I emailed this to a favorite person of mine after returning home and thought I summed up all I wanted to share in it. This is a new strategy...rather than adapting (fresh thoughts) my messages for blogs why not maintain the originality of the first expression of the thoughts?
Attempt one: unadulterated explanation, straight from the heart.
Just got home from the Rushdie lecture. He was on point...as per usual I assume.
His lecture was centered around Adaptations. He focused mainly on film adaptations of movies (Ben Button, The Reader, and Slumdog being the primary three) but then led into discussion of adaptations in our own lives (which got me at the core). I thought of you and your infrequent transformations. I appreciated his critique of Slumdog after hearing Deepika's (shared aversion to the film adaptation being made my a man who had "never visited India and thought it would be interesting") and am looking forward to seeing it and viewing it with a critical eye albeit influenced by some marvelous thinkers. He noted an important question when thinking of adapting books to film, mini-series, etc. is What is essential? Then applied this same question to humanity. It was interesting to think in terms of how at times in our lives we find certain things essential (i.e. reading, love, money, "success," parenting children, etc.) and when our lives are shaken (we go blind, someone leaves us, get fired, children grow up) we adapt to find a new essence of life. On a larger scale even to think of this adaptation is also pretty rad. He said we had lived through an era of bad adaptations, appeasements, and can only hope for better films, better movies, and better stories. That was an approximation of how he ended his speech as they took my bag from me and I had to take minimal notes on an the Methodist Church's Offering Envelopes (forgive me father).
Back to our point of how what gets you and I going individually seems to be these endless tunnels with tiny lights at certain points, but for some reason we keep wandering about (and I can only speak for me here): I think that what makes a lot of this stuff so great is that the truths that we stumble upon in our 'studies' are truths that we have known in our lives and have always been on the cusp of naming (consciously or otherwise). It's like tonight, Salman was connecting literature and humanity, and by this ability I was blown away and envious. I want to do that...I want to train my brain to get big, be free and not rigid, to guide itself to epiphany after epiphany as I cultivate it with stories and studies. There was also something comfortable about everything he was saying towards the end though, and I think this is because I have known this habit of adapting by some other name at some other time in my life. I think it is this; the connection to humanity, to emotions, to the 'essence' of life, that keeps me wandering because I am (or feel at least) always almost there. It, like my mother's perfume, C's dumb jokes, and the sound of you singing a new tune, feels like home.
That is what rules about loving what you study and studying you love and I certainly hope that I get into graduate school.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reflection on Lecture: "There are no women in the Third World"
Last night the student inside of me experienced the blessing of resuscitation; the life-giving thrusts upon my chests, the exhalation from another human’s breath into my lungs, and I feel alive again, in theoretic discourse at least.
I attended a lecture by Emory’s Associate Professor of English and South Asian Studies, Deepiks Bahri last entitled: “There are no Women in the Third World.”
She discussed the role of and position of women in the context of globalization and from a postcolonial feminist perspective examined the questions:
Who can speak and for whom? Who listens? How does one represent the self and others?
Here is where I attempt to connect the dots to what she said and the fragmented thoughts and memories that live somewhere in “No Man’s Land” (i.e. my brain).
As D addressed issues centered around these women that live in developing countries and, therefore, deemed Third World Women (by the First World, of course) she brought to the proverbial table a lot of interesting issues regarding representation, globalization, market economy, power, language, knowledge, understanding, misunderstanding, repression, recession, and oppression. A problem with the problems,she suggested, is that there are no clear resolutions and sometimes the problems aren't viewed as problems to the livers of the lives.
I drifted here and began thinking of the livers of the lives and how we discuss these people like we know (because we have done the research)their situations; their relationships to living. Deepika brought me back with stories from her travels through slums and brothels in India. Personal stories are history, I attempt to thread the tales together to create my understanding of humanity...maybe that explains why my understanding and remembering of things is in such shambles!
An idea came back to me during this lecture; was one that was born in a class on Jazz and Pop Culture as I was reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. In the beginning of the book, second chapter or something, the narrator is thrown into a battle royal and all I remember thinking as this scene filled me with terror disgust is "how can he keep his dignity?"
