Mountain Day!

sent:

[sadly, this isn't from mountain day, but a trip the B2 girls & company made out to vermont for Fall Break our senior year. in a similar way to Mt. Day, there was lots of bonfires, apple-picking, sheep-shearing, and maple syrup eating and canoeing to be had]

reasoning:

Happy Mountain Day! i still remember my first year of college, when the bells rang at 7AM, and Lizz and my neighbor, NaLee – who we love – ran around the halls, banging on everyone’s door and signing her “it’s Mountain Day” song.  i have no doubts she was adorable doing her little dance, but we wanted to kill her even though we were too tired to actually get up and do so. during my time at Smith, i was always swamped with work, and suffering from sleep deprivation that i didn’t actually do much on the days of Mountain Day. but now that i’ve been out for almost 2 years, I miss having Mountain Day so much. Just over the weekend, I was thinking of how good some apple cider & cider donuts would taste right now. there’s talks of a trip into Maryland for some apple picking this weekend. this is probably going to be the closest and best opportunity for me to pretend that i’m still in school, and idyllic New England.

why women’s colleges are still relevant

sent:

Forbes Why Women’s Colleges are Still Relevant

reasoning:

i feel like i may spend the rest of my life explaining why i went to a women’s college, Smith College, or whether i’m a crazy radical lesbian [some of those may apply depending on the day]. the relevance of women’s colleges has been something i’ve definitely grappled with, but ultimately i always come to the conclusion that they are still needed and important today. certainly my college experience would have been different if it were co-ed, but now that i’m out in the ‘co-ed’ world, i can’t say i feel like i missed out on a lot. there were periods when i wish i went somewhere else, but that had more to do with the intensity and ‘bubble’ of Smith, less with its single-gender demographic. being in an all-women environment doesn’t freak me out but i’m rather comfortable in it. i learned to really speak up for myself at Smith, and so much of my personality and interests have started and evolved from my time there, so i can’t say that I regret having gone there. now if only the alumnae network could kick in to get me a job, i’d be singing the ultimate praises of the school from every high place in DC. but in all seriousness, i’m glad i went.

Smith College Annual Bulb Show

recipient:

RealSimple/ PO Box 64522/ Tampa, FL 33664-4522

sent:

Smith’s Annual Spring Bulb Show to Open with Lecture on the Tulip by Anna Pavord

reasoning:

(having trouble posting video. watch it here.)

my favorite part about Spring at Smith. I know i’m an East Coast girl, i like having 4 seasons – but every year, the winter seems longer, and the ground seems to be blanketed in the brown slush for far too many weeks. the bulb show always comes at the perfect time b/c it’s near midterms and it’s been constantly dark and gross outside. daffodils and tulips may seem like just ordinary Home Depot single flowers, but arranged at staggered levels, colors and sizes – the sight and smell is breathtaking. The Botanic Garden does an incredible job every year,  they should have a live webcam up soon. even just to see the flowers through video is inspiring and rejuvenating – spring is soo close, i can feel it. my eczema and allergies are starting to act up. The 2009 Bulb Show opened on March 7, Little Bang Theory has posted stunning shots here.

Dora Chen ’38, AC ’73, Smith Medalist ‘81

***i’ve made it to DC! woo – interning at the Migration Policy Institute, sleeping on a friend’s couch, eating frozen dinners, ogling bike messengers, finding independent coffeeshops, and walking everywhere *** 

recipient:

Relevant Magazine/ PO Box 11687/ St. Paul, MN 55111-9913

sent:

Dora Chen’s story from the Smith College Grecourt News Gate

reasoning:

usually much of the Smith Grecourt News is ‘cheesy, smithie love, we’re so great and full of traditions, young women who are changing the world’ ness Smith propaganda. but Dora Chen is as inspiring and admirable as they get. she got to go to college in the 1930s, but had to leave when her mom married her off to a history and political science professor at St. John’s University in Shanghai. but then the cultural revolution happened – her husband was sent to prison, her sons sent to work, and she found herself living in an apartment with lots of other people, and completely poor. but the goodness of smithies gathered to bring her back to America, and she finished her degree as an Ada Comstock scholar in 1973. said for what Smith did for her: “To think differently, to not restrain myself. I am in America, I am free. The chains that bound me as a Chinese woman are gone. I don’t think I would have liberated myself. Smith did that for me.” as if she hasn’t been through enough, Dora now has lung cancer. but somehow her outlook speaks of a wisdom only someone who has gone through what she has can say, “how many people can boast such a wonderful life?” stories like this always humble the young, cynical and emo me – i complain a lot and my my life really isn’t that bad, and probably will never be that bad.  this makes me believe that the Smithie resilience and spirit does exist in some of us.

zits

recipient:

Vogue/ PO Box 37720/ Boone, IA 50037-2720

sent:

reasoning:

i hope i never become too old to understand ZITS. sometimes i think about whether or not going to Smith has hindered parts of my conception of the male gender b/c i was surrounded by such strong-willed women for a very formative part of my personal growth. in that, perhaps sometimes i have these unfair perceptions of boys, guys, or men in general. it’s an elitist and sexist view, and i know generalizations are wrong and rarely ever true. perhaps it’s just that i’ve spent so much time with women, so much time analyzing and critically thinking about words being said that i do pay too much attention to some things that are said. sometimes, you just have to take what people say for what it is. i know these encounters are going to happen more, and i shouldn’t say they are ‘encounters’, but just everyday interactions. i don’t blame Smith entirely, b/c while it did have a bit of a coddled, ‘living in a bubble’ environment, it was something i really needed. there are times when i don’t think i’m ready for ‘the real world’, just want to go back to college, back to academia with its books, lengthy articles, and informative lectures.

the chef who was a spy

recipient:

Honda Information Center/ 1152 W. Lake St, Ste B/ Salt Lake City, UT 84119-9803

sent:

Postcard from the National Women’s History Museum, along with NY Post article “Julia Child a Spy“

reasoning:

my brief internet search has been giving me mixed results, so i’m not sure if this is breaking news. but tomorrow, the CIA is going to release about 750,000 pages detailing the names of military and civilian operatives who were involved in an extensive spy ring for the US during World War II. they worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an earlier form of the now CIA, studying military plans, creating propaganda and infiltrating enemy ranks - the very definition of a national spy in a wartime situation. 

while I’m sure the “French” chef, Julia Child, wasn’t exactly trading secrets b/w the US and France, that would have been the perfect cover b/c it’s so seemingly obvious that no one would suspect. i think this only adds to her legend, and her grandeur.

classroom teaching

recipient:

American Express/PO Box 31511/Salt Lake City, UT 84131-9934

sent:

Margaret Edson(‘83) 2008 Smith College Commencement Address

reasoning:

I finally graduated this Sunday, a day I honestly thought would never come, there were too many times when I considered dropping out, taking a year off, packing up and leaving. so that sunday, may 18th came, and i was allowed to sit in on commencement exercises, my name was in the booklet, and there was a diploma with my name on it, was amazing.

margaret edson’s commencement address started off slow, with almost too many dramatic pauses, probably given that she wrote Wit and is a kindergarten teacher.

Here’s an excerpt. from all the previous commencement speeches i’ve read, it definitely takes a fresh, different… and welcome approach.

We bring nothing into the classroom — perhaps a text or a specimen. We carry ourselves, and whatever we have to offer you is stored within our bodies. You bring nothing into the classroom — some gum, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil: nothing but yourselves, your breath, your bodies.

 Classroom teaching produces nothing. At the end of a class, we all get up and walk out. It’s as if we were never there. There’s nothing to point to, no monument, no document of our existence together.

   But the work you graduates have done was in the classroom with your teachers.
That’s the miracle of today.
Why don’t we talk about it?
Because it doesn’t show up.
There’s not a bar graph for classroom teaching. There’s no data for classroom teaching, and yet it persists this year and the next year and the year after that.

 But the reality that is neither shouting nor training is classroom teaching.
Nobody can touch it because nobody can point to it.
You have it forever.
When it grows inside you, it’s doing its work.

give me employment

recipient:

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO/Alternative Union Break/1625 L Street, N.W./Washington, DC 20036-5687

sent:

a check next to I’m interested in learning more about helping workers build power… and strategic research positions

also my name, college, graduation date, languages, and email address. see my address in previous post about BU summer program.

reasoning:

sorry i’m going through an all about me, and how nopostagerequired needs to be employed, or studying, or traveling so as not to spend the summer after college graduation sitting on her parents’ couch watching Maury reruns. While i had a most worst time doing Union Summer for the AFL-CIO last summer in NH, I purposely did not put a check next to Careers in Union Organizing because i found out just how much i am not a union organizer. but it’s getting to the point where i am also desperate to find a job that i am not eliminating labor organizing work, including for the AFL-CIO, or one of its conglomerates, out as a possibility. Le Sigh.

i’m a bit suspicious, as their Union Break website description looks fairly similar to the AFL’s Union Summer one, where no one in the program had a decent experience. most of us went in thinking we’d be organizing unions, doing things like this.

but all of the kids who were sent to NH became just rookie canvassers for an AFL side project called Working America. Where we weren’t organizing unions, just knocking on the door of everyone who lived in NH to see if we could drum up support for abstract ideals like ‘access to healthcare’, ‘holding politicians accountable’, and ‘ensuring there’s enough funding and infrastructure to keep our schools running’. all the effort was more to just get people’s information, so we could target them in the future, especially around election time, and ensure that they would be voting for progressive/AFL-CIO endorsed/Democratic candidates. i can never seem to rant enough about my summer in NH, and the AFL-CIO, and my disapproval of the canvassing model for the greater movement, whether it be labor, immigration, politics, or animal rights.

i know i’m just going to be a college graduate so i can’t expect the most amazing jobs and opportunities to fall into my lap, but i would also like to not have my first official job be one that i absolutely hate but still do because i understand that “i have to work up the ranks and do all the dirty, grunge work first”. yeah, yeah, yeah, i’ll complain a bit more about how i don’t just want another crap job, and it’s hard looking for jobs, and why won’t anyone give me a job. and why do i have to do 3 research papers simultaneously to this job search? and why can’t they just give me a diploma, i’ve pulled enough all-nighters already to warrant a degree from this school. ok. i’m done.

i need something to do after smith…….

recipient:

Summer Term/Boston University/PO Box 15716/Boston, MA 02215-9632

sent:

my address:

1 Chapin Way #6396/Northampton, MA 01063-6301/United State

-i realize that i’m putting my address onto my blog, onto the world wide web. but it’s a PO Box, which hopefully means…. open invitation to anyone reading this, who loves paper goods, and mail as much as me to send me something!

i’m interested in studying fine arts, creative writing, landscape/urban studies, population studies, architecture, philosophy, geology, astrology, and literature. basically all the things i never fully got a chance to do while i was at Smith

reasoning:

though graduating in may after 17 years of schooling (kindergarten included) makes me never ever want to go to school again, i still have not secured any employment, travel itineraries, or further education plans. one reason i don’t ever want to go to school again is i fail at writing papers, and consistently reading, and being able to constructively and critically examine anything i do, see, read, or hear. which simplifies into: i fail at school. i’m surprised i’ve gotten this far. so as of right now… no school for awhile.

but i’m looking to receive a catalog about BU’s summer term program, where i could conceivably pay more money to get more schooling, which would inevitably involve more writing papers, and more reading. most likely not going to go to boston and do their summer term, but perhaps i’ll be motivated to look more into schooling and employment opportunities when i have a catalog of potential things i could be doing after may 18th, because i believe on this proper tract of job and future life plans applications process, i am failing. much like or in the way this blog explains it: FAIL.

perhaps here i am not so much sticking it to the large business conglomerates that waste paper, stuffing our mailboxes with catalogs, or credit card offers that we don’t need. i will point out that i am using Boston University’s free postage to my benefit… in hopes that i will one day either go back to school, or finally get a job. so a reversal of the “sticking it to the man” effort, wherein i’m the “woman” who needs to be doing something after graduation.

first attempt

recipient:

Creative Home Arts Club/New Member Processing Center/P.O. Box 3449/Hopkins, MN 55343-4711

sent:

description of I.D. Tags exhibition at Smith College Museum of Art

”ID Tags is an ongoing series of supplemental labels for select works on view at the Smith College Museum of Art. The project aims to consider the artworks in terms of aspects of culture that forms one’s identity, such as race, gender, sexuality, and economic status. The project brought a group of Smith faculty members, museum staff, and students together to select, discuss, and write about artworks in the collection taking race as a thematic focal point. In counterpoint to the anonymous authority of the traditional museum label, ID Tags are transparently rooted in the personal knowledge and experience of the writers who are identified in the labels as well. it is our hope that such reflections will give voice to members of the museum’s community and will enhance viewers’ experience through their consideration of how art can relate to our current understanding of our cultures and ourselves.”

Tattered and Torn, 1886, Alfred Kappes

works of art include:

• Pretty Penny, 1939, Edward Hopper, Tagwriter: Nicole Roylance, Smith College Museum of Art.
• Freedom: A Fable by Kara Elizabeth Walker, 1997, Kara Elizabeth Walker, Tagwriter: Elizabeth Willis Smith ‘08.
• Andrew Faneuil Phillips (1729-1775), 1755, Joseph Blackburn, Tagwriter: Sophia LaCava-Bohanan Smith ‘08.
• Mrs. John Erving (Abigail Phillips, 1702-1759), c. 1733, John Smibert, Tagwriter: Sophia LaCava-Bohanan Smith ‘08.
• The Honourable John Erving (1693-1786), c. 1772, John Singleton Copley, Tagwriter: Sophia LaCava-Bohanan Smith ‘08.
• Dr. William Samuel Johnson, 1761, Thomas McIlworth, Tagwriter: Sophia LaCava-Bohanan Smith ‘08.
• Tattered and Torn, 1886, Alfred Kappes, Tagwriter: Daphne LaMothe, Smith Afro-American Studies.
• Tattered and Torn, 1886, Alfred Kappes, Tagwriter: Floyd Cheung, Smith English and American Studies.
• The May Queen, 1875, Daniel Chester French, Tagwriter: Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe Smith ‘08.
• Recolte des Oranges a Capri, 1868, Edouard Alexandre Sain, Tagwriter: Daphne LaMothe, Smith Afro-American Studies.
• Bust of a Chinese Man (Le Chinois), 1872-1874, Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, Tagwriter: Ann Musser, Smith College Museum of Art.

reasoning:

People in Minnesota should know about what’s going on in the Smith College Museum of Art, plus bringing accountability and the recognition of bias to a seemingly neutral piece of writing is a reminder that however factual, there’s always a partiality to written work. A hard lesson that I learned the winter of my first year in college, when social critic and activist Keith Snow illustrated the ties The New York Times had with other sketchier conglomerates like Exxon, and Victoria’s Secret.