Racism

I really hate discussing racism because discussions never seem to come to a good conclusion. Today in Kresge Core was no exception but it was certainly different than what I am used to. Our teacher wanted us to discuss racism not as an external force but as part of daily life, even on campus. Our class split into groups of seven to discuss a 1988 essay on white priviledge. It said, basically, that in addition to the disadvantages minorities have, there are unfair advantages for white people, and we have to give them up to make any real strides toward equality. Not doing so perpetuates systemic racism. The advantages were things like failing without representing your whole race as failures, being able to speak without your race on trial,and combatting racism without negative consequences. It was not a very convincing essay.

In my group we first tore apart each of her arguments, then said that clearly the eightees were very different than today, then we criticized the author's ability to focus and be coherant. We ridiculed the concept that systems are designed for white people: One priviledge listed was being able to get your hair cut, and another was finding familiar food in the grocery store. "When was the last time you got your hair cut by a white person?" one of us asked. "Grocery stores don't have a 'white' section!" and we laughed. "I say, grocer, procure for me a pheasant, a measure of barley, and mincemeat pies, there's a good man." Then we talked about our own races. No one in my core class is black, but in my group we renounced our priviledge and guilt one by one. "I'm half Israeli" offered one boy, and then we all got into it. "Yeah, I'm actually Irish..." "I'm Asian, from Armenia." "I'm Asian from Russia." The tone of the discussion was very 'These mythical "white" people are apparently behaving very badly. If we see them, we must ask them to stop oppressing everyone.' The half Israeli boy said "You see, none of us are really white. It's an oversimplification. She just wants to make people feel bad." At this point I pointed out that I personally identify as white. I am not visibly the most German/Swedish girl in the world, with my brown hair and green eyes, but I thought that as the physically most northern/western European person in the room I should probably represent a little. It's also a little hard to claim my ethnic roots as I don't speak either language or celebrate the holidays or eat the food or plan to go to either country and I am at least 4th generation American on the most recently immigrated line and American Revolution descended through another line.

We were upsetting our poor teacher with our insistence that we were a multicultural, racism free group. She couldn't actually tell us "No matter where your parents are from you are white kids and people treat you the best and that is wrong and you must change it.", but that is what she implied. "For homework, create a list of the priviledges you have because of age, finances, gender, race, or orientation."

I know that people give me slack that not everyone gets, because I am nice, and young, and sort of pretty. But that doesn't make bandaids or hair salons racist. Honestly, walking around that campus I feel like I'm on the safe side of the power binary. It's a 40 year old state school, not a 200 year old private school, but I still feel it. The way the people who work the dining hall don't speak very much English, the trees and library and the views and the courtyards and the art gallery, the way students ignore all of the people with hands-on jobs except the bus drivers... There is a class issue, if not a concrete racial one. Outside my Core class there were men cutting branches with power tools, and because we absolutely must have silence for our important analysis and high level thinking in our mandatory freshman Core class we were joking and complaining about the noise. "I'm sorry, but it's driving me crazy!" said one girl. "Anyone have a bb gun?" joked our professor.

Neighbors

Today I followed the railroad tracks near my house instead of the road, because the road is very narrow and surrounded by toxic plants that I used to fall into before I decided I would rather be possibly hit by a car than certainly covered in weeping sores. Since it rained yesterday the low parts of the path were muddy and I got mud on one of my feet. The path was very nice and the toxic things were mostly far away. It was quiet and I saw a horse! At one point I had to take my bike over a little railroad bridge and it was fun but scary. It was fun because the gaps between ties were only a little smaller than my foot so I had to be careful and I could see the river, but it was scary when I had to get my bike off of the tracks and didn't realize how steep the concrete bank was. I was walking my bike at that point and it started sliding over and since I had my groceries and books in its crate it was very heavy. Eventually the tracks ended but I could still hear the road and see the path, so I carried on quite far, and biked up a steep paved road that I eventually had to walk up. It was a mile long paved road for just one house!
The house was big though, with chain link fencing and solar panels.

I turned and biked back the way I came and asked the first people I saw, a family with a horse and dogs, which way would take me to the main road. They were so nice! The mom of them sent the son of them on with me to show me the path. He was adorable, showing off like everyone does but not with the subtlety older teens have. "Look, a banana slug!" I said. The santa cruz ones are big and bright! "Have you ever licked one?" he asked. Of course, he has. He also explained that he could fight a mountain lion statue with his pocketknife (it was a really good statue!) and has been electrocuted and when we encountered fallen trees that I took my bike under slowly with some twisting, he said "I'm gonna have to bring a chainsaw up here." I don't know why but I bragged a little bit as well.

Waah.

So on Monday I fell off my bike- actually my bike and I fell, I didn't come off of it- and got poison oak on my hands, and then I touched my eyelid, chin, neck, cheeks, and applied lip gloss with my fingers before washing my hands. I was trying not to do that and didn't realize I had until I started growing a terrible rash. I suspect that rather than touching almost my entire face before washing my hands I moronically touched my contaminated jeans after washing my hands, thus spreading the urishiol oil everywhere.

The internet says urishiol reactions take between 1 and 2 weeks to heal, or possibly as many as five weeks, and can have giant pustules and blistering and can get worse on repetition. This is the third time this year I have exposed myself to urishiol (or fourth because there was one time this summer I didn't do anything out of the ordinary and still got swollen itchy lips), and about the 10th time in my life, between mangoes and summers at camp and I think this is the worst I have had. Still no pustules or blisters, thank God, but talking hurts and I am all itchy and I look terrible because I am holding my face immobile in a sort of droopy sad way.

I am hoping to get over this before my second Macy's interview ("No, it's not contagious! Even the pus is not contagious, I read it online! I got it from touching poison oak, and even though this has happened to me 4 times in the last year, it will not happen again! And I could totally sell makeup even though right now I can't wear it or even talk! And I am still cuter than some of the employees here! And nine out of ten people in general! Excuse me while I curl into a shaking ball to keep from scratching off my own face.") and hopefully over the worst of it before class on Monday.

My new goal is to never do this again ever, which I am accomplishing by staying on the paths at school, and on the pavement where available, and staying on the road when biking (even though cars come so close to me on the tiny roads out here when two drivers are coming in opposite directions! It is so scary!) and possibly buying things to counter urishiol and carrying them everywhere.

Because I consider myself above average in intelligence and also common sense, I do not believe that I keep doing this accidentally. I think there is something about looking and feeling ghastly that my subconscious craves. I sort of like going through my day without moving from reflective surface to reflective surface, and the quality of my interactions with other people is different, in kind of a good way. Because technically I feel better than people I look better than, and worse than people I look worse than, and so when I meet people who look ordinary I am maybe disinterested or watching myself in their glasses and sometimes I feel proud that I am willing to talk to them. And when I am deformed, like right now, I feel kind of grateful that ordinary people are nice to me, instead of entitled to it.

Not sure I can post that, even to a blog no one knows about or has ever read, but I think I need a less painful uglification. I could get glasses again, but those hurt my nose and ears and get stuff on them and I can't see anything that isn't straight ahead of me, which most people apparently don't mind but I normally have the world's best peripheral vision so it drives me crazy. Also my ears are different heights (I am really not as pretty as I delusionally think I am), so there's that. Hm. I could just get Body Dysmorphic Disorder, which is what Uma Thurman had. (although most people are much prettier than her, so I don't know why everyone thinks she has BDD and not just low self esteem) I could just try not being a terrible, judgmental person but I don't really know where to start.

Whee.

I left home at 6 am to get to my 8 am class.
I was late, but it was okay because History of Consciousness has been cancelled. They sent emails to our school accounts but mine isn't functional and I haven't got the internet anyway. Now I have 10 units instead of 15, and trying to add anything is hard because everything is
A) Full
B) on a day I don't have to bus to Santa Cruz
C) Too late in the day for me to get home before 10
D) scheduled at the same time as my remaining 2 classes
E) Impossible to add because I've missed the entrance exam
or
F) Dead boring.

So I guess I am going to sign up for philosophy or poetry, but someday I will take an art class. (all art classes were A or D)

In conclusion: I need a laptop and I need a car.
This is a phenomenal amount of effort- and I haven't attended a single class.