-and for the connection!-
As Deepika traveled in India and heard the stories of married women who were subjected to forced, unprotected sex with their husbands, forced into the sex trade, chose to live and work in the sex industry, orphaned, sick, and many of these women,she said, had one thing in common: the idea that they still had their "dignity." Deepika discussed the women she encountered as having dignity in a way that suggested that having dignity empowered these women who are seen by many in the Western World as powerless victims to their situations. Her argument, I think, was that these women who, in many ways, have been silenced are speaking up every day in their own language, in their stories that are never going to be published (see globalization to blame), and are not seeking salvation at the hand of Western values or judgments.
I was then led to wonder if feeling worthy of honor (dignity) can conquer a representation that has manifested itself deep into human consciousness (which is an entirely different discussion on representation, our susceptibility to it, and our perception). If that sense of worth carries that much power, and if so how does one maintain that sense of self hood when others are deliberately attacking it. What strength human beings have.
Ah, but these are just questions...that lead to more questions.
I attended a lecture by Emory’s Associate Professor of English and South Asian Studies, Deepiks Bahri last entitled: “There are no Women in the Third World.”
She discussed the role of and position of women in the context of globalization and from a postcolonial feminist perspective examined the questions:
Who can speak and for whom? Who listens? How does one represent the self and others?
Here is where I attempt to connect the dots to what she said and the fragmented thoughts and memories that live somewhere in “No Man’s Land” (i.e. my brain).
As D addressed issues centered around these women that live in developing countries and, therefore, deemed Third World Women (by the First World, of course) she brought to the proverbial table a lot of interesting issues regarding representation, globalization, market economy, power, language, knowledge, understanding, misunderstanding, repression, recession, and oppression. A problem with the problems,she suggested, is that there are no clear resolutions and sometimes the problems aren't viewed as problems to the livers of the lives.
I drifted here and began thinking of the livers of the lives and how we discuss these people like we know (because we have done the research)their situations; their relationships to living. Deepika brought me back with stories from her travels through slums and brothels in India. Personal stories are history, I attempt to thread the tales together to create my understanding of humanity...maybe that explains why my understanding and remembering of things is in such shambles!
An idea came back to me during this lecture; was one that was born in a class on Jazz and Pop Culture as I was reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. In the beginning of the book, second chapter or something, the narrator is thrown into a battle royal and all I remember thinking as this scene filled me with terror disgust is "how can he keep his dignity?"
-and for the connection!-
As Deepika traveled in India and heard the stories of married women who were subjected to forced, unprotected sex with their husbands, forced into the sex trade, chose to live and work in the sex industry, orphaned, sick, and many of these women,she said, had one thing in common: the idea that they still had their "dignity." Deepika discussed the women she encountered as having dignity in a way that suggested that having dignity empowered these women who are seen by many in the Western World as powerless victims to their situations. Her argument, I think, was that these women who, in many ways, have been silenced are speaking up every day in their own language, in their stories that are never going to be published (see globalization to blame), and are not seeking salvation at the hand of Western values or judgments.
I was then led to wonder if feeling worthy of honor (dignity) can conquer a representation that has manifested itself deep into human consciousness (which is an entirely different discussion on representation, our susceptibility to it, and our perception). If that sense of worth carries that much power, and if so how does one maintain that sense of self hood when others are deliberately attacking it. What strength human beings have.
Ah, but these are just questions...that lead to more questions.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Land Where Imagination Reigns Supreme
I've been seeking refuge from hardening of the imagination by reading children's tales.
I look to authors like Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein and remind myself that they were adults too. I try to find my creativity and make things with my hands to remind myself that I am capable of creating and imagining.
I've made terrariums complete with banjo playing astronauts, journals adorned with pigs and mice in britches, paintings that double as night lights with roosters on them, super hero dolls, trading cards, drawings of giants, and I feel that I have rescued myself from the dismal valley of "grown up." My writing though is still struggling. It has been so long since I have stayed in with hopes of writing something for myself that isn't simply a reflection, an analysis of a book, event, or film, or a line from my reading that struck me for one reason or another. I want to center myself again and focus my creativity towards writing.
