Short Term Clambake 2009

Today was the annual short term clam bake at Popham Beach.  This is a day where you can buy a ticket and enjoy burgers and lobster at the beach with the entire school.  The weather left a little bit to be desired, it was cloudy and cold with not much sun but no one seemed too affected by the cool weather.  I think everyone is so sick of winter that at this point we just pretend it’s warm and summery even when it’s not.  People were in bathing suits and in the water.  People were playing touch football and tossing baseballs around.  The tide was low when I arrived so I was also able to make my way out to a rock formation that is usually in the middle of the water.  The clouds didn’t make Popham any less beautiful and it was nice to see so many people congregating on the rocks.

I didn’t get lobster because lobster makes me feel uncomfortable.  In fact, I think one of my first blog entries was about lobster and how it tastes like the sea.  I tasted it again today, a year later, and still assert that it tastes just like the sea.  Leave me with my veggie burgers thank you.

Aside from reasserting the taste of lobster I felt the camaraderie of Bates and of course got prematurely nostalgic for my life here.  In fact tonight, one of my friends just burst into tears as she passed the graduation stage being built on the Quad.  She wasn’t taking about anything graduation related, nothing sad, she just burst into tears.  I think we’re all getting a little more unstable as reality sinks in.

We took lots of pictures of ourselves today as I think from now on each of us desperately wants to capture any moments we can in some way.  Memory isn’t enough.  Here are some photos from today: (note the lobster carnage and my rediculous get-up.  it’s hard to look beachy when you get cold easily)

Shhhh,

Steph

Mysteries in Archives Class

So in going through photo after photo I have to examine all the writing on the back of each picture.  Sometimes there’s a lot, in different mediums (pens, pencils etc.) and by different people.  Often times its explaining the same scene in slightly different words.  It can get frustrating.  And boring.  And so my mind starts to wander.

I was in a mentally wandering mood today when I checked the back of a photo and saw only an unfinished sentence on the back.  And I began to think about the context of this unfinished sentence.  I imagined many scenarios, some more morbid than others, in which this sentance could have gone unfinished.  This is what I like about having the chance to engage with old materials for this archives course.  You’re touching really old things that all have stories behind them.  For example, when at Bowdoin for a field trip I thumbed through an old bible with beautiful illustrations and gold ink which belonged to the Medici family.  You know, that famous Italian family that you keep hearing about in European history as a sophomore in high school?  Yes, them.  So that was cool.

When interacting with all these old artifacts one realizes that there is a lot of history behind any given artifact.  In fact, artifacts have politics- they are shaped and affected by social and cultural norms similarly to people.  I mean, we are the ones who construct these things.  Though in the case of the pretty Bible some would disagree with that point but that’s for another blog post.

So basically, it’s exciting to see these old photos and can be exciting to see an unfinished sentence because it offers a plethora of possibilities in which to engage a wandering mind.  I’d like to think the person didn’t finish the sentence because it was night time and they got bitten by a vampire.  What this would mean is that there are vampires in Leeds.  Something to think about…

Shhhh,

Steph

First Friday

One of the great things about Bates is its location.  Lewiston is a city that may seem intimidating at first but if you take the time to explore, your eyes can be opened to all the interesting and innovative activities, restaurants and organizations that Lewiston has to offer.  But beyond the city of Lewiston, we are also 30 minutes away from Freeport and about 40 minutes away from Portland, ME.  Freeport is super bougie, you can go there for sushi and to check out the large LL Bean outlet as well as J Crew.  It can provide a good time at points.  However, one of my favorite places is Portland.  It is quite a cool city with good restaurants, nice art galleries, funky theaters and some cobblestone streets.  There always seems to be something stimulating to do in Portland.

This is where a discussion of First Friday should come in.  First Friday occurs on the first Friday of every new month and on this day admission to various art galleries is free.  On any given First Friday one can find tons of Batesies around, especially during nice weather.  This May I went with my friend and discovered that when the weather is just slightly warm, First Friday becomes a mad house.  Because we are both slightly awkward and dislike crowds, we scratched the gallery idea and went to check out the legal graffiti wall that exists in the downtown area.  Because there are so many art students around Portland, this graff wall was fantastic.  I mean really good looking.  I snapped some photos (the painted dog face which looks like it’s materializing out of the wall is my current desktop picture.  and I don’t even like dogs…)

Now I can’t do this nor do I know a lot about the process but it’s pretty no?  Check it out if you’re ever in Portland.  Bring some paints if you feel so inclined…

Shhhh,

Steph

Archives are cool.

