The First Monday of the Rest of Your Life

A picture I took of the SIS building, which I love.

So, you used to look forward to Mondays.  The pro and con list tipped in the former’s favor because Derek Satterfield (no tag intended) posted on Monday, that good ol’ chap.  And it cheered you up, and you thought “Maybe this week won’t be so bad.”

By that logic, welcome to hell, ladies and gentlemen.  Because Mondays are mine now.  Muah ha ha.

There's my crepe on the right.  YUM.

I have been at school for 10 days and nothing absolutely revolutionary has happened, except: I have friends.  This weekend was fun.  On Friday, I went to dinner at an Irish pub called Rí Rá.  On Saturday I went to a free play at the Kennedy Center.  On Sunday (yesterday) I went to Eastern Market, which is a flea/food/farmer’s market.  I had a crepe with raspberries, blackberries, peaches and sweet cheese.  It was amazing.  I liked the booth because you paid using “karma cups” in which you placed the money you owed them and they just trusted you.  And judging by the amount of money in the jars, people can be trusted.  And I should start a crepe business.

The Kennedy Center

View of D.C. from the KC

To remind all of my faux friends who don’t remember every detail about me, I am in a Social Justice Living Learning Community this year (fancy way of saying “S.J. themed dorm”).  Which means every person I meet may or may not be a kindred spirit.  Talk about riveting.  Last Saturday we had a retreat from 10-3 in which we really got to know each other.  It was totally refreshing and incredible for me, and now you have to sit through the reason why.

So the whole day was about identity, which ends up being important for social justice because you have to look at yourself and your characteristics/ background to understand where you are privileged and where you are oppressed.  For instance, your religion might put you in an oppressed group, but your sex or class or gender might make you privileged in other ways.  Substitute those nouns for other nouns as you see fit.  As a straight white person coming from a financially secure family, without a (diagnosed) physical or mental disability, one of my biggest “oppressed” characteristics was the fact that I am a woman.  Also I’m not in the religious majority in this country, but thus far I’m not sure that’s affected me too much.

God, I hope this isn’t totally boring you.  (Funny I should bring up God after that last sentence.  I wasn’t even trying to be cheeky).

Anyway, part of the retreat was a series of questions, which we would answer by walking to a particular area of the room beneath an aspect of identity.  For instance, if I was asked, “What part of your identity do you think about the most?”  I might walk over to ‘gender identity’ or ‘sex’, which for me were interchangeable but for a transgendered person might not be.  Anyway, one of the questions had me answering under an “Other” category.  It was “What characteristic about yourself makes you feel marginalized?”

Should we get this deep, folks?  This is the internet, after all.

For me that fact that I don’t drink, due to alcoholism in my family, has put me in a marginalized position in college.  It has also made it harder for me to find social interactions that satisfy me.  I don’t mind being around people who are drinking, but I appreciate at least some sort of stimulating conversation to accompany said booze, which it often does not.  Sitting around watching people inebriate themselves is not fun for me.  And yes I did purposely misuse that word.

And this isn’t a “poor me” story, because since opening up about that, I have had several people approach me to say that they wanted to hang out, and think it’s cool that I don’t drink, I should be worshipped… those sort of normal, non-cultish comments.  And that is why I love people who are committed to Social Justice.  I also love the range of experiences that people in the hall have.  There are people with oppressed religious, ethnic, sexual orientation, and gender expression characteristics.  There are people who don’t have exterior characteristics that society negatively judges, but who recognize that others should enjoy the same privileges.  I will step off my soap box now because this is all starting to smell like jasmine and chamomile.

Anyway, the whole process was much better for me, because, like Raku, I’m not skilled at navigating vapid social interactions like “where are you from?” past the two word response.  Don’t worry, Raku, you’re surrounded by geniuses and they know better than to pass you up.  As I said in my graduation song that was about you, which isn’t weird at all:

This fall when you’re at

The top school in the nation

I hope you’ll think back

To this dinky graduation

“I can’t remember it at all”

You’ll say with a grin

“Except Rachael’s song

I hope I see her again.”

Which at the time was false, because of that whole gap year business (which I would still like to hear about!).  I am also aware that that song excerpt has nothing to do with making friends, except to remind you you’re at a great school and we all support you. (I hate using two consecutive ‘that’s, but I wasn’t sure how to avoid doing so.)

To continue on without a transition, my five classes this semester are: Writing for Mass Communication, Spanish Intermediate I, Introduction to Human Rights, Art of the Renaissance, and International Relations Research.  To remind all of my faux friend—oh wait, I already guilt tripped y’all—I am dual majoring in Environmental Studies and International Studies.  Dual majoring means I’m planning on earning two bachelor’s degrees in four years by not having any fun and only doing school work.  Kidding.  My life just seems prone to hyperbole.

In other news, Devin has safely arrived in Chicago and is enjoying Depaul life.  I have written 1,952 words of a novel (not a story, I’m too artsy for such words), including 24 hyphens because I love hyphenating things, including “poorly-constructed,” “overly-sanitized,” “petroleum-based,” and “plastic-looking.”  I’m starting to doubt that ‘petroleum based’ needs a hyphen, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

Anyway, folks, I’m above 1000 words, which seems like enough for you to have to sit through (notice no one has gotten my novel in the mail).  Congrats on your college journeys having begun or re-begun (ooh, hyphen!) and I can’t wait to hear more about it all.

Best,

Rachael

I actually think this is totally true and I have told Devin something similar many times. Basically I am a sage.