Super-Short Sunday

I think speakers are showing a little bit more apathy toward our Forum class this semester than they did our freshman year.  Well, the feeling's mutual, buddy.  One day, when a speaker didn't show up, instead of canceling class, Vince gave us his perspective on civic engagement and asked some of us on our progress this semester.  He gave us an explanation as to why we're even worrying about volunteering, and mentioned that the mean reason people shirk their civil responsibility is that they think it has nothing to do with them.  

My progress has been slow, but last week I finally found where I am supposed to be!  What surprised me is that I can literally walk to the site from where I live.  I'll be working with Shoals Sav-a-Life, which focuses on encouraging women not to abort their babies, but to give them a chance at life by keeping them or allowing other families to adopt them.  I actually teared up a couple of times while touring the facility, because I could really feel the reality of what these women go through, and the huge consequences of the choices they make.  These women made the first decision, which began the life inside them; they then choose whether to cut off that life or allow it to continue by not aborting it. I realize not all pregancies are the woman's fault, but choosing to kill a baby does not correct one rapist's actions; it pulls the woman down to his level.  It is not fair that she has to have a baby, but it is no more fair to murder a developing child.

Anyway, the only condition is that I have to get three references, besides the applications I already filled out.  That's not a problem, I just think it will take a while to actually get those reference letters back.  Meaning longer to wait to get my hours in. I think I can make my hours anyway thanks to other volunteer things I'm doing, but it would be nice to not have to hunt down the leaders of those and get them to sign.  But oh well, we'll see.     

How Beer Saved the World

It's been hard to keep track of my posting! Blogging is actually pretty hard to do when you don't have internet at home.  It's kind of awkward writing here in the Lafayette lab... I feel like four people are standing over my shoulder, watching me type and it's like, uhhh....

I met with my advisor this morning before my 11:00 Stats class.  I got there before 10:00, and didn't leave until right before math class started, which is fine since the Geography Department is right next door to the Math Building.  But anyway! I finally got to talk to my advisor, Dr. Koti, whom I already sort of worshipped based on bias because he was A. my advisor; B. Tanzania study abroad trip leader; C. Honors society Phi Kappa Phi leader-person-man.  It actually gives me drive that I can be in more honors societies.  It gives me an actual reason to try in college and care about my GPA.  This whole caring-about-my-GPA thing is a new concept to me.  It started in like, February of last semester, and I have a 4.0 to show for it (my first 4.0 since probably 6th grade). 

Anyway.  I don't see a 4.0 in my future for this semester!  I feel like I'm trying, but I'm so so so busy, and then certain classes are just randomly kicking my butt, and I'm making big, non-college-related decisions during all this which sometimes literally makes it impossible to write reading responses or make time for statistics homework.  Basically, my life has not been revolving around higher education. Somebody slap my wrist immediately. 

Dr. Koti kept asking me what was my plan, what do I want my job to be, etc, and I love questions like those because it gives me a chance to be honest and say, "I don't know."  I mean, I make the answer longer and more intelligent-sounding than that, but I'm essentially shrugging my shoulders.  And he replies with, "Good." I found out some things today.

I had to accept by the end of our meeting that I could not take a swimming class this spring.  I could not take GIS this spring.  Instead, I would have to take Cartography and CIS 225 this spring, and take GIS and and CIS 236 this summer.  Which brings me to the whole reason I'm even letting all this happen: I'm not studying abroad this summer.  I was going to go to Tanzania this summer, but guess what?  There is not Tanzania trip this summer! They are putting it off for next year! And when he told me that, I was surprised, yes, but what surprised me even more was that I wasn't very disappointed.  I think there was some disappointment there, but mostly it was just relief.  What?! I never thought I'd be relieved to hear that I can't do the most awesome thing ever.  But I was.  Because it frees me up.  My money situation for studying abroad is incredibly impossible right now, and I was stubbornly going for it, telling myself it would all work out, but I can accept now that it was not for the best this summer.  I mean, it's not like I don't get to go! I just don't get to go right now.  Which is fine.  Good, actually, because I know my money situation will make a lot more sense next year.

I think today I will call some organizations, like Sav-a-life, Salvation Army, and Northwest Alabama Reading Aides.  I never thought I'd let time slip away so fast that I hadn't even started volunteering regularly and it's almost November.  But it's gonna happen.                 

Eat, Drink, and Be Larry

Our last forum we were focusing on an organization I've always heard about and never quite learned about -The American Junior League International - and that is thanks to Miss Lesley Tomlinson.  First she let us know a little bit about herself, and then about the League of the Shoals. She explained that she had gone to college in search for a "hot shot" job, but then met her husband.  That kind of sounds like a sad story, like she gave up her dream for a career to marry some guy, but she probably just realized that her dream was stupid compared to the life she would have with him.  It happens. 

