Honestly, I just keep forgetting about our blogs! I was so wrapped up working on my final piece this week I just plain forgot until now. But my piece is coming along. I finally have an interview with someone from Planned Parenthood tomorrow morning, but haven't had any luck finding someone with a bad experience with the vaccine. I also have an interview with someone who has had HPV. Lately, I’ve been looking more into the debate over vaccinating girls before they enter sixth grade, to get a the whole big picture of everything Gardasil.

This weeks readings:

I enjoyed the piece from Rimer about Mr. Jack. It reads nicely, a good pace. But I’m not sure who it’s really about- Amherst or Mr. Jack? I thought it was well-written and fun to read.

What’s also interesting to me is that this student is from Miami. Also being from Florida- I think he probably qualified for what Florida calls the Bright Futures scholarship (which is probably the full-ride offer to UF). With a 1200 SAT, and some volunteer time, he could have had a full-ride to any state school in Florida- or used that equivalent amount to go to a private school. But I suppose Amherst is much more prestigious, but it just seems interesting to me how they painted such a dire picture of him before Amherst. With Bright Futures he would have gotten a month stipend as well.

Overall, I do think that these initiatives are good- and I hope more will follow suite (especially K College). While I don’t remember the rates any more, in sociology we were talking about how we have a much higher percentage of students in the top socioeconomic quartile than the national average- which is already ¾. That’s kind of sad to me. And how the student talks about if any one had ever seen a food stamp- makes me want to ask that to my sociology classes where we talk about these issues.

Gardasil

The first draft is in! It’s a lot of “information” and not as much story. I need some ideas on where to turn for stories. I have interviews with students who have taken the shots and those who have not, but nothing outstanding “stories” came out of those. One idea I have, which I am not sure that we can do, is that I am planning on getting the shot- could I/ should I include stories of my own journey of getting the vaccination? I’m, again, not sure there’s much of a “story” their either. Thanks for reading! Caitlin

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“Of the approximately 6 million new cases of genital HPV in the US every year, it is estimated that 74% of them occur in 15- to 24- year olds,” says Merck, the creators of the new HPV vaccine, Gardasil. Gardasil has become a buzz. Advertising therefore targets students, and Kalamazoo College women are no exception. Some women are very informed, but others only hear bits and pieces about HPV and Gardasil. HPV is a disease that will affect 50% of sexually active people, and can lead to harmful problems like cervical cancer and genital warts. So what is it really, who needs it, what do college students need to know and what are students saying about it?

The basics: Gardasil protects against 4 out of the 100s of strands of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The four strands (strands numbered 6, 11, 16, and18) are reported by Merck to cause 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts. Women and girls aged 9 to 26 are able to receive this vaccination. The vaccination is given in three separate shots at zero, two and six months. Gardasil is available at our health center for $128 per shot. More insurance companies are starting to cover the shots, but many still do not. Most commonly reported side effects are minimal and include: pain, swelling, itching and redness at the injection site; fever; nausea; and dizziness.

What is important to know is the connection between HPV, cervical cancer and genital warts. HPV is a virus that is detected in women through annual Pap exams, but is impossible to test for in men (infected men are only “discovered” if they develop genital warts). Both men and women’s bodies can often clear the virus on their own, but if the don’t (and it remains undetected and untreated), some strands can develop into cervical cancer and genital warts. HPV strands number 16 and 18 together are the strands linked to 70% of the cases of cervical cancer. It is important to remember that not all strands of HPV that lead to cervical cancer are covered, so it is important for women to continue to get yearly Pap exams.

“You could become one less life affected by cervical cancer” is the current ad campaign for Gardasil, but is that enough to draw students in to taking the vaccine? Students here at Kalamazoo College say that their number one fear about the vaccine and often their reason for not getting the exam is the fact that it is still a new vaccine. Senior student Nicki Ritchie refers to past FDA approved drugs and vaccines which proved to have harmful affects long afterwards (like the polio vaccine). Most students showed a fear in the newness of the vaccines, even those who are taking the vaccine. The FDA report on the new vaccine in their September/October issue of their consumer magazine gives more details about the study of these tests that is often not discussed with people taking the exam. Twenty-one thousand women aged 16 to 26 were studied internationally in four studies, but time periods are not stated (additional studies were conducted with girls aged 9 to 16 as well). As members of a well-informed community, it is important to share this information with our community to help our students make informed decisions about if the vaccine is right for them.

So would students who are taking it recommend it? It depends. One student who is almost done with her set of shots says, “I wouldn’t whole-heartedly recommend it, no.” She is another student who worries about how much research has been done on the long term effects of the vaccine. Her mother made her get her shots- she doesn’t think she would have otherwise. She recommends to other women, “Inform yourself and make your own decision.”

