So I need to test whether or not I can blog from my phone. This my attempt...let's see if it works!

wake up!

"being angry at someone is like holding a hot coal in your hand with the intent of throwing it at them, in the end you get burned" -ghandi

i am red in a narrow dark tunnel

coated in face values and what needs to be done tomorrow

i sit and dream of where the grass is greener

and wonder why i am getting no where

not being young anymore leaves you with the disadvantage

of not having the time of day to get the bigger picture

read between the lines

analyze the means by which you achieve justice

wake up, wake up i am your new day

your child waits for you to move

wake up, wake up i am your new sunrise

your lover waits for you to immerse from the mignight hour

i am poet again, i am mother for once, i am meant to lead my soul to its destiny

be your own protector, protect that which glides from your heart to your tounge

believe in the ability of your own strenth, power and knowledge

watch over your community, your brothern your sister, your marganalized strangers

watch like a hawk watches over the horizon

remember the beauty of the whole

and never give up on the small

wake up i tell, wake up!

Waiting

Yesterday I laid in bed ready to tear off my poor husband’s head off…the anxiety of becoming a mother is something that has only been theoretical until now. The safety of the womb has not just been a comfort zone for my baby girl, but for my adolescent byproduct as well. No matter where you think you are in life, uncertainty is pail of cold water on a freezing day and it always comes right before you make your way up that stage. I’ve been creating life, pushing through the days, finding strength and patience when every moment seems more exhausting…but it hasn’t been more real until this moment. This moment when my on biology has already started to prepare me physically…my soul seems to be reaching out to prepare my courage as well.

Gloomy Fall…go away and come back another day

I forget the seasons sometimes, like one might forget where you put your keys the night before. I can feel them, like an empty weight of something that once had a place in your pocket. When Fall comes it's always disguised as a morbid rain, like monsters in my closet, something I thought I had grown out of a long time ago. Today is apart from any Fall day before this one, before there were selections of coffee to breathe in, a mountain of an office work to stress in and self-pity to comfort to. Now I have to be a grown up, it hurts to want to grow up when you don't even know what that means. My belly is growing bigger every time I look down at it and I can't wait until I'll know it's safe. That it's safe to think I'm still pregnant.

"About 20-30% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is really nothing you can do to prevent it, we didn't know this before because women would just miss their period and that's how they knew they were pregnant. Nowadays women can down to their local drug store and pick a home pregnancy test. The DNA sometimes just doesn't…well it's just…"

"Nature" I hate my shy innocent voice sometimes, it sounds even more pathetic when I'm scared.

"Your hormones indicate that you're about 10 weeks…let's schedule you an ultra sound next week and we'll know more than, until then no intercourse."

I can feel my heart ache at every slight abdominal pain, every time I wipe myself and there is this residue of blood on the cheap white bath tissue. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe it's not my time. Maybe I'm different. Maybe.

Poetry Entry

July 13, 2009

Can we not count, if to count at all
on the black-n-white skies
of a Seattle Summer?

Here I am, but a week banded
to this foolish man that would have me,
even though I am a dimpled and exotic woman.

Temperaments go further than changes in weather
and sit happily in an excuse to be a woman.
Ahhh…to be a woman in this hour
would shame all the informal education
of the radical feminism I used to be fond of.

I am but a sham in the lamb’s clothing
and have nothing to write but this shabby un-rhymed poem.

Bad Daydreams

 

Damn…to go back in time…

 

the sad daydream

lapsed the dull time

between the books

and a lonely morning.

 

I can't count the times

that they told me

going back in time was out

 

of the question.

 

Every time,

back then,

when I went down into my soul

I wished those judging eyes

would close.

I could never enjoy

my heart and skin

without coming across those

scary scars.

 

I want time again,

against the wall,

I want to fight again,

to decide what's null.

 

I want the imagination back again.

 

again, again, again.

 

No more of my mother's anxiety

and my father's anger…

I want her optimism

and his dreams…

I want it all again.

 

When my father looks at me

with them drunkard eyes

I will look back at him

with the guidance he always looked for.

 

When my mother holds me

in her desperation

I will hold her back

with the strength of those before us.

