Courage, strength, patience, motivation.

I am hoping to acquire all of those things whilst moving into the new semester. Due to scheduling conflicts between the second half of my foreign language requirement and the Women's Studies Capstone seminar, both of which I need to graduate on time, I am taking on a whole fuckton of work and responsibility. On top of that I will try to continue to juggle three jobs and be a good dog-mother/friend/sister/daughter/maid of honor/partner/show attender/movie watcher/book reader/gin-martini drinker. I can honestly say that I am scared that I will not make it through this semester, dramatic as that may be! I am frackin' scared. I don't know why I am in school anymore? All the things I want to learn I can find. I'm learning more about what I'm interested in from my new and dear friend Adee than anything in college right now (with the exception of Czech, which has proved to be as fun and terrifying as I thought it would be). WELL, I am tired and have work and school early tomorrow. G'night.

I'm back at school, so expect more obnoxious quotes from my reading this semester.  

Classes are as followed:

Beginners Czech

Feminism in Popular Women's Genres

Race & Gender in US History

Natural Disasters

& Ancient Philosophers (my good friend Jay's class)

I love Czech, but I'm also really terrified of not doing well in that class so I've been keeping on it everyday.  I've even been watching videos online and making notecards like there's no tomorrow.  It's something that I want to learn very badly and I want to be good at it.  I hate doing things that I'm not good at, which is mainly why I do nothing at all.  haha.  This year I want to tackle things that I've always wanted to do.  I think I say this every year but it's becoming increasingly apparent that I am NOT getting any younger and I don't want to fuck this up by sitting around and doing nothing for the rest of my life because I was too scared to do it.  That's a lot to share.

So, I'm gonna step back for a second and talk about the Gainesville Women's Liberation talk that I went to the other night.  The featured speaker of the night was Carol Giardina.  She is the 1968 co-founder of the Gainesville Women's Liberation.  She works as a History and Women's Studies professor at Queens College in NY.  She was hilarious and awesome and she shed a lot of light on the history of Gainesville's involvement in Women's LIB.  Did you know that Carol Hanisch wrote, "The Personal is Political" in a duplex on NW 3rd ave???  Neither did I!!!  Fucking rad.  A lot of important figures in the Civil Rights movement and the Women's Lib. movement were there and it was overwhelming to sit in a room with people who actually FOUGHT to bring about desegregation, Roe v. Wade, the Civil Rights Act and all the little accomplishments we take for granted.  For instance, it used to be mandatory for women at UF to wear a dress until 5PM, if they were caught more than three times not doing so they were forced to stay in their dorm all weekend.  That's 48 hours of being confined to a building for NOT WEARING A FUCKING DRESS!!! That shit's insane.  Because of the Women's Liberation movement we no longer have to do that...and ain't that a beautiful thang??? 

♥

A few posts about my experience at Feminist Summer Camp are forthcoming but for now I am sick and very sad.  I found my cat Mr. Scrunchie Face (aka Big Fat Meow Meow, Scrunchers, Zee Scrunch) dead yesterday.  She had been hit by a car and crawled to my back door where she laid down and passed away.  I am killing myself over what I could have done, but I know that this kind of thinking is useless.  Goodbye Scrunch.   

Phem: Web | Blog | Magazine: Day 1 FSC: Sex Work and Trafficking

This is an article about our first day at Feminist Summercamp!  I'm finishing up my soon!

Phem: Web | Blog | Magazine: Day 1 FSC: Sex Work and Trafficking

"Girl, you make me think"

There are two books that I have been reading for my Independent Study this summer that are really blowing my mind.  They are Tidal Wave by Sara Evans and Grassroots: A Field Guide to Activism by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards.  These books have given me the history of activism in the feminist movements as well as the passion to start something here in Gainesville.  I want to shout out from the rooftops about feminism and activism.  I don't know what I am going to do get but I know I want to do something.  I want to change so many things, I want to inspire others about feminism and activism....I'm going to go think of something to do......

it's been a long time, i shouldn't have left you without a dope beat to step to.....

"...in an early meeing of New York Radical Women, several women described their experiences with illegal abortion.  For most it was the first time they had told anyone beyond a close friend or two.  A group of women, subsequent founders of Redstockings, then decided to disrupt a legislative hearing scheduled to hear testimony from fourteen men and one woman (a nun).  Claiming that women who had experienced abortion were the "real experts,"  they demanded to testify.  When the legislative committee refused to hear them, they held a public "speak-out" on March 21, 1969, drawing an audience of 300.  Thousands of women, hearing about such speakouts, joined in.  Journalist Gloria Steinem recalled that "For the first time, I understood that the abortion I had kept so shamefully quiet about for years was an experience I had probably shared with at least one out of four American women of every race and group."

pgs 46-47 Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End by Sara M. Evans

watch this hot doc!!!

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes! 

The whole thing is on youtube.com