FULL

Performance of Privilege. White. Gender. Female. Marginalized. Angry. Frustrated. Pissed. Confused. Really? I am stronger than that. Validation. I don't need your validation. I shouldn't need your validation. I want your validation. Institutional. Web. That little prick. Cultural tourism. Be good to yourself. Twin flame. Intuition. Resistance. Life is simple. But not easy. Educated. The privilege of education. You're so White. I am White. How am I taking up space as a White person. White female. White female Christian. Can I get some wine with that? Intentional. Think about your impact. Twin flame, really? This week? Not this week. Comprehensive exam. Awesome. That's so much to take in. Running. Sleeping in. Oh my god, my apartment is a disaster. Don't judge me. My head is full. My heart is full. When was the last time I cried? Oh my gosh, I think I'm going to cry this week. Gendered statement. Forking paths. We can't talk here. Be yourself. Be authentic. Go give that feedback. I am feeling so alone in this. You're rude. I love you but you don't get it. I miss you. Anticipated event. Oh my gosh, what if that becomes a non-event. Gasp. My head is so fully. My head is so tired. Why can't I find emotions? Anger is an acceptable emotion. I need more time. My hair is too long. It's snowing. It's raining. It's snowing. It's raining. I hate tornado warnings. Panic. I miss the duck pond. My heart is in Blacksburg. I needed that for me. Do my nails match my outfit? My stomach feels like a disaster. Just like the rest of me. How do you perform gender? Really? Don't be nice like that. This relationship would be better if you were putting out. Am I allowed to say that as a female? Gender roles. Socialization. I want you to be here. Alzheimer's is scary. I never want to lose my memory. Remember. Never forget. Can I forget that? I don't want to take that picture. Shit, why did I forget my camera? Don't step on a crack. You blogged about that day. I thought that, that day. Weird. Ut Prosim. Seriously, my boobs are huge. Sexism. Am I perpetuating that? Damn it. He just lied to me. Don't think I don't know. Because I do. You're not hearing me. You heard me. What does being heard look like? Look at you, you're beautiful. I love you. Please send me a smile. I needed that.

Aren't you glad you haven't been in my head the last week or so... cause that's not even everything...

3.2 for 32 -Denver Hokies 2010

This is why I love being a Hokie.

We are Virginia Tech.

32 Balloons

To be honest, I don't even remember what day it was. It was either August 19, 2007 or April 16, 2008.

On the Drillfield during a memorial event, 32 balloons were released, 1 a minute for 32 minutes. The picture above is of the balloons that were released after the 32 were individually released. I am a visual person, but I don't need a picture to remember this image forever.

I was standing on the Drillfield in a crowd. I remember being tired of standing. The balloons were being released and I was fixated on watching one fly and then being summoned by the bell to return my gaze to see another one released, then turning back to see both flying off. The balloons left, almost equal distance apart by the wind and flew North East from campus, over the Pylons. I stared until I couldn't see them anymore.

As the first one drifted out of my vision, I searched the sky trying to find it again, I couldn't. I thought, "it's gone... forever..." That was a powerful moment, as my next thought was,"forever, they're (friends) gone forever. like I'll never see them again. oh my god." Permanence hit me like a brick being dropped on my chest.

I'm terrified of losing my memory, a pretty ration fear as my grandmother had Alzheimer's. I don't want to forget memories, so I take pictures. It took me a week to use my camera after April 16, 2007. And even then, I didn't take pictures of campus. Those images are burned into my memory and I'm sure I'll never forget them.

Dissonance.

My blood boiled today. I had an International student tell me that he is learning American culture from the student he is currently in a pretty major roommate conflict with. There is a huge language barrier and this American student is not trying very hard to help the ESL student adjust well ; and if you ask me (not that you are) this American student is doing a pretty shitty job of being an example of American culture. Actually, I should correct myself, he’s doing a great job of being a typical American- and that makes me angry.

I’m taking this class called Disrupting Privilege and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my White Privilege; sitting in the uncomfortable space that recognizing racism and systematic oppression creates. This might have created some of the anger that arose in that situation. There is nothing more frustrating than listening to a student tell you they deserve something, when they don’t realize that they are saying, “I am White, I deserve this.”