So now that the year has finally come to a close, short term has begun to descend upon us.  Short term is a Bates tradition where a student can take one class intensively for 4 weeks.  The idea behind it is to allow students to explore subjects they wouldn’t usually dabble in (the grade you get for your short term shows up on your transcript but doesn’t factor in to your total GPA) and to let students  connect with the campus and their friends during a time of year when Bates and Maine itself are absolutely beautiful.  It is really a fabulous time and it feels like it is going by way too quickly now that I realize it’s my last.  My friends are taking courses like “Reading Tony Morrison” to “Drawing With Intention.”  What am I taking you ask?  Well, I am taking “Introduction to Archives and Archival Science.”  Now you may be wondering what this means.  Or you may poke fun of me like some of my friends but let me tell you, when your old photos and newspaper clippings are slowly disintegrating in 30 years because you didn’t store them properly, don’t come crying to me.  You should have listened to me that Wednesday night in our living room when I told you all Ziplock products are of archival quality.  Or that you should never do anything to an object that is not reversible.

But all bitterness aside, I took the class on a whim.  All I knew was that I didn’t want any gender studies or religion.  At all.  And that’s what I got.  But I in fact got a great deal because archiving is actually quite a dynamic process that is very much affected by systems of power.  It’s a question of knowledge- what gets to count and what doesn’t.  Who’s papers get archived and who’s don’t?  Who gets access to archival material?  The archivist has a lot of ethical questions with which to deal within their work and thinking about these issues tickles me pink.

Another great thing about the class is that I get to organize things.  Often times as an archivist you are presented with a gigantic box of goods which you must sort through and organize.  It’s an extremely satisfying process and I’ve found I have been learning a lot.  For example, the other day I ran across a set of old pictures.  “Oh these are tin types” I muttered to myself.  Needless to say I impressed the person I was with hardcore with my bizarre scope of knowledge.

As part of the class, our job was to take some collections from The Leeds Historical Society of Leeds, ME to organize and archive them ourselves.  It is quite a process and we’re expected to be done by the last week.  I chose a photo collection so I have been having to isolate moldy photos, and package other photos into handy acid-free binders.  Whenever I get a folder sorted out I feel incredibly accomplished though often times I arrive home exhausted after staring at old black and white photos of white men with crazy mustaches standing in front of large trees or covered bridges.  But monotony aside, it’s a fun process for someone who needs to be in control constantly.  So what I’m trying to say is it’s fun for me.

Here is a photo of our class outside the Leeds Historical Society building on a fieldtrip.  We’re a small bunch but boy, I think we know what we’re doing.

The little town of Leeds

So there you have it, my short term class in short.  I’ll be sure to keep you updated.  Until then, beware of scrapbooking, taping and gluing photos is not a good idea.

Shhhh,

Steph

Road Trip!

The longest drive I have ever done with me as the sole driver has been from my house to Bates (supposed to be around 5 hours, can be anywhere for 4 1/2 to 9 depending on traffic).  So, needless to say I was excited and anxious with the prospect of driving to Maine from Chicago.  Now that’s a long drive.

The plan was to get an early start on Sunday, drive to Princeton, NJ, spend the night at Princeton University and drive to my house in Connecticut.  From there we would drive to CT, stop at my house to pick up my things and then drive the last leg separately.  Well we did get an early start, leaving Chicago at 6:30 am and actually arriving in Princeton at 9ish.  Not bad.  But the journey itself was something to be remembered.

As someone who is a pure Yankee, I know nothing but the East.  So the Mid-West fascinates me.  Driving through Indiana, Ohio, wherever else we were, they were distinctly different than anything I’ve ever seen.  Firstly everything’s flat.  Like really flat.  Listening to the radio and hearing about swine flu, I could just picture packs of rabid, zombie pigs running over the horizon, charging at our car, the only car on the road and then my friend would get bitten and I’d keep him around for a bit as he starts to get more and more ragged and finally he’ll start to change and I would have to kill him.  And then I would have to drive through Pennsylvania by myself.  And Pennsylvania is very large.

In fact Pennsylvania was the longest part of the trip.  That state is huge.  And the roads are windy.  Not like Ohio.  Indiana is kind of stinky.  New Jersey is kind of stinky too.  New York is hectic.  Connecticut is… nice?  Lots of trees.  Mean drivers.  Massachusetts, good rest stops.  Mean drivers.  New Hampshire and Maine?  Beautiful with nice drivers who stay in the right lane except to pass.  I’m not kidding.  My two favorite states on the drive, familiar because they’re in the East, enjoyable because people aren’t mean.

