this semester from my cell phone

I pretty much never remember that I have a camera in my cell phone. As a result, I have a pretty random assortment of photos in there at any given time, based on not only what I think is photo-worthy but the rare occasion when I remember that I can take pictures with my phone! Shocking modern technology. To illustrate, here is a photo essay of this past semester via my cell phone.

Spent a lot of time here, doing this..

Being jealous of people like Dustin and kitty, doing this.

Hung out with these ladies a lot.

Kitty got a sweater for my birthday!

The sappiest moment of my semester: Kaylee decorated our wall with post its of reasons why I am great and she loves me and things like that. (An extensive apology for something she was obviously in very big trouble for..)

And finally, merry Christmas from kitty, who loves to lounge near our Charleston-inspired Christmas tree.

The end. A lovely fall semester, indeed!

cultural narratives

This post on Feministing reminded me what I've been doing for the past several months--identifying cultural narratives and the problems they cause for real people. Cultural narratives are basically just the "stories" a culture tells about particular stereotypes, making it seem like they are really just "how people are." I've been doing it for the catfight in my bachelor's essay--in a nutshell, the proliferation of images of catfights (which are problematic unto themselves) creates a limited framework to view women's competition. The narrative gets mapped onto real people, fueling widespread beliefs like: put a bunch of girls together, and all you'll get is drama drama drama! Women are horrible to each other! And the like. I think the victim-blaming shit in this article is a similar situation.

Studies like this one only exist because there is a cultural narrative of women lying about being raped or sexually assaulted. The excerpt cited on the post pretty much sums it up:

A study of more than 200 students revealed many wrongly blamed the effects of a 'bad night out' on date-rape drugs, when they had just drunk excessively.

In a world that valued women and their autonomy, what would prompt this study? They can't possibly have been drugged, they just drink too much! And they're sluts, so of course they're going to have a 'bad night out'! Which means what, exactly, by the way?

Okay, maybe I editorialized a bit too much there. But it really is just crazy. And its studies like this, reported in mainstream media outlets, where people will likely just read headlines and file it in the "info why women themselves can be blamed for all instances of women's sexual assault," furthering this victim-blaming narrative. AND this article takes it even further, pathologizing young women who drink! As Mr. Man Researcher writes, "Young women appear to be displacing their anxieties about the consequences of consuming what is in the bottle on to rumours of what could be put there by someone else." Come on, the use of date rape drugs is just a rumor?

Maybe my next research project should be about victim blaming. Also, I second Leigh's thoughts about consent. And sorry for the proliferation of fancy words, I'm still in bachelor's essay mode.

blog fantasies

I feel overwhelmed by my without-a-theme blog. I mean, technically, the theme is me (hence the "rachel" part of the title). But that encompasses so many blogging possibilities that I find myself avoiding choosing, and therefore never writing on this thing. So, I decided, I need a theme for my blog.

If I could, I would have a blog with a different subject for each day of the week. Like, gay stuff on Mondays, feminist stuff on Tuesdays, maybe the arts on Friday nights? And a day for crafts. Saturdays could even be brunch-themed. I could even get way more creative than that.

Or maybe I could do a blog about weddings. Gay weddings, in particular, and the ability for "weddings" to keep heteronormative/gender roles so firmly cemented in our cultural consciousness.

Hell, I could fill a whole blog just writing about heteronormativity.

Or a blog about the South. It's quirks, how it's still so different from "the North," what it's like to be a woman/gay/an activist here. How privilege works in the South. I'm fascinated by North-South dichotomies in the U.S.

Oh, and birth order! I would love to do a blog about birth order.

As I write these fantasy blog ideas, I realize that the reason I have a non-thematic blog is so that I can write about anything I want. And look, I have ideas! I can blog! Clearly, this is a very self-serving post. But for those of you who aren't me, think about it as foreshadowing.

Some day I will do these things. Perhaps all of these things. And many other things. Actual things. On my blog. Maybe not while I'm writing my bachelor's essay. Or while I'm supposed to be writing about a billion other papers that I am clearly avoiding right now. But maybe, just maybe, whenever I successfully integrate actual time management skills into my lifestyle, I will be able to maintain my dream (un-themed) blog. Stay tuned.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

This is one of my most favorite Sylvia Plath passages, appropriately both depressing and contemplative. Perfect for introspective Sunday evenings. I really wish I had brought my copy of The Bell Jar to NYC. I'm missing my Plath almost as my kitty cat.

homesick?

