Sunday, August 24, 2014

The World Needs Sheep, Too.

When I heard about the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, I was terrible sad and terribly angry, and frankly, only a little shocked, because yes, we live in a racist world. Predictably, some people are trying to explain why an unarmed teenager deserved to be shot to death by police, claiming that he looked dangerous, or that he behaved in a way that suggested that he was dangerous, or that maybe he had done things that were criminal or threatening. The same gross, icky, stupid logic that racists used to discredit Chief Theresa Spence: that people (especially people of colour) cannot be innocent or credible if they're guilty of anything at all. Maybe Michael Brown was dressed in a way that would make a racist police officer think that he was a criminal. Maybe he got lippy. Maybe he didn't. The thing is, he was a kid. Just a kid. Maybe he was being "good" and the police officer shot him anyway. Or maybe he wasn't being cautious or sensible or respectful, because he's a kid and kids are supposed to push boundaries. Cops are supposed to protect kids, not shoot them. Anyway. I'm angry, and I am sad. And I feel completely helpless, especially when I watch the anger and sadness of his friends and families and members of his community who are expressing their own grief and rage and frustration in Ferguson. And I wish I could do something to help, but I can't.

Not long after Michael Brown's death, I learned that a friend of mine has been diagnosed with ALS. And I felt terribly, terribly sad. And frustrated. And helpless. Because ALS is an awful disease, and I wish that I could do something to help, but I can't. I can offer a hand to her and her husband, and I can donate to www.als.ca, but really, there's nothing that I can do to make her better.

A lot of times, when I read the news, I feel frustrated and helpless. I feel helpless about Somalia and the Boko Haram kidnappings and Ferguson and polluted rivers in Alberta and BC and the ISIS militants and Gaza and Ukraine. I fell helpless when I hear about crimes and illnesses and losses in my own community. And I do my best to help out the people that I know and love, and I donate what I can to charities (though, if we're honest, I could probably give up a lot of luxuries and give more...). But a lot of the time, I really just feel helpless.

A friend and former colleague of mine, El Jones, is really good at getting people to think and act. She organizes rallies, and she uses her poetry to make people see things like racism and violence in a different way. I wish I could be more like El, but that's really not my thing. If I tried to organize a rally, I'd probably end up alone on Barrington Street, getting in the way of perplexed passers-by.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. Because when it comes to activism, I'm a sheep. I pick up other people's great ideas to help raise money and awareness, and I lend my voice on things that matter to me. Because really, the world needs sheep--sheep who care about things, and who may not be organizing the rallies, but who are ready to join and, and stand behind a leaders, and say, "I'm not OK with this either!"

So today, I'm going to donate to ALS Canada. Then I'm going to dump a bucket of water on my head. It's unoriginal, I know. And it doesn't mean that I don't care about Michael Brown or the people of Ferguson. It just means that this is one thing that I CAN do that makes me feel a little less helpless by--I hope--helping out in a small way.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

If I like doing it, it must be cheating...

Since February, I've been working at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. While I was a student at Dal and a staff member at SMU, I always thought of the Mount as that other, smaller university. In other words, for eight years, I didn't give this place its due.

I could gush about my new place of employment--I really could. And maybe I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Maybe there are things about the Mount that I won't like after a while. But right now, me and my job, we're twitterpated. I mean, the Mount has a long-standing commitment to the advancement of women. To social justice. To community involvement. And to alternative research methods. And this isn't just a marketing strategy. The values really do shape the way the place operated.

Don't worry. I promised I wouldn't gush about the Mount, and I swear I won't. I just had to work in that bit about alternative research. See, I've been researching research at the Mount--going to thesis defences and research events, talking to profs, students and alumnae, and meeting with the AVP research. And everyone has this crazy idea that you can do research outside of the library and the lab. They do community research, and they do arts-based research.

Arts-based research. It's badass. I met one student, Kwesi Firempong, who wrote a play as part of his Education thesis. A heavily-researched play that was intended to educate and to entertain. And, judging from the exceprt that was read at his defence, it is a beautiful play. I went to this incredible installation at the campus art gallery that was a collaboration between Dr. Marnina Gonick, a prof and researcher, and her brother Noam Gonick, a filmmaker. Incredible.

I'll admit--I'd never heard the term "arts-based research" before. The term may be new--or maybe it isn't; I don't know--but the idea isn't. For instance, I saw some killer documentary theatre at the Edmonton Fringe Festival back in 2004. My gorgeous, amazing friend Heather Fitzsimmons-Frey wrote and directed a lovely play about E. Pauline Johnson.

And guess what--I've done some arts-based research, too. When I was doing my PhD coursework, Dr. Dean Irvine let me write an "essayplay" instead of a regular old essay. Laura Thorton directed a later version of that essay play for Bad Marlowe Theatre in Halifax.

And hey, I am such a hipster that I was doing arts-based research back in high school. My friends Nesta, Kim, Mandy, Amy, and Glen and I created this amazing music/poetry/photography piece for our social studies class. To this day, it's the only poem I've ever written that I think was any good. And I really think it was good. And Glen, Mandy, Amy, Kim, and Nesta wrote a song. A gorgeous frickin SONG.

I remember getting an A+ on that project. Obviously. But then I wound up with a B on my essay in that class. I tried to talk the teacher into weighting the project higher than the essay. I mean, it was just a project, but the essay was an essay. Serious academic work. She turned me down, of course. I never really expected her to go along with it. Because I knew that an essay is more serious, harder, more valuable than artistic project. How did I know? Because the essay was harder. And writing a poem, working on a song, and putting together a sideshow of photos was fun.And if it's fun, it's not serious work.

Here's the truly amazing thing about working at a university--here's why I needed so badly to get back into this environment: working in the Ivory Tower means learning. All the time. It means learning that you're wrong. Challenging your assumptions. Finding new ways to look at things. If I could take what I've learned at the Mount back in time, I wouldn't have taken "no" for an answer from that truly excellent Social Studies teacher. I would have talked to her about arts-based research. I would maybe even have quoted from my own PhD dissertation about the kinds of things that art can do. And I would have smacked myself upside the head for thinking that loving the work you do doesn't make it less valuable. It makes it far, far more important.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Just don't quote me the unemployment rate...

It's January. New year, new job. I hope. I'm job hunting again. This time around, I'm a lot luckier than before: I have some solid experience under my belt, I've finished my PhD, and our household cash flow is decent, so I don't have to grab the first job that comes my way. But the whole experience has me thinking a lot about what jobs are and what they mean today.

I think in a lot of ways, our parents were a lot tougher and more patient than we are. I say this, having left a very good, solid, dependable job because it made me deeply unhappy. I suspect that thirty years ago, that kind of decision would have been unthinkable. I know I made the right decision, but it does have me thinking a lot about what it is that we want from our jobs, and whether we have the right to expect it. Is it reasonable to want to find a job that makes me happy?

And while I look for that elusive job feeding rainbows to unicorns, I ostensibly have the time to do all the things that I haven't been able to do over the last few years, when I've been steadily working 40, sometimes 50 or even 60 hours a week. I used to say I wanted to take a year off to write. Well, I can do that now, but every time I sit down at my keyboard, I immediately end up on CareerBeacon, browsing the jobs there.

Maybe I'm being hard on myself. Maybe I'm being realistic. I'm not really sure. Either way, as scary and frustrating as this experience is, it's making me think hard about some of the assumptions I've always had about life and work, and that's a good thing. So here are some of the things I've been thinking about. I'm going to present them in a bulleted list just because I likes me a good bulleted list.


  • Jobs and self-worth: When I was a secretary, I worried a lot about my job title. I imaged that people were judging me for working in an administrative position. And maybe they were. But one of the best takeaways from my prestigious-sounding job that made me very, very unhappy is this lesson: other people's assessment of the worth of my career is deeply unimportant. 
  • Job-me and social-me: I've spent a lot of time trying to keep those separate. Trent manages that separation very well, and I admire him for it. But my last job didn't work mainly because it wasn't suited to my personality: it entailed a lot of long hours working alone on the computer. I've come to realize that I need to feel personally fulfilled by my work. I need to be around people. I need to work around people. 
  • Bad days and frustrating days: My best friend has an incredibly difficult job working with women in trouble with the law. Many of these women are depressed, desperate, and hopeless. A bad day of work for my friend often includes a tragedy. But she's extraordinarily good at her job, and accounting for the worst days, she finds the position tremendously rewarding. So here's what I need to learn from her: first, there will always be frustrating days at work. Second, a frustrating work day is not the end of the world. And third, no matter how many frustrating work days there are, we all should find a way to feel that on balance, our work matters. 
  • A job is never going to make me happy: A lot of people count on finding a romantic partner that will make them happy. That doesn't work. Me, I've been counting on finding a job that will make me happy, and that won't work, either. I need to stop looking outside of myself for happiness and learn to appreciate what I have. It's hard, but I'm working on it. 
I know that job hunting with my particular skill set and education may take a while. I'm working on being patient. And in the meantime, I'm also working on becoming the kind of person who's going to do well at my next job--not only perform well, but also be well, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. I'm working on developing better personal habits: while I'm unemployed, I'm staying away from the television (at least during the day. I'm making a point of leaving the house and interacting with people. This choice means showering daily, which my husband appreciates. I'm exercising, and I'm writing. I may not get a job right away--I'm prepared for that. But I'm refusing to let myself become depressed or anxious about the whole thing. I'm looking for a job, not waiting for my life to begin. I'm already living my life. A job is just one part of it.