The Junior League itself has very interesting history!  I liked the story behind it, how it was originally formed to put to use the potential of women who were held back by society and growing restless.  My favorite part about it was that, in 1901, it was founded by a nineteen year old girl named Mary Harriman.  She was my age when she started a mission that outlived the century and bettered women beyond her generation!  Her story is the perfect epitome of what our forum has been about, having dreams for ourselves and our community and working toward making them a reality.

The main tasks the AJLI has is to train their volunteers and maintain effective leadership.  It must do this while being sure to address the most critical needs of the community, whatever they may be, as well as meeting the needs of the women volunteering.  This has been the greatest hardship the organization has seen, because the expectations of the League are high, and the organization must meet the women where they are in order to keep them in.  The facts are, the world is not what it used to be, and women can't afford to devote their entire lives to volunteer service the way they might have in 1901.  Everyone needs an outlet to serve, but these days women are often either the sole or partial money-makers for their families, which takes up substantial time that simply was not demanded of the 1901 Junior League Member. 

Very soon the organization became a quiet but national problem because it was SO exclusive.  12:00 meetings on Tuesdays?  Sorry, working women!  You have to be a stay-at-home caregiver to be one of us!  They have also had to work through prejudicial issues with race, old age, premarital childbirth, even personal vendettas such as who you dated in high school!  I can just imagine the drama that must go into keeping this thing going, all women with their catty leadership, and all local so everyone knows each other's dirty laundry.

I admire Miss Tomlinson's standpoint that when the Junior League denies someone because of their position in life, they are saying "You're not good enough to volunteer."  It's good that she's working to include the older women who want to help and the others.  Still, there were a couple of things that I need to point out: for all the prejudices they are trying to hammer out of the system, there are two clear inconsistencies in her regime.  First, she said without apology that they will take no girls our age when the League is quartered in a college town, which we are.  So 19-year olds in other towns are good enough to volunteer, but not us?  I thought we were supposed to be hearing from organizations we can be a part of.  Secondly, the foundation is by nature "girls only."  Are men not good enough to serve?  There is no remaining male counterpart to the Junior League, so why exclude them from the volunteerism that has been up and running for so long?  Just a couple of thoughts. 

I personally like the thought of a women-run foundation, but she did say they are trying to ditch the "grown-up sorority" reputation, and those are two pretty big people groups for a service foundation to turn up their noses to.

Buttons All Down Her Back

May I just say that LionJobs is a wonderful invention?  When I am educated enough, I am going to be all over the GIS internships they have on that site!  Man, companies really need employers in my field.  It makes me think I'm working toward something important in society, like I am and will be something the world needs more of. 

Speaking of changing the world, this past Monday, we were spoken to by a representive for Big Brothers, Big Sisters.  Now, I have some experience with this organization from when I was a Big Sister my senior year, and let me just say, the one that they run here in Florence sounds a lot more legitimate!  Everything from the mentor screening, to the rules, to their mission sounds like a real improvement on the one run at my high school.  Ours felt like a babysitting program with no real learning, bonding atmosphere, not to mention that half the time I was mentoring little boys who were too shy to talk to me.  Chances are the kids don't need a girl to spend time with them; they're missing a father figure.

Actually, Mrs. Gina Mashburn mentioned just that.  It was honestly kind of a head scratcher because she said that they needed neither girls nor white boys, which is too bad because everyone in our class is either a girl or a white boy.  So basically, we learned that while BBBS is a very effective, important organization in the lives of troubled kids, there isn't a big chance that any of us in the forum really fit the ticket they are looking for to fill those roles.

Of course, I believe they would let our guys make it through the system, because the main issue in our community (and probably most communities) is the lack of fathers in the lives of children, particularly young boys.  I believe that is a big reason that it seems that young men in my generation have such a hard time figuring out how to be a good man.  The only steady people in their lives are usually women, who have to act as both caretaker and role model.  By the time boys are grown, they don't know who to be,  because all they grew up seeing was a woman working hard and taking charge.  I really don't think it matters if the mentor is black, white, or brown, as long as he's setting a good example for his Little Brother. 

I understand that they don't need any more girl mentors, though, since all the Little Sisters have their Bigs.  Having a Big Sister for a Little Brother kind of hinders the point of the service, I know from experience.  I don't know how to relate to a violent sixth grade boy who only wants to talk about AK-57s and skulls.  Calm down, kid. 

:K