I've been wrapped up in the busyness. I've punted my "real life" down the road. After starting a full-time job in December and realizing that it will now be years before I wrap up my dissertation--that I'm on a slower, more incremental timeline where the graduate student aspect of my identity gets whatever scraps are left over in my day--I knew that I couldn't keep waiting. I'm taking steps to ensure that I'm living my life--the live I'm enthusiastic & passionate about--now. I've joined a writing group, signed my family up as members of the local children's science museum, started cooking again, and have been better at project management. I've found that monotasking really does help me be calmer & more productive. I've even enrolled in a mindful parenting course through work & am meditating for four minutes a day. Just like my dissertation, I'm carving out this life slowly, incrementally, patiently.
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It was Daily Kos that I saw first jump in and point out that what's happening here is not "lewd" conversation. Lewd conversation is talking about BJs with your friend on the bus; it's commenting on a person's ass to your friends. It's working blue. This conversation? This is a man explaining that he uses his position of power to get away with sexual harassment. This is a man saying, verbatim, what non-cisgender men have been describing in the workplace for ages.
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I wrote about my feelings on the Paris terrorist attacks--odd phrasing. Feelings toward terrorist attacks are always awful. There's nothing unique about feeling pain & anger. But this struck unexpectedly close to my heart, as my former students were directly affected. I wonder if any teacher these days will escape this concern for their students--whether the attack happens in the classroom (a fear that lingers at the periphery each time my husband heads to work) or while we each go about our lives. I wonder, too, who we can use our position as compassionate authority figures to help them through this time--encouraging them to talk to a counselor & urging them to resist generalizations about people based on radicals that cause tragedy. How do I walk back into my American classroom on Tuesday and do each of my students--past & present--justice?
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