Anyway, what I noticed from the trip is that I am very comfortable in the East and very uncomfortable outside of it.  The mid-West rest stops were bizarre, the people were different, the food was different, the vibes were different.  It was just different.  And that’s what I learned on this trip.  Here are some pictures.  You can see what I look like when I’m tired and driving and a pastoral view from the Mini sideview mirror.

Shhhh,

Steph

Longhorn Steakhouse

One night when my roommates and I were all sitting around after dinner, someone posed the question of what we each planned to do upon finishing our thesis.  Now that’s a difficult question to answer as there are any number of celebratory acts from which one can choose.  After thinking for a long time, I decided I was going to go to Longhorn Steakhouse.  Now this decision was made weeks before I actually finished so as I neared the end, i only became more and more obsessed with the idea of Longhorn Steakhouse.  I visited the Longhorn web page and browsed the menu (they’re hiring by the way) and picked out what dessert I was going to get: the chocolate stampede.  I was all ready to go and stuff my face and my apartmentmate was right along side me (which I am impressed with as she is a vegetarian).  As the day drew nearer we gathered a crowd, people saying they wanted to come too!  Well imagine my excitement at the prospect of my very own Longhorn crew.  Until… reality hit.

I realized that people weren’t actually serious about going.  They pretended to be excited and manipulated the experience and my hopes and dreams (I am no longer angry, just bitter).  Someone suggested we only go for dessert because the dinner there looked gross.  I acquiesced without thinking but when bringing up this idea to my apartmentmate I was slapped me back into reality.  “Are you kidding!?” she said.  “You said we are going for the whole meal.  We are going for the whole meal!”  And right then and there I knew I had to go big or go home.  This is what I had wanted, this is what I had worked for and by God I would go and consume mass quantities of food by myself if I had to!  I was going on Friday evening and no one was stopping me.

As Friday approached I felt nervous and excited, who was going to show?  Who was going to bail?  Who was going to wimp out and only get dessert?  Well, I can’t tell you who did what as that’s confidential information but we went and we had a crew.  We ate that champs, some getting ribs, some getting steak tips, I had a cheese burger which was nasty.  It had maybe half a piece of cheese on it and on the menu it said it came with tomato and pickles.  It had one slice on tomato on it and one slice of pickle!  One pickle slice!  Do you have any idea how tiny that is!?  But my chocolate stampede was worth it.  It wasn’t that good, but it was worth every bite.  It was made for at least two people but I handled it like a champ.  Here are some photos documenting the whole excursion:

Me in the ally way of Longhorn, very industrial

My apartmentmate posing with the hogs lined up in the parking lot

Chocolate Stampede!

Well, there you have it.  Our trip to Longhorn.  I ate a lot of that chocolate stampede.  I left very full.  Oh, did I mention they have free soda refills there?  Well they do.  And so I drank about 3 sodas.  I was out for the count.  But boy I enjoyed myself, a real dream come true.  I’m not sure I’ll ever go back but Longhorn has a special place in my heart.

Shhhh,

Steph

Embracing Short Term Too Early

So my roommates and I made a mistake.  A big one.  And we’re paying for it.  The mistake?  Embracing short term prematurely.  A few of us finished our theses a bit early and we decided to “take a break.”  This “break” manifested itself in staying up chatting until 3 in the morning, sleeping in, cooking lavish brunches and most importantly, not doing school work.  And we lived like this for a few days and it was great.  We kept saying “Wow, it feels like short term.”  And it did.  The weather was warm, there didn’t seem to be any pressing work concerns… life was good.  Until we realized that it was not short term and finals week was coming up and we all had work to do.  I had a final test and a final paper that I had to begin work on right away.  And sitting down to do work was one of the hardest things I have ever done at Bates College, hands down.  I’m telling you, I did NOT want to sit down and do work.  I had a premature taste of the sweet fruit of short term and I wanted more.  I didn’t want Nietzsche’s theory of perspectivism nor did I want to study religious diversity.  I wanted to sleep more.  I wanted more 12 am breakfasts and walks in the sunshine.

