sonjaegeland's Xanga

Where is feminism now?

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 03:36:12 GMT

I had an enlightening and frustrating experience this week that I thought I'd share with you. Last Wednesday was Thomas Friedman's visit (three-time Pulitzer prize winner and author of The World is Flat), and as some of you know, I was very involved with it. Following the President's breakfast, we had a planned photo session in the Doubletree Hotel, when local newspapers could photograph a few students and faculty members with Mr. Friedman. One (older female) photographer from the Newspress mentioned that she wanted a photo with the "Westmont faculty and president." Dr. Rogers, Dr. Penksa, Dr. Winter, Dr. Mallampalli, Dr. Dunn, and a trustee member all lined up together. When she saw the six of them standing there, she clarified: "Oh no, just the men, please." In the confusion of the moment, the female professors, Dr. Penksa and Dr. Dunn, left the group and the men did nothing to defend their colleagues.

Being in the wake of the sixties and seventies feminist movement (and trying to swim after the boat, in my case!) is much like this, I think. Both Dr. Dunn and Dr. Penksa are very intelligent and very socially aware women. They moved out of the picture, but not without knowing that it was inappropriate for the photographer to ask them to, and for their colleagues not to have asked them to stay. Both, however, are single women that most likely made life choices that propelled them towards teaching at the college level at very young ages.

I sense, in the wake of my mother's generation's feminist movement, that to be considered valid, I am asked to give up being a mother for a dream of success that CEOs and Newspress photographers are not willing to offer to me. Through the lens of the Newspress, readers will assume that professors are male, not female. Through the lens of a CEO, women do not have the tools or the experience to be promoted in the business world. When I hear the cliche phrase that Christians must be "in the world, but not of the world," I think to myself that it would be easy to not be in the world--the world already excludes me. Where is my place in a world that leaves my role so uncertain and undefined?

I hope this is food for thought, or at least an after-dinner mint for thought.

Morning... like a picture without a frame

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:57:39 GMT

Mornings are raw. I think that's why I like them so much. Every blessing is a surprise, every glimpse an insight. Hummingbirds come to the feeder we've set up outside of our kitchen window while my sleepy hands grasp tightly the cup of coffee I poured only minutes earlier. Both craving nourishment, but the difference is that one's found its wings.

This whole year has been one long morning.

Being an RA this year has been much different than I expected it to be. But then again, I can't articulate what exactly I was expecting. Perhaps I anticipated a life-change, but here I am, still the same person, interested in the same things. Maybe it was a season of growth that I wanted. But my growth has been incremental, thwarted by frustrating conversations and discouraging events. I think mostly I just hoped that all of my insecurities, fears, masks, and defense mechanisms would just melt away. But that hasn't really happened.

But it has been a worthwhile experience, albeit short and intense thus far. There are days I feel as if my heart will break from all of the strain it takes, and days my heart soars from the joy of living with people that I care so much about.

I have great peace and great blessings.

Reality TV

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:56:06 GMT

I watched a reality TV show today, and it quickly became my favorite television entertainment. It's not like it was up against much; my knowledge of television is pretty much Friends and the first season of Alias. Usually, I don't watch much.

Anyway, it was this show called Project Runway, where they get together a bunch of small-time designers and eliminate them show by show. Eventually there's one left. The final designer basically gets an automatic ticket to to the fashion design world.

This is different than my normal posts, I know, but wouldn't it be funny if there were an academic reality show? It would have challenges like you have to write an eight page research paper in two hours, or you would have ten assignments to complete but only had enough time for one and you had to choose the right one.

I was just thinking, how is it fair that these small-time designers get to skip all of the stuff in the middle, when to get into the academic community you have years and years and years of school? If I want to become accomplished in my area, I have at least eight more years left of studying. I'll be over thirty before I have a doctorate. That's only if I don't take any breaks.

It's ironic how something that takes so long to complete is so unfashionable.

Lost opportunites never return

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 18:00:55 GMT

The other day, as Shane and I were leaving church, a man approached us and introduced himself. He wore thick-lensed glasses and an early-nineties buzz cut, a plaid button-down shirt and a clashing-patterned pair of tennis shoes. Trying to stand confident, he told us his name, we told him ours. He asked what we thought about the sermon, we reciporicated. He wondered where we grew up, we inquired the same.

Our exchange, however, was anything but "normal." Shane and I allowed an uncomfortable silence to follow each question, as if we were hesitant to allow this man to know too much. When we asked him questions in return, we refused to ask any further than he had asked us. Our shifting feet must have given the impression that we needed to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.

According to the man, he had grown up near Chicago, surprisingly close to where I grew up. I took this to indicate that, being from the midwest, he and I shared a common background. His father worked as a scientist at Fermilab, a particle accelerator near my house. I took this to mean that he came from a brilliant family and must be brilliant himself. When his family moved to Denver, he tried to stay in Chicago and make a living. I took this to mean that he must have had a lot of friends to help him in the city. His money ran out, and he moved back in with his parents at age 30.

