Chances

During each “finals” period, I find myself attached to a different song in my music library that I listen to on repeat, almost literally, for the entire week. This semester that song is John Ondrasik’s Chances. Some of you may be more familiar with his single 100 Years or his stage name, Five for Fighting. Re-reading my portfolio, reflecting on my journey, and musing on our sylla-ship, I’m reminded of how excited I was for the potential in our semester together. 

I cannot imagine my semester without Anne Dalke, Kaye, charlie, AmyMay, shlomo, phenom1, venn diagram, aybala50, chelseam, Gavi, jfwright, jmorgant, Kammy, alice.in.wonderland, KatieRandall, KimK, lwacker, lgleysteen, Amophrast, leamirella, rachelr, sel209, S.Yaeger, and essietee. Snacktime was oh, so wonderful time spent chatting and getting to know y'all. Some of you may not know that I did not attend the shopping week session, in part because of the scheduled time mix-up, but also because two other course possibilities were in the mix. I met with Kaye at the end of shopping week to talk about the sylla-ship, Wilchin’s and Knefelkamp’s framework for the Prologue, and the class’s expectations and hopes for the semester. Her explanation and persuasion were very persuasive! I will be forever grateful that I decided to enroll in the course.

In “A Greeting” to y’all, I wrote, “I am a bit apprehensive about being the only male student in the course. One might say that could be expected in courses pertaining to Gender and Sexuality, especially in the Bi-College, but the experience itself is different, or at least I think so…I find myself not quite sure how to express my apprehensions… perhaps because I have yet to meet those of you in the course… perhaps because I have some kind of discomfort about expressing myself over the web…” My anxieties were foolish. I shouldn’t have been concerned that I would be asked or expected to speak for the “male voice” as a cisgender male in the class. One of the most powerful lessons I’m taking away with me from this semester is that diversity and learning transcend one’s (fluid) gender and sexual identity – to get needlessly caught up in how one’s identity in relation to others might inhibit their experience and learning is, in fact, a hindrance to their experience and learning. I consider the fact that I was the only cisgender male student in the course a blessing because of how I came to realize and learn this.

Additionally, my comfort and willingness to participate in class discussion without concern for how often I spoke or the carefully crafted substance of what I shared was freeing. The way Anne and Kaye structured the course greatly contributed to this. Serendip (S = Serendip) was an excellent space to supplement our Tuesday night learning and weekly independent reading with the time to discuss content related to gender and sexuality in the world outside our classroom. This was how I frequently took advantage of S and where I think I contributed to the learning of my classmates most. However, I struggled to find a balance between obligations I felt to post new threads with the joy of intellectual exchange via “comments.” I think I found that balance and comfort by November. As I said in our mid-semester evaluation, I wanted to make virtual conversation with my classmates a second-quarter priority, especially because S provides this unique opportunity and reveals how limiting a once-a-week course can be for this kind of Bi-Co conversation. There were times when even S seemed a hindrance to my ability to respond to my classmates – I resorted to email a few times when I had a weak/nonexistent connection to the forum (Anne and Kaye both received Qs from me about this). I’m proud of the effort I made to post about a variety of topics on S that complemented the themes in our “readings” for a given act of the course.

In the same way that I spent a fair amount of time reading posts from my classmates on S, I tried to actively listen more than I spoke in class (in both large and small settings). My Quakerism was shining through, I think. When I felt moved to speak, I did. When I was moved by what others said, I wrote their words in my notebook. I spent much more of my time musing over the thoughts my classmates shared because I found that I had a lot I could learn from them in this interdisciplinary course, especially during the biology unit which I knew next to nothing (that next to direction being farther from “nothing” than “something”). Relating back to the course structure, I didn’t feel challenged to share my ideas/views in class because Anne and Kaye asked that we not raise our hands to be acknowledged before speaking. The variety of large and small group discussions also helped in this way. The elimination of these classroom norms, in conjunction with our line activities, strengthened my determination to speak truth to power even when the possibility of being alone in my view existed. This also increased my confidence to do the same on S, especially considering web surfers could read my posts.   