It is my goal to find sanctuary from whatever it is that plagues the youthful mind as I wish to never lose it...
I'm still trying to figure out how to protect it.
Here are some great ones...love Shel Silverstein.
"God's Wheel"
God says to me with a kind of smile,
"Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says God.
"I don't think you're quite ready yet."
"Listen to the MUSTN'TS"
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be."
I look to authors like Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein and remind myself that they were adults too. I try to find my creativity and make things with my hands to remind myself that I am capable of creating and imagining.
I've made terrariums complete with banjo playing astronauts, journals adorned with pigs and mice in britches, paintings that double as night lights with roosters on them, super hero dolls, trading cards, drawings of giants, and I feel that I have rescued myself from the dismal valley of "grown up." My writing though is still struggling. It has been so long since I have stayed in with hopes of writing something for myself that isn't simply a reflection, an analysis of a book, event, or film, or a line from my reading that struck me for one reason or another. I want to center myself again and focus my creativity towards writing.
It is my goal to find sanctuary from whatever it is that plagues the youthful mind as I wish to never lose it...
I'm still trying to figure out how to protect it.
Here are some great ones...love Shel Silverstein.
"God's Wheel"
God says to me with a kind of smile,
"Hey how would you like to be God awhile
And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says God.
"I don't think you're quite ready yet."
"Listen to the MUSTN'TS"
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be."
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Back to School Not-so-Blues
It's been a long, long time since I've blogged, but not since I reflected.
Last semester was a bit to much for me to process. Towards the end it seems that all the tiny fires that have been ignited collide with high winds volcanic ash sloshing about. Really, it was a pretty terrible last week and I couldn't have been more thankful for that 3:50 bell on Friday afternoon. My break was great, I had a new year and a new birthday, so here I am a year older, a bit wiser, and hoping for nothing but a disgusting display of positive events this year. ONLY good things. It's all I will accept. Last year brought on enough bad for me to appreciate the good this year too. Gimme all that shimmers and set the rusty bits aside for a while!
The beginning of this semester hasn't been so terrible. I have two of three college applications submitted. The last one will be done soon enough and then I cross my fingers until March(ish) I think. Stress.
I am gearing my focus towards activism and dedicating my time outside of school to crafting and self-education.
Activism within the school is geared towards the Gay/Straight alliance. We have really broken some ground this semester -- I am looking forward to helping individual students and the school community as a whole become more comfortable with GLBT issues. The newspaper is taking care of itself but I am challenging my students as journalists, making them step outside of comfortable places and report facts. This has proven very hard for a Jewish student of mine who is approaching the Israel/Palestine conflict, but she presses on and I pound my fist in the air behind her. It's fun to push them.
I am learning a lot as well. I began the semester after a break that was a little too much fun without knowing what I would teach then deciding to teach something that I wasn't familiar with -- The Arthurian Legend. There was a lot of learning to do and I have actually enjoyed coming back to the legend as an adult.
I am dedicated to a book, a novel believe it or not, just for fun. It's about a fictional literary revolution in Mexico and these kids, well men and women I suppose, parallel lives of Ginsberg or Kerouac sleeping in caves, drinking tequila until sunrise, and the whole while celebrating poetry. It's fun -- The Savage Detectives by: Roberto Bolano.
There will be more as I try to center my focus again to blogging.
So to all my "fans"" (i.e. my wonderful grandfather), don't worry there will be more.
Last semester was a bit to much for me to process. Towards the end it seems that all the tiny fires that have been ignited collide with high winds volcanic ash sloshing about. Really, it was a pretty terrible last week and I couldn't have been more thankful for that 3:50 bell on Friday afternoon. My break was great, I had a new year and a new birthday, so here I am a year older, a bit wiser, and hoping for nothing but a disgusting display of positive events this year. ONLY good things. It's all I will accept. Last year brought on enough bad for me to appreciate the good this year too. Gimme all that shimmers and set the rusty bits aside for a while!
The beginning of this semester hasn't been so terrible. I have two of three college applications submitted. The last one will be done soon enough and then I cross my fingers until March(ish) I think. Stress.
