Right now I'm dog and house sitting for one of my friends. Basically I hang out at her house, sleep here, and let the dog out in the morning and the evening and make sure he has food and water. The dog, Shuba, has been generally well behaved and good on our walks which I really appreciate. Last week there was some really lovely winter weather. Not too cold or windy, clear skies, sun, it was joyous. Then yesterday the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. Letting Shuba out became a trek across the arctic tundra. And of course, when it's blustery and completely frigid out, that's when Shuba decides to be a little naughty, jumping on me, trying to bite my butt and elbows. Thanks Shuba.
I realized I haven't blogged in a while. It's not that blog-worthy things haven't happened, I've just been busy. I went up to the cities last weekend, and got to see the movie Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi about her childhood in Iran and decision to move to France. It was beautiful, if you have a chance to see it you should. We are actually watching another Iranian film called "Children of Heaven" in my women and gender studies senior seminar. It's about a brother and a sister who have to share the same pair of tennis shoes because the brother accidentally loses his sisters shoes, eventually he enters a footrace where he has to come in third because the third place prize is a pair of shoes. We watched the first half on Thursday, and we'll finish it this coming Tuesday.
We had a pride party last night, and that was wonderful. We played "circle of death" and "never have I ever," two of my favorite drinking games I must say. There was drinking, but there was also a lot of bonding. I am so relieved that pride is a lot less clique-y than in the past. We all seem to get along, there's not a lot of drama between group members, no gaytriarchy issues, or people complaining that the lesbians took over. I'm just happy the group will survive and keep going strong.
I'll leave you with a few clips from flight of the conchords, because I think they're hilarious.
Showing posts with label pride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pride. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Monday, December 3, 2007
the queer zoo
Today was the annual GLBT discussion in Harv Klevar's American Diversity class. Some of you may be familiar with these lovely sessions. Harv puts us up at the front of the class, we talk about our coming out stories, the class stares at us or avoids looking at us, it strongly resembles a zoo exhibit. Usually they make me feel like I'm whoring out my queerness for money. Which I guess is kinda what happens, we talk and Harv gives pride money..
Anyways. So today I was actually pleasantly surprised by the discussion. For one thing, at pride when we were asking for volunteers we decided that we didn't want to take forever telling our coming out stories. We wanted the class to be structured more as an organic discussion than as us queers telling the heteros how life is. We also made sure to clarify that our experiences are ours and ours alone. We don't and can't speak for anyone else's choices or experiences. We also were upfront about the fact that we wanted to field questions from the class.
The results were good, at least in the hour I went to. We got asked questions about Luther, how we interact with conservatives or people who think homosexuality is morally wrong, when we knew we were queer. One question that was really insightful was how important is the gay community at Luther to our lives, and whether or not we feel isolated from the rest of the student body. Honestly, I don't. I feel integrated into the Luther community. I don't feel like I have to hide anything about myself to feel accepted anywhere on campus.
I got asked some questions about trans stuff too. Like, after I have surgery will I date straight girls or gay girls. Also just nuts and bolts questions about surgery and the whole SRS process. And questions about binding.
In the end, I think it was fairly successful. I hope that the class was able to actually see us as people instead of tokens, and realize that our queerness doesn't encompass our entire identity, it is only a part of our identities. I also realized that in past years, I think what has made me uncomfortable has been how Klevar interacts with us, as if we are representative of all queers, and as if we are somehow inherently different people with inherently different culture than heteros. But it was a good experience this time. And pride got $100 for it so hurray.
Anyways. So today I was actually pleasantly surprised by the discussion. For one thing, at pride when we were asking for volunteers we decided that we didn't want to take forever telling our coming out stories. We wanted the class to be structured more as an organic discussion than as us queers telling the heteros how life is. We also made sure to clarify that our experiences are ours and ours alone. We don't and can't speak for anyone else's choices or experiences. We also were upfront about the fact that we wanted to field questions from the class.
The results were good, at least in the hour I went to. We got asked questions about Luther, how we interact with conservatives or people who think homosexuality is morally wrong, when we knew we were queer. One question that was really insightful was how important is the gay community at Luther to our lives, and whether or not we feel isolated from the rest of the student body. Honestly, I don't. I feel integrated into the Luther community. I don't feel like I have to hide anything about myself to feel accepted anywhere on campus.
I got asked some questions about trans stuff too. Like, after I have surgery will I date straight girls or gay girls. Also just nuts and bolts questions about surgery and the whole SRS process. And questions about binding.
In the end, I think it was fairly successful. I hope that the class was able to actually see us as people instead of tokens, and realize that our queerness doesn't encompass our entire identity, it is only a part of our identities. I also realized that in past years, I think what has made me uncomfortable has been how Klevar interacts with us, as if we are representative of all queers, and as if we are somehow inherently different people with inherently different culture than heteros. But it was a good experience this time. And pride got $100 for it so hurray.
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