Another deterrent for many women is the price of the shots. At our Health Center, a full dose costs $384. Many health insurance companies are not covering the shots, so that is a large price for people who do not deem themselves at-risk. Students need to check regularly with their insurance companies to make sure that their coverage doesn’t change as companies are beginning to include Gardasil in their coverage plans. Additionally, an important resource which students rarely know about is called the Vaccine Patient Assistance Program available through Merck, the company who created Gardasil. This program helps people without vaccine insurance pay for their shots.

The long term potential benefits for Gardasil are hard to ignore. The financial and emotional benefit such as the greatly reduced risk of having abnormal Pap exams returned in your future and the reduced risk of having to have treatment for HPV (which is done by removing viral cells from the cervix in a reportedly painful and unpleasant process by students who have had the procedure). But more than just worrying about having abnormal exams and preventative treatment, the comfort of drastically reducing your risk of getting cervical cancer or genital warts is extremely important for students to consider when deciding if the vaccination is for them. Kalamazoo College women need to inform themselves and find out if the vaccination is appropriate for them.

Updates

I still haven’t gotten far with my next piece, and it’s down to the wire! While I do have access to students with HPV, I’m not sure that there is a story there. I’m now thinking of writing a piece about “dating” on campus (hooking up, relationships, and the party scene) or about the new HPV vaccine. I have more ideas for the HPV story, but I think the other could be more fun to write.

For the HPV story I could talk to students who have gotten it, or are in the process to find out why they decided to get it, what the process is, etc. I could talk to women who aren’t getting and find out why they decided not to get it. I could talk to the health center about giving it and how they are getting information out to our community. Finally, I could look into the health insurance coverage of the vaccine. I have information on this from a meeting I had with Lisa from the Health Center last week, so it’d be an easier piece to write.

I’m not sure what would be the focus of the piece on dating. I’m thinking about asking lots of people how they met their significant other. My goal would be to get information about hooking up and the party culture at K. I think it could just be a fun piece to work on.

Any ideas or opinions? Thanks!

Final Draft: Spirituality

I forgot to post my final draft! Here it is!

Dr. Rev. Mary Ellen Ashcroft, the Chaplain here at Kalamazoo College and a professor of English, walks up to the trunk of the tall tree and places both of her hands firmly on its smooth and rippling grey trunk. She looks up, “Beautiful tree isn’t it?” and then places her forehead on the trunk and stands in silence. She describes how people often feel most connected to their spirituality in nature, and that is part of the reason she enjoys nature so much. For her, spirituality is the “longing for something more than a consumer society.” Her two dogs bound around her as she wanders through the nature reserve.

Mary Ellen has lots of passions in her life. She began seminary, moved to South Africa and worked with an Anglican parish to fight the apartheid movement. She returned to the US and worked as an English professor for years. After finding that she kept looking at students writing for the deeper and more personal issues, and after years of commitment to her Episcopal church, she decided to get ordained as a priest. She took a sabbatical and moved to Cambridge to study. She does not want to be a full time priest, but decided to combine her Priesthood with her teaching in the form of being a chaplain. Here she works hard to help fulfill needs she sees on this campus. “[Students are] not enjoying each other and connecting with each other…but what is most distressing is [students] equating grades with who they are,” so she created ways for student connect in spirituality groups and a place for people to meet and escape from the realities of campus, called The Cavern. She thought students need a connection to spirituality because they “need something beyond just grades and resumes.”

The Cavern, with its bold and simple colors, and inundates visitors with the calming smells of sandalwood and spices. It is structurally just the basement of Kalamazoo College chapel, but as one student says, it is a place of “peace, balance, and escape.” “I wanted to created literal and metaphorical places for people to grow spiritually.” “I wanted it to be funky and classy,” Mary Ellen explains. A large bookcase on the opposite wall is stuffed with 12 boxes of Celestial Seasons, varieties of coffee, and coffee condiments. A large Hamilton Beach coffee warmer warms water. A coat hanger on the wall has been turned into a coffee cup holder with each labeled for the mugs owner. The harsh fluorescent lights are covered with fabric to give a calmer light effect to the space. Students wander in and out; a student chaplain sits at a desk in the front of the room welcoming Cavern guests. In the chapel library, cushions and floor chairs supplement the couch and chair for sitting places. Cookies are in a container on the table in the corner. Further down the hall is Mary Ellen’s office, a tiny room, with one curved wall. A bookcase, her desk, and a lectern occupy the room.