I am gearing my focus towards activism and dedicating my time outside of school to crafting and self-education.
Activism within the school is geared towards the Gay/Straight alliance. We have really broken some ground this semester -- I am looking forward to helping individual students and the school community as a whole become more comfortable with GLBT issues. The newspaper is taking care of itself but I am challenging my students as journalists, making them step outside of comfortable places and report facts. This has proven very hard for a Jewish student of mine who is approaching the Israel/Palestine conflict, but she presses on and I pound my fist in the air behind her. It's fun to push them.
I am learning a lot as well. I began the semester after a break that was a little too much fun without knowing what I would teach then deciding to teach something that I wasn't familiar with -- The Arthurian Legend. There was a lot of learning to do and I have actually enjoyed coming back to the legend as an adult.
I am dedicated to a book, a novel believe it or not, just for fun. It's about a fictional literary revolution in Mexico and these kids, well men and women I suppose, parallel lives of Ginsberg or Kerouac sleeping in caves, drinking tequila until sunrise, and the whole while celebrating poetry. It's fun -- The Savage Detectives by: Roberto Bolano.
There will be more as I try to center my focus again to blogging.
So to all my "fans"" (i.e. my wonderful grandfather), don't worry there will be more.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Balancing the Madness
I have been trying to read for pleasure in an attempt to balance the madness that is right now.
I am keeping to essays and poetry, both of which, like TVDs as opposed to movies, are much less of a time commitment, as time is a commodity right now.
From The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy
excerpt taken from "The End of Imagination"
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest of places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated and never complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."
[on living while you are alive]
From Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
"What is a saint?"
"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid body landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."
These thoughts help me to realize that my driving passion is love. Those who do not understand my pursuits in life, who write me off as a hippy wanting to study trivial matters, who think it strange that I want to better understand human beings and the effects of history on us and the ways in which we will affect the history that has yet to come, are not guided by the same passions. I will try to love and understand those people as well, as they are human beings just as I am.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Here's to Feeling Good, Here's to Feeling Bad
Einstein said that one should "try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."
He was smart guy, but still not smart enough to use gender neutral language. This idea of success and how to define it is always pressing on my heart. How do I know that I have been successful? When will I know?
I question what Einstein would have classified as "value." Does value amount to goodness? Is being good doing the right thing? What is the right thing? Life never stops punching me in the face with questions.
My life has become a terribly stressful attempt to prove myself. I have spent three months on a paper that is still incomplete and that, with deadlines fast approaching, I am turning my nose up at. It isn't good enough. I am not good enough.
22 pages, three months, 400 cups of coffee, and 40 books later, I am still not satisfied.
I do not feel that I have been 'successful' at accurately representing my skills.
When is good enough good enough? How will I measure my success?
What if I don't get accepted to any of these schools?
After all of this work?
I will sit tomorrow with this paper and try to wrap it up. It will then only be the first of many drafts. I have never set out on a task quite as daunting as this. It makes me question my discipline, my drive.
The GRE studying is a totally different. If success is measured by discipline then I am a failure. I have learned new words, but I love words so that isn't hard. I can't do math. My brain, my heart, my spirit - none of which are interested in the Pythagorean theorem.
I have felt, more than anything, like an underachiever lately. I find that my frustration sprouts from my ability to be so easily distracted with feelings and thoughts. My little journal is always begging me to reflect on the day. I feel that discipline helps drive success. How am I supposed to be successful and balance all these emotions that are in me? Hypnotists?
I feel successful as an activist for the first time in my life.
I sponsor my school's Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) and I have been pretty successful at exciting my students.
I have been successful at ensuring that my students are protected and feel safe to be themselves...whatever that means.
I have come up against slight conflict within my rather conservative school, but surprisingly, have stood strong. I have never been one to back down, but on the same token, have never been one to get myself into conflict that I must stand strong. I don't mind this kind of conflict though - conflict I believe in, conflict that protects my 1st Amendment rights, my student's safety, and awakens the activist in all of my students. It is exciting. I have been successful at this.
Tomorrow I will be attending a candlelight vigil to oppose Proposition 8.
