Real Solid Life Skills University

       Cambridge University offers a variety of degrees.  At the graduate level you can take a "research degree" or a "taught degree" and either way, the terminology of the University states that you are "reading" for a degree at Cambridge.  AKA you will spend almost all of your time with your nose buried in a book, journal or staring at a screen full of PDF's.  People here are attempting to answer questions such as "What is the Root of Poverty?" and "What Role do Nueroreceptors Play in the Experience of Pain?"  Questions range from the philosophical to the scientific, and most students (yours truly excluded believe it or not) can drop the names of theorists and articles like they were candy at a parade.  
       As a returning "older" student (egads!) there are times (aka ALL the time) when I wander around feeling not only a little lost, and utterly unsure of what it is I'm doing here, but also as if I have no way to understand what it is that this place and these courses want me to understand.  Sure, I can budget like you wouldn't believe, but do I have any idea what the real, serious epistemological difference between standpoint theory and intersectionality is?  No.  Do I care?  Not really?  Should I?  Yeah, my degree may depend on it.  Surrounded by brilliant young academics, I constantly am reminded that in addition to being at a totally different life stage than most of them, I don't quite belong here in a variety of subtler ways.  I grew up poor, my family while supportive, can't exactly help me be here, and due to some actually awesome philisophical views, don't really give cred to social institutions like "The Ivy League."  I'm not an academic, not even at heart, and I wear (GASP) bootcut blue jeans every day.   That said, I've thought of a place I DO absolutely belong, and sometimes wish I could be.
       I wish I could go "read" for a degree from a place called "Real Solid Life Skills University."   A school where the housing would be a decentish apartment that you shared with three people you were really really good friends with to start with, but each of whom had 1 or 2 really annoying habits that just got worse as the year progressed.  You'd have courses in things like "This Really Fresh, Really Good Fish Was Really Cheap, But Only Because it Still has the Head, Eyes, Guts and Bones, and Other Affordable Foods 101" or "Babysitting and 2 Hours in the Cat Starts Puking and You Can't Get Ahold of the Owners."  The final would be: "Do you and two crying children go to the vet on your mo-ped, or do you risk letting the cat die?  Why or why not."
       Your papers would be on subjects like "Thanksgiving again, and Uncle Bob is still racist, homophobic and sexist: what are your options?"  and "You work 2 minimum wage jobs, can't afford food, let alone anything else, and yet you believe firmly in doing all that you can to not support unfair labor practices in Sri Lanka: how many t-shirts can you buy at 2$ a shirt until you feel real guilt?"
        In real life university you'd be able to cut corners just a little bit routinely, but would randomly get ticketed for doing so, like driving in any major city.  Your deadlines would be flexible with the right people, and most people would be the right sort of people, but every once and a while a rule-monger would appear, and you'd have to suddenly learn to cope, like most of your working life.
       You'd have surprise exercises in the middle of classes.  Budgeting Class would get thrown mid term by "Broken Wrist, Pay Hospital Bills" and "Being a Decent Person" class would get invaded by a tea-partying grandmother, replete with adorable sugar cookies and misspelled sign.  "How Sick Am I Really?" has some overlapping sessions with "Oh Shit Am I Pregnant?," and both of those courses share space on a long day with "Wasn't This Whole Thing Supposed To Be A One-Night Stand?"
           There's risk-taking at the Real Solid Life Skills University.  Frats would host parties entitled "Is This Really the Facebook Photo You Want Your Future Boss To See?" and "Making Wealthy Young Men Look Like Jerks, One Party At A Time."  
         Surprise quizzes, not limited to class rooms, or even hours when sane people are awake, would cover topics like "Who CAN you call at 3am?", "Hey, Isn't That My Shirt?" and "Family vs. Friends: ForeverAlone has to Choose."
       "Real Solid Life Skills University will have a mandatory course for graduates that they'll take 10-15 years after completing their first degree.  Upon your eventual return to school, you'll be forced to sit through "This is Another Bureaucratic Hoop That Neither of Us Needs", which will be a pain in the butt, but easier than "Here's What's Cool Now: Hint, You Aren't," and certainly cheerier than "Eldercare Homes and the Lies They Tell You 101," all of which would be less sobering than the "Your Parents Are People Too" and "Divorce: Maybe It's Time."  Every single one of which would beat "You Can't Eat Like That Anymore" and "You Didn't Know You Had a Ligament There, Now It's Torn."
       I would rock at Real Solid Life Skills University, particularly since I finished the early courses (Take Care of Yourself, No One Else Will, and Couch Surfing Is Not As Glamarous As It Seems) well before age 16.  But instead of "Arguing with Bill Collectors" I'm taking "Gendered Methodologies" and wondering just exactly where I went wrong.  That said, getting an MPhil does fit well into the lessons I learned at "Hoops You Jump Through To Get A Better Job" and "Don't Say No If You'll Regret Doing So On Your Deathbed."  So here I am.  Yes-anding in a place that I still don't believe I can ever really belong, because when I was a kid I took "Here's a Shovel, Clean The Chicken Coop" not "Success; Here it Is!"

Cambridge Colleges: Pembroke

       Originally named the Hall of Valence Mary, Pembroke College is the third oldest of Cambridge's 31 colleges and it's licence was granted to Marie de St. Pol (1303-1377) widow of the Earl of Pembroke,  She had petitioned for the right to found a body of students and fellows within the fledgling University at Cambridge.  Marie, widowed young by her much older husband after only three years of marriage, fostered her new college through it's first three decades of life, helping guide and shape the school to give preference to students form France who had already studied elsewhere in England, and helping lay the foundation of academic excellence that Pembroke prides itself in even today.  the Hall of Valence de Mary eventually became Pembroke Hall, and finaly in 1856, Pembroke College.

       Pembroke is the oldest college within Cambridge to sit on it's original site to this day, and to maintain it's original constitution unbroken.  The colleges founding, and the building of the first college chapel in Cambridge, required Papal Bulls, not something that many of the newer colleges ever had to pursue in order to gain their place at the University of Cambridge.
       Home to over 700 students and fellows, Pembroke is among the largest colleges in Cambridge and sports buildings from almost ever era of Cambridge's history, including the oldest gatehouse still standing in Cambridge today.  Because of it's history, and the fact that the college grew over time, Pembroke has a series of courtyards and gardens, the oldest buildings surrounding "old court" or the original site of the college, and a second court and series of gardens which wrap around the newer chapel (the original was converted to a library) and the more modern(ish) accommodations.

 Pembroke has a student cafe open to the public most days, and like many of the Cambridge Colleges the student groups within Pembroke offer a variety of opportunities for students and fellows to participate in University life, including Pembroke Boat Club and a whole slew of other student organizations that serve not only Pembroke students, but students from across the breadth of the University of Cambridge.
     

 Consecrated in 1665, the Pembroke Chapel was the first designed by Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Pauls' Cathedral whose renowned work included the rebuilding of over 50 London churches after the great fire of 1666, and oddly enough a significant number of the currently standing structures at the University of Oxford.  The high soaring ceiling of the Pembroke Chapel defines a shift in the architecture of college chapels in Cambridge, and represents the diversity of eras represented within the Pembroke site itself.  
   

   Pembroke's notable alumni include Nobel Prize winners William Fowler and John Sulstan, Computer Scientist Yorick Wilks, Poet Thomas Gray, Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, and British Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger.  During it's early years, Pembroke encouraged students to report their course mates if they were seen in "houses if disrepute" or drinking (at least according to Wikipedia), however today Pembroke is home to a lively and highly affordable student bar, something that it's early masters may not have completely approved.
     

 Today Pembroke is one of the friendliest, if smallest, colleges open to regular tourist visitors.  Charging no fee, and providing a series of beautiful paths through some of the most well-tended gardens present in any of Cambridge's many colleges, Pembroke is the picture of what Cambridge evokes in people's minds around the world.
     And yes, even one of Cambridge's most esteemed, oldest colleges, adheres to the idea that all things potentially dangerous, must be labeled.  

Pigeon: A Poem

I felt compelled to be creative, so I drudged up an old poetry draft and finished it. I make no claims to greatness, but it's as good an excuse for another blog entry as anything.

So here it is. A fun poem about a pigeon.

Pigeon

Wings Open

Flying fancy Free

Oh how lucky

thinks the pigeon

To be little Me.

*

Corn scatters

Yellow on the ground

When I am hungry

thinks the pigeon

There’s food to be found.

*

Rain spatters

Pooling in a hollow

Oh how lovely

thinks the pigeon

A place for me to wallow.

*

Warm Air

On a sunny summer day

I must find a place

thinks the pigeon

Where it’s safe for me to lay.

*

*

*

Wings flapping

In the Crisp Happy Air

Oh what glee

thinks the pigeon

To be a bird so fair

*

They’re scruffy

Feathers worn, and falling out

It’s time

thinks the pigeon

To go without a doubt.

*

Leaves drift

Colors floating by

No more hiding

thinks the pigeon

From terror in the sky.

*

Days fade

Longer colder nights

Brrrrrr

thinks the pigeon

No more bugs in sight.

*

*

*

Wings tucked

Held against the cold.

Oh how happy

thinks the pigeon

To be a bird so bold.

*

Snow falls

On the eaves gently landing

Harrumph

thinks the pigeon

It’s frozen where I’m standing.

*

Crumbs land.

Near a bench in the park.

He’s late

thinks the pigeon

It’s almost time for dark.

*

Sun trickles

On the branches so bare.

Oh what fun

thinks the pigeon

I haven’t a single care.

*

*

*

Wings out

Bathing in the sun

Oh how perfect

thinks the pigeon

To be a bird--what fun!

*

Buds pop

Plants bursting joy.

Green

thinks the pigeon

& Bugs to enjoy.

*

Color spots

On all the trees like lace

See all the pretties.

thinks the pigeon

Pretties all over the place.

*

Sun shines

Creating new heat

Where to go

thinks the pigeon

To find a warmer seat.

*

*

*

Wings tired.

Sitting on the ledge.

Slowly

thinks the pigeon

I’ll scoot towards the edge

*

Leaves fall.

On and off, bit by bit.

Heavy

thinks the pigeon

I just want to sit.

*

Light fades

Yellow and red, a tad.

So tired,

thinks the pigeon

And suddenly so sad.

*

Sun sets.

On the pigeon

Above the city so high

Goodbye.

thinks the pigeon

then slowly starts to die.

*

*

*

Wings Open

Flying, again fancy Free

Oh how lucky

thinks the pigeon

To have been little Me.

Op-Ed: Coca-Cola and the Superbowl

  Every month I write an op-ed and fire it off to one or more of the papers in my home state. Sometimes they get published, occassionally they don't, and once in a while they'll either run ONLY online or ONLY in print. This one ran only in print, so I'm posting it here.

Sunday February 2nd was a day much awaited by many in the Pacific Northwest.  For the first time in years the nation’s biggest sporting event, perhaps the most-watched-live event of the year in the United States, was seeing some Pacific Northwestern love.  The Seattle Seahawks got their glorious chance to strut their stuff on a truly national stage.  However, in all honesty, the teams, great defense and well executed strategy is never the only draw for us Americans on Superbowl Sunday.  We also gather around our televisions to watch ads that have been become legendary.
According to the international business times Super Bowl Ad prices have hit an all time high.  With a 30 second spot selling for four million dollars.  That’s more than $130,000 a second.  The companies that buy these ad slots doing so with the full knowledge that a Super Bowl ad is not just an ad.   America has expectations.  These ads are sharp, their messages are clear.  They tell American stories--even if the companies behind them are multi-national conglomerates or even international firms.

Each and every year there’s an ad or two that sparks a discussion.  In 2011 Groupon’s first television experience was a flop, 2012 Teleflora came under the gun for an inuendo-laden bit, 2013 saw GoDaddy.com and Volkswagon fielding queries about the social impact of their ads, and 2014, it seems, is the year for Coca-Cola.  

Coca-Cola a company that produced a seemingly benign patriotic ad featuring images of people from across the country enjoying Coca-Cola to a multi-lingual (and very well executed) rendition of “America The Beautiful.”