One of her passions is her current partner, Suzanne. As friends for years, Mary Ellen says that Suzanne was, “[the] perfect support for me,” when she and her husband broke up. Suzanne and Mary Ellen had similar break-ups with their husbands and both have three children. Mary Ellen talks about how she wasn’t sure that she could ever be happy again. She recounts feeling a strange feeling in her the time after the divorce where she would think, “oh, that must be a ting of happiness,” but it was never a lasting feeling. Suzanne provided friendship and support though this hard time in her life.

Mary Ellen recounts when she knew that Suzanne was more than just friends. Hiking together on the Superior Trail in Northern Minnesota, Suzanne fell off of a bridge and hit her head on some rocks. Mary Ellen ran to the nearest road to get help. When the nearly 25 First Responders came to help, they left their radios on and Mary Ellen could hear them talking about how much blood Suzanne was loosing and Mary Ellen fainted. They took her to the hospital and came back and got Suzanne out. Mary Ellen remembers when one First Responder visited her in the hospital to update her on Suzanne’s condition (she was stabilized). The First Responder told Mary Ellen that Suzanne was the most amazing person they had ever met; she had been encouraging them for the 6 hours it took to get her off the trail. Mary Ellen says, “I realized the way I felt was more than just good friends… [the next] few days spent together [were] sacred time.”

Suzanne and Mary Ellen have found home in Kalamazoo. About 8 months after realizing they were more than just friends, they had a commitment ceremony- that was 2 years ago. Shortly after that they moved here to Kalamazoo for Mary Ellen’s new job. For Mary Ellen, her same-sex relationship plays out in her faith because the strongest element of faith is when something good comes out of something bad. They moved to Kalamazoo together from Minnesota, but still spend their summers in the woods of northern Minnesota- hiking, walking, picking with wild-flowers, and bird-watching. The community here is very open to their same-sex partnership and she recounts nothing but stories of openness and sharing from the community. Here they share an adorable welcoming home within walking distance of the college. Suzanne spends does a lot of volunteering and, as Mary Ellen says, “nurturing plants and people.” They have a beautiful, well tended garden in their back yard. Their two dogs bound around her as she works with the plants.

Mary Ellen’s partnership with Suzanne is another facet of her life which makes her a fantastic resource for our campus. As a very open person who listens and shares; she has many ways to relate to members of our college community. Mary Ellen’s Christian beliefs inform her own life, but she focuses on bring all spirituality to our students. As a woman priest in a same-sex relationship, her position on spirituality is extremely open-minded. She works hard to bring opportunities for spiritual growth to our students, to show our students that our lives need not revolve around grades and resumes.

Final Piece

I was thinking about looking at STIs on campus for my final piece, but I’m not sure how I’d go about doing that. I spoke with Lisa of the Health Center and they have no data about STI rates on campus for many reasons. I am thinking about just speaking with students about their experiences, but I am not sure what my “point” would be in that case. I’m still thinking of ideas. There is a lot of information about the new HPV vaccine, so maybe I could look into that. I could speak with students who have taken it or are in the middle of their course of shots as well as providers of the shots.

Sorry everyone... can I try again?

Hi everyone! So, after reading some comments, I realize I completely missed the ball this the last article- it wasn’t a feature. I was looking for “messy” and just got crap. It was scattered and needed more focus. I apologize to everyone who did read it.

I’m posting a new article. I’m sorry to make people read twice. This one isn’t so messy, but is a feature on a new band called Panic! At the Disco that was in Rolling Stone. I had never heard of them, but was intrigued to read the article because of it’s tag-line: “Panic! at the Disco went from a group of teenagers who'd written only three songs and never played a live show to the biggest new rock band in America. Their secret: Put together a band the way you'd create a MySpace page and let the kids run wild.” Not knowing the band before, I had a definite image of them painted in my head by the end of the piece.

Again, sorry for the last piece! But in case you still want to take a look: Bareback Mountain.

This week's reading posts

Yuck.

I don’t like this piece at all. I’m not showing, but telling. I don’t have a good synthesized story. There are too many facets of her life that I am trying to touch on. This has proven to be a very difficult piece for me to write. I talked to other people in the cavern, but they didn’t give me “anything good.” Access proved to be more of a problem than I anticipated. I wasn’t able to schedule another meeting until Thursday, where I’ll get more informal time. Between that meeting and the workshop, I hope to have more ideas, drive, and focus for this piece.