My closest friend at work is a lesbian and has been with her partner for 8 years. They are in love.
More in love than many I have met. Their relationship works better than many straight couples I have known.
Damn sure works better than the relationships that I have been a part of. It is a terrible tragedy to me that this
phenomenal lady can't ceremoniously join in union with the love of her life, simply because the love of her life is also a her.
It is inspiring to me that my students are willing to stand for the fights they believe in and be so selfless at such a young age.
I wish I had been as successful at being a good person at such a young age. It took me a lot longer to realize that the world is much, much larger than me.
Life really is about balance: with understanding the realities of love, with one's self, with ones thoughts, being sure to live deliberately but also indulge in impulse at times, balance of waking and sleeping, work and sanity, reality and daydreaming, doing and being. It is difficult in remembering to give the difficulty of finding balance when looking upon yourself with a critical eye. I do try.
Oh, oh, I am also very good at making Hot Toddy's. That, for sure, is one of my successes.
December 1 = GRE
December 15 = Deadlines for NYU and UT Austin
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama-Rham-a!
I am still reeling and I am so hopeful and I care. I really just cannot believe it.
November 5, 2008...
a New York Times was impossible to find (if any of you have an extra...please send it to me).
my students saw my hope as I became emotional talking about what this means for the future of our country and for them
I experienced something that I never imagined I would - good history
I was, for the first time in my life, truly, proud to be an American.
I was the best kind of tired I have ever been on Wednesday as I could not sleep Tuesday night. I lay awake not believing what happened...giggling to myself and thinking that maybe, just maybe, our country has finally wisened up. I lay awake in confusion because I have never had this much hope in one leader, I have never been so moved by choices this nation has made, and I have never felt that my voice was heard. Time for never to be put to rest.
Wednesday I sat looking at my students knowing that the days of doubting oneself due to societal representations are numbered. Thinking that these kids and their kid's kids will grow to truly believe that they can be anything they want to be. I don't remember ever feeling so happy. My african american boys have an idol other than a rapper or an NBA star now...they have the President of the United States of America. It fuels my desire to go back to school even more, study history, witness our nation's history morph and change, and teach tolerance.
I didn't know much about Biden when Obama picked him, but I do know a lot about ole' Rahm Emmanuel. I know he's a badass. I know that he is a good person (well, as far as politicians go) and I know that he will do a great job! Finally we have people in the White House who care about people! Not people who care about money and put on this facade of caring about the lives of the soldiers they are sending to die.
More things that make me happy right now:
This article drawing parallels to the West Wing and our made for t.v country.
and the end of an era, thanks Edward Gorey:
November 5, 2008...
a New York Times was impossible to find (if any of you have an extra...please send it to me).
my students saw my hope as I became emotional talking about what this means for the future of our country and for them
I experienced something that I never imagined I would - good history
I was, for the first time in my life, truly, proud to be an American.
I was the best kind of tired I have ever been on Wednesday as I could not sleep Tuesday night. I lay awake not believing what happened...giggling to myself and thinking that maybe, just maybe, our country has finally wisened up. I lay awake in confusion because I have never had this much hope in one leader, I have never been so moved by choices this nation has made, and I have never felt that my voice was heard. Time for never to be put to rest.
Wednesday I sat looking at my students knowing that the days of doubting oneself due to societal representations are numbered. Thinking that these kids and their kid's kids will grow to truly believe that they can be anything they want to be. I don't remember ever feeling so happy. My african american boys have an idol other than a rapper or an NBA star now...they have the President of the United States of America. It fuels my desire to go back to school even more, study history, witness our nation's history morph and change, and teach tolerance.
I didn't know much about Biden when Obama picked him, but I do know a lot about ole' Rahm Emmanuel. I know he's a badass. I know that he is a good person (well, as far as politicians go) and I know that he will do a great job! Finally we have people in the White House who care about people! Not people who care about money and put on this facade of caring about the lives of the soldiers they are sending to die.
More things that make me happy right now:
This article drawing parallels to the West Wing and our made for t.v country.
and the end of an era, thanks Edward Gorey:
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