The ad didn’t feature women in sexualized positions, it didn’t make fun of minority groups or attempt to appeal to the crass humor of middle school boys.  What this ad did do was represent the United States of America as a melting pot of cultures, languages and histories.  People gathered from all corners of the world, ethnic and/or religious backgrounds and all generations of arrival to the United States, as a part of one nation.  The Coca-Cola ad painted a surprisingly accurate picture of The United States of America that many of us know and love.  A place, that while still struggling for equality for all, is home of the free, land of the brave and a nation built by immigrants.  People who gave up everything to come to a whole new world in order to work hard and create a new future.  

The internet exploded and sites like Twitter went wild.
Apparently the rendition of America the Beautiful in a variety of languages was just too much for some people.
Racist slogans bubbled their way to the surface, demanding immigrants go home, and insisting that the United States had one national language (the US does not in fact have an “official national language according to the Federal Government).  What Coca-Cola inadvertently brought to the surface wasn’t the warm fuzzy feeling of being American that the company no-doubt hoped to evoke, but rather the gut-wrenching reminder that for some people, anyone who doesn't’ look or sound or act like them, cannot be an “American.”  That some people have forgotten that their ancestors too, were once immigrants in a strange new land, and that the promise of opportunity that the US brings is tied irrevocably to a shared commitment and work-ethic.  People proclaiming the utter unbelievability that a major corporation might recognize the United States of America as a land built by immigrants, demonstrated that our immigration problem runs much deeper than a simple broken system that Congress needs to mend.

It also touches on the very soul of our nation.  Immigration is a question of our future.  
Does the United States of America stand as a land of opportunity, where racism and sexism are fought, and hard work pays off, and as a place where people of all cultures, colors and creeds can call each other friend, or is the United States losing that great and proud American dream?  Are we becoming a xenophobic nation, afraid of anyone who isn’t Leave it To Beaver cast-member material?  

Coca-Cola, inadvertent as it may be, has asked us to be a better nation than that.  Has asked us to embrace what makes the United States of America unique, and what is one of our strongest traits--our differences.  So maybe it’s time to call Congress and ask for some legislation change on immigration, and maybe it’s time to remember where almost all Americans today came from---immigrant families, working hard to build this nation into greatness.  Just like so many of the immigrant families here today.

My Grandma: Reminders of Being Away

       Sometimes being far away from home hits you like a kick in the gut.  A reminder that every day, every hour, every minute away, is a minute in which the direction that your life takes is a step further away from the friends and family that make up a place that was once, or maybe still is "home."  There are moments and events that heighten this feeling.  Reminding you again that life goes on without you.  People make decisions that change who they are, your friends move forward while your life seem set on some odd, sideways track.  

       I had a bunch of those reminders this week, and they in turn reminded me of the first, second and third times I decided I was going to "have an adventure" and disappeared off into never-never land.  Knowing at least those second and third times, that life would not wait for me. This time, however, was different, and I knew it when I left.  It's different because the person who has always been the rock of my world honest-to-God might not be there when I go home, already isn't there in so many more ways than one.  I wrote this essay, mostly for myself, a year and a half or so ago.  A reminder that she was fading away, and an acknowledgement that there was nothing I could do to stop it.  Now I'm adding it to this blog, because I had a phone conversation with her today.  With my Grandma Haws.  A conversation that brought back the gut-wrenching reality that the most precious people in our lives are fragile, delicate and only ours for the briefest moments in time.

       My Grandma Haws.

My childhood was tumultuous at times, we never knew it, but my six siblings and I grew up below the federal poverty line.  My mom chose to stay at home and raise us instead of work, and while there were financial consequences to that, there were social and psychological benefits to it as well.  There were times, as a child, when the world did not seem safe to me.  I had moments when  all I wanted to do was run and hide and cry but couldn’t find anyone to cry on because my father was frightening, my mom had the new baby and I was the oldest---”a big girl now.”  A move (when I was 13) from Utah to Oregon further compounded this by separating me from my small, but tightly knit  social group (which ironically was made up of all the non Mormon girls in our whole town).  

But through all of this--and later on in high school and my first few years of college--there was one person that I knew I could always call, or run to or hide behind.  