Balance

I walked into The Cavern, with its bold and simple colors, and was inundated with the calming smells of sandalwood and spices. “I wanted it to be funky and classy,” Mary Ellen explains. The oversized futons invited me to take a seat. A large bookcase on the opposite wall is stuffed with twelve boxes of Celestial Seasons, varieties of coffee, and coffee condiments. There is a large Hamilton Beach coffee warmer that was just warming water. A coat hanger on the wall has been turned into a coffee cup holder with each labeled for the mugs owner. Students wander in and out; a student chaplain sits at a desk in the front of the room welcoming Cavern guests. In the room adjacent, books of all sorts line the walls- spiritual, classics, fiction. Cushions and floor chairs supplement the couch and chair for sitting places. Cookies are in a container on the table in the corner so us to nibble on. Further down the hall is Mary Ellen’s office, a tiny room, with one curved wall. A bookcase, her desk, and a lectern occupy the room. Mary Ellen’s most known addition to our campus since she arrived in September 2005, was the creation of The Cavern. The Cavern is structurally just the basement of our chapel, but to our students it is a place of peace, balance, and escape. “I wanted to created literal and metaphorical places for people to grow spiritually.”

Mary Ellen, a woman in her mid-fifties with short grey hair, invites me into her office as she finishes writing something on her Macintosh computer. She finishes up her work and we chat about a photo she has on her desk of Lake Superior. You can see the calmness in her face as she recounts taking the photo- when the air is well below zero, but the lake is only 32 degrees, a fog affect makes an optical allusion on the lake. She then opens the bottom drawer on her desk, props her feet up and reclines in her chair.

She moved from Minneapolis, but has spent significant amounts of time in South Africa and England. She and her ex-husband moved to South African to work for the anti-apartheid. Her youngest daughter ran home from school one day demanding that her mother tell her school friends that she really was African- all of Mary Ellen’s children were born in South Africa. She has two sons and one daughter. The daughter, the youngest, just got engaged. The oldest son is expecting- it will be Mary Ellen’s first grandchild.

Mary Ellen has lots of passions in her life. She has been an English professor for years. After finding that she kept looking at students writing for the deeper and more personal issues, and after years of commitment to her Episcopal church, she decided to get ordained as a priest. She took a sabbatical and moved to Cambridge to study. She does not want to be a full time priest, but combines her Priesthood with her teaching. Here at Kalamazoo College she helped create and lead different men’s and women’s spirituality groups, but also created the Cavern space for students to escape to. She is passionate about helping to fulfill needs she sees on this campus. She also has two fabulous dogs. She just recently lost her favorite dog, but has two now who come to visit campus frequently to brighten up people’s days, “they have the quality of getting one out” she says about her pets. She loves taking them out on walks.

But right now, one of her biggest passions is her current partner, Suzanne. After a bad split with her husband of thirty years, Mary Ellen wasn’t sure that she could ever be happy again. She recounts feeling a strange feeling in her the time after the divorce where she would think, “oh, that must be a ting of happiness,” but it was never a lasting feeling. Then God brought her happiness that she never thought she’d feel again. She and Suzanne had been friends for years, and eventually realized it was more than just a friendship. “She was a gift,” she becomes more sullen; “a resurrection.” They spend their summers in the woods of northern Minnesota- hiking, walking, picking with wild-flowers, and bird-watching. Suzanne is a well-balanced, friendly, open-individual.

Suzanne and Mary Ellen have found home in Kalamazoo. About 8 months after realizing they were more than just friends, they had a commitment ceremony- that was 2 years ago. Shortly after that they moved here to Kalamazoo for Mary Ellen’s new job. Mary Ellen’s kids are open to Suzanne and love her. The community here is very open to their same-sex partnership and she recounts nothing but stories of openness and sharing from the community.

Now Mary Ellen works to bring peace, connection, balance and spiritual growth to our students at Kalamazoo College. She has started spirituality groups for men and women, runs the chapel program, and started the physical space of the Cavern all so students can learn what it is to them to be spiritual.

Profile update and Reading Response:

I’ve touched base with Mary Ellen and we are meeting on Friday for our first interview. I’m a little worried about having a draft due on Tuesday. Hopefully the interview will get me a good start and we’ll have lots of opportunity after workshops to do more interviews.

Reading from our texts gave me a much clearer picture of the profile should look like and what it should be about. I was struggling with what the story should be about, and now have better ideas. I have a list of thing to think about when writing and what to think about in the interview. I love the idea of “ask stupid questions” that has come up a few times.

I liked the Virgina Tech piece, Virgina Tech Struggles to Recover From Shootings. It gave an enlightening profile of a campus struck by tragedy as they try to “return to normal.” Quotes were used sparingly and were effective. I like the piece on a personal level because it got off of the media’s emphasis on the motive, what happened the day of, and the horrifying stories of the survivors, but rather focuses on the place, and those who still have to live their daily lives. It also used many techniques the reading talks about- a could see the beginning, middle, and end. Quotes were effectively used, and there was a flow and rhythm that kept you reading.