So my afternoon progressed in an interesting manner afterwards:

I was boiling mad, and then texted my male friend and said “How about a hug later?” After that, I walked into the lobby and one of my students said, “Susan, why do you look pissed?” and I said, “Because I’m boiling mad.” To which he responded by walking towards me and basically plowing me over with a hug. We ended up walking towards my class via Jazzman’s and talking for about 30 minutes. It was really nice, he hadn’t caught up in a while, and I tend to enjoy my conversations with him.

In class, we got into a conversation about gender.

Then I became mad at myself.

I don’t particularly like the dominant narrative. While some days I WANT to be in a relationship, I don’t NEED one. I’ve seen too many marriages fail, and I don’t generally trust the institution of marriage as a general idea. I don’t see myself getting married any time soon. I dislike relying on males for pretty much anything. I get angry at sexism in media and hate when commercials suggest that men are stronger or better than females.

Yet me, with my feminist opinions, still wanted a hug from a male friend at the end of a rough meeting!! And this isn’t new. When I was at Virginia Tech, BPM regularly would meet me outside of Norris to take a deep breath with me to calm me down (and we probably hugged it out at the end); and P used to give me a hug every time I saw him (because I trained him to give hugs).

Oddly, last week I turned down a hug from the same friend I texted to ask for one today. Mostly since it’s not the norm of our relationship to hug; it was an unexpected shift that I wasn’t ready to make, so I was rude and walked away. Being rude is a norm of our relationship, so I was fine with maintaining that.

So now I’m sitting in my marginalized space. Ignoring my privilege. But hopefully bringing up emotions in my marginalized space will help me bring emotions to my privileged space as well.

Post 100

This is my 100th post!

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks... Enjoy!

Sunrise on Easter morning, I went to Red Rocks with a couple of friends.

These doves were released at the Easter service. I imagined there were 32.

Rockies home game #2. I attended with Brent and later Eryka came and sat with us. I also photo stalked Erin. I am creepy, I know.

One of the flowers in my birthday bouquet from Ciani. I really love macro photography.

Auto-Pilot

Today, while driving to the laundry mat my brain switched into auto-pilot when I started thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) about the month of April and if there will ever be a time that certain dates in April won’t be remembered on the calendar and I won’t wait so anxiously for them. Then I realized that I’ll probably always remember, since my birthday is 11 days before and Julia’s is 1 day after.

I kept thinking, stayed in auto-pilot, and I'm pretty sure I didn't hit any pedestrians.

I used to always forget Julia's birthday.

For most of Julia’s childhood I could never remember what day her birthday was in April. Never mind the fact that I used that she was born in April to my advantage. When she was younger I convinced her that us April Babies needed to stick together and did a pretty good job of getting her to do whatever I wanted just by playing the “April Baby” card… she played it too, no one is blameless here.

My forgetfulness changed in 2007.

April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech had 32 Hokies stolen from us, very suddenly and very horrifically.

April 17, 2007: Julia’s Birthday.

Julia’s birthday was pretty significant for me that year. Natalie, Emma and I were all in Blacksburg during that spring and the night of April 17^th was the first time we had all been together since everything happened on campus the day before. We lit candles together at the vigil; my candle was silver with a ‘Go Diego Go!” cup on it, which I still have. Then we went over by the big tree outside of Williams and Pamplin to call Julia. We huddled around my phone and sang her Happy Birthday. Julia had convinced my mom to take her to Mahi Mah’s for her birthday dinner (fancy, good work J). So we interrupted their dinner to each have a moment to talk to the birthday girl after our song. I went last, I wasn’t much in the mood for a long chat so I tried to keep it short with, “I love you, I hope you had a wonderful day.” Julia said “don’t hang up yet… mom said you had friends that died, are you okay? (yeah, Thanks Julia, I'm doing okay) I know how hard it is to lose someone, my grandpa died last year.” I don’t very much like crying, in fact, I avoid it as much as possible, but her words almost created instant tears. I almost couldn’t stand up after she said that. I had been home when her grandfather died and we had snuggled a little but we never talked about how upset she actually was about him dying. (For clarification, Julia and I have different Dad’s and so it was her grandfather and not technically mine.)