It was a brutal time.  We began by giving ourselves pep-talks.  “Comon!  You can do it!  The end is so close, you can taste it!  Once you finish up these last things you’re done and you’re done forever!”  When this didn’t work the pep-talks morphed into ultimatums.  “If you don’t do this it will continue to hang over your head and you” be miserable forever.  Just do it.”  And still we put it off.

So what’s the moral of this story?  Don’t embrace short term too early.  We were like Eve and Adam in the garden and we ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and though it gave us wonderful, rich insight, it was a mistake as we partook too early.  We had knowledge of the good life too early.  So don’t be like Eve and Adam because we all know what happened to them.  Thanks guys.  The good life is good but it can’t be had prematurely.  Good things come to those who wait.  That’s my lesson for the day.

Shhhh,

Steph

Post Thesis Depression

I have often witnessed the linkage of the metaphor of a baby to the thesis writing process.  It’s your baby, you nurture it and love it and want it out of your life at emotional times and then you have to let it go and send it out into the world (or into your adviser’s hands).  The baby metaphor is apt for so many reasons.  I have never been so ready to wipe up metaphorical baby vomit (linked I guess to damage control like restructuring a chapter or something) or so willing to stay up all night tending to the baby (like typing until 4 am, crawling into bed exhausted and beginning all over again at 7 am).  I have never been so in love with a project and so absolutely afraid of it simultaneously.  I’m afraid I’m going to break it, ruin it, drop it on its head or forget to feed it or something.  A baby!?  I’m not responsible enough for that!  What if I can’t be a good mother?  What if I can’t nurture it and then it will grow up not making sense?  What if my research is misdirected or I’ve chosen a topic that’s been addressed millions of times before?  What if it’s a bad egg?

I have mommy nightmares, stress dreams which wake me up and cause me to sit bolt upright, too anxious to sleep in.  It’s time to go check on the baby.  In my other classes everything relates to my baby, everything is about dualisms and sameness and difference and transcendence, I can’t escape it.  And I write and write and write and write.  I neglect my friends, my hygiene, my life, and I’ve never been so glad to give everything up in my life to devote myself to one single cause.  I’m a mommy martyr for a cause and I’m on fire.

And suddenly…

I’m finished.  And I maybe cry a little bit (at least get choked up reading the conclusion) and I realize it’s time to let it go.  So I do a final check and I dress it up all fancy (black binding from book store) and I go leave it in my adviser’s door.  And I do the whole “I’m SO glad that it’s done!” act but then I return to my apartment and…

I don’t know what to do.  I said I would give myself a break from other classwork for a short time to celebrate so I can’t do that.  I don’t really want to watch a movie, everyone else is working as I finished a week early and I don’t want to do anything else.  Frankly, I feel empty, like something is missing.  It’s the post thesis depression.  Tom Cruise can’t comment on this one (he decried Brooke Shields use of anti-depressants to deal with her  postpartum depression) because I was really feeling it.  I went to bed unsatisfied.  And guess what?  I had thesis nightmares.  Yes, nightmares about thesis still.  I dreamt that the margins of the paper weren’t right, that headings were messed up.  I had anxiety dreams!  And I woke up at 7am.  I was afraid I was permanently scarred and that I’d never get better again.

But as some person once said “time heals all wounds.”  The next night I slept a bit better.  That weekend I actually slept in until 12:45.  Now that’s unheard of for me.  Everyone was surprised.  “Did you JUST wake up?” my roommates asked in disbelief.  Oh I did just wake up.  And I’ve been sleeping in ever since.

So, the baby is an apt metaphor to apply to the thesis writing process.  Though in life one is not required to have a baby like one is required to write a thesis at Bates (though it may feel that way sometimes ladies), thesis is something you birth and it’s incredibly painful, one of your greatest loves and one of the most anxiety producing/keep-you-up-at-night things you will ever encounter.  And it is so totally worth every minute because now it’s all grown up (I have a bound thesis).  Something to show for all my hard work.  And that’s exciting and inspiring.  And though you feel lost for a while after the process is finished, it lasts a hot minute and then you’re like me, ready for short term.

Shhhh,

Steph

The End of the Semester

Each academic semester at Bates has its tell tale signs that the end is near.  Whether it’s absent friends or that the study carole on the third floor of the library that you’ve occupied since the beginning of the semester is (gasp) taken by someone else (So frustrating, especially for people like me who get used to being geographically located in a specific manner in a specific space and get uncomfortable when that’s messed with) the end of the semester brings with it change.  And not always what you view at the time to be good change.  But alas, don’t be frightened as things don’t stay changed forever.  Batesies are not notorious for being locked in the library forever.  Things fall back into place once people have finished their finals and returned from a nice break (either winter or spring).