I chose not to read a lot of the other articles on the Cho and the gun and VTech, for personal reasons.

Home Is Where the Bed Is

I’ve called many places home in my short 22 years. After moving to Florida from Michigan at the age of five, my parents continually rented houses. Growing up we spent our summers in Charlevoix, Michigan, and the school year in Naples, Florida. Luckily for me, after moving to Naples, we didn’t move cities again for seventeen years. The Florida houses were all in Naples during this time; I did not have to worry about changing school and making new friends. For 10 years we had the same summer house, then we decided to just do summer apartment rentals. In Florida, we would move rental houses every August. The routine usually went: August, move into new house, in June, board up the Florida house for hurricanes, pack for the summer, pack up the car, close the house, drive to Michigan, open the other house (or move stuff in from the storage unit); and in August close the summer house (or move back into storage), go back to Florida, open up the house, pack it all up, and move into another house.

Then one day Dad came home with the best news I had probably ever heard. I was about ten years old. We’d finally bought a house in Florida- no more yearly rentals. My parents had not owned a house since I was two years old. They’d finally done it. We were going to live in one place for a long time. We wouldn’t have to pack up so many times each year. I was allowed to paint my closet purple, put the little stars on my ceiling and put as many nails in the wall as mom would allow. I couldn’t believe the news.

I have lived in around 25 different homes now, but I can’t even recall them all any more (we only lived in the house we bought for five years). Yet I can only blame myself for a handful of the different homes; I happily went out of state for college, and eagerly went abroad for school twice. All of these occasions requiring more packing, more moving, more “homes.” I was encouraged to be independent, and grew up loving the idea of traveling and seeing the world. I was independent early on; I loved the privacy of my own room. The worst punishment my parents very gave me for misbehaving was taking the knob from my door so I could close the door to my private domain no longer. My older sister loved this; she would barge in, at random times, not only scaring the crap out of me, but invading my most sacred bubble. In this space, my favorite place has always been my bed. It has always provided me a sense of comfort I never fully understood.

Sitting on a bungalow porch on a beach in southern Thailand on study abroad, the student fellow for our program and I had a long chat about how you never really know “home” until you leave it. The conversation started about knowing the environmental situations, but as the sun set on the beach, we talked about what home means to us. This is when I began to realize that I could be at home anywhere in the world as long as I had a bed. The physical space did not matter. Home is where my heart is.

While one of my homes is always where my family is, I found that when I moved away to college, I needed to find a way to make my space my home so that I can find the security that comes with being “at home”. For many, this sense of comfort and relaxation is provided by the physical space of their house, I have found that sense in the space of my bed. When I lost the space of having my own room in college and travels, my bed began to signify my home space. A simple space of a bed provides me comfort, security, and relaxation. I love to curl up on my bed, and read, do my homework, or chat with my friends on the phone. I even sit on my bed with my laptop and wireless to do my best thinking. Bed signifies the opportunity to close my eyes on the problems of today and open your eyes again with a new opportunity for tomorrow. As an extremely vivid dreamer, bed provides an escape with from the realities of this world. Bed can be a place where I go to experience immense pleasure, or where I go when worn out from immeasurable pain. Through all these relocations, I have found that I can anywhere where my bed can be found, I willingly call “home.” I can quickly settle in, add touches of myself to the space, and it is home.

With my ability to make nearly any place my home, I have an advantage that allows me to adjust quickly in new situations. I am not afraid of going places alone, because I know I’ll be able to find home there as long as I have my bed. Now that I’m getting ready to start “my own life,” moving is something I think about a lot. Despite the fact that I can make many places home, I’m ready to move in June and stay put for more than one year.

Which Story to Write

A friend showed me this article, and I had to share it. I find it rather disturbing. It’s about a sushi restaurant that offers this special sushi platter that is served ON a model (woman of course). The writer notes that, “To an onlooker, the most disturbing aspect of her job might be Hadaka’s rule that forbids a model to eat the sushi that rests inches away from her mouth.” If I was an onlooker, I think seeing that a woman was being used as the plate, trying to stay still while “lying supine and being poked by chopsticks” would be the most disturbing for aspect for me! It’s not a narrative article, but it’s worth a read:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/dining/18nake.html

This weeks readings and the latest event at Virginia Tech made me think about the focus of journalism articles and how to choose what story to write. While I see the need to present Imus’s story as The Power that Was did, I think we’re just giving him what he wants. The story from the NYTimes brought up a point I loved and made me think- the need to tell the women’s story and stop focusing on Imus’s. In the same way we are giving the shooter what he wants by talking about him on the news and not his victims. Reading the selections from the book about how to pick a story topic, I see the dilemma in which story to write. The author of The Power that Was does take a new stand on an already popular story, but I didn’t find the style very intriguing. I “heard” neither Imus’s voice nor the author’s conveyed in the story. I also think that we were focusing too much on Imus, and that’s part of what didn’t interest me.