Julia’s comment continues to be one of the most significant moment’s for me after April 16^th. I had never imagined that someone as young as her would ever understand the grief associated with death. Even when I know that people lose loved ones daily, I never imagined my sister being able to articulate the feelings and be there as a support for me during one of the most emotionally challenging weeks of my life.

Thank you, Julia. I love you.

Yes, she is giving herself bunny-ears in the picture.

Job Search: Done.

As I was in the middle of my job search, my dad and I had this conversation about "wants" versus "needs" for my next position in Residence Life. He was quick to say, "while staying in Colorado is a want, Susan, it is not a need." It's true, being in Colorado is not a need, currently location is not a need for me. I think for most people location is a need when they're in a romantic relationship, which I am not, as much as Cindi is trying to remedy that (that's another story, haha).

Well, yesterday, April 1st. And this is not an April Fool's joke. I got what I wanted. I was offered, and accepted, a Hall Director position at the University of Northern Colorado! How it all happened is actually quite a funny story...

At about 2:10 p.m. yesterday, I was in a 1:1 with Nick, my cell phone rang and I happened to see the phone number. Area code: 703. Which means I knew instantly it was a (Virginia) school calling. Nick's 1:1 ended around 2:30 p.m. and the next few minutes went as follows:

2:35 p.m.: Return phone call to Area Code: 703 school, was offered an on-campus interview. It would happen one day over the next 2 weeks, today they were confirming I wanted to visit and where I would need to fly in from. Tomorrow they were going to call and talk about logistics with me.

2:36 p.m.: text message a friend in Area Code: 703 and let them know I would be in town in the next 2 weeks, and to get excited.
2:36 p.m.: Call Amanda Paez (Area Code: 757) to tell her where I got an interview. She responded with great joy that "yay! you might move back to EST!"

2:42 p.m.: Phone call from Area Code: 970 (Colorado). Now the phone ringing caused quite a reaction from me, my heart started racing, I ran from the printer at the front desk back to my office to answer, I did my very best to calm myself down but when someone offers you a job it's a bit too exciting to not be completely freaking out. So I, of course, accept. It's the job I want after all. The conversation was actually quite hilarious. I said to Chris, "I was really hoping you were going to call on Monday cause this would be a great birthday present!" He thought I meant the Monday earlier in the week, laughed and said, "Sorry, we couldn't make our decision that early." So I responded, "oh no, I mean Monday is 2, 3, 4... the Monday next week." (clearly my brain had stopped working and I couldn't do the math of Thursday to Monday is 4 days.) Then, just to clarify, I said "and this isn't an april fool's joke, right?" He laughed again and said "oh my gosh, I didn't even realize the date, nope not an april fool's joke." (Thank goodness!)

2:46 p.m.: Call Devin to be like "um, that wasn't bad, right? I should easily be able to cancel the 703 interview, right?" She gives my some vocabulary to use, and thank goodness I was so excited I don't think I spoke in coherent sentences the rest of the day.

2:52 pm.: "Hi, so I'm in an interesting job search situation and I'm hoping that you haven't purchased an airline ticket yet... (nope). I had an on-campus interview last week and they just called to offer my a position, I'm going to accept it, so I'm sorry but I have to decline an on-campus interview at your school." The lady congratulated me and asked where I would be headed. I told her, Northern Colorado. I had just told her 10 minutes earlier I was in Denver, so she said, "that's great, you'll get to stay close to home... (I laughed and I think she realized she had called and I had returned her call via my 757 cell number, prompting)... well, is Colorado home for you?" I said, "no, actually Virginia Beach is home." To which she laughed and said, "well that sounds great anyway." I thanked her for her help with everything and hung up.

I think I bounced around my office and my apartment for the next two hours before taking myself to the gym for probably the best workout I've had since I got my boot off.