And then I realized that our new thick-lensed friend was a loser.

We had nothing in common. He wasn't smart, or at least hadn't finished college. He seemed to have very few friends. And he was still living with his parents.

"What are you guys doing this afternoon?" he asked us.

"Uh... we've got stuff that we have to do," we stammered.

"Oh. I was thinking about taking a walk around the reservoir." His tone indicated that he very much wanted company for his walk.

Instead of inviting him to accompany us on our "stuff" (of which we had very little), we let his statement hang uncomfortably in the air.

"Well, I think we're going to get going," Shane said. "It was nice to meet you."

"Yea, you too," he returned. He turned slowly to the door and walked away from us, as we turned our backs and went the other direction.

A few minutes later, we realized our mistake. We should have invited him to Shane's grandmother's house for brunch, or taken him up on his half-offer to walk around the reservoir with us, or invited him to go see the new superman movie, or we should have just been interested in him as a person rather than judging him.

With no better ideas, we ran around the parking lot trying to find him. We looked near the reservoir just in case he had begun his walk. We searched the church for him, but to no avail.

While many consider the "Church" to be an institution, it is really made up of a bunch of individuals. Of which I am one. By half-heartedly rejecting a person, even one with thick-lensed glasses, I whole-heartedly demonstrated that the church is not an accurate representation of Christ. I would not be surprised if I never saw my non-friend again. I will probably never have the chance to show him that I regret my insensitive reaction to his love and interest in me and my life.

Nothing on this earth can remove the guilt that I feel.

Summer Adventures

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:38:40 GMT

I love summer with every part of my body. Hiking for two weeks through the Appalachian Mountains makes my arms and legs ache with the joy of being used to their limit. Chicago jazz clubs in the middle of the night fill my nostrils with the smell of hundreds of cigarette butts and countless years of raspy voices permeating the walls with their musical stories. Long evenings in thick summer air with friends tickle my skin with a thousand air kisses. I am alive! I am loved! I am real!

And now I'm up in the northwoods of Wisconsin, staying with my aunts, a friend, and my two sweet cousins. We are six women ranging in age from five to fifty, equally enjoying the sun-soaked dock that boldly suspends us yards out into the lake. Each day we bring a tray of bulging sandwiches and juicy watermellon out and nibble on our day-long lunch while the sun melts the ice in our glasses. In between comments about the weather, reflections on the previous days, and musings about the future, we devour cheap paperbacks--the kind Dan Brown and Danielle Steel would have smiled to know we secretly read when there's not much else to think about.

Each day I've woken up early and resolved to go for a run and quickly rolled over and fallen asleep. Each day I've sat on the floor for hours playing "Dora the Explorer" with my cousins. Each day I've spent long hours at the dinner table picking at a basket of chicken nuggets for those under ten and a sipping one of the glasses of wine for those over 21. This is the life.

School seems so long ago and so far away. Like a fairy tale. Except it seems that I am living the fairy tale.

Finished.

Sun, 14 May 2006 14:27:10 GMT

Five finals, eight days of driving, trips to Disneyland, Vegas, Denver, and Detroit, long and exhausting goodbyes, and I am finally back home in Batavia for a week. Finally. I am exhausted. My limbs ache with sitting in the car for about fifty hours in the past week, my eyes ache with lack of sleep, and my heart aches because of the myriad and depth of goodbyes I've had to make.

But I'm here. And loving my bed and my family.

I went to "Showtime" last night. It's the big show choir and jazz choir performance at Batavia High School. The reason I went was to see my sister, but I ended up seeing old friends as well, many of whom have graduated from high school and moved on. How is it that we lead such different lives now? We have gently but assuredly separated ourselves from that which we were. Aside from hair color, new glasses, and different clothing style, people felt more... confident? Perhaps independent would be a better word. I sensed a detachment from most people, like they didn't need this show any more to feel legitimate and loved.

In one of my GE classes last year the professor posed that we move from dependence to independence to interdependence. I suppose that a lot of us are in that center phase. We haven't yet learned how to do interdependence yet with the place we came from, because we don't feel we have much to contribute any more.

So we clap to the songs of those younger than us and then return to our homes.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Wed, 03 May 2006 12:59:24 GMT

I wake up well before the dawn, put on a pot of coffee, and continue to pour over the material on which I fell asleep only hours before. So progresses finals week. Somehow in the darkness of last night and in the waning of my latte's effectiveness, I thought that I could study for Physics of Music through osmosis--just place my head strategically on the book for an extended amount of time. It didn't work. Now I have an hour to go and a head with words written backwards across it in size 11 Times New Roman.

