so very much goin' on...

To say I've been "busy" lately would be to understate quite a bit, especially considering the fact that on top of all of my scheduled and extracurricular busyness, I have also been busy getting married to the man of my dreams. Which, without question, is the best thing I have ever done in my entire life. Sorry to be totally cheese-ball, but CW has been bouncing around the office telling the chicks in there that he wishes he could marry me every day, so I wanted to elicit the same nausea from my blog readers(all three of you)!

There you go!

In terms of all the other stuff going on, it is essentially the normal end-of-semester mania(compounded by the fact that I took an extra course this semester), along with some extra responsibilities that I took on, apparently just to make life interesting. One of these was yesterday's Graduate Student Symposium at CCNY, where I signed on to host a table to showcase the history of the Language and Literacy program, along with some graduate-level work from students such as yours truly. Although I was slightly worried that the presentation was going to be muy weak, son, it actually turned out pretty damn fabulous.

The Symposium itself was pretty great, too, as there were presenters from all walks of graduate life. For instance, Arien Muzacz, a grad student in the Pscyh/Mental Health dept gave a presentation on "Queer Aging" that was really thought provoking. Another Psych MA student, Sharon Herman, gave a talk on Bilinugalism, and specifically how it relates to identity, personality, and emotion. There was a lot of cool science stuff too, which flew right over my head, such as the collaboration between the Bio dept and the Computer Science geeks, where they linked a database to a collection method for genetic information. It sounded totally brilliant, and at one point I realized that if my beloved CW were standing next to me, he could probably sum the whole thing up in one crystal-clear layman's sentence and make me go "oh! right!" but alas, I did not have the benefit of CW's incredible gift for synthesizing the intracies of a complicated scientific concept with the level of comprehension I have of such things.

My personal fave out of the presentations was one by an artist who graduated with an MFA in January, but who came back to present her thesis project. She showed a group of video shorts called RePROGRAM: episodes 1-10. The shorts depicted characters from "The Cosby Show" and "Good Times" interacting with members of the Black Panther Party about the social issues reflected in the Party's Ten Point Program. It was absolutely awesome. Her name is Shani Peters, and this is her blog:

re-cord


You can view RePROGRAM on the site, just scroll down to the bottom of the page. I hope I can go check out one of her gallery shows sometime soon. I really loved her work.

My runner-up favorite presentation was by Za Martohardjono, and it was an excerpt from a documentary called "Changing House" which she is currently producing as a MA student in the Media and Commuications dept at City. The documentary presents the story of Transy House, a brownstone in Brooklyn owned by a transgender lesbian couple, who have opened their home to homeless trans women since the early 1990's. The short piece of this work that we were able to view at the Symposium was extremely compelling, delving into the complex relationships that this communal, close-knit, family have engaged in over the past two decades. I can't wait to see the whole thing!

I don't know when it is going to be out in full, but I will get that info and post it.

It was a great night, and I am so happy that I was a part of it, even if it took a lot of juggling and maneuvering(and at least one or two nights of bleary-eyed typing like crazy on this here laptop). I feel like I have finally become a part of the academic community at City, and I am a little sad to be leaving, honestly... I am really looking forward to building an academic and professional life at St. John's, but I looked around last night and I realized that I really feel supported by the City community, definitely within the L&L program, and last night in the graduate program in general. I will miss it!

Tonight, I have the honor of being the invited guest of one of my former adult literacy students, as his work is being read at NYU. It is a part of their annual publishing party for their literacy review, in which they collect work from adult literacy students from various programs around NYC. I am so thrilled to have been asked! My student, Lyndall, is a really great person and someone I miss dearly now that I am no longer working at Aguliar. I am so happy that they chose his work! I hope he is as proud of himself as I am of him... I will try to snap some pictures and post tomorrow, or Friday... As I said, busy busy....