w00t.

So, I just remembered (while at work) to look up my course evaluations on The Hub. For non-Hampshirites: this is the closest thing I get to a grade for my classes, it is a detailed explanation of how the professor felt I met or did not meet the goals of the course and other such comments. Well, at any rate, I just finished reading my eval for Ordering the World, which was a challenging course with two fairly hard-to-please professors. It looks like I managed to impress at least one of them, because my evaluation was glowing. I suspect it was Jim Wald who did the actual typing of my eval, because he uses the personal pronoun "I" in the final sentence when he says "I look forward to having Dan in a history class next fall" (I am preregistered for one of Jim's courses). This is very exciting to me, particularly because I really admire him and am considering asking him to be on my Div II committee. I love Jeff too, but it was Jim that I was hoping to impress with my final paper---and it looks like I succeeded.

Therefore: w00t.

This is from a pamphlet I found lying around the house (of no pants) and thought was really important and needed to be shared:

Gender is not sane.
It is not sane to call a rainbow black and white.
It is not sane to demand that we fit into one or the other only.
It is not sane that we classify people in order to oppress
them as women or glorify them as men.
Gender is not sane.

Gender is not safe.
If I change my gender, I'm at risk of homicide, suicide or
a life devoid of half my possibilities.
If I'm born with a body that gives mixed gender signals,
I'm at risk of being butchered--fixed, mutilated.
Gender is not safe.

And gender is not consensual.
We are born, a doctor assigns us a gender. It's documented
by the state, enforced by the legal profession, sanctified
by the church, and it's bought and sold in the media.
We have no say in our gender--we're not allowed to
question it, play with it, work it out with our friends,
lovers, or family.
Gender is not consensual.

Safe gender is being who we want to be, when we want to be that, with no threat of censure or violence. Safe gender is going as far in any direction as we wish, with no threat to our health, or to anyone else's. Safe gender is not being pressured into passing, not having to lie. Not having to hide.

There are two trans people living at The House, and I'm pretty sure this pamphlet is left over from their days at Hampshire. The pamphlet was written to address Hampshire's annual Drag Ball and the issues that it brings up. I'm not sure if Jordan and Wendell were involved in creating the pamphlet or not, but either way I would have felt a whole lot better about drag ball this year if something like this was circulating a couple of weeks beforehand. Another excerpt:

Crossing gender boundaries is fun and funny when it's one night of intoxicated revelry. But for those of us who cross those boundaries every day, and who live with the consequences and oppression that accompany that, it isn't quite as fun. In your gender play and performance, please be respectful of transgender students and remember that not everyone has the privilege of stepping back within the safety of those boundaries at the end of the night.

Tonight we question, satire, play, and fuck with gender. This is not a night to glorify the most violent or objectified aspects of strict gender binary.

That about sums it up.

Food, fun, and Photoshop

Vikki and I are currently staying at The House of No Pants, having moved all our worldly possessions (with the exception of ourselves) from our dorms to our new apartment yesterday. We will be following on June 1st. I'm having a great time at The House. There's lots of amazing fresh food, tea, cozy places to sit, science fiction, and geek talk. Today feels like a little summer-preview, as it is a bit chilly, a bit overcast, and we don't really have our own place yet. It's a really great preview.

I started work at the publications office today. It was fantastic. A spent a couple hours in the morning familiarizing myself with Adobe InDesign through books and online tutorials. Then Melissa (boss) briefed me on issues she was having with some photos for a Civil Liberties and Public Policy brochure that we're designing. So, for the rest of the day I worked in Photoshop, removing undesired people and objects from pictures and working out brightness and contrast issues. I had a nice long lunchbreak in the middle, during which Kim (assistant boss) and I went to whole foods where I got some brown rice sushi.

Overall, work just feels like a great place to be. I'm treated as an equal, I get to do interesting and engaging work, my opinion is counted in discussions, and I get a certain amount of creative control over the copy that comes to my desk. I will also be in charge of designing and laying out next year's student planner/handbook, Non Satis Non Scire, which everyone gets in their mailbox. When I showed Kim my progress with the CLPP photos she seemed quite impressed with my (mad) photoshop skills (yo). She said she'd defer her photoshop projects to me, which is exciting.

And soon we are going to sit down to dinner of grilled marinated chicken, tempeh, portobello mushrooms and vegetable kebabs. I love these people.

Commencement

I got up earlier than I generally like today and shambled over to the huge tent they have erected on the library lawn, found vikki and proceeded to comment with each passing speaker how much commencement at Hampshire sounds like a public television/radio program (in a really fantastic way). Following the ceremony, I met some people I do not know and I ate some yummy local food. And now, as the jazz and the celebration outside continues to float through the slit of my open window, I settle down to pack. And I reflect. And I begin to realize that this year has meant far too much to me to sum up in a few words. It feels like both a thousand lifetimes and the blink of an eye since I left home for the first time. Sometimes I feel I'm a world away from my former life, and sometimes it seems only the two hour drive that it actually is.

And I wonder at those people who can just drop it all and come back home. The people who return summer after summer to Rhode Island and resume thier lives as if nothing has changed. Don't get me wrong, I think that's beautiful---but it's something that I could never do now. For the short time that I was home, when I resumed old acquaintances it felt more like I was beginning a new friendship than renewing an old one. That the old me was shed like old snake skin, and something fresher but wiser, more vibrant and, yes, more cynical has wriggled up from underneath. But I realize that that is mostly internal---it's not something you're going to notice unless you squint your eyes and look hard, or listen carefully when I speak. I'm not even sure what it is that you're looking for, but I know it is there, because I can feel it down between my ribs, in my feet when I walk, my knees when I sit.

That is what this year has meant to me.

So, to the people at home: I love you. I always will. I am only me because you shaped me, and I wont forget it. But, please, I would love for you to come meet who I have become. Hell, I like him. I hope you do too.

To the people I have not yet met: It is time. Come and call, I will listen. I am waiting for you to show me the world and all the new things that I can be.

You know it...

A little GIMP project I through together a while ago. I just found it again. I've been in a major classic Star Wars phase as this has been the week of the horror movies and I've had to put on A New Hope classic edition in order to fall asleep. Enjoy: