So, my plan for today was to clean and organize my room and begin packing for my departure for the Czech Republic scheduled for this Friday. I was planning on posting some fun tidbits of the joys of packing for a 4 month trip, as well as thank my friends in East Lansing for a fun "final weekend in the United States". Unfortunately, my plans have changed.
When I hadn't yet received my passport with my student visa in it this weekend, I decided I would call the consulate in Chicago this morning to see what the hold up was. I called this morning and, to my disappointment, my visa still has not been processed and there is no way to know when it will be. The lady I spoke with gave me an option of having them send me my passport so I could fly tot he Czech Republic Friday as planned, but when I arrived there I would have to mail my passport back to the consulate in Chicago. Then they would put the visa in it, that would take "only one or two days, no big deal". One little thing - while I send my passport back to the US and wait for it to get its visa, I would be in the Czech Republic illegally. Not really my idea of good way to do study abroad.
So I call the Study Abroad Office and my coordinator tells me to get in touch with Palacky University. At this time it was already after 5 pm in the Czech Republic... So THANK GOODNESS FOR FACEBOOK I start to talk with one of the girls who are picking me up when I get to Olomouc. She was such a help and comfort. She got in contact with her teacher who has been sort of overseeing my coming to Palacky, and she said that I should wait to come to the Czech Republic until I have my passport with the visa. This is because I have to check in with the police after being there for 3 days or something...
So now I'm stuck with two very unfortunate and uncertain options. Either I have the consulate send me my passport, I fly to the Czech Republic, and mail it back to the US leaving me in the Czech Republic illegally; or I cancel my flight and sit and wait until I get my passport with its visa.
Either way, I'm really upset, and now I have no idea when I'll be leaving for the Czech Republic. It may not be for another 2 weeks.
On the bright side, I am so thankful for Facebook and the girls I am in contact with at Palacky University. Because of them I can at least be in contact instantly with someone in the Czech Republic and hopefully speed up something to help me to leave as soon as possible. And school doesn't start until the 14th and the first week, the girls tell me, is really nothing. But that isn't much comfort because I'm bored and ready to leave now! I guess this is my first taste of how things are in the Czech Republic. Hopefully I can look back on all this in an academic way...
Hopefully tomorrow I will have some better news after hearing from Palacky... Until then, positive thoughts for the speedy arrival of my visa and the grace of the Czech immigration police to be gracious and allow me to come study very soon in their country are greatly appreciated!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
End of the semester and an award for research
Since I last posted I have been on my winter break for over a month. I successfully finished my 5th semester at MSU and am now preparing to fly to the Czech Republic to spend a semester at Palacky University in Olomouc. Last semester was incredibly challenging for me academically, so it has been nice having a break from all of that. I've been in Muskegon working at Ryke's Bakery and helping with some things for my dad and stepmom at Clock Funeral Home. I'm really happy I have these jobs to keep me busy (and help me to pay off my credit card) before I leave for study abroad... my departure is fast approaching!
I do have some very exciting news I would like to share... This past semester one of the classes I took in James Madison was a 300 level course titled "Women and Power in Comparative Perspective". I took this class because it met requirements in both my Comparative Cultures and Politics major and Women and Gender Studies Minor. My professor was Dr. Zahra Jamal, and boy did she challenge us! Never before had I read so many different authors in one class. At first it was very overwhelming and I had a hard time keeping up and writing successful responses to each article or book. However, when Monika, Sam, Gaby, and I began to work on our final paper and project for the class, we soon found out all the work in the class was for a reason.
Our final project was a 25 page paper and 25 minute presentation on a topic of our choice, but related to the themes of the course. We chose to research on the topic of Women in Grassroots Organizing and somehow landed on the specific topic on Latinas in Labor Organizing in the United States. Monika came up with the interesting idea of using Chicana feminism as a theoretical background and together we came up with the case studies of the United Farm Workers of America (my focus in the paper), the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and the Garment Workers Center and their boycott of Forever 21. I really love research because no matter how daunting the task at hand it seems as though somehow everything can fit together... and the moment you find that connection and everything clicks is the most satisfying moment for a young researcher and writer. When that moment happened for us, and when we were praised for our presentation to the class, we knew we had done something great!
