frustration

A few things that have frustrated me today:

I didn't sleep very soundly. Shuba was very fidgety last night, and extremely gassy. That might sound funny, but it was bad enough to wake me up last night. I didn't know it was possible to be woken up in the middle of the night by farts. Nonetheless, I didn't get nearly enough sleep.

I got to my 8am class a little late because getting up at 6:15 apparently isn't early enough to let Shuba out, get him set for the day, and get to campus when it's snowing.

It's difficult to shuttle all of my books and assorted academic paraphernalia between the house I'm dog sitting at and school. This is mainly a problem in the afternoon/evening when I'm trying to get my homework done, and want to make sure Shuba doesn't go completely crazy as well.

Today was not the greatest day to be in my body. It just wasn't comfortable. It wasn't the worst it could be though, so that's good.


One of the other student senate members made a ridiculous proposal at the meeting last week that I didn't get a copy of until today. I had skipped Senate to go to the lecture on Queer Theology, which was completely worth it. A little background on this jerk from Senate before I tell you about his proposal. Last semester he wrote an article for the Luther Review about Islam. His article was rather poorly written. He didn't cite any of the "facts" he quoted. He implied that Islam was an inherently violent religion, and stated that wherever there is Islam, there is terror. As you might expect, after this article was published there was a bit of an uproar on campus about it. Several Letters to the Editor were sent to Chips, and it was a common topic of discussion. Apparently this student feels like that was an unfair attack on him because this semester he submitted a "religious speech resolution" to Senate. Basically, he wants Senate to back this resolution, asking Luther student publications to "respect the freedom of student writers to criticize religion" because "speech that criticizes a faith tradition should be embraced as a contribution to the competition of ideas and our common academic goal, 'to seek truth.'" Specifically, he wants to add the following sentence to the Inappropriate Conduct and Anti-Harassment Policy: "...toleration of a diversity of ideas, including those ideas that vigorously criticize faith traditions."
This is problematic to me for several reasons. For one thing, he was not being attacked for his article. No one submitted a letter saying it shouldn't have been published, or that he couldn't hold those horrendous beliefs about Islam. Students that responded to his article were trying to open discussion with him on why he thought that, and tried to point out where his arguments were flawed. On a technical level, his resolution wasn't written very well. To me, it seems that he is suffering from white, wealthy, heterosexual man syndrome. He was criticized, and feels like he has been unduly attacked. If he's going to write an incendiary article like that, he should know that other students will disagree with him.

On the upside, it's almost Wednesday, which means the week is almost half over. I know that I will have an excellent weekend. And Pride is getting off to a good start, which is relieving.

i am not completely healthy

The past few days when I wake up I haven't been feeling so great. Feel like my lungs hurt a bit, and I usually have a runny nose. At first, I just assumed my body was saying "fuck you" for smoking more than usual over Jterm. But no. My body was trying to tell me to slow the hell down and sleep. Since I clearly didn't get the message, I woke up today with a full blown chest cold. *sigh* I really just want to crawl back in to bed and sleep until I feel healthy again.
My mother has been giving me alavert, oranges and emergen-c all day, so let's hope it's not possible to overload your system with vitamin C. She's also banished me from the puppy room, so I don't make them sick.
Luckily, since it is Jterm break I don't have much to do. Since I am a brilliant procrastinator, I do have a 5 to 8 page analysis of the Matrix to write and email to my professor by 3:30pm. But I'm not concerned. The only difficult part will be focusing on the structures of power in the film instead of talking about Keanu's horrible acting.
I had an excellent weekend. I got to go visit one of my best friends, Mugsie, in Evanston. It just makes me happy to hang out with her. We saw a play, hung out with her friends, talked, good times all around. I also got to eat lunch with Andy, which was also good.
Anyways, I think I'm going to go take a shower before I finish the paper. Happy Monday to all, or something like that.

last jterm ever

I finished my last day of jterm ever today. Woohoo! I'm pretty excited about it. The class went well, even if it did drag during the discussions. The ride home today was rough. We were stuck in stop and go traffic for a long time. My lower back started freaking out on me. It's been rather upset lately, what with the cold, ace bandaging and sitting in the car. I should probably ease up on the ace bandages, and order a new binder already, as has been pointed out to me more than once in the past few days. =)

Anyways, it's just my parents and I at home this weekend. My brother is back to college and my sister is traveling with friends. It's strange, after you grow up with these two other people, always being around them, knowing what's going on in their lives, sneaking into each others rooms in the middle of the night to talk, then suddenly you're in college, and we don't really talk anymore. I think part of why I feel distant from my family is that I don't know how to talk to them about being queer. When I first came out I was terrified of being rejected, and I just let so many things go unsaid. I've never actually spoken to my brother and sister about it. They know that I prefer dating women, my mother and I have talked about the fact that they know. I'm pretty sure they don't know I want to cut off my breasts though. I often feel like being at home puts a "don't ask don't tell" policy into effect in my life. Part of that is my fault though. I don't make the effort to open up to my family, to let them in to that part of my life. I am the one that keeps jumping back into my role as Amy, the oldest daughter, the older sister, instead of just being who I've become in the past four years.

Since my brother and sister aren't home, I've resolved to sit down and talk with my parents. I want to tell them I've picked out a new name. I also want to reiterate that I want surgery, and that I am already planning for it. I would also like to ask them for a very small loan so I can purchase a new binder. As I mentioned before, the ace bandage is not treating my body well and I shouldn't do that to myself.

