Little Cat in the Big World

I won’t lie, I am definitely a little relieved that this posting will fulfill the last blogging requirement for this term. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the blog. Reflection through writing is something that I do on a regular basis, and it is something that I find quite comforting, but sharing that sort of thing in a public forum....well that's just not ideal. Whether it be in blog form, or in person conversations, I am not really a big fan of bouncing ideas off people. In all honesty, it’s because most of the time I legitimately feel that I approach things much differently from other people, and that most just simply don’t understand where I am coming from – and this feeling is usually reaffirmed in the responses that I receive...not always, but usually. My intention isn’t to sound angsty, although I am sure I do. I am merely suggesting that I don’t typically feel as though the blogging process is a beneficial experience for me in terms of processing my own experiences [sorry Joanne, I tried], and I’m definitely ok with that because I have other outlets. That being said, I have in some ways been thankful for the blogs, which is why I say it’s a love-hate relationship. I feel as though blogging has allowed our group to make a deeper connection with one another than may have been possible in a classroom setting alone. Our Beyond Borders group really hasn’t met all that often this term, but when our last class rolled around on the Monday, I found myself feeling somewhat saddened at the idea of us parting ways. And this feeling was actually a common thread of the week – as this was my last week of classes at UW....EVER!

**Let me tell you...there has been some embarrassing displays of me foolishly dancing in the street. I can only imagine what is going to happen on the day of my last exam. Luckily I am not writing in the PAC for that one...haha**

I have been keeping myself so outrageously busy this term that I have barely had time to really think about the fact that I am done here. Five years of my life has been spent at UW not simply trying to get a degree, but also forming a community and trying to discover my place in this crazy world. I have learned so much about myself and I am eternally grateful for the people who have shaped my experiences, good and bad, while here. Some of these individuals I have known only in passing, and some have been by my side since day one, but in their own ways they have helped to get me to this point – in spite of the fact that I didn’t always believe I could do it. In particular, the people I have surrounded myself with this school year have been pivotal in getting me to the end. When I started this year, I hit a really big wall, and wasn’t sure what I was even doing here or what direction I should go even if I did finish. I was sick of the system, and sick of not being challenged, and I was sick of the people that I was in class with [it’s a bit funny how I say “was” like this is no longer a problem...]. Call it final year burn-out or whatever you’d like, but I was not psyched about this year. What helped a lot, was the Beyond Borders program/the thought of Nairobi, my wonderful community group at the Women’s Centre, GLOW and the Student Equity group I am a member of, and finally St. John’s Kitchen. These places/groups became my refuge during the term because they were filled with people that shared values that centred on the importance of social justice, mutual respect, and a continual pursual of knowledge and self betterment. I can safely say that without these people/places, I probably would have freaked out and quit. And this week I was forced to start saying my goodbyes. Let me tell you, I am really not very good with goodbyes. Shocking, right?! Or, not at all really.

During goodbyes, my intense social awkwardness takes over, and instead of sharing a moment with someone, I get weirded out by their weeping and excessive touching, and then I ruin the moment [perhaps make it better...depends how you look at it] with awkward jokes. *sigh*. But despite my robot like expression of emotion, it is rather important for me try and express gratitude to those who have made a difference in my life – big or small. I’m the person that stops and tells the friendly bus driver that says hello when I get on the bus, that I appreciated their friendliness. I feel like it’s often the people that do the smallest things that make the biggest difference in our lives, and these small things are rarely acknowledged. I have very rational motivations for this, and I just truly think it's important to acknowledge when people are being awesome. So, during all of these goodbyes I am trying to sum up why say that random late night conversation I had about queer theory in the Women’s Centre was more than just a random conversation for me, which isn’t a particularly easy (or short) thing for me to articulate, and then it ends up being a disaster for all parties involved. People start weeping [myself NOT included], I start making jokes....and then my personal space gets invaded with hugs. Yikes! The next couple of weeks before departing are going to be just so awful....I can't even imagine how this is all going to go down when I leave Nairobi in August.

But, the point of all this is to say thanks to those in the Beyond Borders program. I have different reasons why each of you have made a difference for me this term, and I would need a lot more space to individually thank each one of you. So I will have to settle for this: Thanks for the challenges, laughs, conversations, and continual push that I needed to make it to this point. It hasn’t always been smiles and giggles, but it’s always been a valuable learning experience – and if you aren’t uncomfortable then you aren't learning....right?! I imagine I will see most of you before we all depart - and the hugs and awkwardness can take place then.

This is so much easier to do online.

Cheers,
Cathleen

This week, I had a particularly relevant Beyond Borders learning moment that I plan on sharing with you all. It’s pretty simple, and it’s not like I didn’t know it before, it just seems a little more important as that departure date comes ever closer. Here it is:

If I could be represented by one animal I’m pretty sure it would be a donkey. Yep, that’s me – super duper stubborn. I know how to dig my heels in the ground with the best of them, and sometimes I don’t even need a legitimate reason to do so; most of the time I just don’t like being told what to do because I am a fairly independent individual and I like figuring things out for myself. Stubbornness is not a particularly flattering characteristic to have, and I do my best to keep it in check most of the time, because it has landed me in some trouble in the past. But where I really tend to dig those heels in deep is when people try and help me - I do not do well when people try and help me, and especially when they start questioning why I don’t want their help. It’s not that I won’t ever ask for help/accept help. In fact, I am pretty willing to ask for/accept help when I know that I need it. But this certainty only results when I have attempted to tackle whatever problem/challenge by myself, first – multiple times usually – with minimal to no success. When people try and offer me help when I haven’t asked for it, most of the time I will say no, and more than once this has created a little bit of friction between myself and the person offering assistance. Typically when this friction does occur, it’s because I perceive the situation to involve gender-power dynamics, and I refuse to play along. For instance when a man tries to give me their seat on the bus, despite the fact that I am perfectly able bodied and I am not carrying heavy things. I get that it’s meant to be a nice gesture, but I also understand the gendered meaning behind it and regardless of how uncomfortable it makes the other person for me to turn it down, it makes me equally as uncomfortable to accept it. My intention is to not be some sort of “radical man hater” (yes, I have been called that when I have declined a seat on the bus), I just don’t feel that I should have to indulge outdated social graces for the sake of politeness or keeping the peace [see Ani's "Not A Pretty Girl" for a more poetic (perhaps cliche) explanation]. This however is not the type of scenario that I want to address – I understand that this blog is not a soap box for my poststructural musings about gender-power dynamics, and I am trying to keep it that way – besides that slight tangent of course.

