ghosts are good company

i have a job! it is seasonal and low-paying and ultimately would be unexciting except that 1) it is a job and 2) they offered it to me less than two hours after my interview. which made me feel shiny.

i also have maybe a plan! i’m hoping to do evergreen in the spring (see boat class, below), hopefully walk at graduation, and then do a different, cheaper, nice, amsterdam sexuality program in the summer. i like having plans.

in long-term plans, a friend of mine mentioned dreaming of moving to vermont, and i glomped onto it. spring? next year? i’ll have graduated, need a place to go to. vermont? two amazing people to live with? uh, sounds great thanks.

derby starts again soon, with a double header exhibition bout on the 23rd. … and my work schedule means no skating class for me. damn, must figure that out.

anyhow, job excitement is the moral of this post!

i am first on the waitlist still, but nowwww the program leaves in less than a month! so chances that i’m going look very. slim.

which leads me to: do i want to graduate in six years but with this awesome gender and sexuality program last on my transcript? or do i just want to freaking graduate already, by taking whatever at evergreen this spring?

the latter is quite appealing (except that the only program that really excites me is this one? but.)… i could still go to amsterdam, it would cost the same (evergreen would want tuition to put it on my transcript anyway), and i could have a college degree. wouldn’t that be nice.

p.s. jaci, there was no way for me to refrain from stealing your boat (garage) for this post. i love you.

so it’s official-ish. i just submitted my application for the amsterdam program this spring. i’ll need to make sure that all of my other things are in, but we should be pretty much on track.

i’m petrified. i’ve been panicking about and procrastinating on this final step - the “give them fifty dollars and then not be able to edit your application” step - for weeks now. but it’s done. and maybe sometime they’ll call me and go “hey, wanna give us lots of money?” … and maybe they won’t.

i joined a new library system today, so that i could check out knit a square, make a toy. it is for absolutely brainless knitting, and is an awesome book. cubbie (and as such really, i, because i inherited his knitting books when he stopped knitting) had a copy, but then our delightful cat butter (who i miss soooo much) peed on it. it’s out of print, and only sixteen libraries in the u.s. seem to have it. handy that one of them is seventeen miles from my house.

speaking of knitting, i am now a ravelry member! i’m puckish there. they’re chugging through invitations fast, if you want to be a member but haven’t signed up yet.

tweedle dum. i’m sitting on a phone book, because my butt still hurts. i’ve been singing “my butt hurrrts,” to the tune of cute overload’s “i et too moishe.” i’m pretty sure that i fractured it on the right side, because… that’s where it hurts the most! i took this week off of (telling my temp place that i’m looking for) work, because it hurts to sit for a long time, but i need to go back to work next week because, hi, amsterdam? i have 1300 saved, and that’s not going to get me far. i should get one of those little thermometers for how much i’ve saved. i wonder where on the internet i could do that in a lazy fashion. i don’t think i care enough to code my own.

i think when/if i hope when the time comes for amsterdam, i’ll create a new blog here for that. because everyone needs many many blogs. and why did i buy myself a fancy domain and stuff if i’m not going to fill it up with stuff? cubbie has, unsurprisingly, stopped using his blog here - and that makes me feel lonely.

want a blog, people i know? i’ve asked you this before, i’m sure.

today was one of the super!productive! awesome. so much stuff recycled and landfilled and going to community thrift tomorrow. we spent six hours sorting. hurray!

i really have no idea, career-wise - which is scary, because that precipice is coming up. everyone keeps asking me if i’m going to graduate this spring, and… i doubt it. i would like to, would like to use that to prove that i’m not as messed up as people probably think i am, would like to use that as proof that my disabilities aren’t debilitating - but i don’t want to graduate just for proof.

the next is a rundown of my summer plans, which don’t exist. chances are you already know these things.

i’ve been waiting and waiting to see the listings for my school’s summer classes. at the beginning of march, “Summer 2007 listings will be available in March” was changed to “Summer 2007 listings will be available in April.” now it’s april and i’m still waiting. a comrade in waiting found the class schedules for summer, though - so at least i know who is teaching when, and the first forty characters of the program title. surprisingly enough, that gives me a lot of hope and eases my worries a bit.

i’m also working on an application for this summer program. it is doubtful that i could both the school of unity and liberation summer school as well as an evergreen class, but i’m hoping that i could work it out - there are a few short-term evergreen pieces that i might be able to schedule around a summer with soul.

if neither of these things work, and if the former works, for that matter, i’ll be looking for a job. i should actually be looking for a job now - temp work would be optimal - to build into the summer, but… i haven’t started. job hunts are an anxious project for people even without anxiety disorders. yippee!

another thing that i want to do before i graduate is take part in this program in the netherlands. working this summer would obviously help support that some… the application for fall isn’t due until may fifteenth, so maybe i should work on that just in case. …except that the program is full. wow.

the netherlands program would also be helpful in my work toward the modern thought and literature program at stanford, in case that’s what i decide to do. for that, “it is recommended that students begin the program with an advanced knowledge of at least one foreign language.” my spanish has always been horrible, but i want to start working on that again - however, by the end of the program i would need to have reading knowledge in two languages. still, i thought at first that it was in two languages *before* the program, so that’s good.

ahh, just thinking about this all is making my stomach hurt. and these are the touchstones, the potential knowns of my future! eep, it’s time for bed.