So how does one decide on which story to write? Do you write a story about someone you don’t like, or the “bad guy” because it’ll make a good story (and one that people want to hear)? How does one decide?

I had not heard the whole story of the Virgina Tech incident before last night, so watched a primetime special (I think it was 20/20). They did a nice job talking about the victims and their story and focusing less on the killer. What was ironic was this news broadcast talked about how media coverage of similar events leads to copycat incidents (so how were they being any better?) and how media needs to be careful about its coverage. I caught the last end of Oprah tonight and they were talking about a similar issue- making sure to honor the loved ones lost and not about the killer. But people do want to know about the killer and what made him do this. So do we write the heartfelt story about the victims? Or the one about the “bad guy,” which in many ways is giving him what he wants? This really makes me see the struggle in picking a good story.

I loved reading the handout article too. I thought it was very well written because you strongly heard the voice of the 10-year-old boy and still heard that of the author’s. It was also so fantastic to read about families that are working to combat gender norms and issues of sex and sexuality in their young children.

SBlogs

Kat asked in her blog if anyone had a soldier blog. I was interested in reading one as well so I Googled “Iraq soldier blog.” Turns out there are many interesting soldier bogs out there.

The first link took me to site that has links to many of the individuals blogs. Interestingly, soldier blogs even have their own designation (according to this site): sblog ("s" for soldier). The web page author designates who is writing the blog (deployed soldier, from someone who has since been lost in combat, from family, from a veteran, etc.). Here is the site:

http://www.aapavatar.net/blogs.htm

Skimming though them, I came across this blog, who’s comments I found interesting: http://www.bootsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

He has a link to photos and multiple videos. This is the one video I watched:
http://www.bootsinbaghdadfilms.blogspot.com/

The title is what intrigued me: Boots in Baghdad: A Grunts Life. That says a lot to me about how this soldier must feel. And the videos caught me off guard. The one above is of returning fire on enemy troops. Studying sociology and psychology, the soldier’s language you hear totally astounded me. I wasn’t really that shocked, just caught off guard. And it is shocking to me to actually hear and see this, rather than just reading about it. Anyway, you don’t see much in the video. It’s mostly black with the sparks of gun fire. But you do hear, very clearly, from someone right near the camera, “Light the mother fuckers up.” Wow. In social psychology last quarter, we briefly studied war, war-mentality, war-training, and killing. Yes, you are trained to dehumanize the enemy, that’s seemingly the only way war will work, but I was still shocked to hear as a civilian. And when you really think about it, that men on the other side of the fence could be dieing from the gun fire we’re watching, makes my stomach hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I completely support our troops, even if I don’t support the policy. I do not for one minute think anything less of the soldier who yelled that. I take issue with our training of soldiers.

The whole thing that this was all made possible for me to see, from the boots in Baghdad, is an amazing conquest of technology though. At the same time, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Should I be able to watch gun-fire and war so openly? Without any training or preparation? But this type of media I think works for the armed forces. After all, it does look remarkable like a video game.

Zoo Blogs

So this week we were asked to share a blog we enjoy reading. I don’t read blogs. Ever. I never got into that whole livejournal thing, and never really found them interesting. But I never looked. So I started searching for one that I might enjoy. Having just 6 and a half hours of Frelon tech rehearsals, I was drawing blanks about anything I might actually like reading a blog about. So I Googled the first thing that came to mind- “panda blog” and oh the joys I found there. Let me start with a short background of me and pandas. It started when I was 5 and a friend of the family gave me a stuffed panda puppet for my birthday. I really liked this animal, was drawn to pandas I found in stores, and asked for more. It quickly spiraled out of control. I now have way too many pandas. But it became my signature. Every time my family and friends saw pandas, they thought of me. I to this day receive goofy things mailed from around the world, “Saw this and thought of you.” So how could I tell everyone I didn’t want any more pandas? I had a guaranteed way to make sure that my family and friends thinks of me frequently. So I stuck with it. And I do love them, they are great, adorable animals. And I do keep tabs on the pandas in captivity here in the US, as well as the two in the Chiang Mai, Thailand zoo that I visited multiple times on study abroad. Therefore, I thought I should see if they have a blog. Sure enough- there are many panda blogs. They are very strange for the most part. Many are written with zoologists and the zoo keepers. Lots of entries are all about mating, assimilating to new environments, or just something new in their environment, or about what they did that day (keeping in mind that all pandas ever really do is eat and sleep and maybe get about 30 minutes per day of play time in with their roommate). The first link below is my favorite. It keeps tabs on lots of the other panda news cycles and it’s entertaining. The second one is more serious from the San Diego Zoo- but how serious can you be when you write a blog about how one panda climbed a tree in his pen, only to find that below, in another pen, was his brother? (In case you were wondering, the bears then carried on a “conversation” for a few minutes and are expected to climb trees to meet each other again soon.)

