I'm not paralyzed
...but I seem to be struck by you,
I wanna make you move,
because you're standing still.
If your body matches
what your eyes can do
you'll probably move right through
me on my way to you.
(Finger Eleven)
My schedule is absolute chaos this week between finals, my thesis defense, term papers, and Simmons work. I don't exactly know how I'm going to accomplish it all, but I am sure it will happen. My thesis defense has been a dark cloud looming over my for the past few months and I'm cramming to get everything finished at the last minute, of course. The data collection took longer than expected because my participant pool wasn't large enough in the psychology department alone. That gave me less time to analyze the results and write up the rest of the paper (which is now at 123 pages, not including appendices, yikes!). My defense is on Thursday. It will be me, standing in front of a bunch of professors in the Psych department who are literally there to grill me about the last two years of work on this project, pick it apart, and tell me why it sucks. I'm just hoping I can battle their questions and still sound halfway intelligent while doing it.
I'll be in South Africa in just a few weeks. I'm leaving right after graduation for a service learning project with ODU. I have never been so scared and excited about a trip in my life. I'll be working at a rape crisis center, counseling victims of rape and sexual assault in Cape Town. For a month, I will be completely immersed in the environment, absorbing every tiny bit of South Africa that I can while also trying to give something back in the process. Every time I tell someone I'm going to South Africa, they look at me, puzzled and ask why. Why wouldn't I rather go somewhere more interesting and safer... like a country in Europe. The reason I want to go to South Africa is because it has been the most steadily changing society over the last twenty years. The transformation that South Africa made after Apartheid government in the 1990's has been remarkable. Racism and sexism (and a bunch of other isms) are still prominent in this society and there are still incredibly poor parts of the country with huge class differences between people who interact on a daily basis... but that's exactly why I want to go. I want to be a part of this transformation and actually see these people learning to let go of the ideas that had been burned in their brains for as long as they can remember. I want to see the blatant oppression and disparity and do something to change that. Working at the rape crisis center will be a whole new experience for me. I worked at one in Norfolk for about a year when I did my internship... but I would imagine the dynamics of rape and sexual violence are so different in a country where rape has been perpetually used as a tool of war.
I suppose I should get to my work now... considering I was just bitching about how much I have to do, yet I am still sitting here writing this. Sorry for the lack of updates, I've completely neglected this for at least the last semester. I'm definitely still alive and doing well, just incredibly busy and overworked. I just keep telling myself... graduation is May 5th...
I wanna make you move,
because you're standing still.
If your body matches
what your eyes can do
you'll probably move right through
me on my way to you.
(Finger Eleven)
My schedule is absolute chaos this week between finals, my thesis defense, term papers, and Simmons work. I don't exactly know how I'm going to accomplish it all, but I am sure it will happen. My thesis defense has been a dark cloud looming over my for the past few months and I'm cramming to get everything finished at the last minute, of course. The data collection took longer than expected because my participant pool wasn't large enough in the psychology department alone. That gave me less time to analyze the results and write up the rest of the paper (which is now at 123 pages, not including appendices, yikes!). My defense is on Thursday. It will be me, standing in front of a bunch of professors in the Psych department who are literally there to grill me about the last two years of work on this project, pick it apart, and tell me why it sucks. I'm just hoping I can battle their questions and still sound halfway intelligent while doing it.
I'll be in South Africa in just a few weeks. I'm leaving right after graduation for a service learning project with ODU. I have never been so scared and excited about a trip in my life. I'll be working at a rape crisis center, counseling victims of rape and sexual assault in Cape Town. For a month, I will be completely immersed in the environment, absorbing every tiny bit of South Africa that I can while also trying to give something back in the process. Every time I tell someone I'm going to South Africa, they look at me, puzzled and ask why. Why wouldn't I rather go somewhere more interesting and safer... like a country in Europe. The reason I want to go to South Africa is because it has been the most steadily changing society over the last twenty years. The transformation that South Africa made after Apartheid government in the 1990's has been remarkable. Racism and sexism (and a bunch of other isms) are still prominent in this society and there are still incredibly poor parts of the country with huge class differences between people who interact on a daily basis... but that's exactly why I want to go. I want to be a part of this transformation and actually see these people learning to let go of the ideas that had been burned in their brains for as long as they can remember. I want to see the blatant oppression and disparity and do something to change that. Working at the rape crisis center will be a whole new experience for me. I worked at one in Norfolk for about a year when I did my internship... but I would imagine the dynamics of rape and sexual violence are so different in a country where rape has been perpetually used as a tool of war.
I suppose I should get to my work now... considering I was just bitching about how much I have to do, yet I am still sitting here writing this. Sorry for the lack of updates, I've completely neglected this for at least the last semester. I'm definitely still alive and doing well, just incredibly busy and overworked. I just keep telling myself... graduation is May 5th...