Category Archive

I do own one - a flat iron, I mean. I’ve had one for a while, but then when I first cut off most of my hair, the instrument was placed in the garage. Then over Thanksgiving, I went to the garage with the particular desire to find it. And now it is sitting on my dresser. And it’s kept my hair straight for the last two weeks.

If you have read my previous posts on hair, or if you know me at all, this would appear to be a warning sign of some kind - of a loss of politics, maybe some kind of experiment. After all, I’ve never spent much time on my hair; the main reason I’ve chosen to leave it long is so I can throw it back into a ponytail on the way to class (I really dislike when women who are sitting next to me pick at their untied, unwashed hair in class - then it sheds on my desk and I want to scream, “Take a shower!”).

I brought back the flat iron nearly a month after the sweater came along. The sweater, as my friends will clarify as they read this, is not actually a sweater. It’s this blue zip-up hoodie that I brought back with me after a quick trip to visit my parents in October. It came from my mother’s closet - she had bought it but it wasn’t really something she was wearing often and I initially put it on because home is a bit chilly and because I love when clothes smell like that familiar mom smell.

I wear it all the time, ever since I got back to this place. I’ve developed a reasonable collection of sweaters and jackets, it isn’t that. I’m actually someone - clothes that make me feel put together. But then the sweater came along and nothing feels as safe and warm. And you know what else? It doesn’t make me feel frumpy or tired or ugly. It makes me feel comfortable. I really love this sweater. I want to wear it to bed and I want it to perpetually remain clean so that I don’t ever have to wash it.

The question then is, when will I be able to go out again in something other than this sweater and not think about it sitting in all its warmth and comfort on my couch? Issues with body image - do they ever go away? It isn’t just weight issues. It’s that feeling of wanting to put my hands on my body when I’m looking in the mirror and hope that they rub away the things I cringe to look at. It’s when I want to cut off my hair over the bathroom sink because it worries me that the long hair is making me too weak (read: too feminine). It’s when I’m standing in front of the closet thinking how ridiculous it sounds to not want to go outside because I just feel ugly in everything.

(When am I going to start to love, really love, my bumps and scars and shape?)

Back to the flat iron - I’ve been straightening my hair because when you’re struggling to get work done, struggling to get out of bed, to not cry in class, to hear people talk at you day in and day out without asking ask how you are doing, you just want to glance in the mirror and say, “Hey, at least one part of me isn’t sub-par.”

Does it make me feel ugly and unkempt to walk outside with my big irregularly curly wavy natural hair? It really doesn’t. I don’t necessarily feel prettier with straight hair. I just feel like with straight hair, I can get away with wearing the same frumpy sweater everyday; I can get away with having the perpetual scowl on my face.

It has been a long and difficult semester. And I am constantly conflicted by desires to graduate and leave and the fear of not knowing what comes after that. And it has been a challenging time because I feel very shattered, in some way. I’ve spent a great deal with wonderful friends who are loving and supportive and I hear about what’s going on in their lives, and I think to myself, “I have no idea what to say to you because that’s simply not where I’m at right now. Right now I’m in a place where I have to deal with things on my own and I have to figure out my insecurities about myself and my body and future”

This is where I should be talking about the island metaphor, but it is too important and I am working on a separate post for it altogether. But trust me, it is good.

In the last month, I have:

1. figured out that I don’t want to get my phd in English. Right now at least. I don’t want to be a professor and pursue a life in academia - not because I think I couldn’t do it, but because right now I feel there are other things I could do that I might love just as much; not because I think it would be too hard, but because there are certain sacrifices I don’t feel I would be willing to make. There are other careers, other jobs, other opportunities, that I want to pursue. Getting a master’s in Public Policy, for instance..

2. Found that public policy is something I could really enjoy. I still have yet to figure out in what capacity - but in the last three years I’ve done a lot of student organizing and mentoring and managerial work and I’ve come to realize that I really enjoy those things. I really love writing and editing and researching - so maybe my road to finding a working life that I would enjoy means finding internships for publications I admire, programs I encourage, organizations that need help. Then in the future, maybe I will go to graduate school. I’m ready to find work opportunities that work for me.

