changing terrain, “nepantla”–a Nahuatl word for the in-between spaces, where the boundaries are unclear, and we are constantly in transition. I can use ambiguity as resistance, and realize that I will not, and never will, fit so neatly into the boxes left out for me, for that would be the death of the borderlands, and the death of the identities I hold.

It is the chapter “Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan,” which roughly translates to “movements of rebellion and the cultures they betray,” that I carry closest to my heart. I have read those 10 pages more times than I can count. In this chapter, Anzaldúa notes “homophobia,” and not in the way you might think. She means the fear of going home, the fear of abandonment, by the mother, the culture, for being “unacceptable, faulty, damaged.” And to avoid rejection, we conform to values of “the culture,” while pushing what we are taught to understand as unacceptable into the periphery of our vision–the shadows. We’ve internalized our oppressions, thus, creating what Anzaldúa aptly named the Shadow-Beast. We fear that the beast will break free, and that our truths will show. Though, it is possible to come to terms with the Shadow-Beast, to see her as kind, and tender, as a being that wants to be released not in the name of destruction but to uncover the lies we’ve let inhabit our bodies, in order to come into our true selves, to resist imposed ideals, and to not be simply tolerated, but loved, and understood. It is a process, and most often, a struggle of pain, and melancholia. I am on a constant search for home, language, and kinship, and I was able to find a basis for all of this in Anzaldúa’s words.

gloria anzaldua with her arm outstretched, leaning on a wooden plank fence

Needless to say, this book has impacted my life in a way that I can barely scrape with a short blog post. I will revisit this text for years to come, it will live with me, it will understand me, and I will continue to discover what it means to live in such a transient space.

Aunt Lute, a nonprofit press focused on bringing the voices of women—particularly queer women and women of color—to publication, is celebrating its 30th year, as well as the 25th anniversary of Anzaldúa’sBorderlands/La Frontera. For the 25th anniversary of the book, Aunt Lute is looking to publish a fourth edition, but they cannot do so without your help. So, please, keep Gloria Anzaldúa’s voice alive, and donate via Kickstarter by July 28th.