My confidence in the web events I produced increased with the progression of the semester. I was apprehensive in my writing process for the first event, trying to discern where a balance of engaging with web materials and images might be given that I wasn’t producing a hard-copy essay, a static piece of paper, per say. By virtue of being newly acquainted with this kind of project, I struggled to give myself enough time to prepare and execute the first event. My final product was a good attempt at diffracting my past learning with my learning in Act I of the course, but was not as smooth as I would have liked. I vastly improved for the second web event, giving myself ample time for all stages of the writing and crafting process. In the process, I started giving more thought to how to go beyond the closer-to-typical-essay first event. I was proud of the posted product especially because I found our biology unit the most challenging in terms of the material we read and discussed, as well as the brainstorming process I went through to decide on a web event topic. For my third and fourth web events, I was truly inspired by Act III on Activism to make my projects more than something that would remain an ancient part of S for semesters to come. These projects are shaping up to be much larger time investments that I’m thankful to have. I don’t just feel empowered, I am empowered.  As John Ondrasik says, “It’s all about taking the swing – there’s beauty in the scars.”

I’m reminded of Little Bee’s request for agreement, “We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” I was most challenged by our Week 11 (Tues Nov. 15) session because of our inclusion of my S post related to Eve Ensler’s article. In some ways, my growth in using S was exactly the challenge I experienced during this class. Anne and Kaye included my post as part of our discussion, which I do think is a valuable way of bringing our S conversation(s)/question(s) to our Tuesday evening discussions. I had posted that content thinking that S was exactly the kind of forum in which I felt close enough to, but also far enough away from, my frustrations about Ensler’s litany and the memories of my sexual assault that were bubbling to the surface. When I was asked to read my post aloud, there was a moment when I faltered, but wanted to believe I could read it aloud. The remainder of that class was extremely difficult, but I don’t blame Anne or Kaye for my frozen state after that point. In acknowledging S as a classroom space, and knowing that our posts are regularly used as part of class every week, I shouldn’t have been surprised that my response to Ensler fit nicely into our discussion about right relationship and activism. Even though the next few weeks were difficult, I was able to look back and truly feel empowered to do the work I did for our web events and the work I’m doing now to make a difference and try to build a right relationship in the Haverford community on the topic of sexual misconduct, but from a much more positive angle: education for the student community about sex, healthy relationships, and bystander education. This way, our student community can truly embody our tenants of trust, concern, and respect we pledge to uphold. I think about that class session as a diffraction of inspired intra-action. I really feel like I’m healing and doing a kind of Humbach intrinsic good in the process. For that, I thank Anne and Kaye.

I must also thank Chris Cleave, Paul Farmer, John Humbach, Judith Butler, Eli Clare, and Lawrence Rosenblum. I enjoyed their published work more than any of the authors we read in the course. The first four, specifically, are pushing me beyond the content of our readings and coursework to thinking about how I can take what I’ve learned in our interdisciplinary course and seize opportunities to intra-act, take the risk “to be the first,” and “ to give a shit” about something that I may not think initially needs to be given a shit about (Cleave). I’ve been telling myself for over a year now that I really want to volunteer with a Philly LGBT youth organization and to do work with Friends in Africa. I’m going to take advantage of this long break (which I’ll be home for the entirety of for the first time) to think about and make plans for ways to make this happen. I know I care a lot about both of these areas, but want to challenge myself to care and act in other ways. I learned so much from Paul Grobstein, Hervé Varenne, and Margaret Price about dis/ability and have found myself reflecting on how I will teach people in my life about the issues they raise. In other words, I have had many teachers this semester, not all of whom know they have taught me.  

I’m leaving this semester, and this reflection, with a euphoric sense of hope and belief in potential, exponentially stronger than my feeling at the start of the semester. John Ondrasik sings it best,

Chances are waiting to be taken
And I can see
Chances are the fascination
Chances won't escape from me
Chances are only what we make them
And all I need

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Where do I go from here?

Forward, into our precarious, performative world with playful regard, rich perspective, heart and mind full of potential... 
ready and willing to take chances.