Public Displays of Education

Today marked a deadline that I realize I was half-ignoring over the past few weeks: this was the last day to apply for spring degree conferral at my university. And apply I did, today, after hemming and hawing. This means that my department will review whether I can walk in the commencement ceremony in June, and if they deem me worthy, they'll invite me to do so.

My hemming and hawing was driven by what I worry is a lack of worthiness for the ceremony. As of March, I will be finished with the course work I started in September of 2007, which is admittedly an accomplishment. But there is essentially zero chance that I will have defended my master's thesis by the time graduation rolls around. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of participating in a ceremony that says, "You've finished!" while I will likely return to field work or coding data the next week - certainly moving along in the process of my thesis, but not finished by any means.

So I'm slowly gathering the opinions of people around me. The way I see it, I have three choices:

1) Walk this June.
2) Don't walk and have a party instead at a later date.
3) Walk in 2011.

Well, I guess there's a fourth option:

4) Do nothing.

But who knows how many more degrees I'll get in my life? I think I should do something to commemorate this. So option 4 will be tabled for the moment.

I've found myself wondering for whom the commencement ceremony is organized, anyway. As someone who has worked at many graduations over the last 6 years, I have long thought that, though it's important to recognize and celebrate the graduates, commencements are at least as much about thanking the family, friends and colleagues who supported those folks through school. I'm interested in walking across the stage and getting a master's hood because, sure, it'll look cool and I've worked hard for it, but I think I'm more interested in taking my parents, siblings, in-laws and of course my husband out for a meal, to thank them for three years of encouragement, support, love, and laundry assistance. Do I want to make them sit through a ceremony? What if it's a ceremony at the crack of dawn on a Saturday? Is that thanking them? Or just being selfish?

And what if I'm asking all this of them and I haven't even earned the degree? The idea of that makes me feel... greedy, I think.

I also worry about what I perceive as my disordered enjoyment of graduation ceremonies. In my previous job, I organized two graduations a year for adult high school learners. In my current job, I volunteer each spring to marshal a graduate school commencement ceremony. For each of these, the ceremony required a long day on my feet, organizing a large group of people - but I love them. I understand that most people do not enjoy graduations, and that probably a majority of the population loathe them - they are long, the involve speeches, there are a lot of people you don't know there who are crossing the stage while you wait for the one person you care about.

Do I want to "thank" my loved ones with that?

Am I over analyzing this? (Uh, probably, Schmei.)

What would you do?

Shower forecast

As I mentioned recently, my only sister is expecting her first child in the spring. I happily volunteered to host a baby shower, and the invitations have gone out: it's happening in a few weeks. Since my sister and brother-in-law have chosen not to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, and since I know that, even if she did know, my sister wouldn't want to have a party that's all pink frills or blue trucks, I'm aiming for a gender-neutral celebration of new life.

With the help of my creative taller half, I settled on a bird theme, in part because I found this adorable card stock:


(Um, I thought I was being clever, using this for a baby shower. Apparently that's the intended purpose - which I discovered when I did this image search. Whatever. My grandma still thinks it's cute.)

Something my sister and I share is a tendency toward being not the girliest of girls. We're both life-long Girl Scouts. We enjoy hiking in the woods and working in dirt (though her thumb is much greener than mine) and all that stuff. We are tentatively planning to do a triathlon together (there's another post for another time). I tend to hang out with guy-friends. She works in a very male-dominated science field.

All this is to say that meditating on a traditional, all-female baby shower hosted by me for her feels a bit off. On one hand, I very much want to celebrate what my sis is doing, and I think she's going to be a terrific mom. On the other hand, baby showers can veer into the creepy with a quickness, and I do not want to do that.

One baby shower I attended last year was so exhaustingly weird that I had to spend a full day recovering from it afterward. Honestly, I felt like I had a mild case of the flu. The games were so... awful. We had to sniff disposable diapers that had been filled with melted candy bars to determine what the candy had been. This might have been tolerable if it hadn't been the FIFTH activity we were put through (Decorate a bib! Do an icebreaker! Do a forty-minute-long celebrity baby match game! Guess a name! Eat these color-coordinated cookies! Go! GO! GO!!).

