Showing posts with label Culture as War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture as War. Show all posts

Thursday, November 11, 2021

the elders are (al)right


Took the Cosmopolitanism class to Ziibiwing Center this afternoon; got to chat to Mr. Roy who's given several of my classes the grand tour before. I wasn't able to arrange one this time, but he gave us a short tour anyway. 

The class was standing around, feeling a little out of depth, and Mr. Roy reminded us that the people were Anishnaabe and the language Anishnaabemowin and showed us how everything was titled in Anishnaabemowin and also in English. And then... he taught us to pronounce a word, making us repeat after him: "eh ggzhi bit... now say it all together." And everyone dutifully pronounced it: "exhibit." Ha. It wasn't possible to be stiff after that. 

I noted how people fell silent around the boarding schools exhibit and were startled by the clay people... and then we had some great conversations on our way back to the college. And we got our basketballer to their game on time too.

Monday, November 08, 2021

Shanti Bhavan

This is near Bangalore where my sister is... An amazing story of students overcoming--honestly--unimaginable odds. Here's one:

     "The mango juice tasted funny.

That's how Kusuma started her personal essay when applying to U.S. colleges this year.

Kusuma was then 3 years old. She had 2 older sisters. They lived with their mother, who was raising her 3 daughters on her own.

The family traveled from village to village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, hiding from money lenders who often threatened them with violence. "For years, I had struggled alone, desperate to feed my kids," says Kusuma's mother, Yashodha.

After a long and tiring day, her mother offered all three girls the juice. Then she drank some herself.

"My sisters and I happily gulped it down, ignoring the tingling sensation on our tongues," Kusuma wrote. "I remember my mother was crying, and after we finished our juice, she gave each of us a kiss and told us to go to bed. I woke up in a hospital bed with a tube in my throat. Later, I learned my mother had laced the mango juice with pesticide in an attempt to take our lives and her own."

Sunday, November 07, 2021

discord

for I serenaded the sun today
my mouth a tunnel

                       didn't think of Kapernick's knee
                      then Chauvin's knee
                                                 
for the wind refuses to be silent
as it flicks its tail

                        can't think of Kapernick's knee
                    then Chauvin's knee

         for the war becomes metaphor 
                            only when revolution is near

                             don't think of Kapernick's knee
                    then Chauvin's knee

         for this is a poem that kills poets 
        --whose ghosts live forever 

                            for it thinks of Kapernick's knee
                    then Chauvin's knee
                            

________________________________________
Pic: sunrise and tea on "fall-back" Sunday. 
I wore my hair in a braid and was clearly trying to juggle other strands here as well.

Friday, November 05, 2021

And... Diwali!



With my beautiful, brilliant babies. (Huck is in that first picture too... somewhere!)

We had dinner after pooja, lingering at the table forever, and then we took a starlight walk to help Nu put the chickies to bed. 

I made a payasam (with oats, raisins, coconut, and almonds) that was delicious... but also the laziest sweet one can make (it took ten minutes from start to finish). It has, after all, been a long week. 😇

(Did Diwali go mainstream this year somehow? We received a record number of Diwali greetings from non-Indian friends this year...)


Wednesday, November 03, 2021

Diwali*


* I said a couple of hurried slokas, but we're celebrating on Friday 

as today we have parent-teacher conferences for Nu all evening...

and tomorrow I'll be home late as honorary inductions will run late into the evening...  

but At will stop by on Friday and we'll celebrate together then!!


Friday, October 29, 2021

rally




I started the day feeling less than 100%, but by the time I got to put on this electric blue wig in the evening, I was amped. 

Here I am waiting for Big A to give me a ride to the g/f's halloween party tonight. 

(I'm supposed to be a butterfly... a social butterfly. Ha.)

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

two notes in a minor key


A. This photo on FB marketplace gave me major Hemingway-babyshoes flash fiction vibes.

B. Looking over minutes from last month's faculty meeting (which I had joined online) it turns out that my only contribution had been re. the library deaccession: "Maya—This is a blow. Used to be in acquisitions for post colonialism. Loves teaching in the library stacks. Students are missing opportunity physical catalogues. Going to sell books for peanuts—not placing them in another library. Very upset."

Those last two words made me chuckle extra hard. Not sure if I claimed to be very upset or if the empathetic poet-novelist-playwright colleague who took minutes that day summarized my rant. 

Sunday, October 24, 2021

a variety of strikes


<<<When At was over for birthday celebrations on Friday, he left me a little present on the altar. He's been helping with the Kellogg workers' strike and he and his green jacket made it to the Midwestern Modern Twitter account. Fame!

Still busy celebrating Big A's birthday weekend here. Also: UU, OWL, gardening, A hang with JL to celebrate her new place. But also a weekend where I seem to have blown off three parties (a secular muddle of early halloween and karva chauth) due to a combination of work/malaise.

When I complained about the foggy day to EM as I was trying to beg off going on a walk with her, she said we should pretend we were "visiting Scotland or some other place where the dreary weather has been romanticized." My friends are loving, forgiving and so, so smart.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

happy animals



A long-awaited consult with the kind and compassionate people at the Gender Clinic at the U of M's children's hospital. (It's officially Mott Children's Hospital, but dude was pretty racist even for his time.) 

