Well Well Well

Since 4 o'clock this afternoon, I've been struggling to write a paragraph proposing an independent study for Fall semester. After about 4 hours of work, procrastination, less work, and more procrastination, I finally came up with this:

Through the creation of a self-designed capstone, I hope to continue my study of the issues addressed in the “Cultural Studies and Public Life” thematic sequence that I completed earlier this year. As a pre-service teacher with a focus in Integrated English Language Arts for adolescents, I am particularly interested in studying youth culture and the texts that youths create and consume as a part of their non-formal education. Adolescent girls are the target audience for a wide range of texts including television shows, serial novels, and magazines, and they are also known to produce their own texts (diaries, notes, zines, etc.) I would like to explore the ways in which the “lessons” learned from non-formal education via mainstream and self-created media are aligned, and in conflict, with lessons learned in formal educational settings from “professional” educators and sanctioned texts. I am also interested in issues of non-formal education and power; much is made of the exploitation of adolescent female sexuality by the mainstream media as well as the mainstream media’s emphasis on promoting consumerism. Is the consumption of this media an inherently disempowering act or does regarding mainstream media as disempowering oversimplify and negate the complex process of consumption and production that girls engage in when they choose to read a certain magazine or watch a certain television show? By engaging in a study of adolescent girls and the processes or formal and non-formal education, I hope to further my understanding of the ways in which the traditional, classroom-bound educational experience is informed by a number of complex relationships that are formed and broken outside of the physical plant of the school and how I, as a future educator, can mobilize my understanding of these relationships to facilitate a more relevant, democratic educational experience for my students.

While I worked, I listened to Le Tigre - a band that I loved during high school and then moved away from for reasons I can't entirely pinpoint or put into words. I just know that at some point, it became difficult and painful and, at times, embarrassing to like them and listen to them. But, sitting in the writing center with my headphones on, I've re-discovered some of their beautiful moments. The spoken interlude of "Tres Bien":

because they will try to convince us that we have arrived, that we are already there, that is has happened.
because we need to live in the place where we are truely alive, present, safe, and accounted for.
because we refuse to allow our writing, songs, art, and political history to be suppressed or stolen.
because we refuse to be embaressed about the mistakes and faults and choose to move forward with a political agenda bent on the freedom of all.

And the fierce, life-affirming rhyms of "T.G.I.F." - where, at exactly two minutes and four seconds in, my heart breaks and my whole body begins to tremble and fill up with memories of my ninth grade social studies field trip - the one where I began to realize how much I did not, and never would, belong and how I bit my lips until they bled and listened to this song on repeat through whole states, hanging on desperately to Kathleen's words: We will survive as thieves/We will survive as freaks.



I'm back in Oxford after a week of being home on spring break and I'm falling right back into the complexities of being here - the negotiation of academic well-being with physical and mental well-being, sharing a room with Karen, carefully stepping around complicated situations. Sunday night and Monday were an exercise in liminality. The lines between home and school were messy and blurred. I saw Stephen "World's Cutest Bike Rider" Malkmus at the Southgate House and was so happy that he was playing with Janet "My Favorite SK Drummer" Weiss. I briefly considered dropping out to spend the rest of my life cycling across the country with SM, but decided to go home instead.

My bed was so cold on Monday night. It's not nearly as nice with just one person in it.