FINAL:

Katie Mulville

WRA 140 Section 011

Final Blog Assignment

April 17, 2011

I Blog, Therefore I Am

As a kid learning to write, you are constantly pounded with the concept of writing formally. As I was taught to write throughout my K-12 years, the idea of writing in a blog as a homework assignment was inconceivable. You can’t write a blog for a school assignment, just too informal. Yet, here I am, writing a blog for a college English class as part of my final grade. I’ve only made a dozen or more blog posts but I feel that I have expressed myself more in those twelve posts than I could have in twenty formal essays. What is this new form of writing known as blogging?

It’s a four-letter word: B…L…O…G… BLOG. The word “blog” was added to the English dictionary only five short years ago. It’s a relatively new term defined as, “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections and comments (Merriam-Webster),” but it means much more than that. It’s more like an online diary where people can post to the world how they view, feel, and believe about a particular topic. It’s much stronger than that old diary you stick under your bed or hidden in your underwear drawer because its put out there for the entire world to share, read, and comment on. “Blogging”, otherwise known as “making frequent blog posts”, has become one of the most recent trends in American life, soon to be replaced by another, cool, trendy, online fad. But for now, blogging is it. You blog, therefore you are.

Contradicting to the style of writing bloggers use— which is normally very informal text, as if you were speaking to another person not the paper— there is the writing one does in school. When writing papers in a school setting, the student’s paper usually has audience of… well… the teacher and that’s about it. If the student if writing a paper, knowing its for the teacher and only the teacher to read, their tone is often formal and lacks opinion and voice due to the paper’s slim audience. Teachers may even try to switch things up by making students do in-class journaling where the students take the first few minutes of class to write down their feelings about the day. But once again, only the teachers eyes will be seeing and, more importantly, grading the journal. Students will once again, not fully express their views and opinions because they are trying to please the teacher, writing like, they believe, the teacher would like. Giving students the opportunity to blog means they will finally have the chance to write things they and their fellow peers care about and even give them the break to read their classmates blogs to see what their views and feelings are. Allowing kids to read other student’s blogs will even help the student grow and develop themselves as a writer. Most kids hate to write and what better way to get them to than putting together the two things they love: technology and the social media.

The discovery channel recently published an article about blogging being good for a student’s health. “Blogging can help students feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face (Ryan).” It’s a win-win situation: teachers get the results and the students get to do something the actually enjoy.

            With any other online or computer technology, there is always the issue of availability of the technology. Do all students have access to a computer? If not, are there computers available in the school for all students to use. School districts, such as Detroit Public Schools, which could potentially benefit from blog writing, just doesn’t have the resources available for students to take advantage of. Schools like this will have to resort to old fashioned in class journaling.

            Its not fair to say that all classroom writing should be done via blogging but by replacing some of the traditional classroom composition work students may start to enjoy the writing they do in English class and teacher will begin to enjoy teaching it again. It’s a simply four-letter word, changing classroom all across the country: blog. Blogging used in classroom helps kids express themselves in a more free and open environment. Blogging may only be a trend of the present, but its changing the way students write. I blog, therefore I am. (Ryan) (Blog)

Works Cited: 

Blog. 17 April 2011 <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog>.

Ryan, Claudine. Blogging's Good For Your Health . 3 March 2008. 17 April 2011 <http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/03/blogging-social-health.html>.

Women in the News

Last night I read the reading assignment "You've Come Along Way Baby" pages 233-250 and I shed some light for me on a topic I never really thought about: Women in the news. 
The section mainly talked about how women reporters are never the main anchor but rather the co-host or co-anchor. For women in news they MUST have the looks which men don't necessarily need as much as women in the field. 
The chapter spoke a lot about Katie Couric and her new anchor job at CBS. When Katie Couric came to CBS in 2006 she brought with her the notoriety and success she had achieved at NBC’s Today Show. She inherited a news broadcast that was the 3^rd  highest rated among the network news, a shadow of its formerly powerful self in the 60’s and 70’s when Walter Cronkite, an American icon, was the anchor. But according to the book, it was a disappointment. Many say Couric was brought to CBS to attract younger viewers and they hoped to achieve that by having a women at the anchor: something which had NEVER been done before. Since then Katie has decided to step down from CBS and start her own day time take show.


