My avatar is a picture of two umbrellas. A traditional Chinese umbrella is made of paper, making it delicate, romantic, and leading to dramatic possibilities. A man and a woman sharing an umbrella during a sudden rain and falling in love at the first sight, that is the start of a famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake. The story is set in my homecity, Hangzhou, the production site of the best traditional umbrella, the inspiration of artists and poets, a unique city where a beautiful lake is located in the city center and exists in harmony with skyscrapers. The city kind of shaped my qualities: able to see beauty in every corner in daily life and keep a peaceful mind in the fast-paced city.

These are the images that we produced, to "figure" one another's gender presentations. Do we understand what we are seeing? (Ask about the ones that puzzle....) And then: what larger patterns do we perceive here? What does gender "look like" in our classroom? Represented on our boards?

Here are the "poems" Anne's class distilled from our texts today.
The first one we wrote is called "What is a City?", the second
"The Cultures of Cities," and the third "The Metropolis and the Mental Life."
Also of interest, we found, was the history and etymology of "gentrification."

These are the books we said have been important to us, in understanding gender (our own, and the way the world divvies up this category). What patterns can we see, taking our books (and our gender role models?), as a whole?

A very influential and incredible friend gave me the name Polly when I was 12, so I chose it as my username. This person was the first friend I had who allowed me to be myself. Because of her openness and understanding, I changed a lot in the three years I knew her. She astounded me with just how smart she was about life, emotions, and relationships. She was empowering and brutally honest at the same time. Even though she is only a few months older than me, I looked up to her as a role model.

My avatar is a painting that my dad and I created together. I love working with colors and abstract shapes to try and make finish products that I find visually appealing. While making art with my dad, we don't have any rules other than trying to make something we like. Personally, I am trying to change how I think about gender and sexuality from what I learned from society growing up: rigid "boxes." I think that the fluidity of art is similar to the reality of gender and sexuality, and I am keen to learn more.

It can be quite surprising to step back for a moment and think- not once, not twice, but many times- about which visual should represent your internet presence. It seems silly to hesistate over such a simple task, but it is difficult to find one image with those implied "1,000 words" that will be the right words you want people to associate you with. How I precieve my avatar will be different than how anyone else interprets my avatar, so maybe my self-satisfaction is the priority in this decision. I can't be sure. 

I ultimately landed upon a very physically distorted, black and white film photograph of a nude woman standing beside the decrepit walls of a presumably run-down building. Our eyes follow the light coming from an unknown source to her left, which bring her body to full attention. But there is a huge, bulbus burn mark on the photograph that completely obscurs her face, her most identifiable feature. She becomes a pair of legs.

As a photographer, I love returning to this photo and finding comfort and frustration in it. The subject's identity is lost in the photo because of a perfectly placed physical distortion. That's how I feel about choosing an avatar because so many aspects of my life, my identity, and myself as a being become invsisible the moment I actively single out one image to represent me in a way that I hope others will precieve me. This selection process dilberatly manipulates, distorts, and limits how the public views us. 

I'm an absurdist. I'm also a musician and my stage/performance name is The Fenceless. The photo I've chosen illustrates a phrase that inspired me to choose this stage name, which goes along with my personalised definition of absurdism, in which I believe anything is meaningless, so therefore anybody has every right to assign anything any function or meaning they choose. I took this photo while on a trip to Northern Kenya two years ago, and it is of a chicken perched comfortably on a fence made of sticks. It just happens to illustrate a phrase that I heard for the first time this past year during a debate in my literature class. One of the students couldn't pick a side in the debate, and he said he was “sitting right on the fence” about it. That stuck in my mind, and irked me because of its discomforting connotations about limitation in expression and choice-making. It didn't bother me in the context of the present discussion, but in issues in life in general, when people take opinions on “current issues” or make statements about “right” or “wrong.” I haven't fully thought out my philosophy about this to a point where I can eloquently present it, but it goes something along the lines of working towards the removal of the ability to separate opinions or stances, therefore eliminating the issue to which it pertains. I think that separation of parties is what contains and fosters the glaring dynamic for having a conflict in the first place. I don't like homogeneity. I like contrast, mix, and confusion. I don't like fences. I like open spaces which allow liberty and motion.