the beginning of the end of 2009: three promises for 2010

-
it's been over 3 weeks and 3 days since i first presented the ideas for plan c of my dissertation...in 2010, i promise to stick to plan c -- and plan c only -- and push hard to finish the analysis for my dissertation.


it's been over 7 months and 10 days since i last blogged...in 2010, i promise to blog even when i think that what is on my mind is not blog-worthy.


it's been over 3 years and 9 months since i broke up with my last girlfriend...in 2010, i promise to work through the hard times of the relationship in which i am currently and let her hold me when i am down.


i could provide a laundry list of things i "promise" to do as is usual with many new year commitment lists. yet, for the sake of brevity and my sanity, i will just focus on these three. i choose these three because...


first, i would like to move past this economically-impoverished-but-supposedly-high-status phase of my life. i love the fact that being in graduate school allows me to soak up all the knowledge i can carry at time, BUT graduate school is only for a season. and the season is nigh passed. it is time to stick to an idea and see it through to the end. my goal is to write the shortest dissertation possible, and even then, it will probably be too long. lol.


second, while i am trying to usher this economically-impoverished-but-supposedly-high-status season out, i need to maintain my connection to the outside world. the past six months or so, i have been a(n almost) complete hermit. i spent three months in the bay area, passed my qualifying exams, and formalized my relationship with a long-term dating partner of mine, and yet few people actually know these things. i will say that i am a private person, but in this instance, i have let the ball drop for too long. my bad! as i step into the next phase of my life, i will make sure to reach out more in the way i best know how to -- writing.


third, my relationship life is finally stable, and i like that. my connection here provides me a place to be authentic, raw, and uncovered without fear. many a graduate student may have told you about all the criticism and rejection they face. it's simply a fact of our life. yet, humans were designed to be nourished and thrive in places where they are accepted. so, my bruised ego needs somewhere to go when journal-reviewers and professor-mentors give me the stiff arm and cold shoulder. i may be stoic, but in the end i am only human. i am grateful to have someone who is willing to suffer my eccentricities and at the same time push me to better than i currently am.


with that, i sign off this christmas day. a merry day to you and yours!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Acts of Omission et al: Prop 8, Racism, etc

-
Acts of Omission I am typically not one to speak of anything political publicly. However, in the back rooms, I have been privy to a conversation that sympathizes with the highly-publicized fight for gay marriage but finds itself unable to overlook the acts of omission that have come with it. As a person who has lived the predominant part of her adulthood in rural areas as a triple minority, I find several things lacking in the modern gay rights movement that if addressed would assert a more inclusive and progressive agenda. First , I would like someone to take more seriously the prosecution of hate crime statutes that already exist, statutes that have been unable to cease the physical brutality enacted against gay bodies, particularly racialized ones. Second , it would also be nice if someone attended to the spread of AIDS to previously-uninfected communities, an epidemic spread that is exacerbated by the inadequate screening practices of prisons, the patronizing attitudes of scient
Read more

Honoring Our Queer Mothers

-
Image
Today, I am paying a tribute to my Queer Mother, Robin G. White (Bobbie). She is the sole reason I became a co-principal investigator of the National LGBTQ+ Women*s Community Survey ( https://www.lgbtqwomensurvey.org/ ) -- the first-ever large scale study of women who partner with women. I met Robin as a budding runaway dropping in at Vox, Atlanta's teen newspaper. She was the creative writing director then, where I would eventually find a tactile way to use my voice. As I aged through young adulthood, Robin was a constant source of the I'm-gon-come-get-you! kind of love. She fed me, gave me a job, published my first poetry chapbook, let me drive her car, and eventually would just save me over and over and over again.  In September 2015, I asked her to sit my house until I was able to figure out to do with Atlanta. She did, and in so doing, she began a process of discovery for me to identify why the corner my house held in the neighborhood was so sick. We were able to source th
Read more

Urvashi Vaid, A Long Legacy Long in the Making

-
Image
Rest in Power, Urv.  Urvashi Vaid passed Saturday, May 14, 2022. I am lucky she took me under her wings as a fellow Co-PI of the National LGBTQ+ Women's Community Survey. Overseeing the analytical responsibility for the survey, I was also lucky to have the remainder of my comrades-in-arms with me in Atlanta for a long-awaited in-person research meeting when we learned Thursday morning that she had been moved to palliative care.  We were all supposed to meet in-person at the Creative Change conference in New Orleans this past Spring, where she was to be awarded the Susan J.Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement. However, covid got the best of all of us -- and, it was clearly safer for us all to meet online.  Nonetheless, below is a small tribute to Urvashi Vaid -- the world starves for her energy.  Just like the community organizer she was, Urvashi Vaid invited two of her Co-PIs for the National LGBQT+ Women's Community Survey -- J'aime Grant and myself -- to join the stag
Read more