On a completely different topic, I watched the movie Gray Matters this evening. Woo netflix. It's a decent movie. Much better than many "lesbian movies" in the world. And Rachel Shelley is in it and that's great. I think she's hot. She's not a main character, but that's perfectly ok with me. I was actually planning on going to sleep and watching the movie tomorrow. But after laying in bed with the lights off for 45 minutes without even feeling tired I decided to just watch the movie.

Interesting fact from my life, it seems that every time I come back to Milwaukee, I have a hard time falling asleep the first few nights. Maybe it's just sleeping in a different place. Or maybe it's because I usually resolve to talk to my parents/family and then get worked up about it and psyche myself out. One of my friends told me I over analyze sometimes. That's probably true. Actually, I know it's true. Luckily it's also true that I only over analyze sometimes. I'm starting to ramble. Here's to take two of trying to fall asleep.

two days in a row!

I am on a roll. Yesterday I got sirred in the bookstore by the dude that is in charge of the bookstore. He said "How are you today, sir" and I responded just fine. At which point he apologizes. "I mean ma'am. I'm sorry, you know I just took a quick glance and with the short hair." I told him it was ok, not a problem, that I didn't actually care. And he kept talking about it. Followed me down the school supply aisle while I picked out my lovely blue 2" binder. Hehehe.
Today I was in the registrar's office and was talking with one of the women. My friend Taryn was waiting for me. One of the other women walks up to her, and asks her "do you need any help, or are you waiting for him?" This was particularly funny because I was talking with the other woman and the registrar at the time, and I believe I had been referred to as a "good girl" for paying attention to my program evaluation. Well, and I was talking. I don't have the deepest voice in the world. Hee hee.
I think what I enjoy the most about these sort of experiences is watching people when they realize that they've supposedly "messed up." They get so flustered.. and I just smile to myself.

Anyways. So I was in the registrar's office today because I realized I need to be taking a religion class Jterm. The course I took in Tanzania isn't transferring, and last time I tried to get it to transfer it get stuck in registrar hell. So I thought to myself, "self, you've already taken a capstone course. just drop the capstone course and sign up for a religion course." So I did. neat. Now I'm taking Apocalypse: Then and Now.

Yesterday Joe, Haley and I named my pipe. It's name is Hedwig, because it's an angry inch. Well technically it's larger than an inch, but it's tiny. Cute but mighty. Just like me... just kidding. =)

It's cold. My lower back muscles have seized up in protest. I hate it when they do that. Mainly cause even when I warm up again, they still freak out. Ugh. Anyways. I'm going to go finish my homework.

class, day two

Today in the discussion section of our class we broke up into small groups. In the group that I was in, there were two football players, and three other people. I'll be honest, I don't like most male jocks, mainly football, wrestling and baseball. I don't mind cross country runners of ultimate frisbee folk. Anyways. So there are these two football guys in my discussion section. It bothers me that I feel timid around hyper masculine jocks. I don't like to have discussions, I feel nervous around them. I'm not afraid of them in a corporal sense, but I am afraid of engaging in discussion with them. And that really bothers me.

First issue, I know that I am stereotyping them as insensitive, conservative assholes. I am not giving them a chance to debate what they believe, I just assume they don't value the same things I value. Second issue, I let my notion of these guys determine my actions. I don't debate for what I value as strongly and I use different rhetoric than if I was in different company. I noticed that I wasn't even making eye contact with them.

I need to work on this. I shouldn't feel nervous about talking in front of them, I shouldn't ever feel apologetic for what I value and believe in, and I shouldn't make assumptions based on my first impression of someone.

Anyways. So class went alright. My cluster is having "drunk to dinner" night followed by a circle of death tournament. I am going to need to pace myself. I feel like I will instead go to dinner slightly buzzed, and save the intoxication for later.

a list of recent discoveries

1. I just discovered Google Reader today and it is a lovely thing. Basically, you subscribe to all of the blogs you read by entering in their urls, and it will tell you when it's updated and you can either read it in reader, or go to the page. I realize that I'm a little slow on the technological update, but I am still very excited about it.

2. Sumner has convinced me, I do believe that the Taylor 810ce is quite possibly one of the most wonderful guitars. When we went to the cities we got to stop in a Guitar Center and played on the acoustics. It was good times. I also am fiercely coveting an acoustic bass guitar. I still need to look around and compare before I know which one exactly. All of this guitar talk is actually quite useless because I am not going to be able to afford another guitar in a long time. But it's fun to dream

3. I am really not looking forward to writing my senior paper. I know, it's nothing like writing a thesis or a dissertation, and as long as I start working on it in January (or even over break) I will be fine. Still doesn't mean that I actually want to research and write the damn thing.

4. I lost my library card to the Mequon-Thiensville library and there is no record of my ever having a card. Which is rather astonishing considering the amount of time I spent at that library when I was younger. It's ok, my sister was with me so I could use her card.

5. Facebook a tetris application. I am going to have to delete it when I go back to school if I am ever going to complete homework next semester.

6. Finally, I need to make myself go interact with people more often and remember that my friends actually do like me and aren't going to suddenly start disliking me if I ask them if they want to hang out. I feel happier when I interact socially, which isn't a novel concept but one that is good to remember. So, if anyone in the Milwaukee area wants to hang out, get coffee, go to the art museum, whatever, let me know.

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.

morning questions

I'm taking a quick procrastination break from my paper. I thought I'd blog a few questions that have been running through my head today.
Have I made a mistake?
Will I ever find someone like that ever again?
Is the distance worth it?
Was I too hasty?
Why am I such a procrastinator?
Could I skip my classes to finish this paper?
Should I really go to grad school?
I don't think I'm as smart as some people think I am.
Why do I feel the need to lie to my parents sometimes?
Where did I leave my coffee cup?