I never get homesick. Never. I used to pride myself on this fact. My mom would brag to her friends that her kids were never home, and that we never needed to be comforted while we were away. We (my sisters and I) were gone so much that she even began to feel like we didn't want to be around, that we might not have any feelings for our home at all. We used to dream up elaborate vacations to go on, adventures we would have, and as we got older, took advantage of the ability to make some of them realities. I've spent every summer away from home as far back as I can remember, usually by myself. I have very vivid memories of seeing girls even at just week-long sleep away camps needing to be comforted by counselors, their heads rubbed and reassured, "Don't worry, you'll be home soon." And I thought, what's the deal? You spend pretty much all your time at home anyway, why wouldn't you be dying to spend time away? What possibly could there be to miss at home?

But those memories are coming back to me, and find myself kind of wishing I had a counselor of my own these days to rub my head and encourage me to, "Keep going strong! Because the comforts of home are not that far away!" I decided to spend a grand summer away in New York City, working for an incredible organization that aligns perfectly with my ideologies, and I did not think for one second that I would be anything but totally happy in a new environment, with all new people, doing a completely different kind of job than I've ever had before. Seven weeks later, I'm starting to feel the wear.

I shooed away my first homesick thoughts, writing them off as weak, not fulfilling my adventure to the absolute fullest. But, in the spirit of being a person who thinks emotions are very important messages to the self and should be respected, no matter how ridiculously out of place or goofy they may feel at a given time, I gave up and went with it for a while. And yes, I realized, I WAS capable of feeling homesick (shocking), and maybe this wasn't a bad thing.

Thinking about, okay, missing home, has made me realize just how much I value it. Just like when I spent all my time hating Atlanta while I lived there, all I had to do was move away to really appreciate it. Having a similar realization about Charleston has actually been really beneficial, because I hadn't been considering it a real home. But now, away from it, not only do I consider it home, but I'm actually sick for it. And these thoughts have allowed me to meditate on the good of Charleston--the proximity to my friends, the bike navigability, the beautiful springtime, farmer's market, the beach, the relationships I've been able to develop with professors, Art Walks, my jobs, happy hour at Vickery's--while thinking less of just how quickly I can't wait to get out of there. So maybe homesickness isn't a bad thing after all, if it makes you remember all these great things about where you live. I'm definitely not going to stop going on adventures anytime soon, but maybe I won't be so hard on my home next time I'm around there. I mean, if it's worth missing, it can't be that bad, right?

CofC NOW

This year our chapter of the National Organization for Women has been particularly active, doing lots of fun, activist things. And we got mentioned on the national NOW website! Pretty cool. The picture is from the (wildly successful) Vagina Monologues benefit concert & art show at Andolini's that we put on during V-Day Week back in February. I'm proud!

offerings to Flora

Happy May Day & International Workers' Day!

I actually was not aware that these two observations went together, but consequently both holidays are applicable to my life these days. First, workers rights have been on my mind a lot lately, because Kaylee has gotten really involved with the campaign to unionize the Charleston Sanitation Workers. She has worked tirelessly (chances are if you've been on campus in the past two weeks, you've seen her) to collect signatures on a petition to provide them with a way to protect their health and safety on the job--an increasingly difficult task in a right-to-work state like South Carolina. But she, and a small group of other really devoted people are trying anyway. Sign the petition online and help them out, in honor of International Workers' Day!

As for the May Day that I'm more familiar with, the one that marks the beginning of the spring-y months and the end of the winter half of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, it's an occasion for planting new things and watching them grow! I'm a big fan of the idea of spring as a time for rebirth and new life, and particularly the physical manifestation of this concept in, what else? Planting a new garden!

After my first plants took some pretty bad hits (moving across town, getting lost and/or drowned in the horrible flooding at our new house, a.k.a. the epicenter of Charleston's poor drainage system) I decided I'd give it another go. And May Day seems quite a perfect day to chart my progress.

I love having fresh herbs, and my original herb garden at the Spring St. house did pretty well, until the rats feasted on beloved potted delicacies. Now here's the new herb garden:

There's lemon basil, mint, cilantro, Sicilian oregano, and a big rosemary bush that managed to survive all the tragedies. (Don't mind the underwear hanging to dry in the background; we had to do a little hand-washing of the essentials because not having a washer/dryer is taking a toll on our clean laundry situation.)

We're also trying to grow some veggies this year from seeds, and check out this progress:

Before: these are squash & cucumber seeds and barely-visible okra sprouts.

And after: sprouts going gangbusters after just a few days!
Okra!
Cucumbers!
Even little squash! (Those have been more stubborn.)


Welcome to my back porch, May. Spring is such a lovely time of year, and I'm glad it's finally here after all those teases of winter right up until the last minute.