The World I Want

I saw a movie last night that I need to share.

The movie we watched was called "Everything is Illuminated." It was a really beautiful film about a young man going to the Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather from being killed by the NAZIs, in the end though he discovers that his grandfather was saved by the fact that he left the village to go to America a week before the NAZIs arrived. He left behind his wife and his unborn child, whom he was going to America to find a better home for. It was such a beautiful movie because I feel like we all wonder about our past like that, but most people aren't fortunate enough to be able to piece the clues together.

I am part Ukrainian, and my family has a very similar story to this movie, which may have been why I was so deeply moved (besides the fact that the message is so powerful). My mother's father was born in this country at the end of the first world war to Polish and Ukrainian immigrants. The way I've always heard the story, the men came to this country before the women (around the turn of the century) and were followed by the women and children after they had homes and jobs. Family had to be left behind of course, not everyone could or wanted to come. Care packages were sent on a regular basis, and letters were sent and received consistently. The line of communication was never lost between the family. By the time the second world war rolled around, the family in this country was scrambling to keep track of the family in Europe.

Eventually, the family stopped responding to letters and packages sent.

The assumtion always was that they were casualties of war. But no one knows exactly what happened to them, or if there were any survivors at all. We probably never will know.

Hate is so big, and so difficult to overcome. It's so easy to hate the NAZIs for killing our friends and families, and for hating us for no reason at all. But nothing will ever be resolved by fighting hate with hate. Violence begats violence, hate perpetuates hate. I don't hate the NAZIs for killing a family I never got the chance to know, or for shaking the world with so much hatred. I love the beauty in life, spring flowers and chirping birds, light rain on a cloudy afternoon, fresh air and sunshine forever. I don't understand hate, I never will. But I do understand love, and I know the world I want for myself, and for my family. The world I want is love.

How Does It Feel to be a Problem?

"Between me and the world there is ever an unasked question: unaksed by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of right framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word." - W.E.B. DuBois

I'm taking an African American Lit course, and so far I love it. The professor is pretty fantastic, and I'm kind of a celebrity in the English department (and super modest too), so the professor loves me. My creative writing prof from first semester last year must have told her about me (my creative writing professor and I are biffs). I found this quote in one of the readings for this class and I think it's fantastic because it's applicable to any situation, or the struggle of any group. I'm not African American, but I do know how it feels to be made to feel like a problem by everyone around you. The quote just really spoke to me.

My statistics professor is completely insane (in a good way) and we get along really well. She's very... bouncy? I think would be a good way of describing her. She bounces from topic to topic, from thought to thought, very casually. It works, and she's a good professor, but the flow of her thoughts is remarkable to me. During the first class she was trying to memorise names and when she got to me she said I look "mature." I'm not exactly sure how to take that. I know I am mature for my age, at the same time I'm not always mature. I know when to have a good time and when to be serious (don't we all?). She also commented on my "marriage is so gay" t-shirt, saying that she hoped I didn't mean it in the derogatory sense. My friend turned to me and whispered "no lady, it just means she's wicked gay." She'll get to know me though.

I'm taking a pretty heavy course load this semester. Thankfully I'm taking these courses this semester and now next semester, because having 20 credits (from difficult classes) during lacrosse season would completely suck. School before lax, so I wouldn't play. I'm not even sure if I am going to play this year, as much as I want to. We have a new coach, and it's not going to be all nature walks and passing for fun and horsing around like it was last year. Granted we did work hard, but our new coach is going to run us into the ground this year. I need to get to the gym more and start being serious.

In any event, I have a lot on my mind in terms of school, music and lax as of late. There's also this girl and she is really cute, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with that. My issue isn't that I don't have confidence; my issue is that I don't know what I want. The interim between wanting the world and wanting to scorn commonalities. It's a scary place to be.

Comedians

Oh my gosh I saw the FUNNIEST comedians tonight. They were so incredibly funny, and my friends took up two entire rows (all the way across). Although I am the only lesbian in my group of friends (the only out one anyway...) we basically looked like the lesbian contingency of *insert my college name here*. Maybe it's because I hang out with softball players? Who's to say?

But all the lesbian jokes were directed towards us, more specifically me. All I can say is "dora the coochie explora." I was literally on the floor.