It was terrible. Then, when the expectant mother cried at the end with what I perceived as genuine gratitude for all the gifts and support (and, hey, maybe exhaustion at the end of a four-hour long gamefest?), some of the women laughed at her and made a crack about hormones. Huh?

I know.

So... I want to limit this event to one or two games that can serve as icebreakers, with an emphasis on eating good food and cake and enjoying the gift-opening. I'm trying to figure out how to carry the bird theme through the prizes and favors (if those Robin's Eggs chocolates come out before this shower, I'm in business!), and I'm considering which games would work best for the crowd. There will, of course, be a mix of people ranging from my shower-wary self to the "OMG LET'S PLAY GAMES" high school friend of my sister, but if she's disappointed, it's not her shower, right?

If any of my 1.5 readers have ideas for shower games that are actually fun, or prizes I should seek out, please share! As long as I'm not snorting faux-feces, it's going to be better than at least one party... but I'd like to keep the standards a bit higher than that.

The return of the return, and suggestions of kisses

That was certainly a long break, wasn't it? So here's a short post to parallel my last:

I am still alive and am getting back into the patterns of work, school and life in general. This includes planning an upcoming baby shower for my impending niece or nephew, seeing the dim but strengthening light at the end of the graduate school tunnel, pondering possible moves of both career and geographical natures, and - fortunately - reading some good writing.

I finally subscribed to Roger Ebert's blog, after having read several excellent posts over there (I think blog-subscription is a commitment I take a bit too seriously sometimes). He posted again today, about the subject of making out, of all things.

Mr. Ebert writes "It is more erotic to wonder if you're about to be kissed than it is to be kissed." Upon reading that I recalled one of my heart-poundingest memories of high school, when I was riding in a car with a boy and he merely put his hand over mine. I recall becoming a bit dizzy from the least physical contact possible. Fantastic.

So if you require a good long post that will hopefully conjure up a few good memories of your own, head over here. If you find you haven't many memories of this sort of thing, it might time to go make out with someone, don't you think?

Happy new year!

Merry Christmas

This December has been busier and more wonderful than expected so far... which means I've been short on blogging.

So I just wanted to take a moment to say Merry Christmas to all you readers who are celebrating it. The next week, like the past few days, is full of family gatherings for me, so I may not post again until at least the 29th.

In the meantime, I'm wishing you all a warm, healthy, happy holiday.

Another OPB

Things are far enough along that I can write about this in my semi-anonymous blog: my older sister is expecting her first child in April.

This has been a strange and interesting journey for me so far, as the auntie-to-be: my sister is my only sister, and we look and sound similar enough, despite our seven-year age difference, to have been confused for twins in the past. Seeing the changes she's going through in her pregnancy make me wonder how similar my experience might be someday in the future.

My big sister has been very generous with information about the process of pregnancy, which I'm grateful for - there are so many things a woman just doesn't think to ask about these things, so many changes that make some sense, but that I could see not considering until it's my own body surprising me. Like with many things in life, my elder sister is learning from experience and then handing me the cheat sheet, telling me to file these things away until I need to know them. This is definitely the advantage of being the youngest sibling.

While I continue to appreciate the top-notch job my sister does of being a good sister, I am also - like always, when encountered with a pregnant woman - in awe of what she's doing right now. She is growing a person. And she is doing this while going about her days: walking the dog, going to work, taking a swim. She's been growing a person for 22 weeks now, every hour of every day. Women really are incredible in this way, and sometimes the sheer wonder of this capacity we have is a little overwhelming.

My sister was staying at our apartment a few weeks ago when she felt the baby move for the first time in a way that she could definitively tell (she had been feeling "gas" before, but she confessed that the whole pregnancy made her so gassy she wasn't sure what she was feeling! Another note for my future files). When she described the little "dum-da-dump" tapping feeling she felt, right at the front of her belly, I envisioned the tiny hand that played this rhythm, and was amazed. She's growing a person. As I type, even, she's still growing that person. That's... pretty cool.