The type of scenarios I am trying to address are ones similar to what happened to me on Friday while at St. John’s Kitchen. There is an expectation that you take a break and eat lunch while volunteering at St. John’s – you stand in line like all the other patrons, you eat the same food as the patrons, and you sit at the same tables as them as well. The idea is that this way there is no “othering”; everyone is a part of the same community. I quite like that sentiment, but haven’t really been able to share in that experience as I can’t really eat any of the food they serve there because of my crazy digestive system and its ever constant food-feud. My inability to eat the food there has become a source of entertainment for a few of the workers who know a bit about my dietary resitrictions. Any time they can find something I might be able to eat, they seem to get rather giddy. Because food is made for everyone and in mass quantities, they can’t exactly make something specific for me, but they will try and send me home with whole food. I tend to decline these offers though, because food doesn’t exactly give me a whole lot of enjoyment (I essentially eat because I have to), so I would rather leave it for someone who actually would get more than just a meal from it. This isn’t something I talk about with the workers/volunteers at St. John’s though. I am rather private about the whole health issue thing, and I only tend to bring it up when I am in a place where I feel prepared to answer the inevitable barrage of questions that accompany my story. I also tend to avoid taking food from St. John’s because I feel like I am already taking enough from there in other ways; again not an easy thing to explain to people without going into a fairly deep and intellectual discussion. So, on Friday when I was offered squash to take home, I politely declined. This apparently was a problem, because they kept pushing me to take them the more I said no. So, of course, in my typical stubborn fashion I refused to budge and just dug my heels in deeper, and I refused to offer a substantial explanation because I felt like my boundaries weren’t being respected. Eventually we agreed to disagree and I didn’t take anything. Before I headed on my way home that day, I was given a piece of advice by the individual who offered me the veggies. They told me that sometimes I should just accept help from others not because I need it, but because it makes the other party feel good knowing that they did something for someone else.

I thought this was a really interesting comment, and I thought about it a lot over the weekend. I think we’ve all been in situations where we have bit our tongues and accepted something from another individual, not because we particularly wanted it, but because we recognized that it would be meaningful to them. But where do we draw the line? Why is it not ok to just say no thanks, and leave it at that? I bring this up, because in Nairobi I feel there are probably going to be situations where I will be offered, say food that I can’t eat, and I am going to decline it. I realize that their offer has meaning behind it – a gesture of good will, community etc., and I will probably explain that I have dietary restrictions rather than just flat out declining, but a lot of the time people don’t take that seriously and they try and force food on me anyways. My intention isn’t to offend others by declining, and in fact I feel offended myself because they aren’t respecting my boundaries and right to say no. My intention in declining is because I want to preserve my own boundaries or values, and their intention in insisting is that they want to do something nice for someone else so they feel good. Both sides are essentially doing “selfish” things – so why do we get so offended in exchanges like this? And is the only way out of this pickle to have one side bite their tongue and give the other side what they want? I like the idea of honest and equal exchanges – where both parties can give and receive. In all honesty, had I just been offered the food, and my no accepted the first time, I would have been pleased by that exchange. It’s nice to see their kind gesture, but also nice to see my boundaries respected. And they could have felt good that they tried to do something nice for me, and that I was pleased by it.

So here is where I turn it to you the reader....where are your boundaries in these types of situations? And how do you choose between your own comfort and the comfort of others?

"Hi my name is Cathleen, or Cat is fine too." *shakes hand* "It's nice to meet you!"

It's amazing how after a 10 second interaction with a stranger, we think we have people completely figured out. Sometimes we don't even interact with that person directly, and yet still we think we've seen enough to have their story down. We all do it - I certainly am guilty of it. Try as we might to avoid it, and heed our elders' warnings to not judge a book by its cover, we all still find ourselves doing just that. And to be fair, I think these snap judgements do have a place - we need it to provide context on how we should behave and approach the world when we are in each others company. Our initial perceptions tell us which walls to keep up and which are ok to let down, and they dictate how further interactions will occur, at least until we are able to gather more pieces of the puzzle and get a better sense of what the whole picture looks like. This is why first impressions are often so important. Because depending on how you come off, not many people are willing to stick around and gather more pieces of the puzzle. We all know this, of course. I am not saying anything particularly shocking or revealing, but here's where I make the Beyond Borders connection....

I make a horrible first impression! Perhaps horrible isn't the word, but I certainly don't seem to make a consistent first impression or one that I think accurately reflects who I am. When it comes to first impressions of me, I have heard it all. I've been told that people thought I was "a dumb jock", the popular girl who has a new partner every 2 days, a flirt, a hippie, non-athletic, a radical feminist, super conservative, mean, really nice, really shy.... the list goes on. And if I am being honest, I don't think any of those things are true. I like to think of myself as a fairly self aware person...although I guess we all would like to think this. I am pretty certain that I am a fairly multi-dimensional person, and have a lot of different sides of myself that come out at different times depending on where I am or what I am doing. Some of these sides can seem complete opposite to one another, for example, I am currently enrolled in Science, Women's Studies and American Sign Language at school. There isn't a whole lot of connection with those things other than I love learning - and I can safely admit that I approach each of these programs differently. My parents always laugh and say that I am the hardest person to stereotype, but there has got to be a reason why people are thinking what they are thinking. I made it my task this week to try and figure this out. In fact, this whole post was inspired by a comment that someone made at St. John's Kitchen - one of the workers there told me that she thought I was extremely conservative. I thought this was completely bizarre, and when I headed back to the Women's Centre that afternoon, I asked around. Turns out, that almost everyone there had a seemingly different first impression of me - although they did agree that I was no conservative (phew!). When I asked what it was about me that gave them their respective first impressions of me, no one really had a solid reason; apparently that is just what I came off as. What is it that I am doing that makes me come off so completely wrong?!

I only raise this question, because I feel as though in Nairobi, first impressions are going to be a big deal. The last thing I want to do while I am there is offend or put off the members of Education for Life, or even the women that I am supposed to be working alongside and teaching. I would like things to go smoothly as possible, and I think a good first impression could at least help a little with that.

Well, I have two months (eep!) before Nairobi. That should give me some time to figure it out....hopefully....maybe?....

Cheers,
Cat

I promised you all this week that I would write more about my experience at St. John’s Kitchen. I have been putting this off for many reasons, but mainly, I'm having a really hard time articulating my feelings towards the experiences I have had there. When we were initially told that we had to choose an organization to volunteer with in KW - one which we have never been involved with, and one which involved working with marginalized groups - I had this expectation that my experience was supposed to be so far outside of my reality that blog topics would be spewing from me. I chose St. John’s because I had never been involved with an organization that was exclusively involved with addressing issues of poverty. This was supposed to be outside of my comfort zone; I assumed I was supposed to feel alienated and detached and oppressive etc. Well I definitely failed on that one, because besides my existential crisis about the guilt associated with using service work as a means for self improvement; I haven’t found myself feeling negative things. I keep waiting to be shocked by the things I’ve seen there. I keep waiting to feel like I couldn’t possibly understand where these individuals are coming from. But I don’t feel like that at all. In fact, I find myself doing quite the opposite. In some circumstances I even find myself getting rather defensive of the things that go on there, regardless of whether they are considered “socially acceptable” or not. I hesitate to get into specific examples of this, because I feel like they aren’t my stories to share, and that without context people may make judgements or assumptions about these individuals, and this is the last thing that I want. But I will do my best to try and honour the experiences of others, while still sharing my own for the purposes of illustrating my point.

I am going to start with the story of my day yesterday, which will seem random, but I promise to bring it back to St. John’s. My day yesterday got off to a rather unexpected and frustrating start. I am one of the coordinators of the UW Women’s Centre, and as such I often times get dragged into the ridiculousness of student politics on campus. I can be rather diplomatic, and I know how to play the game when I need to, but dealing with bureaucracy is probably my least favourite thing about any position (paid or volunteer) that I’ve had. There is one particular issue that we are dealing with currently at the Women’s Centre that has been causing a lot of contention, and there are some who feel that the Women’s Centre should take less of a stand on this issue, because it is making certain individuals uncomfortable, and might reflect badly on others. But of course the political game requires that no one ever come right out and say any of this, instead everyone tip toes around one another and uses carefully crafted emails so as to not offend, but to slightly intimidate. Gotta love the political game – fakeness, lies, and red tape: what’s not to love?!...*sigh*. Of course, all of this nonsense yesterday morning made me frustrated, and upset, and all I wanted was to not be near UW people – which unfortunately I have come to associate with not so nice things. So, my solution was to head to St. John’s earlier than usual and try and distract myself. I figured I would still be angry underneath, but that being in an environment, like that of St. John's, would force me to at least pretend to be fine. Well, it did a lot more than that. After about 20 minutes of being there, I completely let go of my frustration. I of course was even more frustrated once I went home and received what seemed like a million emails about the same ridiculous issue...but for about 6 hours of my day, I was frustration free.

It’s hard for me to articulate why I can let go of my frustrations at St. John’s, but I am going to attempt to do so. There is a great deal of comfort that I feel while I am there, and it isn’t for the reasons that I think people would expect. I am not filled with gooey feelings of warmth because I think I am doing a good thing – in fact I still very much feel the same guilt that I did when I initially started there, because I know for a fact that I am getting more out of this than I am giving back. But I feel good about being there because it is an environment that makes sense to me. All the mindless social crap that we are expected to fit into day in and day out gets checked at the door. I don’t have to deal with politics, or diplomacy or red tape – I can just be. There seems to be this thought that if you go to university you are somehow higher on the invisible social hierarchy ladder – we are the leaders of tomorrow, the smartest of the smart, the “civilized”. I for one think this is absolute garbage. There is nothing particularly dignified or civilized or smart about bureaucracy and politics – which is a reality if you move up the ladder. To me, I associate this sort of thing with dishonesty and a lack of integrity – which even a 5 year old child can tell you are bad things. But there is this expectation that we be diplomatic so as to not offend, that we be fake and hide what we really think, no matter how much you might just want to cuss out that person who just mindlessly makes inappropriate comments. And I am guilty of doing it – like I said, I play the game when I need to, but I am frustrated by the underlying suggestion that somehow doing these things makes you “civilized”. To me, there is something so raw, and so honest about St. John’s Kitchen, and the people who use the service. They may not be diplomatic, or what most would consider particularly dignified/refined, and sure some of them may even lie or steal, but you can trust them to be human - to feel emotion and pain, and to react to it in a real way. And it’s this innate sense of honest humanity that just makes me feel comfortable there. I will give you an example. The last Wednesday of every month is when patrons receive their social assistance cheques. And often the last Thursday and Friday of the month you tend to see some patrons come in really drunk or high. It’s easy to put two and two together on this one, and it’s probably easier to make superficial judgements about this sort of thing – they are responsible for their own poverty, they are just lazy and refuse to work hard, they deserve to be where they are. I don’t see it that way however. To me, underneath all of this is just a lot of pain. It is a manifestation of a life lived in poverty; a manifestation of structural violence, and for whatever reason, it clicks with me (not in the sense that I can relate based on my own lived experience – my intention isn’t to marginalize their experiences - but just that I can understand where it comes from). It saddens me to see this sort of thing, and I can’t say it doesn’t frustrate me at times, but my frustration lies in the fact that it is incredibly shameful that poverty is a reality that we allow and accept as a society. I also get frustrated that we look down on this type of behaviour and call it “uncivilized”. But those who live in poverty often react this way, because that’s how they have learned to survive – what’s the excuse for those of us who don’t? We lack integrity and lie so we can get ahead, consume, oppress? I for one am exhausted by it. So I spend time at St. John’s Kitchen. I go as much as I can during the week, because most of the time I would rather spend time with honest strangers, then with dishonest people I know. The atmosphere at St. John’s is so different from that at UW, that I can let go of my frustrations because they aren’t relevant there. When you are being present in a place like that, what matters is giving a smile, and making connections, not diplomacy and politics. It makes sense to me, and I feel like I fit there. I was expecting to be freaking out and be really out of place, because I was working in a new environment with issues I had never dealt with before. And that discomfort is what learning involves, right?! But it’s not like that at all - no disasters, or reflections, or huge revelations. And so I don’t write about it. Perhaps because it scares me how much I do identify with it there – kinda puts a wrench in those life plans – or because I know that people I have talked to about it don’t seem to get it. Or maybe it’s because I feel like I am cheating a little, because being at St. John’s is not so much challenging as awesome. Perhaps it all of those things, who knows. What I do know, is come May, I am going to be rather sad to leave St. John’s. But I hope that Nairobi offers the same sense of comfort for me.

Cheers,
Cathleen

I’m going to come clean with you folks. While I have been honest in my posts thus far, I certainly haven’t been pushing myself outside of my comfort level. I typically only share things on the surface, and nothing more. These superficial things still bother me in a general sense, but they only last a day or two and I get over them. It’s those things that have cut deep that I don’t talk about, and I essentially do everything I can to ensure that I don’t talk about them. Well, my intention for this week’s entry is to try and break this habit...a little...baby steps (and thank you Lara for the push that I needed).

This past week was reading week, and I had a million and one things to do, because all of my midterms and major assignments are scheduled after reading week, and March at the Women’s Centre is event madness. My good intentions towards productivity fell through however, when on Sunday I developed some sort of unpleasant stomach sickness which lasted most of the week. Not to get too graphic, but I spent most of my week curled into a ball on the couch with a bucket on the floor beside me. And even after the worst of it subsided, I was still not able to do a whole lot – surprisingly things become a little more challenging when you haven’t been able to hold anything down for a couple of days and the room is spinning all around you.

I am no stranger to stomach illness in general. I have spent the past 10+ years going through bouts of what I experienced during reading week – some lasting much longer than a week, and sometimes more intense than that too. I like to tell people I have the stomach of an 80 year old man, or that I am just high maintenance, but I joke because it’s easier then telling people that I have struggled with my health for a really long time, or even worse, that I don’t dream the same way I used to because I know that I am limited by my health. It’s not really something that people pick up on with me because I seem pretty healthy – I am physically fit, I eat fairly well, and I don’t make a fuss when I’m sick (most of the time I just grab a magazine and wait for the worst to be over). But truth is, I don’t feel well all the time. Every moment of every day I have a stomach ache. I can keep it at a manageable level when I avoid eating/drinking certain things, getting enough sleep, avoiding stress, and taking lots of Tums etc. but it’s always there. And sometimes it’s definitely worse than others. My third year of university was probably the worst it has ever been. I spent 16 hours a day sleeping because I had no energy. I was so nauseous that I couldn’t eat, and when I did I couldn’t hold anything down. On top of that, I was losing my hair. I struggled to walk around the block most days, and I had to give up driving because it became too unsafe. I ended up dropping my on campus classes and moving back to Ottawa after a week of school. From then on, I was at the hospital at least once a week, and I had every possible test imaginable; always yielding different diagnoses – internal bleeding, stomach/pancreatic cancer, and at one point I was even accused of being a heroin addict (to which I responded with laughter, something they very much didn’t appreciate – gotta find humour in something though). In the end they never did figure out what it was or why it had gotten so much worse that year, and I was told there wasn’t anything that could be done. They extended the list of things I couldn’t eat, and I was sent on my way. I continued to make the jokes and shrug things off around friends and family because I could see how hard they were taking things, but truth is there were moments I was just as deflated by the news. What I had didn’t have a name or clear symptoms – which to me meant it didn’t have a way for me to fight it. I knew that this stomach thing, whatever it was/is, would forever be the defining thing for me in my life.

Eventually, I stopped feeling sorry for myself though. I decided that things could always be worse and I was going to stick it to those doctors who said I was stuck. I did everything I could to get things under control, and after many months my system finally started to level out. And for the past 2 years I have been pretty good, but that being said, my health still dictates a lot of basic decisions I make in my life – I avoid group meals or going out to dinner with people, I don’t go out to the bar often, and when I do I never have a drink in my hand, I always make sure that I have Tums on me, and a (vegan) granola bar in the event that I get stuck somewhere I can’t eat, I avoid scheduling things after 8pm because being out after this time guarantees me stomach pain, and I usually have the quickest way to the bathroom (or at the very least a garbage can) figured out no matter where I am. Besides making me the worst date/least fun person ever, these things are a small nuisance compared to being curled up in a ball unable to do a whole lot. After my third year, I know what it means to be “healthy” – I’m not at 100%, nor do I think I ever will be, but I have come a long way from where I was, and I can tell you for certain that I don’t want to go back to that. And this past week was a nice reminder of that. Well not nice, it was a rather unpleasant reminder...but you get what I’m saying.

So, you are probably wondering what the point is to this lengthy (and somewhat narcissistic) story, and how this relates to Beyond Borders. Well, here goes. I am absolutely terrified of going to Nairobi. And not because I think that I can’t handle the culture shock, or that I will be lonely and homesick, or even that I will be robbed – these are all things I know I can deal with, and have the support of many to help me through. I am terrified because I know that this trip is going to be incredibly challenging for my physical health. I won’t be able to control what I eat to the same degree, I will be tired and worn down and stressed, I will be exposed to nasty microbes which my weak stomach is more susceptible to, and I won’t be able to stay physically active to the same degree either. When I can’t be in control of these things, bad things happen – potentially third year bad...maybe worse. I keep telling myself that it will be ok, a little stomach sickness is easy peasy, and there is a part of me that still legitimately believes this, but I also know that there is a huge difference between a week of feeling gross in my cushy western home, and feeling like death in a foreign country where I know no one and they don’t know anything about my medical history. I got my physical this week and my doctor cleared me for the trip, but I know that the people who have been with me through the worst, who have helped me up stairs when I was too weak, held my hair back as I was sick, and watched helplessly time and again as I whimpered doubled over in pain, are not at all supportive of this trip. I signed up for this program knowing my health would be an issue, and knowing that this was a risk I was willing to take, but at the same time it still really scares me. Because if I can’t complete this placement, something I have wanted for a really long time, then whatever this health issue is, it has won. I know that not trying isn’t the answer, because there is a good chance that I CAN make it through the summer without things being a total disaster, but there is still a possibility I can’t. And it’s that “what if” that still has me extremely worried. Unfortunately for me, the only way to tackle that “what if” is to make it to the other side. It’s moments like this that I wish I had a crystal ball....

So there you have it, the band aid has been ripped off, and a little piece of myself put out there for the blogging world to read. I don’t particularly enjoy sharing this part of my life with others, but I’m hoping that owning it will make me a little more at peace with it. In any case, thanks for coming along for the ride. I promise to talk more about St. John’s Kitchen next week.

Cheers,
Cat

This is my last year at the University of Waterloo. After 5 long years of hammering through my degree, I have finally made it to the home stretch. I always imagined that somehow my last year would be the most amazing year ever. I truly thought it would be the year where I would be encouraged to fully engage with the material we were learning, and be intellectually challenged. But to tell you the truth, it’s not like that at all, at least outside of the Beyond Borders program that is (that's not me sucking up - that's the truth!). In all honesty, my entire experience at Waterloo has not been like that in the slightest. In my first three years, I assumed that you needed to learn the basics before you could really engage with the material, so I wasn’t all that concerned about the lack of intellectual stimulation. Instead I just memorized those facts and spewed them out on request; wasting time until my 4th/5th year where I believed things would be different – I would finally be challenged in a way that was designed to foster original thoughts and creativity. Let me tell you, I am still waiting for that to happen. When I was in high school I was a bit of a misfit (not so shocking for those of you who know me, I’m sure) and I was always told by teachers that university would be the place that I would finally fit in. It would be the place where I would get the challenge that I needed and where I would find people who had the same desire and drive for knowledge. And I really did believe that would be true. But now that I am almost done, and I have time to look back on the past 5 years, I feel like it’s been an incredible let down. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine last week, and we were chatting about how regurgitating information on tests can hardly be called learning. And I had said to him, that besides the Beyond Borders class last term, and WS 205 that I took in my fourth year, I literally have learned nothing of value in any of my classes. Many would probably call that an exaggeration, but I don’t think it is. None of my classes have really made me think, or reflect. None of my classes have encouraged me to move outside of my comfort levels. And none of my classes have inspired me. And are these things not what education is about?! In fact this week, in one of my classes (which is mostly discussion based) I found the exact opposite happening. Students were being rewarded for giving superficial answers, rather than discussing the problem fully, and expanding on their understanding of issues of oppression. It was a rather frustrating experience for me, because when I tried to raise a point that the professor didn’t agree with, I was shrugged off as if what I was saying didn’t matter or have any validity (which I would like to point out is fairly contrary to the “personal is political” model that WS always preaches). In any case, while I was certainly being challenged in this class, it was neither my intellect nor my boundaries that were being put to the test – it was my patience. How is any institution supposed to create the best and brightest of our future if we don’t allow anyone to learn and explore new ideas? Over the past couple of years I have learned more from discussions with students in the Women’s Centre or patrons at St. John’s Kitchen then I have from my fancy textbooks and lengthy lectures. So what am I doing here? I realize that the piece of paper I will get at the end of this term will being meaningful in society, but I am having a hard time seeing the value in it. Don’t get me wrong, I value education, quite a bit actually, and I think that is why I am so frustrated. I want to be challenged! And I don’t think that is unreasonable to expect that from an institution of higher learning. Something is definitely wrong if we reward mindless memorization over creativity and ingenuity. The Beyond Borders program has been amazing, and I have a lot of passion and excitement for what we have been doing over the past 6 months, but it’s pretty difficult to find an entire degree program that operates in this manner. I know that realistically for what I want to do after this degree, I will need additional schooling. But if this is the experience I can expect next year, I am not sure that I am all that interested. I remember a time when I used to be really excited about school – where has that intellectual inspiration gone? And how do I get it back?!

-Cat

This week in my WS 208E class – Women Writing Since the 1900’s – we had to read a short story entitled “The Terrors of Basket Weaving” by Patricia Highsmith. For those of you who haven’t read this story (which I’m assuming is all but one of you), allow me to give you a quick summary. Essentially the story features this married couple, a man and a woman, who live a traditionally successful corporate life. By all appearances they are happy with their respective lives, until one day the woman finds a basket. She fixes the basket, and something inside her is stirred up. A deep connection is made during her basket weaving experience. The woman is unable to explain the feeling, but knows that there is a part of her that feels like she needs the basket weaving to be happy. When she tries to process and have these feelings validated by her partner, he does not understand, and is unable to provide her the support that she desperately is in search of. I won’t ruin the rest of the story for you, but the main point here is that in this story, the woman went through a significant experience – an experience that was very obscure and in a lot of ways not relatable – and she found her experience and feelings being marginalized by her usual support network; although not on purpose. And all of this got me to thinking about support networks...

Trust Falls

As bizarre as the story was to read, I really found myself identifying with it – or at the very least projecting my latest existential crisis onto it. Over the past 5 years at Waterloo, I have done A LOT of flopping around on dry land trying to figure out where I fit, and more importantly, will be happy. I have switched programs, picked up new ones, and taken up almost every hobby available in the name of self exploration. The only things that ever really truly clicked for me though were running and ASL (American Sign Language). It’s not like I didn’t enjoy any of the other things I was doing, like I said before as long as I am learning I’m pretty content, but nothing else had that “I can’t imagine my life without this” feeling to it. That was actually true until I started at St. John’s Kitchen. While my first blog entry about this focused mostly on the guilt I experienced after being there, there was also a large part of me that was definitely feeling really connected with the work I was doing there. So much so, that I have been using essentially all my free time during the week volunteering there. I don’t know what it is about that place, but I feel like I need to be there. And I felt this way ever since I started there, in spite of the craziness and adjustment of the first day. And while there is still a lot of guilt wrapped up in it, I absolutely adore St. John’s. I found myself really wanting to share this excitement and energy with someone, but whenever I went to try and explain it, I was at a loss for words; or at least words that my friends/family understood. Like the woman in the story I was reaching out to my support network, and though this wasn’t their intention, I felt like what I was saying wasn’t being acknowledged in the way that I needed it to be. And this was really tough for me, because I really was having a hard time trying to figure out where to go next. It was like doing one of those trust falls, and being dropped on the floor. Harsh! It wasn’t until I started reading some of the blog entries, and talking with other members of the program/Joanne, that I began to realize the importance of having a support network during this journey. Being the huge introvert that I am, I rarely feel the desire to bounce ideas off other people, preferring to work it out in my head instead. But there are times, when I do need that second or third opinion. And I find with the stuff we are dealing with/will deal with in this program, I am going to need that 2nd opinion a little more often then I'd like to admit. When I read some of the blogs, and chatted with Joanne, I definitely started feeling more at peace with the whole situation. I didn’t have any more answers then when I started, but I knew it was ok, because there were 11 other people who have the capacity to understand where I am coming from, and some of whom are even going through the same things. It's not exactly the place that I was expecting to find comfort, but I am definitely appreciative.

Riding Without Training Wheels

Today while at St. John’s, I was told by the usual head of this wonderful service, that I was in charge of the kitchen for the rest of the day, because all the other staff members were busy working on something else. Truth be told, I was a touch terrified. Ok, more than a touch, a big heaping spoonful of terrified! I had only been there 3 times before, and had pretty much relied on others to tell me what needed to be done. There is a system there, and the last thing I wanted to do was disturb it. But, obviously someone thought I knew enough to be in charge, and didn’t really give me much of a choice. I was given the order and that was that. The training wheels were now off, ready or not! Not going to lie, I’m pretty sure Joanne’s voice popped in my head and told me to pretend like this was Nairobi – why not use it as a learning experience?! Well you win Joanne, I did. I avoided the urge to curl into a ball, instead opting to just push through it the best I knew how; accepting that I would make mistakes, and feel pretty confused the entire time just like I’m sure will happen 10x over in Nairobi. And oh boy did I ever! Ultimately though, lunch was served, and the kitchen didn’t burn down – a pretty successful day overall, if you think about it; although this really didn’t occur to me until later on. As we were cleaning up at the end of the day, the regular head of the kitchen came back after completing her other tasks. She and I were chatting, and she asked me “you didn’t think you could run the kitchen by yourself did you?” My response was obviously “definitely not!”. To which she replied “but you did, and I knew you could”. I was pretty taken aback by this comment, because it made me think about Nairobi. I applied to a program that is essentially going to plop me in a foreign community, with its own set of rules and language and everything!, and I am expected to take the lead and teach women how to sew. It seems like an outrageously scary thing to do. And I have doubts about my ability to do it. But obviously someone thought I had the ability, or else I probably wouldn’t be in this program. Just like someone thought I had the ability to run the show today. I guess the point of me sharing this, is that I am amazed at where I am finding the most support this year. It’s not in the people I would have thought/hoped and it’s not in the ways that I expected, but it’s there. And it is absolutely humbling to see the ways that we can make connections with others. I am determined to keep this in mind while in Nairobi. I know there will be times that I feel like I can’t do it, and where I will probably want to quit. But I know I have a support network out there all over the world (psst...that’s you guys!) and I think that is one of the most important aspects of this program. Fostering connections and truly creating a community abroad and right here at home.

That's it for this week!

Cheers,
Cathleen

This week was extremely hectic for me, and in between all the classes, and meetings and work and volunteering etc. I kept waiting for this week’s blog topic to smack me on the nose, but to no such luck. Then yesterday night, I found a little inspiration in the strangest place, in a game of “GO FISH”! You all remember that game right?! The really simple card game that you play when you are about 7 year old, where you try and make pairs by asking the other people for cards. If they don’t have the specific card you want then you “go fish” and pick up another from the deck. Yep, that’s the one! Well, I got to play a more “extreme” version (this was no game for seven year olds =P) last night. Friday night, myself and the other coordinator of the UW Women’s Centre organized training for our wonderful volunteers. Included in the training was an Ally training session facilitated by a representative from GLOW. I have done Ally training before, and I was no stranger to the content in the session, except for this crazy game of go fish, which was a new edition to the training. Let me explain. The group was split up into three smaller groups, and each of these smaller groups had to pick a leader. These leaders were then taken out into the hall and given additional rules for how to play the game. Two of the teams were given one set of rules, and the third group was given a different set. I was in the 3rd group, and our set of instructions was to play a regular game of go fish, but with these additional rules: 1) players weren’t allowed to look at anyone in the eye, 2) players must always address other players by first name, 3) female identified players received two turns in a row and male identified players only one. As we were playing, I found myself being agitated by the fact that we weren’t allowed to look people in the eye, and with the fact that I had to excessively use people’s names (excessive name use is one of my biggest pet peeves....weird I know). Most of us didn’t really understand the point of the exercise, but we all just blindly followed the rules, assuming that a point was going to be made. After each group finished the first game, participants from each group were forced to join another group, but were not informed of the rules in that new group. We were instructed to start playing and that was it. So, our leader started, and he turned to me and rested his hand on my legs and asked, “do you have any sevens, please?” I of course shrieked and pulled my leg away, because my personal space bubble is massive, and when people touch me it makes my skin crawl a little. That’s not an exaggeration either, it feels like little spiders are crawling on my skin. It really doesn’t matter who it is, it’s just less intense when I know/like you. Of course, everyone found it amusing, but I was slightly confused as to why I was being touched. I eventually figured out that this was part of the rules, as everyone kept touching each other on the leg when they asked for a card, and when I didn’t do it I missed a turn. Apparently, part of the rules was also to be extra polite, which I didn’t realize, because I was saying please and thanks every time I asked for/received a card anyways (my parents would be so proud). Once I caught on to the fact that we had to touch each other, I clenched my jaw and powered through the rest of the game, uncomfortable, but resolved to suck it up because I assumed it was part of the learning experience. So, after we finished the game, we had an opportunity to debrief and discuss the exercise. The participants who switched groups were asked how they fared. Everyone commented that they were extremely confused and uncomfortable, but once they figured out what everyone else was doing, they just conformed. This was the point where our facilitator made the link between the exercise and life. According to the facilitator, the game represents the unstated rules of our society that are considered “the norm”. And our experience of switching groups and not being told the rules, represented someone who exists outside of the definition of “the norm”. How we react is how many of us react in a situation where we feel like we don’t fit in. We do things that we wouldn’t normally do, and we conform to these unwritten rules. And for those of who are “the norm” we force others to conform by making them uncomfortable to be themselves. While obviously not a perfect analogy, the overall point was that we need to learn to appreciate and accept diversity and individualism, and we need to learn to question authority and the things we accept blindly.

In this scenario, I was a conformist. I sucked it up, and let people invade my personal space, to make things go easier – apparently shrieking and yanking my limbs away was rather disruptive to the group...go figure. I made myself uncomfortable in the name of what I thought was a learning experience, but the underlying suggestion is that I should have put my foot down and told them to stop invading the personal space bubble. Joanne always says you aren’t learning unless you are uncomfortable, but I would have been uncomfortable either way – if I had thrown a fit and said stop touching me, or if I just clenched my jaw and pushed through it. Ultimately, we react different ways in different situations, and it made me reflect on my boundaries, and situations where I have chose to conform and situations where I refused to. I can honestly say I have learned something from each of these situations, and sometimes I’ve stepped on people’s toes, and other times I tried to make them more comfortable. How do we balance our own thoughts and feelings with the thoughts of others? And how will this have to change abroad? We all have fairly established boundaries here in our comfortable western lives, but when we go off to our placements, those boundaries are going to be seriously challenged, and will probably have to shift in the name of our own safety/health/happiness, at the expense of others. I guess the question that interests me the most about all of this is, if our boundaries have the potential to be so fluid, why do they mean so much to us while we are here? Do we ever really know what the “right” path is? These are definitely meant as rhetorical questions, and I don’t really expect an answer, it’s just something that I have been pondering and thought I would share with the group. In any case, it was an interesting exercise, and I appreciated the opportunity for reflection that it provided. Hopefully I have something a little more interesting for you next week!

Cheers,
Cathleen

If What We Are Doing is Apparently So Good, Why Do I Feel So Guilty?!

Welcome to part two of my post for this week. Now it’s time to get into specifics about my volunteer experience. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

MMM...Tastes Like Humanity

St. John’s Kitchen is a pretty amazing place, in that so many of the volunteers who help to prepare those meals day in and day out are patrons. St. John’s gives these individuals an opportunity to be productive and contributing members of their community, when everyone else in society makes them feel worthless. The amount of humanity in that place just energized me. Besides the little incident when I walked up to the door initially, I really only had patrons be superbly kind and polite. Those that I worked alongside were tremendously friendly, and helped me out whenever they could. Many of them showed me the ropes, and shared stories with me. Those who were not volunteering were tremendously kind as well, politely saying thank you when they received food, and asking “how are you today?” as I went to wipe down tables, and even rushing to hold open the door for me as I was carrying boxes upstairs. It was an incredible thing to see in such concentrated amounts, as I am used to volunteering in a more one on one setting (you are right Denise, it rivals the marathon high!). It’s an incredibly non-judgemental environment, and the regular volunteers/staff there are pretty inspirational. They know everyone’s names, and do everything they can to make things a little easier for patrons. I am so glad that I chose St. John’s as my placement. I was struggling with some life choices recently, and it was exactly the sort of thing I needed to see. I can’t wait for next week!

Frustrations, Agitations, and Revelations.

Those of you that know me, know that you can get under my skin quite easily with even the tiniest comment if it relates (or I perceive it to relate) to gender discrimination. It’s definitely one of my biggest frustrations in life, having someone define me based on my gender/sex and make judgement calls on my abilities because I happen to be “female”. I will spare you all the existential rant about my views on gender/sex, but ultimately, I view my talents and skills as a reflection of my experience, opportunity and interests, not my gender. Once I get settled into a place, the people I surround myself with are aware that I feel this way, and usually feel the same way too, so it’s a non-issue. But typically when I start a new position, I find I have to really fight to be respected and challenged. There were a handful of incidents while at St. John’s on Friday, that definitely got under my skin a little, and made me reflect a lot on the challenges I will face in Nairobi. For instance, I was helping several fellows unload a delivery truck full of boxes of food, and I would purposely be handed bread or small containers because I was the only girl there. I also got talked down to a couple of times when I asked for help lifting a box off the top shelf, because they assumed it was the weight and not my height that was an issue. Really, if they had a stool available I would have done it myself. I was also called sweety, honey, and darling quite a bit during the day too. I get that I’m small, and get told quite often I still look like I’m 16, but it’s incredibly frustrating to constantly have to push twice as hard for people to take me seriously, or to have them challenge me. At the end of the day, these are really small things - they make my eye twitch a little, but I move on. But I fear that in Nairobi I am going to experience a lot more than that, and on a pretty regular basis too. I know it will be challenging for me to deal with and keep my composure after several weeks of the same thing. But I think recognizing this will be half the battle.

One of my biggest frustrations of the day occurred while I was watching some students who were volunteering that day as well. It just seemed to me like they were just going through the motions – there because they needed to cushion their resume or something. They were standing around gossiping in the closet at times, they ignored patrons as they wiped down tables (while many of the patrons were trying to make conversation with them), and they even avoided looking people in the eye when we were distributing food. They by no means were a reflection of the volunteers there, which is possibly why I found myself really upset by it. Why even bother being there if you have no intention of trying to actually contribute? Most of the time all people really need are a smile and friendly hello – essentially acknowledgement of their existence. That takes less effort than getting to the actual kitchen itself. I’m by no means perfect, but I really don’t understand how you can eat the same food that is feeding these patrons, sit at the same tables as them, do the same chores as them, and still act as though you are being inconvenienced. How can you not be moved by the amount of kindness and community in that place?! I’m still pretty frustrated by this experience, and haven’t been able to see the silver lining or positive thread in it. But such is life I guess.

Caution: Hurdles Ahead

I mentioned in my first post, that spending time at St. John’s Kitchen both energized me and weighed me down. I explained the first part of that statement, so now on to the latter half. I’m a pretty terrible conversationalist in general, and often feel like I don’t have much to say to people. It’s not that I can’t relate to them, I just don’t know where to start. I find small talk pretty useless, because it doesn’t reveal much about people. I want to learn from people, and hear about their real experiences, not talk about the weather! But I recognize that a certain amount of small talk is necessary when you first meet people – you can’t debate politics, philosophy and religion right off the bat (although I would love too). So, I usually resort to the old standbys, “where do you go to school?”, “where are you from?”, “what do you do?”. Not so much relevant in a place like St. John’s Kitchen when more than ¾ of the people there don’t have answers to these things. But usually when these things fail, I have a few standbys: running, sign language, even Beyond Borders. But I found that I didn’t even really want to talk about these things, because I felt like a spoiled little girl who just came down to volunteer because the course she was taking at university made her. A lot of the time, I found myself at a loss for words beyond “how are you today?” and “how long have you been with St. John’s Kitchen?”. It really made me reflect a lot on how privilege and class separation is really very alienating. Not the most enlightened revelation, I know, and it certainly isn’t a new one, but it was a stark reminder that at the end of the day, I can list my accomplishments off all I want, but what do they really mean?! They just reek of money and privilege. That’s it. When you strip it all down, we are all the same, some of us just got lucky. When I mentioned I was weighed down after the experience this is what I meant. To be blunt, I felt like a huge tool being there. Ultimately, I am spending time with St. John’s Kitchen because of this course. I will be there 4.5 hours a week until I leave for my trip, and then I will never be back – not because I don’t want to, but because I will be in Nairobi for the summer, then in September I won’t be living in KW anymore. And let’s face it, I am getting a lot more out of this then the people I am supposedly helping. I get to learn from the experience and try and use it towards self improvement, I get to add one more thing to my resume, and ideally I should be able to come out of there feeling pretty good about myself because I am “doing a good thing”. The only thing that those patrons are getting from me is a smile and a spoonful (or several spoonfuls) of food – all things that they can get from any of the various volunteers in that place. So like I said in the title, if what we are doing is so good, why do I feel so guilty? I actually avoided talking about beyond borders with friends and family for a long while, because I hated hearing “oh you are doing such a good thing”. Same thing goes with asking for money for this trip – I feel like I am asking people to pay for my vacation. This experience is something I have always wanted to do, and I don't negate the fact that there is good work being done, but I am finding myself being weighed down with the feeling that I am using the people of Nairobi for my own self improvement. I will come home after three months with all this newly acquired knowledge and skills, and I will return to the same cushy western life, and they will still be there. I get on paper, that I am doing a “good thing” and will hopefully become more engaged with social justice issues in my own communities when I get home, but there is something that just isn’t clicking about it when I try and process that. And I also realize, that doing nothing is not the answer either - every little bit counts, but that good ol' guilt just keeps bubbling up to the surface. It definitely has me quite worried about the reintegration process, and I haven’t even left for Nairobi yet. Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into here?! Hooray for existential crices!

I know that was a long one, so thanks to those of you who stuck it out.

Cheers!
-Cat

Yesterday marked my first day volunteering at St. John’s Kitchen, and I am both energized and completely weighed down after the experience. For those of you who aren’t involved with the Beyond Borders program, all BB participants are required to volunteer with a local KW development organization during the term before their departure, in order to gain a better understanding of issues that plague our own communities. St. John’s Kitchen is one of the many services found at the Working Centre – a community-based organization that is committed to providing tools and opportunities for individuals to create their own work and build community. St John’s Kitchen is essentially a soup kitchen, but with a special emphasis on collaboration and community as many of the volunteers who help prepare and serve meals are also patrons. It was this organic system which made me choose St. John’s Kitchen as my volunteer placement for the term. KW has a plethora of development organizations, but I was searching for something based on a system of knowledge exchange and equal interaction, not one based on “other-ing” and hierarchy. When I looked into St. John’s, it sounded very much like that, but truth be told, I really had no idea what to expect.

Monday marked the first day of school for the winter term, as well as our first Beyond Borders seminar of the term. Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself rather excited to spend a day with a group of 10 other students, who a mere four months ago were complete strangers. Going home for the holidays is usually a rather grounding experience for me as I usually spend time with old friends, and find myself reflecting on just how much I have changed while at school. This holiday in particular showed me how much I actually have changed over the past four months, and this was in large part due to the Beyond Borders program, and working with my fellow participants who in many ways are quite different from myself. For those that know me, I am not usually described as being a people person, and it typically takes me a while before I warm up to someone. I have been deeply humbled by how effective our class discussions and fundraising initiatives have been at uniting the group, despite our differences. It was a refreshing realization when I came back that this group is going to be there for a pretty significant moment in my life - in all of our lives really.

But back to the seminar...

The day began with a personality testing workshop, which I'll be honest, I was initially quite skeptical about. While I do enjoy doing personality tests (who doesn't enjoy a good set of survey questions to answer from time to time?) I don't usually find they reveal much about my temperment that I don't already know. And on top of that, there is a part of me that feels like personality testing has the ability to hinder self improvement, in the sense that it gives us an excuse to avoid confronting our flaws. Instead test results allow us to just chalk up our rudeness or choice to not include someone, on our personality - "it's just who we are". I was able to overcome my reservations though, and actually found some value in the workshop. My personality was found to fit the "Inquiring Green" category the closest. According to the test, my core needs are knowledge and competence. I was also found to be extremely introverted. I wasn't surprised at all with my results, but where I found value was in the discussions that followed after we all presented our results. In particular, I was rather appreciative of the discussion surrounding introverted and extroverted temperments - specifically the definitions that were provided for each of these categories. Introverts were explained as individuals who derive energy from introspection and personal reflection, while extroverts derive energy from interaction with others. I have a tendency to chalk my introversion up to just another case of the grumpies, but understanding the complexity of our basic tendencies I feel will make it easier for all of us to work together in the coming months, and especially while abroad. We may never understand why someone needs those 10 minutes just to recharge, or why someone else just really needs that hug, but after this workshop I think we are all a little closer to being able to just accept and respect these qualities in others.

The second part of the seminar featured a self defense workshop - which I thought was an absolute riot! Not because I thought it was particularly useful - to be honest if it comes down to it, I will probably resort back to the moves I used in my childhood in an attempt to fend off my older brother's attacks - but because I saw it as one of the first times that everyone, including our program director, Joanne, was able to just let go and not be inhibited by the somewhat academic nature of our class. There was plenty of laughter and giggles (and some brusing too!), and I felt as though our group really started to become unified in that moment. By the end of the day I found myself rather excited for the next time the whole gang would be together again.

For me, this whole Beyond Borders journey finally feels real, not just because we all have our placements (although that does help quite a bit), but because I finally feel like our group has come together as a team; uniting over our desire for change in the world, change in others, and change in self. This seminar was a great start to the term, and while the road has been difficult at times, I can't wait for the changes and challenges that are sure to come!

-Cat

For those of you who don’t know already, my name is Cathleen (Cat) and I am part of a program called Beyond Borders (BB). BB is a service learning program offered through St. Jerome’s University where participants spend eight months working towards a three month summer volunteer placement abroad. This blog is just one part of the preparation and reflection process, and will also serve as my way of documenting the challenges, changes and adventures which are to come over the coming months. This is my first attempt at blogging, and I will be honest that I don’t necessarily like the idea of putting myself out there in a public forum, nor do I find it a simple process, but I am resolved to view it as one of the many challenges and opportunities for learning that this program brings. So stay tuned and I promise to share my “stories and thoughts on the road to Nairobi”. And I look forward to hearing from you all.
Cheers!