Head Teaching?

I'm debating whether or not I should take the head teacher position, even though I already signed the paper saying I would. I still have so much to learn. I made a list with two columns: "I'm ready" and "I'm not ready," and I've been adding to it daily. I'm going to meet with my principal tomorrow and really lay out my concerns. Most of my issues come from inconsistency due to confidence that I'm still building up. I still have good days (great days!) and "eh" days. I feel like the "eh" days don't affect the kids that deeply because my co-teacher is so strong but if I'M the lead teacher still having "eh" days I'm really not gonna like it...

we'll see. I'ma talk it over with my principal. keep ya posted.

Goodbye, HU

I just grad-ya-ated.


:DDD

I'm so exhausted though. Senior week killed my energy.

Sidebar: I've been facebookless for over a week til today. I thought I missed it so much, but going on it only served to immediately suck my energy even more. I'm not even gonna lie and say that I'm going to delete my account, but I think I'm going to limit my interactions with it. I'm gonna try to go on only once a week. I'll let you know if it works.

What if

I've been kind of weepy this morning. I realize that what really scares me is the idea that things might go downhill from Hampton...and these four years have not exactly been a joyride for me to begin with. I'm plagued with all these questions that some part of me accepts are irrational--but I have them anyway. Like:

What if my overall success at Hampton is indicative of how successful I'll be in life? What if the pattern I've fallen into here...having stellar grades/extracurricular activities/hobbies and interests but sucky intimate interpersonal relationships...is the pattern I'm just stuck in? In terms of trying to form intimate relationships while I've been here, I've felt so misunderstood, so unattractive, so out of place...and my only consolation has been the idea that when I leave this place, I'll finally find somewhere/someone(s) that gets me, where I can bloom to my fullest potential without being viewed as alien or odd. Here, I get the distinct sense that I'm unrecognized, unwanted, uncared for...that people generally see me as a nice, smart but undatable weird girl...and I'm just so tired of feeling this way. Sometimes it makes me angry, sometimes it makes me weepy, most times I try to be numb to it and meditate and focus on the idea that something better is coming, if I could just make it to May 11th...

But what if I'll always be out of place wherever I am...what if people in general always view me as an oddity...what if shit doesn't change? In fact, what if I encountered my best chances of "finding something" while I was here? What if it just gets harder, as hard as it's been here?

That's so depressing. I try not to believe it. I try to believe that I can construct a meaningful life for myself by focusing my intention and taking appropriate action, and that things will work themselves out, and that everything has a reason and purpose, yadda yadda. But it's hard. And today, as I begin the first of the last couple of days before graduation, as I'm closer to the "promised land"...it feels especially hard to believe.

(Sidebar: I feel like I know how enslaved people felt when 1865 rolled around. Half-joking. Only half. And not in a disrespectful, trivializing way. Hampton does feel like a friggin plantation.)

Maybe it's so hard to believe because on some level, it's comforting to latch onto what you know best, even if what you know best is destructive to your soul. As much as I've gone back and forth between hating and strongly disliking this place (Hampton) over the years...it has grudgingly become my home, my comfort zone...so even if there's something better waiting for me down the road, right now something in me is so scared of change that I'm holding onto the toxic idea that this is all there is. I'm scared to let go of Hampton and Hampton ways, as bourgeois and unbased in reality as they are. Even though I know it's not all there is...I know, know know that things come in their own time, and that the only thing I can be sure of is a long succession of change and new experiences.

I'm tryna fade Hampton out into the background, and let what needs to die, die, to paraphrase Clarissa Pinkola Estes again. I'm tryna illuminate/give birth to what's coming ahead, tryna focus on and prepare for the next phase of existence. Trying, trying, trying. Hoping, hoping, hoping.

I'm focusing on the Hindu goddess Kali, the dark mother:

The name Kali derives from the Sanskrit root word Kal meaning time. Nothing escapes from time. Her Tibetan Buddhism counterpart is named Kala, a male figure. Of the Hindu goddesses, Goddess Kali Ma is the most misunderstood. The Encyclopedia Britannica is very mistaken in this quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love."

It is partially accurate to say the Goddess Kali Ma is a goddess of death. However, She brings the death of the ego as the delusional self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the sriptures is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated exclusively with the process of human dying like Yama the Hindu god of death. Both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. The purpose is not to glorify death but to overcome the I-am-the-body idea. The cremation grounds reinforce the idea that the body is a temporary. Kali and Shiva are said to dwell in these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Kali and Shiva give liberation by dissolving the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the ever-existing I AM and not the impermanent body. This is emphasized by the scene in the cremation grounds.

Out of all the Devi forms, Kali is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva. They are the destroyers of unreality. When the ego sees Mother Kali it trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. An individual who is attached to his/her ego will not be able to receive the vision of Mother Kali and She will appear in a fear invoking or "wrathful" form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children. More.

Past present future Hampton NYC Cali hmm

I just came out of Whipple Barn, the building at Hampton where you clear your student account and access your grades and transcripts. It's the first day for seniors to get their academic and financial clearance cards. The building officially opened at 9am. I got there at 8:45 to a short line and open doors--I guess they opened a bit earlier for crowd control. And...my grades weren't ready. So I'll be back. At noon. To a crazy long ass line I'm sure.

On the other hand...

I realize...

I really dooo love the Bay area, CA. Like, I miss it. ALOT. I was there this summer for an internship. It's such an amazing mix of nature and civilization. I Loooove NYC, but I'm not so sure it's my *home.* I feel crazy admitting it. And I'm totally glad I grew up in NYC--I feel like the exposure a city kid gets to so many different things in life is unparalleled. And I'm really looking forward to working in BK and getting to see what NYC is like for a 20-something. But there simply aren't enough trees and mountains there. I'm a sucker for trees and mountains. Like, I can literally be transported (internally) to a place of ecstacy when I'm just IN nature. Which is one reason why I like to garden. (Have I mentioned that before? I do. Watch me have a friggin farm in my apt :oD)

I'm listening to Waiting in the Weeds by the Eagles and I Will by the Beatles. And Wolf at the Door, by Radiohead. Youtube. The shizz.

I know very little about cultural and spiritual traditions of Native Americans. I have a lot of reading and traveling to do. But the little bit I do know inspires me to no end. I am often brought nearly to tears by its simplicity, at the reverence for nature that is so ever present in the traditions that I know a little something about.

Sidebar: In the last few centuries, we've witnessed and participated in humanity's darkest depths...when will we see our highest highs? When will we create our highest highs? Is it just around the bend, are we almost there...

"They keep us uneducated sick and depressed...with no choices there's no hope for us..." (e. badu)


There are many, many reasons why I love Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

"The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands - all these are the making of something, and that something is soul. Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase."

"The creation Mother is always also the Death Mother and vice versa. Because of this dual nature, or double-tasking, the great work before us is to learn to understand what around and about us and what within us must live, and what must die. Our work is to apprehend the timing of both; to allow what must die to die, and what must live to live."

"In a single human being there are many other beings, all with their own values, motives, and devices. Some psychological technologies suggest we arrest these beings, count them, name them, force them into harness till they shuffle along like vanquished slaves. But to do this would halt the dance of wildish lights in a woman's eyes; it would halt her heat lightning and arrest all throwing of sparks. Rather than corrupt her natural beauty, our work is to build for all these beings a wildish countryside wherein the artists among them can make, the lovers love, the healers heal."

"If you are surrounded by people who cross their eyes and look with disgust up at the ceiling when you are in the room, when you speak, when you act and react, then you are with the people who douse passions - yours and probably their own as well. These are not the people who care about you, your work, your life."

"What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life? What do I know should die, but am hesitant to allow to do so? What must die in me in order for me to love? What not-beauty do I fear? Of what use is the power of the not-beautiful to me today? What should die today? What should live? What life am I afraid to give birth to? If not now, when?"

"If you want to create, you have to sacrifice superficiality, some security, and often your desire to be liked, to draw up your most intense insights, your most far-reaching visions."

"The original abandonment, the original abuse, the original horror has some reason and meaning in it. It is not senseless. It is not like being run down like a dog on the highway. Its meaning most often is the development of tremendous strength, tremendous power, tremendous intuition. And I will tell you frankly that most of the people who are the greatest healers living on the face of this earth are unmothered children. One of the great gifts of the unmothered child - and also the healer, and the writer and the musician and all those in the arts who live so close with their ear against the heartbeat of the archetypal unconscious - one of their strongest aspects is intuition."

"Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self."

"At bottom is the best soil to sow and grow something new again. In that sense, hitting bottom, while extremely painful, is also the sowing ground."

A short paper

So I'm cleaning off my desktop as I prepare for graduation (May 11th!). I found this short paper I had to write for my positive psychology class last semester. The end part--the resolution--is BS, classic stuff you gotta write to please some Hampton teachers, but the beginning definitely pinpoints where I was, spiritually, at the time.

Much has changed, I feel.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Positive Psychology
November 13, 2007

When I took the Brief Strengths Test last September on a website called “Authentic Happiness,” I was not surprised to learn that my top five strengths were identified to be “forgiveness and mercy,” “creativity,” “curiosity,” “love of learning,” and “kindness.” I believe that I display each of these traits fairly well and fairly consistently. I was very surprised, however, to learn that my lowest strength – out of a possible 24 – was considered to be “spirituality.” Even though I have eschewed most mainstream forms of organized religion for the past five or so years, and had wavered between agnosticism and atheism in the past year, I had always thought that I was a reasonably spiritual person.
To me, spirituality was not necessarily about taking part in rituals that expressed the mainstream conception of divinity as being separate from and above creation, but it was about recognizing the absolute interdependence between all things in the universe (and beyond, if there is anything beyond this universe). It was about the understanding that we are all connected to one another, despite any facades of difference we might express on this plane. Ever since I had given up the regular practice of Islam, the religion that I was born into, my spiritual journey had included reading books by Alice Walker – my favorite author on the matter – trysts with the I Ching , astrology, crystals, dream catchers, and the Buddha. “I’m always contemplating on how I am functioning in the wheel of samsara ,” I thought to myself. “What d’ya mean that my lowest strength is spirituality?”
The Brief Strengths test identified “spirituality” as “religiousness,” “faith,” and “purpose.” It was easy for me to see how the religiousness factor did not fit into my life, but it was much harder for me to admit that over the years, my sense of faith, direction and purpose had slowly been eroding. Even though I had collected a sizeable number of sound bytes to explain my spiritual orientation to anyone who inquired (“I try to be more spiritual than religious” or “I believe in the all”), in actuality my spirituality was much more a function of intellectual processes than something deeply felt. Though I professed to be a spiritual being, in truth, I had been feeling deeply abandoned by any and all things spiritual. “If this spirit stuff was really true, then whoever or whatever allowed for my existence wouldn’t allow me to feel so unworthy, so unloved, and so lost in the world,” were my most secret thoughts. After reflecting on the test and the ensuing emotions, I wondered why I felt so inferior so much of the time. In an attempt to get to the heart of the matter, I decided to be open to any spiritual instruction that might come my way to open my heart and change these destructive beliefs.
About a couple of weeks ago, a few of my friends held an event called “BCP Breaks it Down: a General Introduction to Alternative Consciousness.” At one point, all of the participants meditated to a tape of positive affirmations from a company called “Think Right Now.” This may sound cheesy, but the meditation proved to be just the medicine I needed. I noticed an immediate shift in my thought patterns, and my acceptance of the one spirit that I believe pervades us all. I have read in many psychology texts, including a text by Dr. Williams, that positive affirmations and meditation are useful tools on the road to radical self-acceptance and self-esteem (which may be understood as a facet of spirituality since it is all about one’s sense of purpose). How true I have found this to be! I now meditate to the tapes regularly, and I am finally on the path to feeling, and not just thinking, spirituality. I’ve finally realized that it’s something that takes willful practice, and not just intellectual acknowledgement. Hopefully the next time that I take the Brief Strengths test, I’ll score a little higher on the spirituality aspect.

ARRRGH Hampton's Stupid Internet Censorship

I'm mad.

Hampton is doing this thing where it blocks websites it deems offensive or pornographic.

I tried to access this blog I used to visit called "Daily Dose of Queer"--and was told that I couldn't because it violated Hampton's acceptable use policy. Apparently it contains pornographic and adult content.

#1. I'm an adult
#2. No it's NOT a porn site--it's purely informational

SMT.

Grr

So.

I'm getting ready to go back to Hampton after being away for Thanksgiving Break.

Not looking forward to it in the least. I am realizing - again - how much that place annoys me, to say the very least. Maybe I should have transferred. Gone to a different school. For a while, I had sucked up my dissatisfaction with the school - after all, I have met amazing folks. Learned a lot about race in the U.S. of A. (how HBCUs differ from other schools in terms of resources, rules and regulations about our sexualities, etc., and why) - but I'm sure I would have learned a lot about race and privilege at any institution; it just would have been served to me in different form. I'm mostly happy with the friendships I've made (sad about ones I've lost or haven't developed fully.)

But take the cool-ass folks away, and we're left with nothing much to be impressed with, in my opinion. I'm sick and tired of that place, forREAL. I'm tired of duking it out with the administration. Tired. Me and Hampton are in an abusive relationship that has dragged on far too long. It needs to end.

I just wish I could graduate already.

Change of plans?

Random:

Yesterday I realized that I really wished I was an English major. But then I chatted with my roommate, and she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason why I'm in Psychology, she said. I just have to find it.

Sophomores. I swear they know everything. (I'm serious- sophomores really have been dropping knowledge on me lately! Go head and just put me in my place why don't ya lol.)

Now, for a more serious conversation.

Yesterday I also spoke with one of my mentors about leadership. I had expressed all the frustrations I had with constantly being in an adversarial relationship with the administration. I was just feeling so TIRED of battling. Last year, I had been in so many newspaper articles because HU refused to recognize a gay-straight alliance that I and others have been trying to get passed for years now. (In the article that went to the Associated Press, I was "anonymous," but I must say the AP did not do a good job of making me anonymous, though that's for another post.) None of those articles seemed to do anything to budge the administration, but what they DID do was make my fam really upset. It was to the point last semester (and the beginning of this one) that I no longer wanted to do the work necessary to get the gay-straight alliance officially recognized on campus. I was really affected by how my family viewed me- it seemed like my work was costing me too much. Frustrations, tears, my family acting really really embarrassed and really hostile about what I was doing- the whole nine. I know that my family felt like I had disrespected them by doing this work and being public about it, and it really bummed me out there was a perception that I was doing this out of hatred for my family.

Even though I really care about ending homophobia, I know that for my family, the sort of alliance building that I've been trying to do on campus is deeply immoral. And as much as I may disagree with them, I never wanted to come across as hating them (my own flesh and blood!). In an effort to rectify the situation and lessen the embarrassment that I know my family feels, I basically shut off when I got back to HU's campus. What's the point, I wondered, of constantly battling with the administration and losing the respect and support of my family? I'm a senior, I need to concentrate on graduating! But gradually I opened myself up to the fact that as a senior, I would have to at least pass the torch on so that the students who will still be here when I leave will have something useful to work with. I have to be sure that I have truly done my part to make it easier for the next folks who take up this work, or who will benefit from this work. So I met with some folks and we planned our first meeting for next week. But I was still dealing with low level feelings of frustration. I was still ambivalent about how much I wanted to put myself out there. So I spoke to my mentor.

"What do you feel about leadership?" I asked. He seemed puzzled, so I explained, "I understand the usefulness of leadership in some situations. But it just always seemed so weird to me that we have systems set up where the main jobs of folks is just to follow. Shouldn't we encourage folks to think for themselves and not follow others? Won't there come a time when leading is outmoded? Is it really always needed?"

I asked a totally philosophical question that didn't even address what I was really feeling, what I was really frustrated about, and yet he just seemed to know what I was really getting at. He seemed to know that I once had secret feelings of abandoning a project that had basically become my baby because the cost of keeping it felt so great.

So he goes, "Let me ask you a question. Are you an elitist?"

It was funny, because I had just been pondering whether or not I was an elitist because I wanted a career for myself, not a job, even though I wasn't quite sure yet what career I wanted.

"Um. I try not to be. But I don't know," I said.

"Do you want to be the best that you can be?" he asked.

"Yea..."

"Do you want to strive to meet your maximum potential?"

"Yea..."

"Well guess what? That puts you ahead of a lot of people. That makes you an elitist. I'm an elitist, too. But I understand the angst you're going through. It took me a while to accept my own position. 'I'm down with the people,' I used to tell myself all the time. It took a teacher of mine asking me the same question I just asked you for me to begin to understand.

"You're right that good leaders shouldn't discourage people from thinking on their own. And all leaders have their flaws. But real leadership is not about the self, it is not about being egotistical. It is recognizing that there are things that need to worked on that are bigger than that. Look- Coretta Scott King just died this year. You don't think Martin Luther King would have wanted to live at least until now? You bet he did. But he knew that there was something bigger. When you lead, you make sacrifices because it's not about YOU. It's about serving a higher cause. Leadership is about service. And it falls on you because there is no other way for you to live comfortably in the world.

"When you go down this path, when this path calls you, you will lose sleep. You will lose hair. You will lose weight. There will be sleepless nights spent thinking about what you're up against. People will think you're crazy half the time.

"But of course, you have to decide if it's something you really want. You have to decide it you will be comfortable living any other way. You have to figure out how much you really care. And if it's something you really want, you can't be mediocre. But 40 nights alone in the wilderness is a long time for one who doesn't really want the path."