All information about pandas blog

San Diego Zoo Panda Blog

As for my remarks on the writing process:

I did not like it. I got so caught up in writing a “paper” that I feel my final product is crap. I’m also not fond of the fact that everyone gets to read it if they wish. Yet, it is a very good growing experience for me. I also couldn’t decide what bit of the story to run with. I wasn’t sure I had more to say about any one of the parts. Marin had suggested that I run with this idea of bed as home. But I couldn’t make it into a very good metaphor. I didn’t end up saying a whole lot on that matter. I’m also not really sure still what all this really means for me. I’m also couldn’t decide how much of a background to give. For instance, do I give more information about the major moves? Do I explain more about why we moved? I know it needs a lot more work and I look forward to hearing what everyone in my group will have to say in workshop tomorrow.

Personal Narrative Draft

I’ve called many places home in my short 22 years. Luckily for me, most of the places were in just a few cities- we moved houses, but I was able to stay in the same schools most of the time. I have lived in around 25 different homes, but I actually can’t even recall them all any more. I seem to remember a house we lived in for a short time in between two other houses. I know what city it was in, but can’t remember where it was located within the city.

I can only blame myself for a handful of the different homes; I have gone abroad for school twice, and happily went out of state for college. All of these occasions requiring more packing, more moving, more “homes.”

People have very drastically different ideas of what constitutes home and what they are willing to call home. I found in college that many people hated to call their dorm rooms “home.” People who have lived in the same place for many years, and they equate their sense of home and that security with the physical building. In college, I found many friends who did not decorate their dorm space, and do little to make it their own. For me, I have found that I can anywhere where my bed can be found, I willingly call “home.” I can quickly settle in, add touches of myself to the space, and it is home.

As a result of constantly moving, I find myself attached to my material memories and belongings. My mom calls me a pack-rat; I prefer to think of it as keeping many memories. I also find myself unable to pack lightly when I travel. Which I think has to do with my desire to make where ever I am in the world feel like my home. I had moved most of my belonging to Michigan from Florida by my sophomore year of school and was quick to decorate my apartment in Thailand. Sitting on a bungalow porch on a beach in southern Thailand, I talked at length with someone about how you never really know “home” until you leave it. This is when I began to realize that I could be at home in the world as long as I had a bed. Even in my current small cluttered apartment that I hate I have been able to find a sense of home. I put up some artwork, set up my bed, and find in the space a sense of safety and escape- as much as I hate the space itself.

Even as a child I loved the privacy of my own room. The worst punishment my parents very gave me was taking the knob from my door so I couldn’t close my door to my private domain any longer. Having a bed represents that sense of privacy for me. I would love to curl up on my bed, and read, do my homework, or chat with my friends on the phone. As I travel more and more, and lost the space of having my own room, my bed began to signify my home space. A simple space of a bed provides me comfort, security, and relaxation. Bed signifies the opportunity to close my eyes on the problems of today and open your eyes again with a new opportunity for tomorrow. As an extremely vivid dreamer, bed provides an escape with from the realities of this world. Bed can be a place where I go to experience immense pleasure, or where I go when worn out from immeasurable pain. You can easily decorate your bed, adding touches of yourself to the space. While one of my homes is always where my family is, I found that when I moved away to college, I needed to find a way to make my space my home so that I can find that security. For many, this sense of comfort and relaxation is provided by their entire space of their house, I have found that sense in the space of my bed.

Now that I’m getting ready to start “my own life” and in eventually (in a long while) my own family, this is something I think about a lot. I’m crazy good and packing boxes and cars full of stuff. And I don’t need to be able to see out the back of the car to drive. Moving does have its benefits. More than anything I’m ready to move and stay put for more than one year. I know that with my passion for travel, I will continue to have many more homes in my day. But with the ideas of “growing up” and starting a family, I debate whether it would be more beneficial for our family to move for a while, or do I want to plant my roots firmly from the beginning? I wonder where my next home will be with my graduation quickly approaching- choosing where to move can be a big decision. I do love to travel, but after so many years of packing everything up and moving at the end of every year, I look forward greatly to the opportunity to settle down for more than twelve months, but where do I go?