As we continued working incredibly hard on our research and the paper we decided that, since we had been getting such good feedback from our professer, we should enter it in MSU's Center for Gender in Global Context's undergraduate research competition on women and gender in global context. We were very proud of our work at the time of its completion (and after a few very late nights at the library) and were hoping for the best when we turned in our work to our professer and entered it in the competition.
I am very excited to say that yesterday we received the news that we had been awarded Honorable Mention for our paper, "We have Guts, We Have Spirit: Feminist Applications to Chicana Labor Organization in the United States"!! We didn't win the competition, but the committee doesn't always give honorable mention and they felt we deserved recognition for our hard work. It is so exciting to be recognized for this and I am looking forward to the reception next week!
I am very proud of myself and my friends for writing this paper and am even more excited to continue my studies and to hopefully continue researching women in a global context. I am now more confident in my research and academic skills and am excited for my future. I wonder what I will find in my semester studying Central Europe? I can't wait to find out!
I do have some very exciting news I would like to share... This past semester one of the classes I took in James Madison was a 300 level course titled "Women and Power in Comparative Perspective". I took this class because it met requirements in both my Comparative Cultures and Politics major and Women and Gender Studies Minor. My professor was Dr. Zahra Jamal, and boy did she challenge us! Never before had I read so many different authors in one class. At first it was very overwhelming and I had a hard time keeping up and writing successful responses to each article or book. However, when Monika, Sam, Gaby, and I began to work on our final paper and project for the class, we soon found out all the work in the class was for a reason.
Our final project was a 25 page paper and 25 minute presentation on a topic of our choice, but related to the themes of the course. We chose to research on the topic of Women in Grassroots Organizing and somehow landed on the specific topic on Latinas in Labor Organizing in the United States. Monika came up with the interesting idea of using Chicana feminism as a theoretical background and together we came up with the case studies of the United Farm Workers of America (my focus in the paper), the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and the Garment Workers Center and their boycott of Forever 21. I really love research because no matter how daunting the task at hand it seems as though somehow everything can fit together... and the moment you find that connection and everything clicks is the most satisfying moment for a young researcher and writer. When that moment happened for us, and when we were praised for our presentation to the class, we knew we had done something great!
As we continued working incredibly hard on our research and the paper we decided that, since we had been getting such good feedback from our professer, we should enter it in MSU's Center for Gender in Global Context's undergraduate research competition on women and gender in global context. We were very proud of our work at the time of its completion (and after a few very late nights at the library) and were hoping for the best when we turned in our work to our professer and entered it in the competition.
I am very excited to say that yesterday we received the news that we had been awarded Honorable Mention for our paper, "We have Guts, We Have Spirit: Feminist Applications to Chicana Labor Organization in the United States"!! We didn't win the competition, but the committee doesn't always give honorable mention and they felt we deserved recognition for our hard work. It is so exciting to be recognized for this and I am looking forward to the reception next week!
I am very proud of myself and my friends for writing this paper and am even more excited to continue my studies and to hopefully continue researching women in a global context. I am now more confident in my research and academic skills and am excited for my future. I wonder what I will find in my semester studying Central Europe? I can't wait to find out!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Starting a blog instead of writing a paper
I've decided to start a blog... I've contemplated it before, and I knew it would be a good idea for my travels to the Czech Republic and back through Europe. Tonight I should be continuing work on a couple of papers and be researching like mad... but my brain is so full of all this information that it is hard to focus on one thing long enough to actually get anything accomplished. One of the papers I am working on is for my Introduction to Women's Studies class I am required to take for my minor in Women's and Gender Studies. I have decided to write this paper about an excerpt from Margaret Sanger's "Woman and the New Race". I really wanted to share this introduction to the excerpt:
"Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) dedicated her book, Woman and the New Race, to the memory of her mother "who gave birth to eleven living children" and who died at the age of forty-eight. In her work ans a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger witnessed first-hand the disastrous economic and physical effects on poor women and their families of uncontrolled fertility. It became her life's mission to give every woman the right "to control her own body.""
