college

Football is for everyone, right?
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Football is for everyone, right?

Within the past year or so, I’ve been slowly getting more and more into football. Most of my friends were already huge fans, but in high school I was into other things. That all changed when I got to college and found myself with nothing to do on Sundays, so I started following the NFL. Now, I’m even starting to get into the college football scene. While reading Brian Jay Eley’s “You See Me” in Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, I came across a quote that really stood out to me, “I believed the rhetoric I was told as a child. I believed that America was great. I believed God was good. I believed that all people were equal. I believed that it was wrong to be mean to people based on who they are. I believed that anyone could grow up to be anything. No one told me explicitly that I couldn’t play with toys for girls. I grew up with the implicit bigotry that surrounds us all.” (page 157) I found this quote incredibly powerful. Eley lists all the things he was told to believe as a child, only to realize later that society often contradicts those ideals. His realization that even something as small as being discouraged from playing with “girls’ toys” reflects larger social standards and restrictions really struck me. It made me think about football. At my high school, they recently created a girls’ flag football team. Now, this might be a hot take, but I’ve never really understood the point of flag football. To me, tackling is part of what makes football, football y’know? Pulling off a flag just feels… different. But what stands out more is that, for a long time, girls didn’t even have the opportunity to experience the sport in any form, at least not where I’m from. Only recently have those opportunities started to appear even if it’s not the same version the boys get to play. I think everyone should be able to experience the game in its full form if they want to. Regardless of gender, anyone should be able to put on the pads, line up on 4th and 1, and feel the same rush that comes with playing the sport.

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The Thing They Don’t Tell You About College

Docile bodies are individuals who have been trained to be obedient an useful to common society. For most people, the act of attending school and reciting the pledge of allegiance puts us in this category; most of my life before college was consistent to a comfy routine of school, hanging out with friends, and enjoying the company of family. This is my second year of college, my freshman year was good! I was adjusting to college life pretty well, but I started noticing things, it had been a while since I had contact with any of my friends from before I left, I relied less and less on my family. I had been trained into the routine of seeing these people everyday for my first 18 years of life, and now I was forced out of that routine of what had became normality for me. It was weird and honestly uncomfortable for me. I know they say that its apart of growing up, but what if it doesn’t have to be? At least, I thought that way; for most of my life I felt like people would come into my life, and then some I had known for years just disappear. It didn’t feel like I had control over who I wanted to have in it; I think over the summer I had came to the realization that life is just like a revolving door, in order for some to enter a few have to leave… I think eventually most if not all of my closest friends from high school will all leave that revolving door, before I might’ve tried to stop it from revolving, but now I might be ready to let go of that. I mean I’ve met some really amazing people already in this new chapter of my life, and I can’t wait to meet more; I feel like most can relate to this, you have this routine for most of your early life and to see the people you remember fade away as you get older is a tough. Eventually we get out of the routine docile bodies puts us in, I mean I haven’t said the pledge of allegiance since high school!

on reclaiming your own agency
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on reclaiming your own agency

“Being perfect is boring, failing is fun.”  I’ve been reflecting on that phrase my roommate shared with me a few nights ago.  I had opened up quite a bit about my struggles with managing academic responsibilities with the expectations of my parents, in addition to whatever standards I have set for myself.  Unfortunately, “perfection,” or something close to it, is the end goal I’ve been conditioned to pursue throughout my academic career.  This has been farther compounded by the fact that I earned the title of the smart kid out of my four siblings (I even got the nickname “professor” for at least a year and a half).  Pair this with constantly having others comment on the excellence of your family and siblings, and now I’m not just chasing after perfection for my own sake, but to uphold my family name.   

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When Failure is Radical.

Affirmations from an unreliable drop out –

I have failed to work with a system that prioritizes productivity over personhood.

I have chosen moving forward over suffering

I will accept myself to spite a value system that does not want acceptance – but always striving for “better”. If I internalize it, that I am always striving for “better”, then I build a comfortable place for the belief that I will never be enough, to rest upon. Instead, I will build space within myself to be less than ideal. 

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Bodies in Motion
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Bodies in Motion

This is my last semester of college and I am now going to transition from being a body in academia to a body in the workforce. This is a terrifying new concept because I honestly never became comfortable in academia and now I get to go be uncomfortable in a whole new arena.  Continue reading →

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Yes, I Know Those Are Gray Hairs

noGray

Recently I came across an article on Hello Giggles that talked about the possible reason that people get gray hair when they are stressed and it got me thinking about gray hair and the value we put on it. Freshmen year of college I was standing in the girls’ floor bathroom brushing my teeth when I noticed I had a gray hair. Continue reading →

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Get Naked to Fight Negative Body Image!

My sister, Lisa, goes to Northwestern University and put the poster to the right on her facebook page. I glanced at it, and immediately loved the idea. A student organization “Active Minds” is asking average students at the University to submit pictures of themselves with their clothing off (without showing anything inappropriate) and without showing their faces to put a cute slogan on a whiteboard or paper and say something positive about that part of their body. I asked her if there were more pictures like the one in this poster. She said yes, go HERE. So I did.

The pictures on this blog are the ones I found on that website. I loved the clever ways people wrote about their bodies and that everyone seems comfortable in their own skin. In a way, it reminds me of the POST SECRET website where people anonymously send in secrets about themselves they’ve never told anyone, and they are viewable publicly on the internet. But unlike PostSecret, this community is just college kids and they’re saying that instead of giving in to the public perception of how bodies “should” be, this is simply the way they are and they’re proud of that and they’re willing to put it in a public place.

I can’t wait to see the kinds of pictures people post, and am also curious to see if anyone will send in a picture of a scar they’re proud of, or if people will send in pictures of their tattoos or piercings like what we’ve discussed in class. I am going to continue to follow this project even after I post this blog and I encourage you to do the same.

The goal of this project by Northwestern University’s “Active Minds” is that they will have lots of pictures of average people who like their bodies the way they are and they will be displayed at the university for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week at the end of March. I couldn’t be happier with this idea.

As a child, I was a ballet dancer, and I was severely underweight. But I thought I looked great because the standard in that environment was, and is, that you are not supposed to have excessive body weight, even in areas like your hips and breasts where you should be gaining weight at puberty. I was exposed to eating disorders at a very young age and know several people who have suffered and nearly died from them.I really like the idea that they’re promoting eating disorder awareness and simultaneously promoting a positive body image. In fact, I like the idea so much I want to start something like this at UMBC. So my question is, if I did, would you join me, and do you think other people would join in?