This week has made me slaphappy, melancholy, elated, disappointed, and surprised. In fact, I would venture to say that during finals week I can almost feel the full spectrum of emotion. I realize, though, that I will probably not retain the information I cram into my head at the last minute (for instance, the information I have an hour to stuff into it right now). It feels a bit like those t-shirts in a box. Once they're out of the box, there really is no way of getting them back in. But you can put part of them back into it. So here goes... the musical environment is GOING to fit.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:09:48 GMT

As a college student, I've observed both experiencially and second-hand the different types of tired. There's the I-didn't-get-more-than-three-hours-of-sleep-last-night kind, there's the I-have-been-studying-for-the-past-10-hours-because-I-didn't-keep-up-with-the-reading kind, and then there's the I-am-so-weary-from-this-all-consuming-life-and-the-expectations-that-accompany-it kind. I'm experiencing the third at this moment.

Not that I don't love school. I love it so much! And not that I don't love costume designing for the Theatre Arts Department. I absolutely am thrilled about it! Not that I don't love having visitors from the midwest. They delight me and keep me grounded! Not that I don't adore spending long hours with a certain boy who I adore. He makes me aware of time and space and touch! Not that I don't delight in childcare. Having children in my life keeps me sane! And not that I don't get chills after working on the paper. Seeing my words and the words I edit in print makes me feel like I'm really here!

But all of these things together just make me weary. I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and my eyes just looked... hollow. It's like I need a trip to the beach or a long walk in the mountains or a piece of chocolate cake and a tall glass of milk. But there's no time for trips or walks, and there's no cake at the dining commons.

The classic job interview question is "What are some of your weaknesses?" This is one of mine: loving in such a way that my love grows thin and my constitution weak. I want this summer to be about loving ONE thing at a time, and loving it deeply.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:52:38 GMT

It's been raining for the past few days. It hasn't been the kind of lashing, quick rain that the west coast typically gets, but more of a soft, light rain that coats my body like a thousand kisses all at once. Some people have tried to thwart the misty wet with umbrellas, but the crafty rain slowly falls so that, unless you're standing absolutely still, it gets you from the side.

There have been so many different kinds of rain in my life. There's the kind that we used to get up in the northwoods, the kind that comes around sunset amidst thunder claps and lighting strikes, splashing down from the Heavens in huge drops, creating enormous mud puddles for jumping and playing in. Very rarely does there exist a difference between the person who stands out in the rain for a minute and a person who has just jumped in the lake.

Then there's the Chicago rain. Living so close to the city, I always wondered if it was actually acid rain. I would fall asleep on summer nights in my window seat, curtains closed to my room to keep the air conditioning out, windows opened to the world to let the mossy, earthy rain air in. With my ear next to the open window, the sound proved to be deafening and soothing at the same time. When I was sixteen I dreampt of being kissed in the pouring midwest rain.

Irish rain comes in all sorts of shapes. The lashing sideways rain frequently turned into hail. The sweet soft mist coated my skin and formed dew-like droplets on my hair. Rain in Ireland always meant a fire and some tea, meaning that we'd light a fire and clutch our mugs of tea almost every day. Rain in Ireland was functional, people watching the sky in order to determine when they would wash their cars, people hoping their gardens would grow larger because of a light mist, people counting on the water supply to wash their clothes.

Surprising Flowers

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 23:50:06 GMT

For Christmas this year, a friend gifted me a "grow-able" card. That is, the actual card was made of paper with seeds embedded in it. I only recently got around to acquiring soil and placing the pot, soil, card, and water on my windowsill. Today the first sprout emerged from its black bed of dirt. I have no idea what it's going to be. In fact, I have no idea if they are flowers or peas (or weeds or orange trees). Upon sighting that first glimpse of green, however, I grew so excited! My heart started beating faster, my smile stretched wider, and my mind wondered who would next enter my room, that I could show them.

At the same time as being so content with the flash of color, I began scanning the flowerbed for more. Where would the next one come up? Would there be more than those two tiny leaves? I didn't want to miss the possibility of another growth.

Gardeners make a thousand analogies about plants--most valid, I might add. I'll add this one to the pile of plant wisdom... I've never known how to describe the feeling of being completely content but also not being fully satisfied until now. In my life as a follower of Christ, I've been told to seek to be "in but not of" and "live in the present but long for the future." In a culture that experiences time monochromatically--that is, time is chronological and works like a bank account, in that you only have a limited amount--I found these charges mildly impossible.

Until now. For me, the planter, there is no time frame. It doesn't matter how long the plant takes, because I am so excited about what it looks like now. At the same time, I know that it will continue to grow into something more and more complete. As a Christian, is it possible to live outside of the bounds of time in such a way that "already but not yet" becomes realized in my own life?

Today I choose to live outside of time.