However, the end of semester stressors have affected me differently this year, I think due to the change in lifestyle that is brought with living off campus. I have different responsibilities than I have had the past three years.  Number one: I DON’T do laundry.  Now I never want to spend two dollars to wash and dry a load of laundry ever but when I’m stressed and trying to manage the end of all my classes and finish thesis?  Forget it.  Number two: lunch goes down the tubes.  Now for those of you who know me you know I eat the same thing for breakfast every day and that it is one of my life’s little joys.  You may also be aware that my off-campus living arrangement includes communal dinners so there is always something at least put together for dinner and usually very tasty.  Now lunch… lunch I’m on my own and I’m busy.  And not only am I busy but I don’t have enough money to eat out every day.  And I don’t always have time to do intense shopping (though grocery shopping is one of the loves of my life.  I amble through the natural foods section of Shaws like a pair of lovers in Central Park on a warm day).  But anyway, bottom line is, I’m not eating gourmet here, I’m eating for energy. And that means vegetables so my whole life doesn’t go to crap, protein so I don’t atrophy away sitting at my desk and carbohydrates.  I eat carbohydrates like a high school cross country runner the night before a meet.  But unfortunately, these foods translate into frozen vegetables, lentils, bread and fruit.  And peanut butter.  Lots and lots of peanut butter.  Number 3: I don’t do dishes.  My roommate deserves a medal for putting up with me and my oatmeal stained pots.  She has been insanely wonderful.  I will pay her back (we’ve discussed this), I just can barely think about cleaning myself more or less cleaning inanimate objects.  Number 4:  I sleep in/on things that aren’t my bed… like my study table at the Ronj… one of my roommate’s caught me the other day and I felt I felt actually embarrassed.  I felt caught in a sad, sad act.

But you know what?  I don’t know if I’d have the end of the semester be any other way.  I honestly believe that if you keep on top of your work during the semester, the end doesn’t have to be painful.  The only reason it’s painful for me is that I chose to totally restructure my thesis and gave myself two weeks to do so.  But I’m nearing the end and boy when I do… I have plans.  I am going to do laundry, eat some delicious food, do some dishes, sleep in my own bed and spend some quality time with my friends.  I can’t wait.

Shhhh,

Steph

WGST End of Semester Dinner

Now that’s it’s the end of the year there are tons of dinners and get togethers to sum everything up.  Many academic departments host end of semester dinners for the student majors and minors.  The Women and Gender Studies department is one such academic department, and this dinner was supposed to include a dance party.  Well, unfortunately the dance party occured after-hours, with one of my friends using the bottled water and left-over angel food cake as dance props while wiggling to Justin Timberlake but the dinner itself was nice.  Seniors received plastic gold “Grad” necklaces and then we each had to stand up and receieve a little plastic contraption that makes noise when shook so that we are all able to find each other during the big senior dinner.  However, because of the economy, these clapper left a little to be desired and half of the people at my table had their clapper disintegrate and fall in their food but that’s okay.  We can just wave the pastic parts in the air at the senior dinner, it will make no difference.

The dinner itself was good.  It was catered by Commons and was upstairs in the new dining hall.  It was very low-key, no speeches or forced interactions.  We came, we ate, we took the center pieces, some of us danced, basically we conquered.

We have a sizable numer of majors and minors this year, moreso than subsequent years which is exciting.  I didn’t get much of a chance to interact with many underclassman but I’m excited for the future of the department. I think it’s finally begun to get noticed and not a second too late I’d say.  All over the world gender studies programs are getting cut from university curricula because people believe that gendered perspectives are now present other university disciplines like sociology and anthropology and history and so on.  So this means gender studies courses can be elimintated?  That’s like saying, oh Obama’s president, we no longer need to discuss race in the classroom.  Even if gendered perspectives are included in other courses, there is something to be said for a discipline that focuses solely on issues of power and inequality.  It’s frightening in a way that these courses viewed as inconsequential now and are getting erased.

But anyway, the dinner was nice.  It was a nice chance to spend time with my fellow classmates and professors and celebrate the end of an intensely stressful semester.  It makes me sad to think of everything wrapping up like this.  Oh well, after thesis I just can’t think about feminist theory for a while.  On purpose at least.

Shhhh,

Steph