Fortunate Me!

Today, the Gender and Sexuality organizations held the annual end of the year banquet as a goodbye to the seniors who are part of the departments or organizations at St. Olaf.

We had an alumna as our guest speaker, a lesbian woman from the class of '86. She spoke of how her different parts of her life had to be separate. Her faith and family and sexuality and neighborhood and career all had to be distinct because of her sexual orientation, Lesbians should not be employees, and God apparently hates gays, and lesbians cannot have any familial support, and they can't participate in their community because they should be ashamed.

Then, society started changing as she grew older and became a mother with her partner, her distinct and separate worlds started fusing. This coalesced when her family moved to Costa Rica for two years, to a small village because her partner was working in a mission school. Suddenly, her neighborhood and family and faith and career and everything was all located in one small village on a mountaintop. And it was okay. No one did anything or said anything against them because of their family. It was okay to live as a gay person.

I find this fascinating. I am so lucky to be able to be out as a pansexual and genderqueer person. Be out and still be successful. Where I know I won't be fired because I'm not a woman or a man, and I am still a valued member of the community no matter who my partner is. Granted, not everything is available to me that is available to heteronormative people, but society is warming up to the GLBTQ community and I appreciate that.

Thanks, society!

A mostly good time

So, with the exception of the fact that I must write this on my netbook. I don't mind writing it on my netbook but it means that my regular laptop is kaput. Why can't I find my install cds? When it go the blue screen in January, I had to wait a few weeks to restart it. But it restarted without the install CD. A few days ago, it got the blue screen, but restarted an hour later. I've been trying for 3 hours tonight. It hasn't been working. I guess I'll try it tomorrow or something. Or later on tonight. I'm impatient.

Otherwise, I guess I'll be taking a trip home soon. Who knows when, but I will!

In any case, I have to go home to have my mom sign a few forms for my trip abroad! Shazaam! I'll be going to Thailand in January. Yay! I'm really excited! I've been wanting to do this since freshman year, but it wasn't offered this year, so I went to south central Europe instead. The nice surprise, though? It's only $3,614! Most trips are around $5,000. I feel privileged.

Also, I feel accomplished. Since December, I've been planning a day for Robyn Ochs (http://robynochs.com) to come to campus and speak. It finally happened yesterday! I did the contacting, the contracting, finding the funding, PR, etc. I know it's poor practice of me, but I didn't really use help from others except for funding from organizations (including the Grose Family Endowment, the Soc/Anthro, Social Work and Family Studies, American Studies and Women's studies departments, the Gender and Sexuality Center, GLOW and the Student Organizations Committee), as well as Prof. Bill Poehlmann, Willa Simmet, Brian Walpole, Pierce Devol and his mom to help with transportation. It was a really great day! We were late to the first class, but the class is 85 minutes long, so it's probably all right. She spoke to two women's studies classes, a human sexuality class, and then did a lecture called Beyond Binaries and a workshop called Choosing the Label. It was a very full day, and also very successful. She spoke to around 110 people total yesterday. Pretty cool.

Anyway, today was also the Day of Silence (http://dayofsilence.org). We had an estimated 85 people participate in that, and GLOW raised $175 from t-shirt sales. Awesome!

First Day of Class

Today was our first day of class. I got up at 8am, and packed a lunch and breakfast and headed up the hill. I got my free birthday cookie from the Cage (I wasn't planning on being on campus tomorrow, my birthday, but it turns out I will), and ate breakfast and read the paper. I checked my email and hung out with Katie during Chapel.

After that relaxing morning, I took the plunge and am now in the full swing of school and all the hectic activities that go with it. 10:45 I have Anthropologic Theory, which seems like a fun and interesting class. At 11:50 I have Russian and Eurasian Politics, which also seems like an interesting class. At 12:55 I have Women in Politics in Asia, which I think will be a very different Political Science class than any other I have taken. At 2 I have Intro to Women's Studies, which will be fun and exciting and relaxing.

All of my professors are amazing. Tom Williamson, my Anthro prof, is a favorite of most students of the department. This is my first class with him. He seems really awesome. We listened to a clip of "This American Life" about talking to kids. He is funny and easy to listen to.

John Patrick Dale (MCKA Paddy Dale) is from Liverpool, went to Essex and the University of Moscow and started teaching at St. Olaf with a focus in Soviet Politics in 1988. Bad timing. So he switched his focus to Russian and Russian satelites politics, and have focused on Central Europe as well. He is so entertaining and endearing. He is the prof leading the trip abroad I am doing in January to Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.

Nanaho Hanada is the new visiting professor for the political science department. She's from Japan, but she went to college in Montana and Ohio. Her hometown, Osaka, has 8 million people. The colleges in Montana, Ohio and Minnesota do not. She is super cute and peppy. And humble. She laughed at herself endearingly. "I was a gymanast. What happened to me?"

Nancy Thompson is such an endearing weirdo. She giggles at seemingly random moments (she giggled at the spelling of my name, for example). She says really weird things in really weird ways. I like her. She's an art history professor, if that helps explain anything. Her hair is fuzzy and unkempt and her glasses are thick and her clothes seem to just happen to be there, like she doesn't even notice them.

Anyway, after classes, I ran down Thorson hill and home to meet Chris, the guy who installed our internet. Turns out the internet cable got ruined when they replaced the sod and sidewalks, so they've laid a cable for us today and will come back and bury it next week. We are getting my new modem and router (free after rebate!) in the mail soon, so we can return the rental.

Then I ran back up the hill for a GLOW coordinator meeting, and am now waiting for the GSC leaders meeting.

Yay busy school!