Reading things like this reminds me how privileged I am, and why I study what I do. It still amazes me how much women have fought, and continue to fight, to have control of their own bodies. It is true that today, in the United States at least, the majority of women have access to birth control and ideas about motherhood have shifted and women do have more of a choice. However, women do not have control over their bodies in many ways even today. The media is one such place that I see women continually objectified to what society calls for in a woman. And then my friend posted this on Facebook: "Oh America, why is it ok to dismember a woman on prime time TV but ample cleavage on a living, breathing woman is not? Just wondering." I wonder the same thing, Dita Von Teese." It just makes me think... why is it that women are subjected to this kind of treatment? I have read plenty of theories of nature vs. culture and that the gender division is a social construction that continues to be reproduced so that we are continually caught in a vicious circle... But I really want to see an end to it. I do not feel the effects of this day to day, and I am very fortunate for that. But women in all walks of life face adversity because of their sex every day, and it still doesn't make sense to me.
So, I guess that is why I study what I do. At times it feels hopeless, but women like Margaret Sanger remind me that women are invincible. I hope that in my life I can try to make a difference for my fellow women, or that I can witness an improvement in our lives. I really don't think it's wishful thinking. As Sanger said, women must take matters into their own hands and demand the rights they deserve.
Nice first post, huh? This is the way my brain is working these days as I am so entrenched with writing and researching with 5 weeks left in the semester. I'm sure I will write about theories and representations of post communist Eastern Europe very soon... Maybe, if anything, this blog can help me write my papers. Now that's what I call productive procrastination!
"Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) dedicated her book, Woman and the New Race, to the memory of her mother "who gave birth to eleven living children" and who died at the age of forty-eight. In her work ans a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger witnessed first-hand the disastrous economic and physical effects on poor women and their families of uncontrolled fertility. It became her life's mission to give every woman the right "to control her own body.""
Reading things like this reminds me how privileged I am, and why I study what I do. It still amazes me how much women have fought, and continue to fight, to have control of their own bodies. It is true that today, in the United States at least, the majority of women have access to birth control and ideas about motherhood have shifted and women do have more of a choice. However, women do not have control over their bodies in many ways even today. The media is one such place that I see women continually objectified to what society calls for in a woman. And then my friend posted this on Facebook: "Oh America, why is it ok to dismember a woman on prime time TV but ample cleavage on a living, breathing woman is not? Just wondering." I wonder the same thing, Dita Von Teese." It just makes me think... why is it that women are subjected to this kind of treatment? I have read plenty of theories of nature vs. culture and that the gender division is a social construction that continues to be reproduced so that we are continually caught in a vicious circle... But I really want to see an end to it. I do not feel the effects of this day to day, and I am very fortunate for that. But women in all walks of life face adversity because of their sex every day, and it still doesn't make sense to me.
So, I guess that is why I study what I do. At times it feels hopeless, but women like Margaret Sanger remind me that women are invincible. I hope that in my life I can try to make a difference for my fellow women, or that I can witness an improvement in our lives. I really don't think it's wishful thinking. As Sanger said, women must take matters into their own hands and demand the rights they deserve.
Nice first post, huh? This is the way my brain is working these days as I am so entrenched with writing and researching with 5 weeks left in the semester. I'm sure I will write about theories and representations of post communist Eastern Europe very soon... Maybe, if anything, this blog can help me write my papers. Now that's what I call productive procrastination!
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