The he told me to read DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" for more insight into leadership. He loaded me with articles and books to read, and then he said,

"Too whom much is given, much is required."

Then, almost jokingly, "I don't know if I answered your question."

Something in me clicked. I realized that I really have been blessed with SO much. I consider my education- both in the academic sense and in the "real world" sense- to be fairly top notch. Not perfect, not complete (never complete, I'm sure), but so far, so good nonetheless. I have met many people, I know many theories. I have worked in a variety of different environments. I was homeschooled until the 8th grade, which equipped me with critical thinking skills that proved to be useful enough for me to graduate first in my class in public high school. But my "specialness" is not innate. It's not an essential quality of "Sia" that just self-generated. I am a construction. My parents are both college-educated Black people who have been challenging someone's status quo for at least as long as I was alive. They have always gone against somebody's grain, and this is a legacy that I definitely have been left with. I have been worked on by so many different people, so many different experiences, so many different books and ideas, and I know that had the circumstances of my birth been different for me, I might be a totally different person.

I realized that all that shit that my present set of circumstances allowed me to learn and be exposed to would be wasted if I didn't have a way to share what I have learned. It's all wasted if I'm not applying what I've learned in a way that will make life easier for those who didn't get the things that I got. I have too much to share within me, and if I DON'T get it out, it will eat me alive. If I sat here KNOWING in my soul that the deeply instilled homophobia that pervades our culture is horribly wrong and deeply hurtful, but still I dropped the ball that was thrown to me (for "a reason"- which one, I'm still not sure) and chose not to do anything about it, I would be highly uncomfortable. I might turn heavily in the direction of drugs or partake in other self-destructive behaviors to deal with the discomfort.

I realized how deeply I had misunderstood the position of one of my friends, another person on whom leadership had basically fallen because in her case, she couldn't live comfortably knowing in her soul that racism was killing our people and not do anything about it. She had information that she needed to get out, that she needed to share with others. But at the time, the concept of leadership still felt uncomfortable to me; I still didn't quite *get* it. Even now, I know I have much to learn. But I now know that when I misunderstood the leader without, it was just indicative of how much I misunderstood the leader within. (As above, so below.)

So yea, I basically have re-committed myself to this cause because I really do care about it. And I really do care that the information that I have is passed on in a meaningful way to the students who will still be here when I leave. I love my family so much, and I don't want them to think that I'm fighting this cause because I have less than loving feelings for them. But ultimately, I know that what I'm fighting for is bigger than all of that. It's so much bigger than me.

"If everything must go, then go, that's how I choose to live."
-Lauryn Hill

Art? or Science

I found out yesterday after getting audited by my academic advisor that I could have graduated in December had I applied to do so, because as of this semester, I will be done with all of the requirements for my major (psychology).

That is a beautiful thing. :)

That basically means that next semester, I can take whatever I want.

My dilemma is, of course, what exactly to take.

For a while last year, I was so sure that I wanted to be an art therapist. It seemed like the perfect blend of art and science; in some way or the other, I have always been drawn to both.

I'm a relatively creative person, I think. I like to scribble and design things. But, having never been formally trained in art (except for a drawing class that I took last semester), there are many conventional aspects of art-making that I'm not aware of.

My original plan was to take as many art classes as free electives my senior year at Hampton as I possibly could to strenghten my art-making skills.

But this summer, I met a few folks who work as art therapists, and I kind of felt that perhaps art therapy wasn't my dream profession, afterall.

I realized that what sets me apart from "artists" (specifically, folks who make visual art that is really, really good by most standards) is that I don't really create pieces on a regular basis.

I think I am more attracted to art as philosophy. I like the idea of art and generally feel comfortable amongst folks who incorporate art in their lives in some meaningful way; I'm just not convinced that I have the drive or the talent necessary to "live" as a visual artist; being a visual artist in one's own personal life seems to be the basic requirement of being an art therapist.

I still may take art classes next semester for my own personal gratification, but I recently started exploring the idea of medicine again (I used to want to be a doctor specializing in neurology when I was a child), so I will also take some science classes. At first, I was researching naturopathic medicine (mainly because my family is made up of a bunch of vegetarian herbalists), but I have some fears about being trained in "alternative" medicine without ever having given conventional medicine a try.

So...the clear solution is that I must go to Cuba, get trained in conventional medicine for six years, then come back and get trained in naturopathy!

Only, that will take an excrutiatingly looong time, so I'm still exploring options.

But you already knew that.