My Grandma Haws not only moved from Missouri to live near my mom in Utah after my first sister was born, but she packed up her house when we moved to Oregon a decade or so later and followed us there.  She was the babysitter, the helper, the birthday card bringer, the baker, the person who made thanksgiving dinner and the one who let us hold huge trick-or-treating parties at her house in town so that we wouldn’t have to drive from house to house in the country where we lived.

She was also the person who rolled her eyes at me when my aunt gave me a ring for starting my menstrual cycles and the person who did not tolerate fits.  My Grandma  taught me to crochet (I now have several state fair ribbons for my craft), came on family vacations, fixed my boo boos when I fell and let me sleep on her couch when I refused to be in the same house as a creepy friend of my mom’s.  She was also the only Grandparent I ever had.  Her  husband died when my mom was only 16, and my other Grandpa visited at most once a year.  My paternal grandmother disowned us when my parents left the Mormon church.  So Grandma Haws was all we had,  but she made up for it.  She came to all my sister’s little league games, and gave me a standing ovation at every school play.
Then one day, maybe eight years ago, she slowly started to fade away.  
In October of 2012, my Grandma suffered acute renal failure.  We rushed her to the hospital. I held her hands while they searched for a vein.  She wouldn’t eat for days.  After her kidneys were up and running they ran a bunch of tests just to see what was wrong.   When she was there the part of me that believes in magic and the Easter Bunny hoped that they would find something “fixable”, that her dementia was just a mistake, a misdiagnosed tumor or a weird virus.  I had vivid dreams about going into the hospital to find her sitting there--my Grandma, the person I always knew, instead of the curled up unresponsive shell she was becoming.   Her fourth day there they did a CT scan, and she had been misdiagnosed.  
Instead of Alzheimer's she had fronto-temporal lobe dementia.  Yes, her mind was withering, but her memory wasn’t fading away, just her interest in it, and us and the world.   She stopped crocheting because she lost interest, not knowledge.  She burned her hair on a curling iron four years ago not because she didn’t know how to use it, but because she didn’t care.  She got lost because it didn’t matter where she drove.  Candles left out, food left to rot.  Clothes left unwashed.  But she never forgot us, because she never will.  Her memory is intact, her will to live, love, laugh and learn is what is dying.
In someways that CT scan was more devastating that moving her to care facility or seeing her house boxed into tupperwares and stacked in a garage.  That image, her brain, was irrefutable proof that Grandma Haws as I had known her, the Grandma Haws I had leaned on, relied on, who had helped me grow into the woman I have become, wasn’t coming back.  It was medical evidence of what we had seen happening for years.  It was external confirmation that my Grandmother had changed so profoundly that nothing could ever turn that clock back.
But I know that a part of her (at least for a little while) still knows when I am there.  She gives me hugs, tells me that she loves me and holds my hands.  If I bring in crocheting she’ll admire what I’ve done.  On good days she’ll laugh, play cards and smile.  On bad days she lays in bed, and I sit next to her and read.  
My grandmother’s brain is going on a sort of permanent vacation.  I can’t go with her, I can’t even call.  But there are so many things I want to tell her, I want to share my life with her, let her see my excitement at getting a first “real” job, or my pride at learning something new.  I want to cry on her shoulder when the world just hurts.  I need her advice on life, love and living.  But she’s leaving. Slowly and surely fading away.

When I was a kid and through college and beyond, whenever I went far enough away for visits to be out of the question, I promised her I’d write, then I’d send postcards, and updates in notes and letters, letting her know how I was, what was happening and reminding her of all the things we’d need to talk about whenever I got back. So that's what I do now. I write letters, some of which I send, some of which I don't. Letter's telling her about what it's like to be me. Letters asking for advice, and a shoulder to lean on. Letters of all the conversations I wish she could have with me---in person. On the phone. Letters of my life, a life I wish that I could share with her more than anyone in the world.

A life she can't care about too much anymore, because an essential part of her has already started to disappear. Bit by bit. Moment by moment. So I write, letters, fold them neatly, put them in envelopes and then into a drawer. Reminders to value the people I love.