Step Into My World

I'm sitting on the couch in our (chilly) apartment, snuggling with a warm cat under a down comforter, feet on a heating pad, space heater running nearby, trying my best to frantically take notes and study for a test I'm hoping to take--today. After I submit the paper that's due.

The kitchen is full, not just of breakfast dishes but also of the remains of the hacked and cooked pumpkin (it took overnight baking on 200 degrees to to sufficiently soften up that sucker!), some of which has been pureed to a yellow sauce, but some of which is still in the Cuisinart, or the funnel, or all over the counter. I don't have time to think about that right now.

In our living room are boxes and boxes of CDs waiting to be sold or given away, a jogging stroller, an exercise ball, a basket or two of laundry, and stacks and stacks of library books. All testaments to our plans and good intentions that right now are being placed on the back burner.

Things have been heating up for Matt at work, and I've been working pretty close to full-time in addition to juggling my classes and feeling a little bit sub-par to boot. So things are slipping a little bit, but on the whole, we're still doing well. Everybody is happy and clothed and fed (pictured below: today's lunch, a mug of leftover homemade tomato soup swirled with some of the last of the summer pesto), and in times like these, those are our priorities.

It will certainly be interesting to add a baby into this mix.

No Real News

I'm spending today finally making some headway on a paper I've been writing for weeks. I tend to do better during crunch time, which I guess is a relief because I was starting to worry I was never going to get it done.

Besides that, we don't have a lot to report. Fall in Virginia is beautiful as usual, I'm chugging away at school, Matt is working, and I'm in a fairly unexciting stage of pregnancy where, even if I am generating limbs and ears and organs at an impressive rate, I don't look pregnant and I don't feel pregnant and so business carries on much as usual. Although our baby does have two possessions so far: a shirt,

which we've admired for a long time and which Matt brought home for me the day after we found out I was pregnant; and a jogging stroller,

(don't mind what looks like poop on the wheel...or the fact that
our apartment is in such a shambles that it looks like moving day)

something we'd remarked the other day would be nice, but something we were unlikely to actually pay for. Enter Freecycle: one was listed the very next day, and now it's ours. Living in an area as wealthy as this one has its advantages; people give or throw away nicer things than we'd ever consider buying! We're hoping that by starting early, we'll be able to get the majority of what we need for the first several months at least for free or really cheap. I understand this might seem a little premature, and even unwise to some, but when you really think about it, why should being hopeful about the healthy outcome of this or any pregnancy be seen as inviting bad luck? If anything, I think hope and optimism contribute to better outcomes, not the other way around.

Voices of Men

Back on Friday, October 3, Katie and I went to a presentation for Domestic Assault Awareness Month, which has been going on throughout the month of October in the U.S. I am a little late getting this posted, but we fee like this is a very important topic so I still wanted to get the word out there.

The event we went to was a one-man play put on by Ben Atherton-Zeman called "Voices of Men." We both really enjoyed the performance. It was a mixture of multimedia presentation and celebrity-impersonation based monologues. There was a good amount of audience interaction and variety throughout, and Ben has done great job putting the presentation together and is great at keeping everyone entertained, while addressing a very difficult subject in a way that makes men think very seriously about all their actions. This presentation made me realize that more men need to take this subject seriously. There are so many times in a day when people are confronted with images in the media, movies, magazines, jokes, and conversations that condone treating other people, often women, with anything from ambivalence and disrespect to outright violence. By doing or saying nothing and simply receiving what others give you, the problem is being perpetuated. Non-action is condoning, and for something as serious as this, where there is no wiggle room, no debate as to whether this is OK--it is never acceptable. I remember there have been times in my life that I was not as willing to speak up or to wear a white ribbon to show how important of a subject this is. I remember not speaking up in conversations when I knew things were said that perpetuate violence and sexism, and I am shameful for not doing so. It will be my dedicated effort to not let these things go unnoticed anymore

While there are many centralized efforts to fight against domestic violence, there needs to be a cumulative attempt by more people, and it cannot just be the victim group. African Americans were obviously fundamental in the civil rights movement, but so were the thousands of whites in the south that stood against their own majority because they knew that what was going on was completely wrong. Going to Harper's Ferry last weekend and seeing the place where John Brown planted the seed that eventually grew into the Civil War and the eventual end of slavery in America was a very powerful experience. This person proudly died for a fundamental cause. I say fundamental, because many things are important, but fewer are fundamental. Education is very important, but on most levels it is not fundamental like kindness and love are. 

I have been reading a book by Wendell Berry lately titled Blessed are the Peacemakers, which discusses Christ's teachings on love and compassion. You can read some of the the book for free here. The book has a story about a Mennonite in Holland during the 18th century, who was wanted for being a heretic, and was being chased by someone hired to catch him. The Mennonite ran across a patch of frozen water, and the pursuer followed, but fell through. The Mennonite remembered his faith, and went back and saved the pursuer. Still oblidged to turn in his savior, the Mennonite was convicted and slowly burned to death. 

We would rarely face this type of treatment for speaking out against bad language or advertising that perpetuates negative action, but still men do not do the right thing and be honest because of fear. We should consider the lesson in this story--what some people go through to do the right thing and follow the faith they believe in. I feel that more people, especially men, need to speak out against violence perpetuation and make the choice not to induge or unwittingly support media that communicates negative, unkind, unloving messages and therefore supports negative action, if violence, rape, and other actions which lower the potential of our society will ever be reduced, let alone elimitated. Actions must come from individuals in individual, everyday situations.