3. Realized that I don’t want to study abroad after I graduate. It isn’t for me. I feel fine about that. There is other work that I want to do that I feel more excited about.

4. had to come to terms with the fact that every time something wonderful like this comes along (nominate someone you know!), there is going to be something horrible and offensive like this that more people know about - for every semi-forward step that is taken by large companies to attempt to do some good and allow the public easy access to “social change,” there is something that makes me want to vomit because it is too ironic and too unbelievable and appropriating.

5. Had to accept that the blog posts are just going to be slow from now on. There are times I want to write, but I am too tired, times I want to yell and scream but too flustered to type. Some of the reasons are excuses and some of the reasons are just things that happen in life that force you to re prioritize sleep and well-being and academics over writing. Rest assured the posts will continue, and rest assured they are going to get back into commentary about the elections and the United States and about the news and the media.

I’ve spent the last two weeks in a haze of semi-panic. It put me on pause with my blog, it put me on a track where it was all I could do to get some work done and try to sleep for 4 of the 8 hours I was in bed. These things happen. The proverbial pity party is over.

I took a wonderful trip to Santa Barbara to visit a friend, my best friend in fact, who is just settling into her life in graduate school. It was a wonderful trip that made me arrive back to work with full-fledged pro-activity. So here are a few things that I am thinking about.

1. I got intimidated by the pressure to write serious posts all the time about important and serious issues that directly relate to race and gender. This is a problem because it means I never write. So I’m going to try harder to follow my instincts with my writing as I did when this blog first began, and write about things that I genuinely am thinking about - my life after graduation, my family, my insecurities, articles and issues that infuriate me, and books that I’m reading.

2. I am going to graduate school, but it will not be for at least a year after I graduate. And it might be two years. And in those years I am going to do other things that I think I might like. I’m reading lots of websites and books (and am always appreciative of suggestions) about whether pursuing a career in academia (in English..postcolonial lit/victorian lit/food studies/womens studies) is worth it. Also lots of books about other jobs I might be interested in. Turns out, I don’t think I would like to be a newspaper reporter. But I think I might like editing. Or working for a progressive or some liberal publication.

3. I am going through a period right now where I am extremely insecure about my body, my weight, and am struggling to prioritize my health (eating, exercise) at all, let alone first. This is a hard thing to do. It is also an entirely separate post.

4. I’m reading this book by this guy, Robert Sutton, called The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t; I am not even halfway through it, but it is interesting because it is exactly what the title suggests.

5. I really like academics. And learning. It’s a really overwhelmingly privileged position to be in and I think everyday I’m figuring out the best ways to use these privileges in a way that is beneficial and empowering for myself and others around me.

6. My parents are really really amazing people - they are the most important people in my life. I’m really proud of them.

I know the waves of insecurity and panic and fear and inadequacy will continue on and on, and instead of letting those waves topple me over into the sand, I have to learn to hop a little right before the wave hits.

I am very liberal with the term ‘home’. When I am living on campus during the academic year, I refer to my parents’ residency as ‘home’ - but as soon as I return to northern California, my tiny campus becomes ‘home’.

Most of my childhood was actually spent in Texan suburbia. I remember the house fairly well - the way the outside looked. I keep in touch with a couple of people who still live there so I remember random details about the small suburb of the large city I grew up in. But do I feel attached to Texas in any way? Do I consider it home in any way? Nope.

I was born in San Francisco and went to high school in the Bay Area. And although my heart feels very warm when I think about the bay area, I feel very removed from it. I commuted to school so I never had the chance to explore the town my parents now reside in very well - there isn’t much to know and I like the feeling of familiarity but I don’t feel an overwhelming attachment to this place.

I thought this is the way everybody felt. And now I realize more and more that people are very attached to their homes - the locations they consider home. They feel “at home” in certain spaces - it isn’t just a temporary space where they move their things.