Alright.

Someone is not having a good Welcome Week. Someone with zero planning skills and a new out of town address and no car. Someone with zero planning skills hasn't got a major and signed up for classes using absolutely no criteria, apparently. History of Consciousness? It has history right in the title! And linguistics because one time in community college a girl said she'd taken and liked it.

And has there ever been a smaller college town than Santa Cruz? I can walk across it in an hour and a half. At one point I accidentally walked into the wilderness that is conveniently located down town. My first class is still 2 days away, I don't know why.

Moving

I always sort things into good and useless, I think it's called "wheat from the chaff" but I am not sure because like 98 percent of Americans, I am not a farmer. Anyway, I find this process very satisfying and orderly. These are my attractive coworkers, and these are my unattractive coworkers, and these are the bills that are shabby and going to the bank and these are the crisp ones to give as change, and that is the BART rider I would save if the train was on fire, and these are the destinations I would rather go to Iceland than and these are the destinations I would rather go to than Iceland.

It is really more satisfying than I expected to sort my things into things I am bringing to college and things I am abandoning to the attic. Sitting in my bedroom filled with odds and ends and old projects and seasonal clothes and just detritus of modern life is so sad, but standing in the spare room filled with those items that are essential or wonderful and just relevant to my new life is very satisfying. But my mattress is in the old broken things room and the catbox is in the new life room, so one guess where I still hang out.

Things

I was reading The Simple Dollar, which is a blog written by a man who is not very funny, but I don't mind because I am having the first biologically motivated (as opposed to deadline motivated) all-nighter of my life. Anyway, he says that as a cleansing excercise he examined every item in his office and got rid of it if it didn't truly bring value to his life.

And obviously I have had detachment phases in my life but lifestyle transitions like I am in right now are apparently conducive to hoarding. I got into a fight with Nick about an apron. Because it is my apron, and he has an identical one that he refuses to use because he has gotten it dirty and wants to look professional but not badly enough to actually clean his apron. Further discussion revealed that he believes laundering does not clean garments.

Then I went to Wellsfargo.com and checked that my balance was comfortably high, and then I went to amazon.com and bought only things that will truly bring value to my life, as I have somehow used up or lost all but 4 pairs of panties and can not do laundry every 3 days in Santa Cruz because I hate the laundromat so very much and also will be too busy. Also I bought a jacket that will truly bring value to my life and would bring even more value to my life if I had a massive pair of black sunglasses with brown frames, but I have a pair of massive blue sunglasses with silver frames and they will have to do, because I am poor.

Then I looked at many items in my room to decide whether they truly add value to my life and because of the hoarding mentality every item seems vital. Well, not my books, since the internet came into its own (instead of being composed of poorly punctuated teal text in comic sans, with grey buttons and page update times and visitor counters and moving clip art, oh it was sad.) books are much, much less essential. Are books designed for the juvenile mind? Am I just reading the wrong ones? I am so spoiled by the internet that at the library I will pick up a book and try to read it but I will want more detail about something and want to wikipedia it, or I will be done thinking about oppression or welfare. I want to have conclusions up front and then research them myself.

The pacing of a book is so slow! And in nonfiction books the writers really end up talking down to their audience and sounding patronizing, with their careful interpretation and presentation of endless background information. Very nice hypocrisy Naiomi Watts, stating that women's issues should not be trivialized and then having incredibly one dimensional rhetoric, rivaling any 8th grader's persuasive essay. Perhaps I am reading a book about Wales because I have heard of Wales, not because I have come out of a coma with no memory of my prior life and headed to the library to get my bearings. Maybe if you have to mention the continent and climate and ethnicity you could work it in more subtly.

I am paranoid about being late to my grocery store job so I go to Alameda a little early and sit in the library for 15 or 20 minutes and then head over to the shop, but it's not a very good plan, obviously. The other day I found the upstairs so I guess I can read amgazines, but actually those also assume that the reader is a new transplant to the civilization and has not heard of eggs, or shampoo, or knitting.

The conclusion I take from all of this is that people are not very talented, and writing is too hard for them, and events go by too fast for them to think of timely responses. Or possibly my soul is dead or something and I can't identify with humanity.