I'm new
Sometimes you just need an audience, even if it is imaginary.
I just moved to San Francisco from Baltimore. Strange, but, I imagined this different life for myself. Though I've only been here for 2 weeks, I've noticed that really, I'm just me somewhere else. One tends to have romantic notions of relocation. Because I moved here by myself, I am anonymous, which, in theory, sound fabulous. Thoughts like, "Hey, I can be whomever I want" and other such nonsense flow through the mind like milk and honey. So, I moved from apolitical Baltimore to a seeming utopia of political involvement. Images of 'zine-making parties and late night political discussions and actions in the dingiest of coffee-shops permeated my imagination. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that I'd have to spend most of my time trying to find a job to pay for my incredibly high rent and that, though I have a master's degree in Sociology, I am grossly underqualified for most jobs in human services because I am a typical monolinguistic, uber-assimilated Anglo female.
BUT, I moved here to learn. So tomorrow, I will be greatful if I get the job at Whole Foods. I will be greatful if I am allowed to work for free at 826 Valencia. I will be greatful that I am teaching yoga classes (though for free). Finally, I will learn to accept that life doesn't always look the way you think it'll look and that the lessons offered may not be the ones you choose, but the ones that choose you.
I am desperately trying to figure out who I am in the context of not being a cry in the conservative political wilderness. When I taught Sociology at the state university in Baltimore, my students were primarily affluent kids who didn't understand the concept of unearned
privilege. Some had just recently been introduced to the concept of critical thinking. So, I taught them to be critical. But I hit the wall when they asked about the alternatives. I really had no answer because I've never experienced the alternatives aside from working on an organic farm in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Spain. So, if everyone doesn't have the option to hightail it to the mountains to live on a farm, what are the alternatives? How are they realized? Well, San Francisco is the closest American model I have to understand how co-ops work, how alternative communities are formed, where culture is made rather than consumed, and where alternative models for relationships are presented as viable. So, who am I when I am not speaking out against the status quo? That's what I'm here to find out. And if I live it, if I CAN live it, then I will be able to go back into the classroom with an authentic voice of both critique and realistic alternatives.
I just moved to San Francisco from Baltimore. Strange, but, I imagined this different life for myself. Though I've only been here for 2 weeks, I've noticed that really, I'm just me somewhere else. One tends to have romantic notions of relocation. Because I moved here by myself, I am anonymous, which, in theory, sound fabulous. Thoughts like, "Hey, I can be whomever I want" and other such nonsense flow through the mind like milk and honey. So, I moved from apolitical Baltimore to a seeming utopia of political involvement. Images of 'zine-making parties and late night political discussions and actions in the dingiest of coffee-shops permeated my imagination. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that I'd have to spend most of my time trying to find a job to pay for my incredibly high rent and that, though I have a master's degree in Sociology, I am grossly underqualified for most jobs in human services because I am a typical monolinguistic, uber-assimilated Anglo female.
BUT, I moved here to learn. So tomorrow, I will be greatful if I get the job at Whole Foods. I will be greatful if I am allowed to work for free at 826 Valencia. I will be greatful that I am teaching yoga classes (though for free). Finally, I will learn to accept that life doesn't always look the way you think it'll look and that the lessons offered may not be the ones you choose, but the ones that choose you.
I am desperately trying to figure out who I am in the context of not being a cry in the conservative political wilderness. When I taught Sociology at the state university in Baltimore, my students were primarily affluent kids who didn't understand the concept of unearned
privilege. Some had just recently been introduced to the concept of critical thinking. So, I taught them to be critical. But I hit the wall when they asked about the alternatives. I really had no answer because I've never experienced the alternatives aside from working on an organic farm in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Spain. So, if everyone doesn't have the option to hightail it to the mountains to live on a farm, what are the alternatives? How are they realized? Well, San Francisco is the closest American model I have to understand how co-ops work, how alternative communities are formed, where culture is made rather than consumed, and where alternative models for relationships are presented as viable. So, who am I when I am not speaking out against the status quo? That's what I'm here to find out. And if I live it, if I CAN live it, then I will be able to go back into the classroom with an authentic voice of both critique and realistic alternatives.
posted by Heather at 3:59 PM
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