But this is how I feel. After I moved out of Texas I have metaphorically lived out of a suitcase. Locations are fluid. They have sentimental value - there are stores and restaurants I miss seeing and I love my parents’ home. And there was a brief time where my parents’ home was home. I feel comfortable here. But it feels like I’m visiting whenever I’m here. Maybe it’s because I don’t have siblings that live here. I didn’t build a life anywhere. I just lived my life in a few select places, in a couple of lovely little houses.

Then I went back to India. Even using the phrase “back to India” should say something about my relationship to the land. I wasn’t born there - I’ve been there 3 times. I was 1 yrs. old, 12 yrs. old and then I went last December. I’m not fluent in Hindi, the language the community where my grandparents live uses, I don’t feel connected to most of South Asian and North Indian culture. I don’t identify as Indian-American because of culture or religion. I am very unread on the history of the country.

But it feels like a home. There is a sense of belonging that I feel in the air, and in the community. I’m fully aware of my outsider status there - I’m not trying to give up my U.S. citizenship privileges and problematics by proclaiming my connection to the so-called motherland (I feel uncomfortable using this term - does anyone have an alternative? Maybe just ‘homeland’). But I do feel connected to that location in a way that felt new.

Salman Rushdie has a collection of articled and essays entitled Imaginary Homelands and he explains this term so wonderfully:

It may be that writers in my position, exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt. But if we do look back, we must also do so in the knowledge — which gives rise to profound uncertainties — that our physical alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind…

While I think Rushdie refers more to the immigrant community that looks back at their home, and more specifically people who are exiled from the homeland, I feel very strongly about this statement. Home for me, is just a narrative. An important narrative, yes, but ultimately, just a story, just a series of memories that makes up a blend of overwhelming nostalgia and trauma.

Only recently have I stopped feeling so unsettled about this. I felt so thrilled at being able to “diagnose” my relationship to this sense of home and homeland that most people around me seem to have. And then I just felt scared.

Now I realize that I still have many things to learn and that part of growing is building one’s own home. And it’s fine to have many homes and a nearly-fairytale vision of one’s homeland. We should hold on to these things if it is what makes us feel safe.

Home is about the people. I can’t help feeling like as communities become further linked and connected, and national boundaries become more blurred, home will only grow as an imaginary concept and we will have to start thinking of home as the multiple spaces where our heart may reside.

To those of you that do not know, I am quite a fan of the television series, “The Office”. I will not go into details about why I enjoy the show because I already have (although, the wit and commentary on the show has depleted since I wrote that post. But that conversation is for another time and another blog).

For those of you that watch the show and have not seen the season finale, do not keep reading. Big spoilers begin here.

In the last 10 seconds of the show, Jim asked Pam out on a date. There he is, in the interview room in New York, and he sees this little note that Pam gives him and he thinks about the conversation they had at the beach. And there is Pam, speaking to the camera, and Jim walks in and says “What are you doing for dinner tonight” and then says “Great. It’s a date”.

Let the era of Jam begin.

I’ve always been someone who becomes extremely involved in whatever I’m watching- I cry in movies, I brace myself at the edge of my seat during season finales. And by the end of this episode, (I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this), I found myself flushed with happiness at these two crazy fictional characters finally getting together. Lord knows they both deserve it.

I love the “will-they-won’t-they” shows on television. Although this cannot be the only factor as to why I watch a particular series, it is a large part of why I watch “The Office”. Pam and Jim are characters that are built to be loved by everyone - and it goes without saying that Jim has a huge amount of appeal, both in the show, and as a character. I needn’t explain why. Let’s just say he has a case of the “Charming Man” (also, another post).

But what I want to flush out right here is something that has been floating around in my mind for nearly a month.

The media gave me a false model for how I thought relationships were supposed to work.

I always believed that if the timing wasn’t right, it would eventually be right. That if a man ends up breaking your heart, he’ll come around later on, begging to be forgiven. That if you fall for your best friend, you’ll come out stronger at the end and totally happy for him and his partner. That sometimes, running back and telling the truth about how you really feel will pay off.

Ah silly brown woman. How stupid you were to think those models worked for you. How silly that you did not factor in timing more, and circumstance more, and politics more and things like racism and sexism more. How wrong of you to think that straight men turn to romantic gestures and grand confessions when they want to win over a loud and rigid and thick-skinned heart.

Before I went to college, I just assumed I would graduate with a significant other. I thought I would spend my four years dating lots of people and having complicated but not melodramatic relationships that were founded on the utmost respect and communication and understanding. We would move in together in our 20s, and maybe one day get married. He would follow me wherever my life after college took me.

But of course somewhere in the midst of my third year I looked around my small liberal arts college and realized that this little fantasy could be no further from the truth. And there are two parts to explaining why.

The first part is that when you’re at a small liberal arts college filled with predominately white, upper middle class, straight men, you find that there is nothing the majority of the student body wants more than to live a consequence free and commitment free life. Relationships are hard to find - they become complicated by the small student body and by the general suffocation that the campus provides. Dating is nearly impossible. And reputations are carried through the campus pretty quickly. There is a very small percentage of students that want to be dating the militant with high standards.

Let’s sidebar very quickly so I can say this: having “high standards” falls at about the same place as having “thick skin” - both are part of survival. Both are things that I want to embrace and here’s why. Respect, a consciousness of one’s own privileges, (the list can of course go on), those things should not be considered high standards. They should be considered standards. Give-ins. Factors that help me decide who makes the cut.

The second part is that I realize that my version of the picket fence house cannot co-exist with the way I want to grow as an individual and as a brown woman. I can’t get married when I’m in my 20s. I can’t even be in a relationship while I’m in my 20s. I still need time to figure out what I’m doing! And that’s ok. It’s lonely sometimes, and frustrating often, but it is definitely ok.

Timing is a funny thing. It can really change the course of who we get to know and who we can build relationships with. The more I think about it, the more I feel that loving other people and being loved is really about solidarity and compassion for one another, about making sure that there is a constant dialogue about the issues that oppress us and empower us. That we learn from each other.

I’ve been doing well for the most part - busy but well. Doing work, but doing good work. Attempting to start many posts only to have them as saved drafts that linger on the top of my wordpress write-post page.

Then yesterday I was thrown off of my steady course. I had applied, about a month ago, for grant money to do research for my thesis - it was a considerable sum of money that I would get in exchange for doing research on food as a metaphor for diaspora identity, gender, etc. in contemporary South Asian literature. This is a topic I’m interested in, that I’m passionate about, and that I think is unique in comparison to many of the English proposals that are put in.

My proposal was rejected. I received a very diplomatic response that told me my proposal was interesting but not refined enough, that there were many applications received, and that I should take an independent study course over the summer.

Dear grant committee

While I understand that there may be many reasons why you did not select me as a recipient of grant money, please do not suggest that I take an independent study course over the summer. Your grant gave me money to do the research I wanted to do because I cannot afford to do it over the summer without being paid. You have suggested I take and i.s. course, which is something I would have to pay for. Instead of paying me to do this work, you want me to pay to do it. Sorry that I am not part of the wealthy elite that roam the hallowed halls of this institution - I would say that you couldn’t be expected to take class into consideration, but I’m going to refrain from making such claims, because the institution has one of the largest endowments in the country.

Furthermore, I noticed that a lot of the grants go to science majors. This is perfectly understandable, but also reminds me that you don’t think humanities work can be considered research. Though I did hear an example of a white man who received a grant for studying African-American business in New England. Does it seem less legitimate to give money to a south asian woman wanting to research South Asian postcolonial literature? This is the second year in a row you have rejected my proposal, so I’m inclined to be a little irrational. Now you put me in the position to ask myself where I can find a job this summer that pays me the money you pay to do work that will help me get into graduate school.

To top it all off, you will probably be sending me another rejection letter on Monday regarding another research proposal - perhaps next year when you come across students like me, you can put both rejections in one email so they can get past their insecurities and frustrations about being dependent on money sooner.

Thank you for your time,

-obw.

Now I am desperately looking for some sort of paid internship - which is difficult, and far more difficult than it should be considering the college is supposed to have amazing career resources. Turns out resources means business and finance. Turns out the college does not provide a stipend for unpaid nonprofit summer internships.

Of course, the thing that upsets me the most - along with the money issue - is that this experience makes me doubt the work that I’m doing. I keep asking myself - is postcolonial studies and doing work in south asian literature and in food and in colonial hospitality in victorian literature really valid? Maybe this isn’t work I should be doing. Maybe there are just people who are better thinkers, better writers, who are doing this work and I should stick to something else. I’m pretty confident that that isn’t true, but I hate doubting myself.

Rejection is a difficult thing - and the experience is helping me gain the thick skin I know I need if I want to be in graduate school and/or in academia in the future - but it feels….awful.

It’s been almost a month since I have really written a post. Turns out, February brought along a lot of things to write about, but with no additional energy or motivation to actually write.

It’s March now - time for a change.

In February, I realized that I want to go to graduate school.

Let’s rewind to where I was at the end of 2006.

I was going to graduate from college. Then I was going to work. I was going to find a job with a non-profit organization. I was going to win a fellowship that allowed me to study abroad. I was going to find an opportunity to teach abroad. I was going to work at a public school. I was going to take time away from institutional education.

All of that felt pretty good. Many of the people I work with now were all going to be doing these sorts of things. Joining Presidential campaigns, teaching English abroad… very wonderful things.

Then I went to India.

I reconnected with my grandmother - we were able to pick up right where we left off 5 years ago. I was able to look into her eyes and see a woman who is surviving the trauma of partition in ‘47 every day. A woman who was praying for her daughters every day. A woman who is doing her duty as a wife every day. I was able to see what she was really saying to me while reliving and retelling stories about her life:

Do your work. Live a life that was better than mine.

I came back and now it literally feels like every breath I take is coated by this verbal framework.

I started to feel very incomplete in my answers to the question “So…do you know what you’re going to do after you graduate?”

I started to feel like I was hiding something from everyone; there was a feeling in me that felt…off, somehow - to be honest, I wish I could explain it better. Actually, I can.

It was Guilt.

Guilt in wanting to continue to pursue higher education. Guilt in not wanting to be eager to answer the call for secondary public school teachers. Guilt at wanting to be an academic in postcolonial studies. Guilt in choosing theory over praxis. Guilt in having to put myself into more debt than I can even conceive of right now. I feel guilty because the work that I feel called to do doesn’t seem like great work.

And of course, at the root of all guilt lies privilege. And it’s a privilege for me to be able to even think of graduate school. It’s a privilege that I’m at a private institution that can give me the resources and advice I need to get into graduate school.

But all we can do with privilege is tell guilt to go to hell and do the work we can do with it. Putting privilege to good use is all we can do. It doesn’t go away no matter how much we attempt to banish or ignore it. And it definitely doesn’t go away when we coat it over and over with superficial recognition, whining, and guilt.

I think it was Audre Lorde that asks in her letter to..Mary Daly I believe: I’m doing my work, are you doing yours?

So the question is, what does it mean for me to do my work. It means pursuing what I am passionate about, finding the means to doing this, and then using this as a space to influence and motivate others to do their work. Theory doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive from praxis.

Graduate school, here I come.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to go about graduate school. Because I don’t really know. And I’m very scared of so many things, including not getting in, not being able to afford it (actually I know I can’t afford it — I guess I mean, not being able to find a way to manage the costs), not being capable or qualified enough, not finding a program in California, and of course, having second thoughts about going at all.

Will it be worth it?

There is much more to say about it. But I will bring it up again when I’ve done some research.