"lumbering our minds with literature..."

"Somewhere between prayer and revolution....:"

"This is what we were all doing, lumbering our minds with literature that only served to cloud the really vital situation spread before our eyes...I am simply smothered and sickened with advantages. It is like eating a sweet dessert the first thing in the morning. This, then, was the difficulty, this sweet dessert in the morning and the assumption that the sheltered, educated girl has nothing to do with the bitter poverty and the social maladjustment which is all around her, and which, after all, cannot be concealed, for it breaks through poetry and literature in a burning tide which overwhelms her." -Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House







Thursday, November 18, 2010

(dys)topia




Good News: I submitted my first chapter draft to my advisor on Tuesday! It has gone through some writing group workshops, which were really helpful, but I know it still needs a lot of work. Still, it is nice to have something solid accomplished. It is called "Rethinking the Industrial Utopia: Factory Work, Alternative Homes, and Class Mobility."

On Tuesday, I also asked one of our girl scouts if she is writing a letter to Santa. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I tell my caseworker what I want for Christmas." Moments like this are just surreal for me. My parents did an amazing job at Christmas at my house. They used different handwriting and wrapping paper for Santa's presents, left cookie crumbs, pipes, and even ashy footprints. This is probably why I believed in Santa until I was like, fifteen. Of course, Brian's favorite Christmas memories are of his grandfather getting out his shotgun on Christmas Eve and saying that he is going to shoot Santa. So every family has their Christmas traditions, but bringing in a caseworker changes things.

Today, Brian pulled up to the house and a woman came up asking for a ride since it was raining. Bri said sure, and once she was in the car she started saying how cute he is and asking if he wanted a "date." He said that he is married and she started talking about how his wife will never know. He asked where she wanted dropped off and she said she didn't care; she thought they would just park somewhere. Then she spent the rest of the ride apologizing profusely, which I think is the saddest part. My stomach has hurt ever since he told me the story. I can't even formulate how helpless I feel when I think about the system of sex work that goes on daily in our neighborhood.

Well, sometimes I just need to write about these things before I start my schoolwork! Now I am going to read Strange Cults and Utopias of 19th Century America. AWESOME!

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