So I sit here and try to write my paper and find myself stuck, so turn to the class for maybe some advice or guidance:

I find that just by knowing that I have to write “an assignment,” I automatically turn to my sociology/scholarly paper writing style (rather than a more interesting journalistic fashion). Does anyone have any advice on how to keep the writing interesting? Because right now the writing is very dry.

Thanks! Have a great weekend.

I'm trying to experiment with photos on my blog.

Home around the world...
As one way to show aspects of all my different homes, I'm sharing a collage of photos of me in the places I call home.

So here I go! It’s my first blog for class. I’m still not sure about this whole thing and will have to work on it a lot more this week.

I’m realizing how beneficial this class will truly be for me in my career (hopefully with a women’s organization, non-profit, or health clinic). I have a habit of not letting anyone read anything I write (aside from close family and friends for proof-reading purposes), so this whole blogging idea is a big step for me. I think it’ll be a great skill to have in my choice of career fields. I’m hoping to have confidence to be able to write for newsletters, even in mass emails and other such form of communication.

I have been touched and inspired by so many of the stories we read for this week. I find them engaging, and moving. The article that most spoke to me was Pattern of Migration by Trish O’Kane. This piece really spoke to me, mostly I think because I could relate so well. The writing brought out the voice of the author. While she has had no where near a mundane everyday life, she’s not writing about all the adventures she’s had in her life. She just fighting with this idea of “home” and brings the reader with her. Banaszynski says in Stories Matter (pp. 5), “Stories are histories. Write and edit and tell yours with accuracy and understanding and context and with unwavering devotion to the truth.” I think O’Kane does a beautiful job of that by not giving too much detail about all the back stories (which I would have loved to hear more about), but rather states enough to educate the reader of her history, give her story the necessary context, and drive at the truth of “home.”

I was so moved by this piece, and it made me think so much about my own life, that I’ve been thinking of using this idea for my personal narrative. It just seems so unoriginal to me: You mean another college senior is troubled by what “home” means to her? Therefore, I’m going to just grapple with it now, here in my blog: Up until last year, I’ve lived in more houses/apartments/rooms than years I’d been alive. This year ties me up 21 houses/apartments/rooms and 21 years, but with another move in a few months and another birthday, seems as thought I’ll never get a lead in years. While my story is not the same as O’Kane’s, I understood her sense of not knowing where home is. Growing up, I have always had many places I can home. Home was where ever my family was- where I could find my older sister and parents and friends. Home was also where my bed was, once I started living by myself. I have always loved my own space, and I love my bed. So dorms, my current tiny rat-whole of an apartment, have been my “home” as well. Home was never a house to me. I never understood that idea really. I have many places I call “home” at once. Luckily for me though, in all these moves my family never moved far. We mostly stayed in the same town with a few exceptions. Now that I’m getting ready to start “my own life” and in eventually (in a long while) my own family, this is something I think about a lot. Do I want to move? I’m crazy good and packing boxes and cars full of stuff to make the most stuff fit in the space. And I don’t need to be able to see out the back of the car to drive. It does have its benefits. Or do I want to plant my roots firmly? I can empathize with O’Kane’s struggles to find home. I struggle with where I want to be next year. More than anything I’m ready to move and stay put for more than one year. My older sister (who is a psychologist, by the way) and I often talk about what kind of influence all the moving had on us. For instance, I blame my pack-rat nature on that I was always moving, so attached myself to more “stuff” than necessary as comforts. My sister, on the other hand, will never leave Chicago. The site of boxes and moving vans and the mere thought of moving makes both of us both sick to our stomachs. Not is a sad, nostalgic way, in an “Oh god, here we go again…” way. I know I get my idea of home from my parents. When my Dad dies, he wants to be cremated and scattered and sea, and my mom wants to be where he is. We don’t even have a “homeland” we have each other.

I’ll wrap up this week’s blog with a few questions I’ve been thinking about:

What makes narrative journalism, journalism, and not ethnography or autobiography, or creative nonfiction short stories? What defines the journalism aspect especially when you’re writing about your self? And how should I approach writing the profile and explanatory pieces differently than writing an ethnography or personal history for sociology?

How am I ever going to keep a submission to around 800 words? This blog is already over the word limit and its just a blog! I’m truly worried about word limits. As an HDSR major, I’ve been trained in a lot of ways to be long (detailed usually, but extremely long and wordy). So this whole idea of telling the whole story in just a few pages worries me. Something I’m really going to have to work on.

Welcome to my first blog!