We are in the final days of Katie Couric as the anchor of the 3^rd place CBS Evening News. Her departure is not fully set yet, so it’s not a total certainty, merely a virtual one. What is certain is that her contract ends in June and CBS will surely not renew it at the current rate of compensation which is reported to be $15 million annually.


What’s next for Couric? The future is unclear, although she is reportedly considering creating her own syndicated talk show.  Rumor is that it may include her former co-host Matt Lauer, whose NBC Today contract runs through 2012. What is clear is that network TV news is still having trouble making women its main anchor. I admire Katie Couric and in my eyes she is a symbol for women everywhere to never give up on your dreams.


For more information about Katie and her departure from CBS check out this site: http://www.mayoseitzmediamonitor.com/katie-courics-departure-from-the-cbs-evening-news/




-Katie M!

What's Wrong With Women?

I read an article online recently and it totally reminded me of what we discussed in class today. It goes right along with "You've Come alone Way Baby," pages 215-230.


Glamour this month: 11 Sex Moves Men Wish We'd Try; Plus: 100 Other Vital Man-Facts Worth Knowing. A Toned Body--By Tonight. You Can Do Anything! Extreme Dos & Don'ts: The Hair, the Thongs, the Cleavage--We Couldn't Make This Stuff Up. Pages and Pages of Hair Magic! All the Tricks and Styles You Need for Total Hair Happiness.


The portrait of American women painted by their magazines is devastating. There are two themes, both them explored with an unbelievably repetitive total puerility that is well crystallized in the phrase "total hair happiness": sex and appearance, which, in combination, seem to constitute both self-esteem and (thus) the meaning of life. It's difficult for a fellow not to notice - perhaps with a certain pleasure - that these interests converge on us: understanding men, pleasing men, manipulating men, showing men your breasts.


Women's magazines are, in short, monthly guidebooks adding up to thousands of glossy pages on how to achieve a chirpy, kicky subordination to men. They're actually not too far from Slave: How to Grin, Shuck, Jive, and Pick Cotton. 117 Things Massa Really Wants. The Right Body for Grinding Physical Labor - By This Afternoon!


Marie Claire: Make the Most of Your Shape with Best Haircut for Your Figure. 7 Silly Sex Tricks That Really Work. Would You Marry for Money? Four Designer Looks for Christina Aguilera. Get Beautiful Skin - Instantly. How Much Time Do You Really Spend Thinking About Your Body?


If the most superficial appearance was the deepest insight, Marie Claire would be profound. If the deepest human values were dissimulation, exhibitionism, and anxiety, then Marie Claire would be the Tao Te Ching, the Sermon on the Mount, the Dialogues of Plato, and it would show that American women are strong, intelligent, and wise. As thing are, it shows something . . . else.


Of course, not all American women read such magazines, and even those who do don't necessarily agree with the values deployed there. They are often interpreted by their readers with a touch of irony. And perhaps my personal condescension has something to do with the misogyny that is my heritage as a man as well as my personal burden. True, true.


But I don't think you can walk around town or go to a party and seriously deny that Glamour shows something about who a lot of women are and aspire to be. The people who create these magazines (mostly women) are selling them by giving women what they want, and they've tried other approaches with less success. You can't buy and read such magazines in preference to whatever else you might buy and read and then tell me that it means absolutely nothing about who you are.


Cosmo: Get Him Hot: 8 Naughty Dares to Try Tonight. Morning-After Beauty: It Doesn't Get Any Sexier That This! His Four Secret Sexual Needs. You, You, You!


I'm not really sure what happened to feminism. But at a gander it looks to me like patriarchy won, and that all segments of our society are reasonably satisfied with that result. Perhaps I will be accused of blaming the victim. But you'll never be free if what you most deeply desire is to submit. And there's no point in being free if there's nothing of enduring value that you know or seek.
Twist: He Doesn't Know You Exist? That's Because You Haven't Tried This Yet. Self: Get a WOW Body in 31 Days. 9 Teen Vogue: Update Your Face. Jane: The Wildest Sex Move Ever, and it's Klutzproof. Cosmo Girl: Make Your Guy Want to Commit, Now. Latina: La Verdad About Why He Isn't Calling.


One thing we could say by way of exculpation is that the American magazine industry, like American politics, is diseased by formula and a global failure of courage and creativity. And popular magazines practice a sort of least-common-denominator moronism that is common to all American mass-media, from major-label pop music to network television to, um, men's magazines. In fact, magazines such as Maxim are essentially Cosmo for men, and display no deeper set of truths. But the theme of what's wrong with men, though rich, must be left for another occasion.


Woman, what's wrong with you?


Article found at:
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/women.htm

SIN CITY or HOOKER HOUSE?

I am writing this blog from LAS VEGAS, Nevada! Me and my family are currently visiting family in Las Vegas and tonight is my last night here. Its been a great trip. I got to see my cousins who I very much needed to spend some family time with. We spent 4 night in New York, New York Hotel on the strip of Las Vegas Blvd., saw the Hoover Dam, The Grand Canyon, and of course, much exploitation of women! I've never been to Vegas, I know its called "SIN CITY" but I never expected this. On the corner of EVERY street stand old creepy men (even some old women) handing our nude "business cards" of their women. I talked with my cousins more about the problem and they discussed me with a story that was recently in the news about 400 underage kids. In one month the police found 400 CHILDREN under the power of their "pimps" basically being used as Sex Slaves. The children where beaten and abused so much they were even brainwashed the think they couldn't escape their captives.
Here me and my family were enjoying ourselves in the city of sin and we never realized the problems this city has with prostitution. It disgusted me. The men literally shoved the "business cards" into my hands. I just couldn't believe discrimination like this could happen in America.
Women here are literally views as pieces of meat in this city.
Below is an actual photo I took on my Iphone of the trucks that pass by the strip EVERY 5 MINUTES!!!!

What are your thoughts about this problem? Do you think there is a problem? or is this just SIN CITY and its fine? comment!

-Kate M! :)

Celebrities- bad role models for teens?

I am writing this post to comment on Fran's blog written March 22nd, 2011 named,  "Demi Lavato- In rehab for cutting". I TOTALLY agree with Fran. I still can remember the era when Brittany Spears was at her highest. "Oops I did it again" was number one on the charts and her song "Lucky" played at least 20 times a day in my house. I wanted so bad to go to one of her concerts, but my mom wouldn't allow me. She said I was "too young" to see such a "grown-up concert". Granted I was only 9, a little young to see Brittany, however, I was so angry. I didn't understand why my mom wouldn't allow me to see her at that age.

Now, I completely understand why she didn't let me, but look at young celebrities now! Seeing Brittany Spears dancing half-naked to "Oops I did it again!" would be the LEAST of my moms worries if i were a child growing up today. Demi Lavato is a popular Disney channel star in rehab for cutting, Lindsay Lohan is in and out of prison, and just a short time ago stars like Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudgens had nude "sexting" pictures roaming around the cell phone of teenage boys all across the country. 
My mother protected me from the "provocative" concerts of Brittany Spears, but parents today have to do a lot more than that. Teenage stars are dressing raunchy, drinking in clubs, and getting their first mug shots taken before then even get their drivers license. 
It makes me wonder what I will be dealing with when my own girls (kids that I wont be having for a VERY long time FYI) when they are teens. What will teen Women role molds be like then?

Jessica Care Moore Comes to Michigan State University.

Jessica Care Moore: Her bio reads,  internationally renowned poet/ publisher/ activist/ rock star/ playwright and actor. She is a five-time Showtime at the Apollo winner and was a returning star of Russell Simmon's HBO Series, Def Poetry Jam. 

After her legendary win on the Apollo stage, jessica Care moore was approached by several book publishing companies, but in 1997, she paved her own path and launched a publishing company of her own – Moore Black Press.

But what does she have to do with my, "Women in America" class at MSU. Well, today Jessica Care Moore came back to the college where it all started. Yes! Moore started her career off right here at Michigan State University and today she stopped by her old campus to give us kiddies a reading of her poetry.

I was quite surprised when she took the stage. Normally when someone important comes to give a speech they always act so formal, dress formal, and most certainly speak proper. But she didn't and someone it worked for her.

She immediately grabbed the crowd in. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She talked what you could call, "teenage talk", or maybe even a little "ghetto" and periodically swore and cursed. She was funny in an odd, blunt kind of way!

Her writing is obviously about African American life and although I am white Caucasian, I still could very much relate to it.

I've never ever heard of her before today and, therefore, had never read a piece of her work. Today she read us a dozen or so of her poems. Some of her poems talk about blacks and white and how we are all completely the same. After today I kind of conceder her to be a modern day equality activist.

When she reads her poems, she just transformed. To me it sounded a little like rap or something. It was really quite miraculous to hear her read it like that.

Overall, It was a once in a lifetime experience.

If any of you ever get the chance, I highly recommend you see her!

Or. . . If you never get the change to see her, at least go online and google her name and check out her website at: Mooreblackpress.com

National Women's History Month!

Its March! You know what that means? It's national women's history month.I'm excited about this, seeing as how my class is named, "Women in America." 

It all started out of a small-town school event in California, now, Women's History Month is a celebration of women's contributions to history, culture and society. The United States has observed it annually throughout the month of March since 1987. The 2011 theme, “Our History Is Our Strength,” pays tribute to women’s tenacity, courage and creativity over the centuries.

I received an email about The Niagara Foundation. They cordially invites anyone interested to the panel discussion on “Celebrating Women as Community Builders; Perspectives from Three Women Leaders" in commemoration of Women’s History Month.

In this panel, the panelists will share their opinions with us on the role of the women as community builders, discuss the contributions of the women to society in different fields and talk about the challenges that they encounter. They will also share their views on how to make women realize their full potential and encourage them to fulfill this potential.

Sounds like an interesting event & for those of you who are interested here is some more information:

PANELISTS:
Sheri L. Jones; WLNS -TV 6 News Anchor

Paulette Granberry Russell; Senior Advisor to the President of MSU for Diversity; Director of the Office for Inclusion & Intercultural Initiatives

Dr. Elizabeth Simmons; Dean of the Lyman Briggs College, MSU

DATE: Thursday, March 17, 2011
TIME: 6pm-8pm
VENUE:  East Lansing Hannah Community Center  Executive Conference Room
ADDRESS: 819 Abbot Road, East Lansing, MI 48823
FEE: Free of charge



Further more, In honor of women's history month, I've been watching some short videos on the History Channel's web site.
Most of them are short, less than a few minutes, so they won't take long to watch. Take a look, the one about the first ladies is my favorite!!!!!
CLICK HERE TO GO TO VIDEOS


CHEERS!

EXCLUSIVE: Tyra Banks to Launch New Fashion and Beauty Website, typeF.com

Tyra Banks has yet another pet project in the works–a new fashion and beauty website called typeF.com. Debuting on March 15, Banks hopes to form an online community that will appeal to all types of women. “We’re celebrating diversity with hair color, skin color, hair textures,” “Every woman will see a reflection of themselves on this site.” Along with features on topics from make-up to clothes, Banks will also contribute to typeF.com: “You’ll see a very strong connection with me on the site.” And as for the website’s name–what does the mystery “f” stand for? “I connect to fierce–that’s what it means to me,” says Banks. “But it allows for women to define themselves. It can mean fashionable, fashion-forward, feisty.” 

When registering for the site you will give information about your hair color, body type, style, personality and more that will personalize the site for you so that you get a site that is full of information that you would want.


I found this article after seeing Tyra Banks on the Ellen show Wednesday, March 10th. She spoke of her new site and how she hopes it will embrace individuality and self expression.


Tyra has been known to promote inner beauty and I thought this post would go great to expand my post from two weeks ago.


Check the video out and come March 15th, check her new website out! 

Gender Roles in Children...

This is a video on gender roles in children. Its kind of mono-tone and out-of-date, but it gets the point across and its a little humorous too! I found it interesting that even at the age of two, children have a large grasp on certain gender roles.


I have a lot of cousins, most of which are around my age, however the younger ones tend to idolize the older cousins of their sex. My little cousin, Laura, idolizes me, not my brother. When she comes over she raids MY closet, wants to wear MY makeup, and wants to be just like ME, not my brother Joey. Its not that she doesn't like Joey, its because she been instilled with gender roles telling her she has to like what other women like, not men.





Kids are not brainwashed, nor are they sexist. They are simply repeating what they have observed. What this video reveals is that society determines what it means to be a male or female. SEX is determined by your genitalia at birth. GENDER is taught to you through parents, teachers, peers, media. They are two very different things. Not saying biology doesn't play a role in behavior, but gender is socially constructed and we do have to LEARN how to act.


I then thought about how we break up the chores around my house. My sister and I are in charge of doing the laundry, dishes, household cleaning, and even weeding. Where my brother does the garbage, mowing the lawn, weed-wacking. Why doesn't Joey do the laundry. Well to be honest I like my whites white not pink and destroyed, so I would never let him touch my clothes. But these stereotype have been around for thousands of years and aren't about to change...


Check the video out. I know it looks like an old after school special, but it really has some great points!
Also, let me know what you think. Do any of you disagree with what society instills in us during childhood?
DONT FEEL SHY TO COMMENT :)

Media's Influence on Body Image

Check these videos out! After our class discussion about media and how they can influence a woman's idea of  the "perfect body" I went on YouTube and did a little searching. Turns out there are hundreds of clips about women and how media is a major body image influencer. What I find particularly interesting is how they can "change" the way a women looks by a simple new invention called Photoshop. Young girls everywhere are literally starving themselves because they cant look like the beautiful and skinny models in all the magazines when in actuality no one can ever look like that, at least not without being unhealthy. The second video posted is a comparison of BEFORE and AFTER Photoshop edits. And the third is a particularly interesting one I found showing you just how easy it is for magazine editors to trim INCHES off a celebrities waist while adding two cup sizes to their bust in just minutes. Please comment! Any thoughts or inputs you guys would like to add?

Women Through the Years… (Part II)

Susan B. Anthony once said, "Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the women of today a different woman from her grandmother." How true is that? As I continue to read America’s Women – 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines I find myself amazed with every chapter. In each section the women of that day are COMPLETELY different from the generation before them. In fact, Women evolved with every new decade.

This got me thinking about my great-grandmother.

My great-grandmother, Gertrude (Busha- as we called her), was born in 1923. She was the second generation of Nezgotskis to ever live in America. She was one of four sisters, born and raised in the Polish heartland of Hamtramck, Michigan. The Roaring '20s were a time of speakeasies, short skirts, the Charleston dance, and jazz music. The 1920s also showed great strides in Women's Suffrage. There were an amazing number of cultural firsts in the 1920s, including the first talking film. She was a teen during the 1930’s when the great depression hit. My great-grandmother’s family was so poor she wore two different shoes to school and had to walk over a mile to get there.  She lived a hard childhood and women of that era didn’t have much say in the work field.

The Great Depression hit the world hard. The Nazis took advantage of this situation and were able to come to power in Germany, establish their first concentration camp, and begin a systematic persecution of Jews in Europe. In the late 1930’s she met and fell in love with her soon-to-be-husband, John. My great-grandma and her husband started their very own bar in Hamtramck. Soon after that, World War II started. My great-grandma had just had my grandma, Patricia, a few years earlier, when her husband was drafted into WWII. She was left alone to manage the bar with her brother-in-law and a few family friends.

 World War II was already underway by the time the 1940s began and it was definitely the big event of the first half of the decade. My great-grandma worked in the car factories making bombs and army utilities, trying to support her family while her husband was at war. During late hours of the night, she would work at the bar doing bookkeeping. From the stories I heard as a child, she was truly something else. My great-grandfather never returned from the war, he died in action while parachuting from a plane. My great-grandma didn’t even graduate High School; yet alone have a college degree. So, with out a husband, she sold the bar and kept numerous odd jobs; just trying to keep money in.

The 1950s are sometimes referred to as the Golden Age. Color TV was invented; the polio vaccine was discovered; Disneyland opened; and Elvis gyrated his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Cold War continued as the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union began. The 1950s also saw segregation ruled illegal in the U.S. and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. This is the era in which my grandmother, Pat was a teenager during. Her life was much more carefree and lighthearted than her mothers. She was the first to graduate High School. She met and married my grandfather, Ed, quickly after graduating and it was still custom to be a housewife and so like most women of her age, she stayed home to be a stay-at-home mom.

To many, the 1960s can be summed up as the Vietnam War, hippies, drugs, protests, and rock and roll. (A common joke goes "If you remember the sixties, you weren't there.") Although those were important aspects of this decade, other events occurred as well. For instance, the Berlin Wall was built, the Soviets launched the first man into space, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles become popular, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" speech, and so much more! This was the era in which my parents were born. My grandma, Pat, had three children, my father, Joe, being the oldest.

My grandpa Ed divorced my grandma when my father was an early teen; she had no other option but to go to college. She was a single parent who raised three kids and with some support from my grandpa Ed she eventually got her degree in Nursing. My parents mainly grew up in the 1970’s. The Vietnam War was still a major event in the beginning of the 1970s and 1980’s.  The 1980s saw the introduction of the mesmerizing Rubik's Cube toy, Pac-Man video game, and Michael Jackson's Thriller video. This started the beginning of the “electronic era” that hit when I was born. My mom didn’t have the luxuries of life as I do. Her parents owned their own business, and my mom was left to help out around the house a lot.

She helped cook, clean, and do more household chores than the children of my generation. When she graduated High School, she started dating my father, and I’m proud to say that she is the first woman on her side of the family to ever go to college. She became an occupational therapist and my father graduated with masters in civil engineering. My parents have been blessed to be a well off upper-middle class family and have given me the opportunity to go to college as well, something my great-grandmother never would never even think about.

To me, it’s crazy to look back at the past generation of women in my family. Each generation of women has a COMPLETELY different life from the next. What will my daughter’s life be like? And what opportunities will come for women in the future? I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

We Can Do It!

We all recognize the face.... but who was she? I was online last week and came across a very interesting article. I thought you might enjoy it….

"Does anyone know who the woman shown in it was? Sad that we had to wait for her obituary to appear in today’s New York Times to find out… but here it is;

Geraldine Doyle, Iconic Face of World War II, Dies at 86 

Geraldine Hoff Doyle, who was believed to be the unwitting model for the "We can do it!" poster of a woman flexing her biceps in a factory during World War II — an image that later became a symbol for the American feminist movement — died on Sunday in Lansing, Mich. She was 86.

The cause was complications of arthritis, said her daughter Stephanie Gregg.

Mrs. Doyle was unaware of the poster’s existence until 1982, when, while thumbing through a magazine, she saw a photograph of it and recognized herself. Her daughter said that the face on the poster was her mother’s, but that the muscles were not.

“She didn’t have big, muscular arms,” Mrs. Gregg said. “She was 5-foot-10 and very slender. She was a glamour girl. The arched eyebrows, the beautiful lips, the shape of the face — that’s her.”

In 1942, when she was 17, Geraldine Hoff took a job as a metal presser at a factory near her home in Inkster, Mich., near Detroit, to aid the war effort, Mrs. Gregg said. One day, a United Press photographer came in to shoot images of working women.

The resulting poster was used in a Westinghouse Company campaign to deter strikes and absenteeism. It was not widely seen until the early 1980s, when it was embraced by feminists.

She quit the factory job after about two weeks because she learned that another woman had damaged her hands while using the metal presser, and she feared that such an injury would prevent her from playing the cello, her daughter said.

At one of her next jobs, at a soda fountain, she met her husband, Leo H. Doyle, a dental student. They had been married for 66 years when he died this year.

In addition to Mrs. Gregg, she is survived by four other children, 18 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren."

Quoted From: http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/12/ 

Women Through the Years...

America’s Women – 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines.

So, I just finished reading the reading assignment for Women in America and it was really good. So good, that I continued reading well into the next chapter. I was actually surprised at the fact that I enjoyed it and even more surprised with what I read. At first it seemed as if women were really struggling. In the colonies, times were tough, and the women did just as much as them men (if not more) and got no credit for it. They couldn’t own land, get a divorce, or even defend themselves in the court of law. They died very young, often before their children reached ten. However, as time went on, and by the second generation of women colonist, I felt like they learned how to “work the system.” Some learned it was better not to marry in order to own their own land and some even owned their own businesses. Others just learned the system of marriage. Women would marry sometimes up to 4 or 5 different men in their lifetime. Every time a husband would die, they would inherit all his wealth and quickly move on to the next one. It was a little unconventional but I worked for them!

Goodbye Milford, Hello World!

            May 28^th.  That was my last day ever setting foot in Milford High School. Every year when the seniors graduate Milford would have a walk out were you clap for all the seniors as they make their final depart out the high school doors. It’s normally a full hour filled with tears, crying, and painful goodbyes. It’s like a soap opera on steroids. However, it certainly wasn’t for me. You didn’t have to drag me out of my “beloved school” all “teary eyed”, begging to stay “just one more year.” Instead, I got the hell out there as fast as I could!

            I wasn’t a big fan of high school. To me it resembled a prison. When the bell rang all the “inmates” (students) could move from one “prison cell” (classroom) to another. All the inmates had a scheduled lunch period and if you misbehaved you were even sent to the principles office for solitary confinement. You could even compare high school clicks with prison gangs. OK, that may be a little dramatic, but it did feel that way at times.
            Don't get me wrong, I wasn't s some weirdo in high school. I was athletic, pretty, and had a lot of friends from all different clicks. I just didn't enjoy adolescence as much as most kids did. I just wanted to move on to the real world.

            When I was in the fifth grade a student in my class asked my teacher why we were learning a certain subject and the teacher responded, “Because we have to.” The student went on to question why and the teacher said, “Because, its our curriculum and its going to prep you for learning in college.” PREP me for learning for college? So everything I ever did in twelve years of public schooling was only to prepare me for the real word? Believe me, I was MORE than ready to leave the small domain of Milford, and get out there to take on the world.

            Finally, I can sit here and say all that prep work is over. I am in the real world now.  I’m a college student at Michigan State University.  And what can I say; this newfound world of freedom is everything I asked for and more!
            My mom was of the first generation in our family to EVER go to college. However, she never left home. She resided at home, with her parents, worked, and over time gradually made it to her degree. At 26, she moved out of her parents and in with my father. Mom has never lived on her own, or had the freedom and independence that women of my generation and I are lucky to have.

            This blog is going to help document my voyage, and my encounters (good and bad), as a new found independent WOMEN in college. For those of you actually reading this blog you will be able to live with me, all of my mistakes, glories, breakthroughs, and crossings of self-discovery. 

– Kate