It feels so delightful to be productive, even if in small ways.

Tonight I went to an alum event for New College of Florida, cubbie’s school, and it was amazing how self-conscious the event made me feel about my strange path through college, considering New College’s reputation for its liberal beliefs on education. For those of you who just tuned in, I did a few credits of college in high school, and then I enrolled in The Evergreen State College, where I did some coursework and some summer work until I realized that I needed to take a year off to get some health stuff figured out. After that, Evergreen wasn’t really a place I felt safe going back to, so I moved to San Francisco to attend City College of San Francisco. My time at City has been largely successful, and I have learned more at City, maybe, than I did my whole time at Evergreen. So, good. I’ve been thinking about how awesome it would be to be able to contribute to this community, to teach on a community college level, so when I found out about the Grow Your Own program at City, I was excited - but I don’t think I’m eligible. The information about it is here.

Sometimes I feel like the struggle to get where you want/need to be, academically (and in terms of careers as well) can be much more difficult than the education/job itself. All I have to say to that is “bleh.”

my friend erin just posted in her blog about a class at uc berkeley that’s happening next semester - it’s called “Sex Change City: Theorizing History in Genderqueer San Francisco,” and is taught by susan stryker. this course makes me giddy.

i’ve been trying to figure out how to make things work out so that i can take the class. i found this bit on the ccsf website:

This program with CCSF and the University of California, Berkeley, provides qualified students the opportunity to enroll in one free UCB course.

… but then i came across this bit, finishing it up:

Students who have attended four-year colleges or universities are not eligible.

humbug.

all of this came up as i was in the middle of looking into some things that i’ve been wanting for christmas, and i was like “yes! this is the best christmas present ever!” … but it turned out to be a lie.

any ideas on how i can fenangle this, anyone?

in other news, i was a fantastic eleanor roosevelt! i’m thinking about wearing the costume again and making cubbie take pictures of me wearing it, because it’s pretty darn cute. i got a lot of compliments on the outfit, and it sounds like my fairly unrehearsed presentation was amusing and educational. woo! one course down.

i know i do. and i probably will talk about some things here that you won’t understand, or at least won’t understand why i care about them or why they’re important to me. but if i’m talking about them here (generally!) i do, or they are. so ask. i like to hope that i can provide articulate answers and explanations.
it’s been a time recently of a lot of Thinking. i’ve spent a large part of my life trying to figure out what i want to do When I Grow Up, and all that jazz. i was thinking about law for a while, i was thinking about museum studies, but after investigating them and taking classes around them, i found them all to be too… something. they were all too constrictive, in precise and difficult-to-articulate ways.

also for most of my life, i’ve been doing activist work. a lot of this has been done through nonprofit organizations, and i’ve thought time and time again about doing something in that arena - but also time and time again, i’ve burnt out like crazy. i need a career where i will not go through cycles of crazy.

and i don’t know if that exists yet, but i know that i need to build it. since moving to san francisco, i’ve met some folks who have been very supportive of me and helped me with ideas. one, who took it for granted that i was going to grad school, suggested a couple of graduate programs to me - the history of consciousness program at uc santa cruz and the modern thought and literature program at stanford both sound fantastic for me, especially the latter. i don’t know if i’m ready though, both because i’m so young still [twenty-one is so young for anything, for everything, but especially for commiting to a ph.d program! also, i should have mentioned in the baby chatter in my last entry - these are plans we’re working on for five to ten to more years down the road], but also because i really need to get my mental health sorted out before i can move into anything that big. i’ve melted down so many times throughout college, which is what’s supposed to happen, somewhat, but… maybe not this much.

well, that was cheerful and optimistic.

there’s a small problem in the schedule of my world where i’d really like to graduate “on time” in the spring of 2007. i could do this if i took few credits during the summer, but what i’d really like to do to finish up my college work is this program, which would be a semester studying gender and sexuality in the netherlands. i think that something like this would be an important experience to cap off my four years of queer and gender studies, because so much of what i’ve done so far is from such a (generally liberal) united states perspective.

another reason taking summer classes might be tricky is that i’m looking at two different summer programs down here in the bay area, both of which are based around anti-oppression work. they seem remarkably similar, with some subtle differences. the first, which i learned about from a guest speaker in my “diversity: transphobia” course (which i will mention in its own entry, because it deserves it), is SOUL - the school of unity & liberation:

SOUL Summer School is an eight-week-long intensive introduction to community organizing and social change, designed for young activists (ages 18-25) who have been involved with social justice organizing for at least one year. SOUL is dedicated to helping young women, young people of color, young working class people and queer youth step up to lead the movement, and SOUL Summer School provides a structured time when [youth] can work full-time to develop [their] grassroots organizing skills and [their] political analysis.

the second, which i found while trying to find the soul program, is diversityworks’ the works program:

The Works begins with an intensive five-week, anti-oppression, social justice training program in which 15-18 youth will come together in the San Francisco Bay Area for educational workshops, service learning and community events. Through these activities, participants gain a deeper understanding of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ableism, ageism, and other forms of oppression. Youth will also develop their own skills as leaders and gain tools for bringing about positive change in their communities. The training program is followed by a month of group-led community action.

i feel like i should take advantage of these opportunities while i’m still considered part of the “youth” community. maybe it seems like this should be obvious - summer program and then netherlands program - but graduating “on time” is for some reason so important to me. i think a lot of it is that i’m currently at my eleventh school in my lifetime, and that’s a lot. it’d be nice to graduate with a degree that says i spent four years learning somewhere (even if it’s pretty much only been two).

anyhow. i’ve been working on this post for two hours. i have class in the morning. this is why my grades are bad.

xo

i’ve been having trouble sleeping, so i’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately. tonight i took a bath and finished (re-)reading my copy of genderqueer. the article about transy house, which is on page 297, i think, if you want to read it in google books. they have a cooperative house that operates in a family structure. the author of the piece owns the house, and discusses how wearing it can be, but the piece is so very full of hope. combining thought about that with the way that babies have been stars in the media that i’ve been consuming lately (the baby on lost is being baptized as i write this) and the dufty-goldfaber baby - oh, also and tango makes three… i’ve been in community baby-raising mood. i suppose it could also be that one of the guys we are hoping will be helping us with hypothetical child(ren) was (maybe is?) in town - and that cubbie is becoming friends with one of his friends who might want to carry a baby… so yeah. babystuff like woah.

i also think that cubbie and i should get registered as domestic partners soon. legal paperwork is good, sometimes - i also want to start thinking about what would be necessary should this type of baby-housing arrangement ever happen. eep.

anyhow, i’ve been doing crazily at school. i think i’m going to make twelve credits this quarter (after having originally registered for seventeen), and i should really pull eighteen credits next semester. i think i can do that, at least if most of them are online.

here are the classes that i’m looking at:

online
intro. to les/bi/gay/trans studies (3 credits)
mass media and society (3 credits)
racial and ethnic groups in the us (3 credits)
strategies for problem studies (2 credits)

in-person
aids in america (3 credits, wednesdays 6:30-9:30)
anthropology of homosexualities (3 credits, mondays 6:30-9:30)
supporting lgbt families in early childhood education (3 credits, tuesdays 6:00-9:00)
diversity: racism (.5 credits, 9:00-1:00, march 3&10)
diversity: classism (.5 credits, 9:00-1:00, february 3&10)

i could pick up a one-credit class if i wanted to get rid of the diversities (they’re early! it’s saturday! i have to get up at seven to get there on time!) in addition to one of the three-credits… i’m thinking that the e.c.e. class might not be for me. i think the best plan is to rank them and see what classes i can get, since my registration date is really late.

anyhow. i need to do better in school next semester, and then i need to graduate, and then i need to do well this summer, and then i need to do… something. and then maybe i’ll feel like i know what’s going on.

so, this is it - good old greendinosaur.net. i have high hopes, but for now it’s just a handful of blogs. at the moment there’s just my cubbie and i here, but i’m hoping to open the space up for family and friends as well. this space, for me, is going to be a fairly general overview of whatever-strikes-my-fancy, and cubbie’s blog (which is entitled “the seams of a (newly) peculiar queer”) is going to be about his experiences as a queer kid who is new to the quaker faith.

i took a class this summer called “art of the blog,” and, well - i’ve been blogging since (eyesquint) 1999, first at diaryland and then at livejournal. this is my first time (outside of the class), though, of hosting my own platform and things. it seems like a good thing for now, to be away from the whims of sixapart (which owns livejournal now) and the like. i’m glad that i’ve practiced this all before, but woah am i rusty. i’m sure i’ll have lots of challenges in the administration of this space, but heck - i’m always up to a new web-adventure.

for some reason, it feels really important to let you know where i’m (literally) coming from. i was born and raised near seattle, and spent two of my last years of high school in san diego before heading to college in olympia, washington. now cubbie and i have relocated to san francisco, where i will finish college and we will while away our days. san francisco seems very important at the moment, probably because it’s so new. still, i feel like it’s a big thig in a way that none of my other moves so far have been.

there’s a lot to get done here before i’ll even think of this as a blog. one thing i’m going to miss about livejournal is the built-in community, what with the… communities. that type of camaraderie is something i’m not sure how to build. but! we’ll figure it out as we go.

i suppose that’s the moral of the story.

oh! and the current title of the blog, “ghosts are good company,” comes from the song of the same name by bishop allen - you can find the lyrics here. the subtitle, which i don’t think is visible with this theme, is “and now the world is suddenly wonderful.” this is my new favorite song, and you can look to see if hypemachine can find you a copy of it by clicking here.

take care, folks.

xoxpuck

[oh, p.s., i’m preparing to use my categories as tags. that’s why i’m using so many of them. if you have any to suggest for any particular entry, or in general, please let me know.]