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Blogs
Our Song!
Oh I’m done with school, I’m out of motivation
I’m walking through a fog of stifled dreams
There will always be something missing here
Falsely composed
Trying to ignore finals week hysteria, 99 problems, and more
Oh I’m ready to go forward
Ready or not here I come
Dreams are arising from the unconscious C
I'm I'm excited for what's to come
I'm facing reality finding new purpose in life
I want to live my life on my terms
I want to live full-heartedly
Falsely composed
Trying to ignore finals week hysteria, D99 problems, and more
Initial Self Reflection Post (Moved under title: "Self Reflection")
My self-reflection was posted here earlier - before I actually read the portfolio instructions to put it under a specified link!
What Walls Do We Build/Need/Break Down?--Our Final Presentations!
Welcome everybody! We're happy that you’ve joined us here to see what we've learned in our 360° this semester. A 360° is a cluster of interdisciplinary courses that look at one main theme. Ours is called Women in Walled Communities.
In The Rhetorics of Silence, we examined the many functions and meanings of silence: as a political tool, an imaginative space, and a powerful form of communicative expression--as well as the result of lack of agency and or the denial of voice.
In Learning in Institutional Spaces, we explored how the institutions of schools and prisons promote or inhibit learning. It was in this course that we looked most critically at this institution, Bryn Mawr College, and its own history of power and oppression, which sparked a lot of interest in Perry House as an embodiment of some of that history.
Don't overestimate the amount of food you need, guests!
I am very very upset after two lunch shifts at Wyndham this week...Not just that I have to work in the middle of the day during final week, but to see how much food are wasted in only two hours. Now I totally understand the green project a couple of weeks ago that demonstrated how much food we just throw away on a daily basis. When I have meals at dining halls, I also have this habit to take whatever looks attractive and may or may not finish it at all. Sometimes, I have to waste food because the food doesn't taste what I have imagined. But seriously, people are taking too much some time...And it is hard to see that only looking at your own plate. But the kitchen is clearing the plates like crazy and nearly 20% of them are full when people are done with the meal (roughly estimated by me, could be very misleading but indeed there are lots of such cases). We will be having meals at the dining halls for most of the time at Bryn Mawr, maybe take some time to note how much you exactly need for each meal? Also in response to the budget cut these days...Everyone should experience working at a dining hall some time... Really, this is the most direct way to see how much we waste EVERY MEAL! (May be a suggestion for the field work for the course.)
Exploring East Asian Identity Live Broadcast
Here's the introductory podcast. It's a more polished, expanded version of what you saw at the final presentation
We recorded our livepodcast but be warned: it's INCREDIBLY soft. I suggest you pump up the volume for it. It's shared in a google doc here (I need to sign up for podcast permission from itunes in order to get a more formal way to share things with everyone, so this will have to do for now)
Here's the script we had for monday's presentation:
INTRODUCTION
I’m Irene Shin ‘13
Chandrea Peng ‘15
Yiran Zhang ‘14
Irene: Over the past several weeks, the three of us have interviewed several students on this campus to get a better understanding of the following question: what is it like to identify as East Asian at Bryn Mawr?
As you heard in my own interview with Danielle for her final project, my own motivations for being a part of this project can be summed up as so: I consider the East Asian demographic as a sleeping giant of sorts: an integral part of Bryn Mawr’s landscape but not foregrounded in any conversation on campus.
Our final 360 project aims to 1) give that space that has yet to exist and 2) understand why East Asians have a tendency not to speak on this issue to begin with.
Visual of BBB final project
Here are some images that represent our project. The first portion is what we showed during our final presentation.
Collaborators (AKA Book Buyin' Bitches): Hayley, Julia and Jacky
Enjoy!
Final BBB reflection
Developing and carrying out a final project that revolved around a subject which interested us felt like a perfect way to culminate our experience and learning together this semester. As one who has depended on books for various reasons for most of my life and never had to question my own literacy, the idea of Books Behind Bars in its effort to both raise consciousness about issues surrounding literacy, privilege and social distance as well as money to buy books for incarcerated women felt particularly close to home. While it was a topic that was personal to me, I saw much potential in BBB in that it had the ability to reach across and off campus, affecting both Bryn Mawr students and the larger population of incarcerated women that we had grown close to. Additionally, our consciousness-raising efforts were particularly far reaching in that our fliers were distributed across campus and thus hopefully engaged even those who were not in attendance of our final presentation. Although it may be impossible to determine how individuals reacted to our thought-provoking marketing techniques, I see the monetary success of our collection (we raised over $165!) as an indication that people not only noticed the flyers but thought about what they meant and why the issues they raised are important.
360 Exhibition Reflection
Below you'll find our workshop and attached my reflections on how it related to our work in our 360.
Final 360 Workshop
I Can’t Believe I’m Still Workshopping this Shit: Race and Privilege at Bryn Mawr (1 hour)
Goals: discuss importance to the whole community;discuss issues of race and privilege (color paper)
Voice: Educating people, privilege, school to prison pipeline - criminalization, voice/discussion, Bryn Mawr College History
Vision: The New Jim Crow, walled space, niches - as related to Perry House, where you feel at home on campus
Silence: Voices are silent on campus, silent activity/discussion, silence as a place of reflection, Delpit,
Materials: flipchart, markers, candy,index cards/pens for each team, tape the floor for step forward statements
Project Reflection!
Standing on Walls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvwFc-6kWys
I was certain that I wanted to make a zine about privilege in institutions of higher learning as my final project since we read Delpit, probably because I was so affected by my conflicting desires to have a developed, very specific theoretical vocabulary (and use it) and then my recognition that ideas should be accessible, and that there is incredible value in speaking as simply as possible (more people will understand you!).