Over this past weekend we spent a good deal of time with my husband's two new cousins. One is 6 months old, the other 5 weeks. When I was holding the 6-month-old and gazing at sparkling Christmas tree ornaments with him, I realized I had some trouble imagining a time when he didn't exist. I've heard people say this about children before, but this little trailblazer of a cousin might just be the first tyke who made me feel it: there was a whole family, a whole world before him, but now that concept doesn't make sense, because he's here.

I understand that the Mormons believe we all have "eternal" souls, that is, our souls were hanging around waiting to be embodied before we were born - it's part of the reason they have large families. It's not a belief I necessarily share with them, but when a 6-month old baby makes you confused about what life was like before him, it makes one understand where they're coming from.

It's a bit intimidating to think that, this time next year, I'll feel the same way - though surely with more intensity - about my new niece or nephew. Right now it's still hard to imagine my sister and brother-in-law with a child of their own, and myself as an aunt. Soon, we won't remember anything but that.

Good Causes for the Holidays: Greater Chicago Food Depository

I've long been a fan of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, since I first learned about them in 2004. They support a host of housing programs in the city, including the agency where I used to work. I have, in fact, directly benefited from the Food Depository: free lunch was one of the benefits of my former job, and it helped out the staff of a non-profit that really couldn't afford to distribute large paychecks.

When this report came out about American "food insecurity", and this article was posted in the New York Times about the spike in food stamp use, I realized this group has even more work to do this winter... even after the need for food pantries had already increased the last couple of years.

From the report: "This is the highest recorded prevalence rate of food insecurity since 1995 when the first national food security survey was conducted."

This, in the United States, still one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.

Locally, I like to support the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a group that not only assists individuals and families, but supplements all kinds of local charitable organizations - including the program where I used to work. Without food support, I know that many non-profits in the city would have difficulty making ends meet while they are trying to provide services for people who need it most.

After Thanksgiving, which is a holiday of Too Much Food, and in the midst of the baking and overeating that is common during December, it's especially jarring to consider our neighbors who are having trouble putting enough food on the table to meet their nutritional needs.

Of course, this group is location-specific, but I'm sure if you aren't in Chicago there's a similar group fighting hunger. Feeding America (Formerly known as America's Second Harvest) hosts a handy food-bank locator for groups all over the country.

My current workplace is having a Chrismukkah party next week, and we're collecting donations for the Greater Chicago Food Depository as part of the celebration. I've heard of several places doing things like this: hosting parties with a "cover charge" of nonperishable food. It's an easy way to do a little good.

A quick note

Well, it's December already, so I wanted to do a quick little rundown of November and think about what I'd like to do here this month.

* NaBloPoMo was a moderate success for me - I posted 11 times, which fell short of my 15-post goal, but is still the most I've ever posted in a month. (You know, in my long blogging career.) At the moment I'm thinking roughly 10 posts a month is a good average to shoot for while I continue to get my blogging bearings.

* My busy quarter is finished, so I have no classwork to worry about this month... except perhaps some work on my thesis proposal, but I'm giving myself a couple of weeks of not-school thinking.

* I've thought of a few fun stories I'd like to recount here, but I'm still mulling over the multi-part post vs. one huge post format. Readers, which do you prefer? Shorter, episodic storytelling? Or one big blast of reading? If they're shorter posts do you find it annoying if an unrelated post goes up between episodes?

That reminds me, have you read The Pioneer Woman's love story? That was episodic and took her like two years to finish (if it's finished now... I keep hoping she'll pick it up again where she left off, after the wedding). Good reading. I want to be like her when I grow up.

*I'm planning a few more good causes posts. If y'all have suggestions for causes you'd like to hear about, let me know!

It just started snowing outside, so I think this counts as the first day of real live wintertime for Chicago. I love this time of year, when snow is still exciting for everyone, we're all decorating and baking and plotting gifts, school years are winding down and family plans are getting firmed up.

Happy December!