Monthly Archives

March 2010

yet another reason I haven’t been blogging as much lately
deep thoughts

yet another reason I haven’t been blogging as much lately


IMG_0442, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

My apologies for the grainy photo. But you get the general idea…

A few weeks ago I took a part-time temporary position at Chapman University as the Associate Director of Instructional Technology. Balancing that work with my dissertation-writing and my other obligations (podcasting! blogging! attending conferences! poetry! parenting! gardening! paddling!) has not been easy. But the work is incredibly stimulating. I have a lovely office location and great resources at my fingertips. My new colleagues are smart and supportive. I am learning so much.

I fear that what has suffered the most for these past few weeks is my ability to support my family, my friendships, and my spiritual life. Because becoming a better juggler of my ‘to-do’ list does not necessarily make me a better human being or a better partner. But in that, I am learning, too.

March 31, 2010
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LDS

Why?

Yesterday I attended a few sessions of the Sunstone West conference at Claremont Graduate University, an event that examines Mormon culture and thought.  Several people asked me why I attended the event, or why I continue to be involved in Mormon circles given that I’m not a practicing member of the LDS church.

Those are good (hard) questions, ones that I’ve often asked myself these past few years.  I don’t know if I have any good answers.  But I continue to feel that these folks are my ‘tribe.’  These are not your everyday Mormons, these are women and men who’ve walked much of the same path that I have.  Our shared history and experience allows me a freedom that I don’t have in other spaces.  My Quaker Friends, as dear as they are, can’t fully sympathize with my struggles.  Nor can most of my local ward members.  Having a continued tie to the Sunstone and Exponent community is somewhat akin to having a shared history with extended family members.  There is so much joy in the reunion, even if it is a rare occurrence.

It may be that at some point I will cease being involved in Mormon organizations altogether.  But for now, for me, it feels right to continue.  Much joy comes from being with this group, and that joy is what keeps me returning.  I need those hugs and hi-fives from my fellow travelers.  I especially relish the strength and support of my Exponent sisters–each of you give me the courage to continue on my journey. 

March 28, 2010
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deep thoughts

My path to technology

A blog entry for Ada Lovelace Day

Yesterday I was nearly exploding with the news that I’d had my first few PHP successes.  Just small things, but it felt so satisfying to troubleshoot an issue and muddle through the fix.  It took lots of websearching and reading, a brief convo with an IT tech at my hosting provider, and lots of trial and error.  But it worked.  Woot!

In general, lately, I’m finding huge satisfaction with acquiring new technical knowledge, much of which has come my way through my work in digital humanities.  My capacity to learn new things seems to be increasing with each new step, and I’m intuitively becoming more capable at describing, managing, and troubleshooting technology.  The thrill that accompanies each of these successes is not something I would have expected.  How fun it is to learn–even as late as my 30s–that I like tech.

Along with my recent successes in the technical realm, I’ve been part of numerous discussions about the gender gap in technology-related fields.  As a result, I’ve reflected on my own path in this direction. I can’t point to any one thing that steered me away from math and hard science, except my own deep belief that I wasn’t good in those areas.  I felt no thrill when faced with a math problem.  I merely endured Physics.  The quantitative elements of Chemistry and Economics were my least favorite.  It’s possible that I simply wasn’t good at any of those things when I was younger, and my stronger skills in writing and memorization steered me towards Biology and Journalism.  Or it may be that I simply wasn’t validated for performing well in my Math or Science classes in the same way that I was when I did well in English.  It’s hard to say.

But I think the real reason probably lies with being more often rewarded for what came easily (such as writing a story) and less often rewarded for what came hard (like a well-argued geometry proof).  My own experience leads me to believe that my male peers often received praise that affirmed the skills needed to work through a difficult problem set, whereas us girls were not encouraged in that same way.

I also suspect that much of the reason I steered clear of math & science was that I wanted to be attractive to boys, and winning such attention meant more to me than the satisfaction of an elegant lab writeup.  Although I typically dated the kind of boys who liked brainy girls, I still knew, deep-down, that the girls who were ‘too smart’ were far less likely to have a date on Friday night.  My being raised Mormon particularly reinforced the notion that a ‘soft’ career choice was a better one, because the more important goal was to be a wife and a mother.  Mormon women are strongly discouraged from full-time work, or even pursuing graduate study, unless it is after their children are grown.

I’m not sure yet where my growing passion for technology will take me, but as I move forward on this path it’s exciting to add new tools to my tech-kit and to find such satisfaction in problem-solving.

March 25, 2010
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philia
making historywriting

philia

clouds
I am drawn to people with passion and vision. That’s much of the reason that I started my podcast–because I wanted to have conversation with people who share my history-lust. Talking to such people causes me to fall in love with my chosen profession (and the whole entire world, for that matter) all over again.

I was similarly drawn to the passion shown in Wallace J. Nichol’s Oceanophilia post (thanks @hallnjean) about ocean-love and neuroscience. He writes:

We humans offer up our dreams, our secrets and our treasures to the sea from whence we came…What is it about the ocean that speaks to us on such a fundamental, profound human level? I have always wanted to know, but my chosen profession, science — skeptical, detached, dispassionate science — wouldn’t allow me to go there.

When I was a graduate student, I tried to weave that big human Love into my dissertation on the relationship between sea turtle ecology and coastal communities. No luck. My advisors steered me to other departments, another career even. “Keep that ’emotional’ stuff out of your science, young man,” they counseled. Emotion wasn’t rational. It wasn’t quantifiable. It wasn’t science…

We must seize this particular moment in time — when the nascent power of neuroscience is burgeoning and the popular momentum is toward conservation rather than exploitation. We can use science to explore and understand the profound and ancient emotional and sensual connections that lead to deeper relationships with the ocean. I believe that if we do that we have an opportunity for real conservation gains that could do some true and lasting good for the ocean and planet Earth.

It’s time to drop the old notions of separation between emotion and science. Emotion is science. Let’s convene the top marine scientists, skilled communicators, dedicated conservationists, and leading neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists to ask and answer the most probing and compelling set of questions about the ocean that we can imagine. Let’s explore the mind-ocean connection — oceanophilia.

His thoughts about oceanophilia echo many other things that are whirling around in my brain this morning. In just a few hours I will abandon all of the tasks on my list and head out for a few hours on my outrigger. To let the ocean tug and push me as she may, while I paddle, paddle, paddle. The connection with the water will stretch and pull me into balance once again.

And at the same time, I’m thinking a lot about my experience yesterday at THATCampSoCal (a tech-humanities un-conference). A primary theme running through the day was how to forge (and control) one’s online identity in a way that will be an asset in the pursuit for a tenure-track job. The hiring and promotion practices for historians are so capricious. One certainly can’t second-guess all that happens behind the scenes in such interactions. While I want to be thoughtful and careful with my online presence, the thought of having an imaginary search committee governing my actions is so much like the way I used to think about Mormon God–the attempt to “please” someone who was so remote and nebulous and judgmental–it had the hair standing up on the back of my neck.

Instead, I want to throw myself into my life. Letting my passion and my curiosity drive my choices and my research. I expect that I will make mistakes. I suspect that I will be accused of “not doing it right.” I suspect that I may never get tenure. But I need poetry and art and sunshine (and moonlight). I need waves that pull and bump and threaten me. I need to tell my stories without worry about how they will affect my job security.

The internet has been my playground for the past decade–just because academia has finally found it, too, I don’t want to lose the immediacy and the thrill of this space.

And, below, another link I just had to share (if only because of my long-time crush on Bill Nye):

March 14, 2010
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Daily Cuppa
making history

Daily Cuppa

teatime

This evening a friend dropped by and we shared some tea & scones after dinner. It wasn’t until about after an hour of chatting that I realized that I’ve been so crazy-intensely busy lately that the luxury of having a friend over for a cup of tea simply hasn’t been on my agenda. It’s no wonder, perhaps, that I’ve been waking up in the morning with a tight jaw, after I’ve been dreaming about lists of “To-Do” all night.

So I’m trying to reincorporate some space for peace and relaxation. Adding meditation. Walks. Sitting time in the garden. It won’t be easy with the schedule that I’ve got over the next few weeks, but I know I need to keep the balance in my life. (poetry, I hear you calling my name….)

For those of you who have missed my regular postings here, you might want to drop by History Compass or take a listen to one of my recent podcasts.

March 11, 2010
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birthright
amputee

birthright

There are some things that I don’t like about this video–such as the belaboring of the prep before surfing. But there are some things that I love about it. Like that moment where the first wave passes over him and all the sand is washed away…it’s just perfect. And then, seeing him in the water moving so fluidly…I know that feeling so well.

How can I explain what it means to be in water? To be the only place where gravity doesn’t pull and tug in ways that make movement difficult? In the water, on the water, under the water–I am a fish and my legs (or lack thereof) no longer matter.

The other thing I like about this video–how it shows the innovative things that Michael does to allow him to surf–such as balancing the end of the board on the fence near the car…So cool.

BIRTHRIGHT from Sean Mullens on Vimeo.

March 3, 2010
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classicsdeep thoughts

pilgrim classic: Saint or Sinner?

Republishing this post from 2/19/07:

[Full disclosure: I kifed this book from John’s pile this morning. And I am ‘stealing’ one of its ideas for this post.]

Are you good? Are you bad? A host of consequences hangs on the answer. Yet, a brief experiment can easily convince you that the question, so grave in appearance, has little foundation.

Consider how you spent yesterday. Retrace the main events, how one led to the next, and, as far as possible, reconstruct the thoughts that went with them hour after hour.

From this reconstruction, consider your attitude. Not objectively. In a partial, exagerated, and tendentious way. Note first the extreme magnanimity of your smallest actions. Be a benevolent judge of your innermost thoughts. Look how devoted you have been, how attentive, altruistic, sympathetic, humane, supportive, charitable, etc

And then do exactly the reverse. Force yourself to discern, in your acts and thoughts during that day, the obvious signs of perversity, your ability to harm, your taste for destruction, your fundamental wickedness…

And then, if you have carried this out completely enough, try believing in moral judgements and the searchings of conscience. What have you learned?

A bit of my experience (note: somewhat sanitized to avoid speaking of particular interactions w/people who might be reading my blog):
The Saint
In worship yesterday I felt lightness, love, goodness. A closeness with the spirit. I reached out to newcomers after Meeting. I ate lunch with friends and enjoyed their thoughts and their humor. I ate a divinely-tasty egg salad sandwich. I spent time interacting with my kids and John in the afternoon. I did the family’s laundry rather than spending time on my own tasks. Assembled a favorite salad to share with friends at dinnertime. Was gracious to Friends for their hospitality, etc, etc.

The Sinner
Slept in and was grumpy in the morning, as usual. Was testy with John and the kids because I was ready for Meeting before they were. Got to church late, despite having arranged to meet newcomers there beforehand. Resented some disruptions during worship. Had difficulty quieting my mind. Thought mostly of myself and all I want to/need to do. After meeting, left fellowship early to spend time with my friends. Ate egg salad sandwich for lunch w/no remorse about consuming animal protein. After dinner, poked fun of 50s movie and traditional Quakers. Tried to be funnier to impress friends. Thought more about how I was feeling than about others. Didn’t reach out to those I didn’t know well.

Upshot:
More than ever I agree with C.S. Lewis that:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

It seems to me that we are, all of us, both gods and devils simultaneously. We are selfish and selfless in the same moment. And as such, we should be gentle with judging ourselves, and also with judging others.

March 2, 2010
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