Living on a Prayer

Which is apparently what this hungry guy or gal has been living on for a couple of days. When I walked into my office on Wednesday morning, I was surprised to find this little fella sitting on the top of my computer. I typed away for a couple of hours with it there there and eventually the bug climbed up the wall and up to the ceiling. When I came into the office this morning, he/she was still up there. So Katie got the awesome idea to get some crickets and feed it.

Watching this thing grab the crickets and eat was about one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Katie and I watched it hunt and eat for about 20 minutes, and mentioned how this would have been awesome to show to little kids, thinking of ours that we hope to have and show gross things to some day.



After he or she ate three crickets in one sitting (hungry little guy) we decided to bring it outside and set it free. It was nice to hang out with this little fella for a couple of days in my office, and oddly enough was entertaining even though it really does not do very much.

It is wonderful to have a partner like Katie to enjoy little, simple, silly joys like this with. I thank God for these little experiences, because the wonderful little things like this are really what make up life. So I just want to say how happy I am to have Katie in my life, to have this miraculous person to do the day-to-day things with, and to have little adventures with all the time. I love you so very much my wife. Thank you for all that you are! You are the world to me! I consider myself so blessed to have you, so maybe this little thing coming into my life was a symbolic, prayerful gesture from the man upstairs, reminding me in a little, yet comical way how lucky I truly am. And I know it.

College, the Darker Side

Something else Matt and I were talking about this weekend which subsequently showed up in the NY Times (are they following us?!) is the idea of college--how when we were growing up and in high school, it was promoted with a kind of elitism that suggested that kids who went to college were just better, smarter, more responsible kids than the "townies" who hung around and got steady jobs. When really, as we look around at our peers who did or didn't attend, the only difference, for the most part, is that we're in more debt, and perhaps having a slightly more difficult time adjusting to the work world than they. College itself seems to me like it promotes a kind of social ADD--don't like a class? Drop it! Don't like your major? Change it! Didn't budget your money well? Borrow more! And this is all done under the guise of "getting a good education," "investing in the future," and with the blessing of those in charge (who, obviously, stand to benefit from convincing kids to a) stay in school and b) borrow money while they're there. All the better if they're around longer than four years!). However, it's especially poor preparation for a real job: in which you can't switch to another "section" if you don't like your boss, and nobody cares if you're bored or not learning anything.

We also noted that college artificially extends adolescence into the years of early adulthood which were traditionally associated with working a job, getting married, buying a home, and having children. And for some people, like us, it seemed to initiate a phase of adolescence that, being raised by hardworking, self-employed, and somewhat stricter-than-many parents, we hadn't had in the first place. "College kids" are treated by society as just that, with a kind of indulgent forgiveness not typically shown to 18-year-olds who are instead entering the full-time job market--a position that is much more difficult, and quite possibly more noble, than that of the coeds who spend their weeks partying and drinking. (Not that everybody spends college doing this; I worked an average of thirty hours a week while carrying a double major and came out with debt in the mid five figures to show for it. So college wasn't really destructive to me in a social sense, but financially, it could have been better.)

The article opens by talking about a study which showed that males in college are more likely to have committed a property crime than their peers who are not in college. I'm not surprised, and I would bet that a similar trend exists for substance crimes and especially sexual assault. Having staffed the rape crisis line in a college town that is constantly plagued by one high-profile campus rape or another, I can say that there's something about the college atmosphere that promotes that kind of predation.

The most relevant portions of the article are below:

"During adolescence, the prospect of attending college was positive. The researchers found that college-bound youth were less likely to be involved in criminal activity and substance use during adolescence than kids who weren’t headed for college.

But college attendance appears to trigger some surprising changes. When male students enrolled in four-year universities, levels of drinking, property theft and unstructured socializing with friends increased and surpassed rates for their less-educated male peers.

The reason appears to be that kids who don’t go to college simply have to grow up more quickly. College enrollment allows for a lifestyle that essentially extends the adolescent period, said Patrick M. Seffrin, the study’s primary investigator and a graduate student and research assistant in the department of sociology and the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University.

College delays entry into adult roles like marriage, parenting and full-time work. Instead, college students have lots of unstructured social time. Other studies have linked unstructured socializing or “hanging out” with higher levels of delinquency and risk taking."

The full article is here.

So what's the answer? Only that college itself isn't going to miraculously land you a good job, or make you a good person; that if you're not careful, it can do the opposite. That perhaps it makes more sense to look back toward more traditional vocational/apprenticeship training, which was clearly focused toward an end (a productive, successful job), as opposed to glorying in the increasingly self-indulgent means. And an education which focused on efficiently obtaining useful skills, rather than racking up a predetermined number of credit hours (and an undetermined amount of debt) might better serve society at large and our college students.

Happy 1-Month Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 1-month anniversary! It's hard to believe that just a month ago, we were getting married on the beach. It was a beautiful wedding and a wonderful honeymoon, but we were excited to get back home, see our cats, and start getting ready to take our show on the road. We move to DC in less than a month, which is also hard to believe. We've already begun packing our "non-essentials," hoping to save ourselves from a mad rush just before we move. Matt has taken on the bulk of this work as I work all night and am thus useless all day :)

It's just starting to hit me that we're really leaving Iowa, and the Midwest. I think we each have our moments of sadness about it, but for the most part we're really excited to be embarking on this new phase of our lives together. It will certainly be interesting to see how the next year unfolds, and we'll do our best to keep you posted!