http://www.msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/10/11/thoughts-on-slutwalk-from-a-wheelchair/

I came across this article which I gives another lived experience of what it is like to be wheelchair-bound. The picture of the lady holding a sign that says "disabled women are not sexless! We want sex and relationships - not rape." is particularly powerful and I think drives home the idea of people with disabilities being sexless.

It's funny because if you start using the phrases "between-gender" and "within-gender", then same-sex couplings seem to be the dafault. Between-gender could be just about any combination, unless you categorize trans*/genderqueer/intersex as a single category (alternative? non-binary?). But that's still an unclear definition.

If I say I'm in a between-gender relationship, the only thing you know (if you even know this) is that I am a woman who is NOT in a relationship with another woman. I could be in a rleationship with a man, with someone who identifies as trans*, intersex, genderqueer. I am also assuming that between-gender/within-gender means between-sex/within-sex which may be an unfair observation, especially since gender and sex are not the same thing.

In what other circumstances is the default changed from heterosexual to queer? I feel like that's a part of Bryn Mawr's atmosphere--queer seems like the default because the queer community is generally very outspoken and visible.

To those interested in gen/sex issues outside of the classroom, OUT Week is going to be this upcoming week!

For more information, contact me or see the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=228167287238190

Schedule of events:

Bryn Mawr College

OUT Week 2011

October 17 – 21

 Monday

“Ways of Being Out” Discussion with Faculty
Campus Center 200, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Tuesday
“Show your Pride” Day
All over campus

Wednesday
Movie Night: The Birdcage
Thomas 110, 9 PM - 11 PM

Friday
Pride Craft Day
Merion Green, 12 PM – 4 PM

Rainsite: Arnecliffe Rainy Day Studio

Party OUT!
Location TBA (check Facebook page for updates), 10 PM - 1 AM

***All events are open to the tri-co and guests of the tri-co***

& musings on "science" writing.

Throughout this class, I have had my expectations challenged, my perspectives broadened and my writing matured. The in-class discussions that have been facilitated by our reading of many different educational theorists have brought into question for my peers and me what we really believe about education when it comes to voicing these attitudes, and often taking one side or another in our Barometer exercises. I have heard from many students whose educational experience seems to have started a world away from mine, but is now converging as we share the classroom. And, through reflection and conference, I think that my writing has improved, or at least that I have been made more aware of the sort of pratfalls I have been conditioned to make by the way I’d been taught to write prior to college.

Welcome!  This forum is a space for Parkway West  High School students and Bryn Mawr College students to create dialogue and explore ideas about education, social class, opportunity, and our futures.

Please use it to reflect on our shared visit:

• what ideas or issues stood out to you from our conversation?
• What surprised you and piqued your curiosity? 
• What would you like to explore further? 

Dancing With The Stars isn't exactly my cup of tea, but both of my younger sisters absolutely love the show. I wouldn't have become aware of Chaz's inclusion on the show if I hadn't heard them talking about it over this break. My sisters have definitely become less prejudiced against LGB people because of my coming out to them, but don't seem to have the same open-mind toward people in the T part of the acronym. Their discomfort is one view along the spectrum of DWTS viewers who think the producers' choice to add Chaz Bono to the cast was/is wrong. 

This Esem class teaches me to put myself in someone else's shoes. The more open-minded I am to new ideas, the less confident I feel about education. I am not sure about the purpose of schooling. I am wondering about the class issues in class. I am questioning myself about the meaning of education. It is much harder for me now to reach an absolute conclusion. I started raising more questions and getting a more balanced point of view. It is useful for me not only in this class but also in other matters I have in my life. However, I don't confidently admit that I am totally impartial. Sometimes my prejudice prevents me from acknowledging others'opinions.Seeing things through somebody's lens is an ongoing learning process. I haven't finished but I am confident that I am improving.

I also realize that our thinking can't just be stopped in a 3-page-essay each week. Three pages are a limitation for our writing but not an end to our thinking. Hence, more questions should be raised in my conclusions.

I always have a great time in class discussion. I encounter many new and unconventional ideas thanks to my classmates. They also contribute to my balanced point of view. I become more confident and overcome my fear of people's judgement. I am glad to be a part of the class where I can exchange my ideas and rethink my opinions.

taking advantage of fall break to read extracurricularly, but---so much resonance with our course in egan's novel, including...

opening passage from Proust In Search of Lost Time with echoes of Eli Clare and "memory palaces":
"Poets claim that we recapture for moment the self that we were long ago when we enter some house or garden in which we used to live in our youth.  But these are most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in disappointment as in success.  It is in ourselves that we should rather seek to find those fixed places, contemporaneous with different years."

(p168-9)  a reporter writes about his 40-minute lunch with a celebrity and brings in Karen Barad:  "--but the throbbing just beneath that surface is the waiter's hysterical recognition of my subject's fame.  And with a simultaneity that can only be explained using principles of quantum mechanics, specifically, the properties of so-called entangled particles, that same pulse of recognition reaches every part of the restaurant at once, even tables so distant from ours that there is simply no way they can see us."  (The footnote continues to play with the idea of entangled particles.)

(p234-309)  Chapter 12 (written by a 12-year old girl about herself, her autistic13-year old brother, and their parents) is in the mode of powerpoint slides!  Particularly interesting to me is the exchange on p253 about the value of using new expressive media: