Love is love is love is love is love is love is LOVE!

I got engaged February 23^rd of 2010, and on March 13^th of this year, 2011, I gave my partner her ring.  It was a quiet Sunday evening, and we just got home from our trip to Seattle for Spring Break where my dad’s side of the family still lives.  My partner met that side of my family for the first time on that trip, and it was a fantastic time.  Our exchange of rings was quiet and sweet, we love each other and that is something to be cherished and celebrated. 

I have to admit that while I couldn’t be happier to have someone who loves me and who is so able to deal with my shit, I want a wedding; I want to have our families together to celebrate with us.  I know that there are those who think that my ‘lifestyle’ is an abomination that it’s abhorrent, and they are entitled to those beliefs.  But the fact is that I have love, and I feel as though I have just as much right to want to celebrate that.

My partner and I started discussing wedding plans almost immediately after she proposed last year.  We decided on colors, flowers and even the venue for the ceremony and reception.  The expenses were adding up quickly, and neither of us have saving that would cover it nor do we have parents that are willing or able to contribute to the cause.  My mom has never been great with money, especially saving it!  My dad offered to do the catering, but the venue has their approved list, not to mention that he lives on the other side of the country.  My partner’s parents are quite conservative, and don’t really support our relationship though they have recently begun to acknowledge it.  So, we put plans on hold.  I had to get money saved for the move here to Fort Wayne last summer.  I also had to get into and situated in an apartment and get mentally prepared for the job search and the start of the fall semester.  She had to get acclimated to life in the USCG, and had just moved into a new apartment where she is stationed.  With all of that, planning a wedding went by the wayside and we have just gone about life. 

My partner is one of five children between her parents who are both remarried adding a total of five more siblings to the situation.  She is the oldest of the kids her parents had, and her brother who is next in line announced his engagement at the end of 2010.  Her whole family has jumped on board to offer support both emotionally and financially.  I don’t mean to sound whiney, it’s just a little frustrating.  She and I have been together for over four years, the last year of which we were engaged, and the majority of the family refused to even acknowledge my existence.  But her brother’s engagement and marriage are the talk of family, as they all are planning gifts, travel and accommodations for his wedding.

I am not saying that I want their money or that I want them to pay for or plan our wedding, more than anything I want for my partner to feel that support from her family.  Her heart is repeatedly broken by the way her parents react to her relationship, skirting around it like it’s a disease they can catch.  I am not her partner but her ‘friend’ in their conversations… “So, how’s your friend doing?”  Friend?!

I think back to a post that Vickie made about her visit to Fort Wayne Pride, and I wish that more people in this world shared her sentiments… In her blog post, she said, “there is not enough love in the world to begin with, and if you find someone to love whether they share the same body parts as you do or not, you have every right to live your life with that person free from judgment and fear. Period.”

Love is love is love is love is love is love is LOVE!

To those in the trenches of academia

In our paper, paper #2-cretivity, I found that while my relationship with my mom is rocky at best, I have a great amount of respect for her.  Over the course of the last few weeks since spring break I have been struggling to keep afloat academically.  The whole load of all my classes came crashing down on my head and shoulders.  I have been a rollercoaster ride of emotions-- crying, self-loathing, telling myself that I can do it, resolving to the good old- “all you can do is the best you can do,” and back again to self-loathing… I have something against succeeding I think, at least on a subconscious level.  But, I look back to my childhood, well from 5^th and 6^th grade, and I see my mom struggling to raise two kids, go to school full-time, work as much as she could, and try to have some moments of free time.  I see that sacrifices she made, and though there are some that I don’t necessarily agree with, she made it happen.  She went to nursing school and became an LPN, then worked for a year to gain some real-life experience.  After that year she went to Marian College in Indianapolis, now Marian University, full-time in a two year, accelerated program and is now and has been working as a Registered Nurse for over 15 years. 

She has seen her fair share of obstacles in life, and as humans we all make mistakes, but she survived and is an incredibly strong woman because of it all.  For this, I have incredible respect for her as a person, a woman, and as my Mother.

To all of those who seek academic ends, which are seemingly never ending, here is the one thing that I have learned—Keep at it, keep at it, and keep at it.  It isn’t easy and it shouldn’t be, this is the rest of our lives and creating that kind of sturdy foundation should be laborious. 

I have a great amount of respect to all who seek this path and find the strength to make it through. 

excuse me while I vent a bit... GRRRoup Work

In this rant I am making no claim to perfection nor am I attempting to denounce my own issues with procrastination.  I am merely venting about my most recent experiences with group work for a 400-level communication class.  That being said, I will commence.

Ok, rewind to the early part of the semester.  One assignment for this class is a group presentation/reading forum based on our choice of an article from a provided list.  I chose one that, based on the shortened title, looked most interesting.  The article, Boys Don’t Cry and Female Masculinity: Reclaiming a Life & Dismantling the Politics of Normative Heterosexuality, focuses on the narrative strategies employed in the film, Boys Don’t Cry.  The film is based on the life of a FTM transgender.  Anyway, my purpose here is not to analyze the film or the article for you.

We have had access to our articles through BlackBoard since the day we signed ourselves into these groups.  The Tuesday before spring break two of my group members approached me about setting up a meeting time.  We agreed on Thursday, the 17^th.  We were to meet at a local coffee house at 6:30 that night.  I am not generally a very punctual person, but I got there ten minutes early.  When I walked in I didn’t see any one from my group, but since I was early I just took a seat and waited.  I realized that there was a back room, so I ventured down the hallway and peered into the room only to find that no one was in there.  I went back towards the front of the shop, sat back down and waited.  I waited and then waited some more.  I waited until 7pm.  I emailed all of the women in my group to no avail, well no responses that night anyway. I emailed the Prof to see what she recommended, and she responded saying that she had talked to all members of my group earlier in the week in our consultations and that they all sounded excited about the project. 

The next morning I decided to email everyone through IUmail only because I have heard a number of stories about blackboard eating messages.  So this was Friday morning, I drafted an email including my phone number and non-school email address and still I heard nothing back.  Now mind you this is where I admit that not a single one of us had exchanged phone numbers—STUPID, I know!! 

I headed off to work, worked my shift, came home and read until I drifted off to sleep.  I woke up early Saturday morning to get started on homework and checked all of my email accounts.  One response- She said that no one had told her about the failed meeting.  So she and I began correspondence to see if we could find some time in which to meet.  By the time I had to go to work, we agreed on meeting Sunday at 7pm at a different local coffee shop.  An hour before we were to meet girl #2 called… She just got all of my emails and had been so busy she had forgotten about our project, continuing on about everything that she has due Tuesday.  (Yeah, well I have a shit ton of stuff due this week too, but come on!)

Ok, whatever… we were, well 3 out of the 4, we were meeting!  Progress, right?

The venue changed, so I came to the campus library and sat down with my group to discuss our paper and our strategy for our presentation.  I was thinking that I would have this project knocked out in a couple hours and would then be able to focus my energies on my four other papers and mountain of reading.  Boy was that wishful thinking! These two girls had not even read the article!!  I think in terms of our article, we got pretty lucky. The reading itself was pretty straightforward and easy to understand.  So the one girl looks at me and says, “So, don’t take this the wrong way, but since you actually read the paper maybe you should do the outline and analysis part of the assignment.”  It was all I could do to not laugh in her face!  The entire assignment is 140 points of 450 total for the class.  70 of the 140 is based on the typed outline and 2-3 page critical response.  So, wait, because I actually did the reading I earned the privilege to do the majority of the dirtiest work to earn the group grade without the group effort?  How the hell does that make any freakin’ sense?  Yea, it doesn’t!!

I honestly have yet to have a good group work experience! I now have to step off my bitch box, and get to work on the project!! If you want the grade, you have to do the work…

Leaving on a Jet plane... Unfortunately I knew exactly when I'd be back again

It was official!  Vacation had begun, I was in Detroit, and Natalie and I were packing our bags!  I was too excited to sleep! It wasn’t until after midnight that I was able to shut my eyes and our alarm went off at 3:45 in the morning.  Dressed and ready, we loaded up the car and drove to the Coast Guard station where we were meeting one of her fellow Coasties who would be driving us to the airport.  The plan was to leave my car there so that one of the guys from the station could take a look at it while we were out of town. 

We walked into the airport with almost three hours to kill, and just as we approached the ticket desk, I realized that I still had my car keys in hand.  “Dammit,” I thought, “so much for getting the car squared away while we are gone!”  Such is life I guess!  Oh well, we were in the airport and not far from being in the air and on our way to Seattle.

Once we were in the air it was smooth sailing, and we lucked out with a straight through flight.  I don’t really care much for flying and find the only benefit being the expedited travel time.  When we landed it was almost eleven in the morning and gray- as it usually is in Seattle- but it was near 50 degrees, which is better than what was happening back here!  We got our rental car and hit the road!

(I was born in Seattle and lived there until the age of five when we moved to Indiana.  After a year here, we moved back to Washington and lived there for another year before returning to Indiana where I have lived ever since.  I have, however, made many a trip to the state and it is the place that feels most like home.)

First Stop:  Pike Place Market and the original Starbucks

At Natalie’s request, we headed for the waterfront.  Heading north on I-5, I watched her anxiously to see her reactions to the scenery.  It is a route I have taken a time or two, but I have yet to tire of the views: the hills, the trees, the mountains, the city, the water—I love it every time.  The Mercer Street exit spits you out into the city, and it is just a couple of curves and a turn or two before you are right next to the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, continue west down one very steep hill and there you’ll find the waterfront. Parking is an adventure downtown, but once we found a place to park our adventure was officially on!

<<highly recommend the salted caramel hot chocolate>>

It wasn’t long before we finally heard from my dad, so we decided to head back towards Tacoma to meet him for lunch.  Natalie was meeting my dad for the first time! It was great to see him, and I really hate that I generally get to see him only once a year. 

--ok, for now my hands are tired and so am I

And all I wanted to do was go!

I remember waking up on Monday morning, February, 28^th, thinking “ok, all you gotta do is make it through the next four days and you’ll be on a plane.  Just four more days!”  This became my internal pep talk for the week.  Any time I felt overwhelmed or underinterested the little chant played in my head, “just three more days,” “just two more days,” until finally Thursday morning rolled around.  On Tuesday a series of events resulted in no class meetings on Thursday, which meant that I would be able to leave for Detroit even sooner than anticipated!  I woke up on Thursday and quickly set out to complete my to do list before hitting the road.  I had to pack, straighten up the house, take out the trash, set out extra food and water for the cat and the hedgehog, swing by the pharmacy, go to the dealership to get my title work, and lastly go to the license branch to title and plate my “new” car.  I thought, “sure, this should be a cinch!”  WRONG!  All the stuff around the house took a little longer than I anticipated mostly because I didn’t want my friend who would be stopping by to check on the animals while I was away to think that I was a slob. But I was optimistic when I finally got out the door. I was still ahead of schedule.  So I called the dealership on my way to the pharmacy, and the lady, who is entirely sweet but incredibly disorganized, said that she would do her best to have my paper work ready.  Mind you, I live near Jefferson Pointe and it was that Wal-Mart pharmacy I was going to, and the dealership is in New Haven.  I bought the car on the 12^th of February and was told to come back in ten days for my papers.  I returned to the dealership roughly 14 days later only to find that my stuff still had not been taken care of.  My temporary plates were going to expire upon my return, a day the BMV is closed, so I had to make sure I had this taken care of before I left.  I called on my way from the pharmacy, and was again assured that everything would be ready to go when I got there…  On the contrary!  She had not even so much as pulled my file when I walked in, and after sitting there for a half an hour listening to her babble on about schtooping the owner did she finally realize that my paperwork had not even been notarized.  Not only had they not said anything about the car having been wrecked or having a rebuilt title, their customer service sucks—they’re friendly but quite lacking in the efficiency department.  She proceeded to ask if I minded waiting while she drove a half an hour away to get it notarized, and well, what choice did I have?!  So there I sat…  waiting…  and waiting…  Finally she got back and I was out the door and off to the BMV.  I was in an out, but not before I realized that I did not have my bank card in my wallet.  I sat out in my car and desperately tried to remember where I had it last.  I remembered I shoved it in my coat pocket after getting gas one day.  Unfortunately, it was my big winter coat that I wasn’t taking on vacation, so I had to drive all the way back to my house to get it…

Finally, with bank card in hand and back in the car I was on my way to Detroit. 

A Much Needed Break

As Spring break was approaching, I started to feel the urge to get away.  My course load was beginning to get to me, the hectic life of a long-distance relationship was also wearing on me, and the overall desire for one single day free of obligations all led me to suggest to my fiancée that we look into taking a vacation during my Spring break.  This was an opportunity that we both jumped for.  As a couple, taking a long and far away trip was one thing we had yet to do.  It didn’t take us long to decide where to go since my dad’s side of the family all still live out in Washington state, and I hadn’t seen them in over a year.  Natalie has never been to Washington, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to see some sites and get more acquainted with the area because we are hoping to be stationed there within the next year once she finishes A school.

We have been hit with a few curve balls over the course of the semester, mostly to do with our vehicles, but we were determined to go on this trip!  Natalie put in for leave and we waited and waited to book our flight until we finally decided we couldn’t wait any longer.  So we crossed our fingers her leave would be granted, and bought the cheapest tickets we could find—which, as you might imagine were not that cheap this time of year and only a couple few weeks before we were supposed to be leaving. 

As break crept closer and closer we were both nervous and anxious.  We were beyond ready for a vacation and some quality time, but our trip was in a matter of days, but we still had no word yet on whether or not her leave was approved.  It was a good thing we didn’t wait to book our flight, because they posted her approved chit only four days before our scheduled departure at which point we never could have afforded to go.

And so it came, the week of our departure… 

I know I missed peer reviews...

I am wanting to create a student reading/ open-mic series, that would meet once a month or so throughout the semester.  At IUPUI, we had something like this and it was a great experience, and I thought maybe we could use something like that here.  I was wondering if there were any suggestions for locations or any suggestions in general?