Nu's happy with the plan of action and we're happy Nu's happy.

<<<<Nu and I loved our Covid-Screening stickers too...

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

a-maze


I'm sorry I couldn't take any pictures of the amazing sunrise over the Maple River as I drove to work. I couldn't get a picture of the amazing combination of sunset-moonrise-full-moon as I made my way back home either, and for the same reason--I was going at 80 mph... I have to make do with a lingering look and what the kids and I used to call "a deep breath of beauty."

The picture I do have is this post-four-classes, end-of-the-day domestic-violence-awareness <<< labyrinth, which became a meaningful moment to pause and reconnect with some wonderful people (KC, SG) who do the hard work in our community. 

Oh, and I got to ask Loretta Ross about Dave Chappelle later. I know her as a reproductive justice activist, so her work on calling-in culture is new-ish to me.

Tuesdays have become Subway days at home, so I ate my sub while watching a show with Big A and the puppies and then took a snooze with them before Nu's bedtime too. Off to "proper" bed now.

Monday, October 18, 2021

well, well, well

 


Here we are at the backend of the term. 

The day started well enough--an early morning hike with L along the river and I felt well rested and well prepped for the new class starting tomorrow...

Then the campus alert system went off as there was a gunman close to campus and streams of police cars seemingly everywhere. Although quickly managed with no loss of life, the tumult of that kept reverberating right through every meeting afterward--even the 7 pm one.


Saturday, October 09, 2021

adventures in bringing up a teen

 



I got permission to use this picture. But... I mean, it's pretty anonymous anyway, no?

Birthday weekend trip to Hot Topic (a.k.a. acc. to Nu as "my natural habitat") and the Halloween store.

Thursday, October 07, 2021

in the war for trans existence


Big A's claim to show-biz fame is that he was in a play with Dave Chappelle. A middle school play. That he got kicked off--Big A not DC--for being mouthy. 

I liked the Chappelle Show, I loved Block Party. When we moved back to Big A's old hometown in 2008, I remember being faintly star struck about seeing DC everywhere. His older kids were in At's range, his youngest is a year behind Nu. Then he became just one more familiar face; it helped that he and his wife E were unfailingly kind to everyone. E "loves" when I post FB pics of the kids; I swoon when she shares pics of award shows. 

But I haven't watched any of his Netflix specials after the first one--it just didn't even seem him--not the funny Neal Brennan Chappelle, not the kind Yellow Springs Chappelle. I vaguely remember a joke he told on the the first one about two gender studies profs he has coffee with regularly and how all he's thinking about when they're talking is that he'd like to fuck them and I kind of checked out after that. 

And now the constant TERF war. RainOfTerra's tweet thread broke me and then I messaged LA (possibly one of the afore-mentioned gender studies profs in YS) around 5:15 am with a link and asked if she or anyone else could reach out to Dave. Her reply started with "Ugh, Dave." and ended with "So I will share this and see if any of Dave’s friends can speak to him in any way he can hear, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope."

And I wish I could do more.

Wednesday, October 06, 2021

"a fair day's work"

 

I stole this pic off of At's Twitter this morning...

and find myself looking at it all the time...

Not sure why (I mean he looks so good and so grown up but still)...

Even Ammama, his #1 fan, doesn't get it. 

But At used to love Capt. America, and I think my brain is seeing his circular UAW placard as a mashup of Capt. America's shield.

"Capt. America but make it union"  

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

404

 


Full day: 10+ hours of teaching and grading and meetings and approx. 2 hours of commuting...

And it's now 3:18 am and I can't stop reading Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Help.

(I liked his All the Light We Cannot See too although its very eurocentric depiction of WWII irked me. This one, OMG, is incredibly lush and includes wide swathes of humanity and historical times.)

Tuesday, September 07, 2021

random




I have no idea why I took this picture of our shadows (Big A and me) yesterday, but I like that my shadow looks vaguely like a mermaid's.

I've tried not to dwell on the news (abortion bans, voting suppressions, Afghanistan, rising rates of Covid) this week in favor of focussing on being the best teacher and parent I can be.

No updates on how that's going yet.

Almost all caught up on admin and to-dos for a bunch of side gigs (CASA, Jaggery, NWSA, and SAWNET) and feeling some relief from that.

Onward.

Sunday, August 22, 2021

hot take

Back walking along the Red Cedar with L today... Scout and Huck heard her at the door when she came to pick me up this morning and went bonkers to see her as she'd been taking care of them while we were gone. Lovely walk; lovely talk; lovely L.

Canceled my planned walk with BS (it was too, too hot and I was way too tired after catching up on housekeeping and new student schedule changes). I was going to cancel my walk with EM too, but she canceled first. Ha. I didn't even have to plead for the pandemic pass as we'd established.

Still thinking of At's impromptu detour yesterday to the Battle of Homestead site. Still thinking and still processing... and so moved by the small donor-funded memorials (physical and virtual) and their commitment to solidarity and workers' rights. 

Saturday, August 21, 2021

@Fallingwater


I've been fascinated with Fallingwater since I first heard of it when I was barely a teenager and lived many continents away. 

I was so happy to be here in this harmonious space today... It was a sweet counterpoint to the one-upmanship of the Pittsburgh skyline.

Back home today to be reunited with Scout and Huck... YAY!

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...