I made dinner for four of my friends (and myself) tonight. It was the first time I've ever cooked for people who weren't my mother and her friend and they LOVED it! It was such a big confidence booster for me. The entire hall smelt of the deliciousness and the love for hours. It was so nice to just have a meal with them, in the kitchen, all sitting around drinking TAB soda, eating wonderful pasta, laughing, talking, catching up, reminiscing. We really are the coolest people in the entire world.

I feel so much better than I did a few days ago, thanks to my friends and my school for providing me with awesome outlets. I've never laughed so hard in my life, or smiled so big. I see friendly faces everywhere I go, people know my name, they know who I am, what I stand for. They accept me for me, they know me. I can't get over how good it feels to walk across campus, and KNOW everyone you come across.

I haven't gotten used to not seeing the seniors, and seeing their replacements (the freshmen). I don't know many of the freshmen, the ones I do know are cool. There are like... maybe two out lesbians that I can see, probably ten closet cases. Nobody that I'm really interested in, which is disappointing to me.

She's out there though, I know it.

CAUSING???!!!

CAUSING???? What the hell! Causing is such a ridiculous word. I would like to cause my foot to be lodged in Sigmund Freud's ass. We don't know what "causes" homosexuality, just like we don't know what causes heterosexuality. Who the hell cares what causes it, it exists, we need to figure out how to COEXIST!

"Psychological and social theories
Early childhood seems to be the critical period in which sexual orientation forms, suggesting that learning plays a part in causing homosexuality. Freudians have traditionally held that homosexuality is rooted in early childhood developmental conflicts, particularly the Oedipal conflict. Freudians believe homosexuality develops in response to troubled family relationships, an overly affectionate and dominant mother and a passive father, and/or the loss of one or both parents. However, these theories cannot explain why homosexuality occurs in individuals not coming from these types of families.
More recently, researchers have proposed that social-learning factors may be account for homosexuality. The sexual preference may develop when a child engages in early cross-gender behaviors (behaviors stereotypical of the other sex) or when a teenager's sexual drive emerges during a period of primarily same-gender.

Interactional theories
Proponents of the interactional theory of homosexuality allege that sexual orientation develops from a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors. John Money explains that prenatal hormones first act on the embryo's and fetus's brain, which creates a physiological predisposition toward a particular sexual orientation. During early childhood, social-learning factors influence the child, either facilitating or inhibiting the predisposition."

Home Again Home Again

Got back to school yesterday, and it was and continues to be ridiculously hot in all the dorms.

It's kind of weird being back, the lights are brighter and there is always someone to talk to, someone to hug when you need one, someone at your doorstep when you just want to be alone.

I was basically alone all summer except for hanging out with my friends in the evenings or when we were going on a road trip. Now I am constantly surrounded by life and people and emotions, never ending. So much sound all the time, never a quiet moment. It's weird, but I've never felt lonelier. It makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like something is wrong with me. I was so happy during the summer, with peace and quiet and nothing to do but endless opportunities. Now I am on a schedule and I have work to do, reading and writing and non sense. I just want to sleep, and it's not even the third day yet. I love school, and I love learning, and I love being here and being surrounded by people who I know. People who I all know. What is wrong with me.

I feel like I'm being fake here because I put on this happy facade and then when I'm alone, like now, I get to be me. No one else but me. Maybe I'm anti social. I really hate to say this, and it's so not me which concerns me, but if I could I would just go to my car and cry. Just cry. I'm not homesick, and I'm surrounded by people who care about me and who I care about, but something changed over the last two days. I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

Maybe I just need to settle in. Maybe it's this whole identity thing that I've been having trouble with as of late. I'm not the same person I was last year. Last year I had to tell everyone that I'm a lesbian. This year I tell them what? I still love women, but what I am now? I'm still a chick and I always will be, but there is something more. I'm not just a chick and I'm not just a lesbian.

I hate feeling like this. But I love college, and learning, and my friends.

I'm optimistic that things will get better.

Not Going to Turn Out Like Sylvia Plath

Still packing. I leave tomorrow. Part of me doesn't want to go, because that means having to leave my mother, and she will be lonely without me. The rest of me desperately wants to get as far away from here as possible. Just drive and drive and drive and never look back. Cut all ties, leave everything behind. I need to stop reading The Bell Jar, but I can't. It's too compelling.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

"From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Story of my life.