 

And another hour elapsed,

what a sad daydream indeed.

 

 

 

John Dewey’s Experience and Education

Dewey: Experience and Education

 

    Once in my sophomore year of High School I was kicked out of my history class because my teacher thought I was being disrespectful during an argument we were having about the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez. Although now in my older years, I realized I could have reacted differently to the situation, however I think that it is prevalent to what Dewey talks about in Education and Experience. Before I get into the details of the actual event, I think it is imperative that other information is brought into the perspective.

    During my high school years I became three separate people. In school I was not the best student in the world and had many truancy and drug issues. I was attending a school in the north part of Seattle called Ingram High School when smoking weed and skipping became one of my most frequent ways to pass the time. Eventually I became involved with people who were thieves, drug addicts and violent, which lead to a physical encounter with a complete stranger in order to prove myself. My mother removed me from the school and enrolled me in a school in the south end of Seattle called Cleveland High School. I left a school with maybe 35% people of color and came to a school with 75% people of color, less resources and a decaying old building. The classrooms of course were over crowded and there were never enough text books for all the students in the class. My mother choose this school with the sole intent that maybe a good friend of the family named Alex, that was a senior that year at Cleveland, might steer me in a good direction. Outside of school I was involved in a community organization that did a multitude of services that included basic social services, child care, civil rights work, community involvement and youth leadership called El Centro de la Raza. At the same time that I was failing in my studies I became emerged in this whole another type of academia. The history of the Chicano movement and the Civil Rights movement intrigued me, as well as, motivated me to do community organizing work for various causes. One of those causes was establishing a community history course taught once a night through videos, discussions, presentations and guest speakers. I helped coordinate, lead discussions, and facilitate workshops. Alex was a good friend and fellow organizer for these community history classes and knew this side of my personality. When I was around him I turned into a motivated and caring individual, because I believed in what we were working towards. At home I became the third individual, a secluded person that preferred to write poetry all hours of the night and read fictional book after fictional book. My house was crazy with noise, people, arguments, yelling, screaming, heightened emotion or altogether depression. There was always a heap of housework waiting for me and a good argument with my father that always ended in tears. I escaped through poetry, drawing and reading.

    With all this said, Alex of course helped me to began a change within myself. I didn't care about school or what would happen to me when I skipped and got high, however he was my source of accountability. Taking me under his wing he introduced me to MEChA, a Chicano student organization that was dedicated to bringing the Chicano student into institutions of higher education, while still maintaining a connection with their community and families. The student organization is set up in a family like fashion that holds its members accountable to not just their motivation in the community but their motivation to succeed in the academic arena as well. Nonetheless, I started going to my classes and making a real effort to graduate after throwing away three-fourths of my sophomore year. While I was making this transition to caring I took a US history class with a very narrow minded woman, who came from a very conservative and stubborn viewpoint. We had a couple of days dedicated towards talking about the civil right era, which consisted of a few paragraphs about Martin Luther King, Jr and one paragraph about Cesar Chavez. We watched a video about the college life of MLK during the times he was a womanizer and irresponsible individual and touched little on his philosophies and civil rights work.

    One thing that I think I should mention is the fact that at the age of twelve, I began to study MLK's Strength to Love book, where he discusses thoroughly the concepts of nonviolent civil rights principles and action. I did not accomplish this on my own. I was part of a summer youth leadership conference were we took a chapter a week and did daily seminars on the philosophies brought up in each chapter. We would have to not only reflect verbally as a group, but we were required to keep a journal where we had to take a passage from the chapter on a daily basis and reflect on it individually.

    With this said, there was an overwhelming sense of disgust with my teacher's presentation of the civil rights era and I expressed it to her during our discussion after the MLK film. How exactly the conversation went or even the name of the video escapes me. I just remember raising my hand and telling her that it offends me as an individual that our class had to watch a video that virtually attempted at discrediting his work and dedication to a much needed movement in our society. I pointed out the one paragraph in our textbook of Cesar Chavez and said that offended me. The paragraph didn't talk about how many times Cesar had fasted, what he struggled for or even what kinds of discriminations and hazardous work conditions that agricultural workers have to face on a daily basis in order for us to have the fruits and vegetables that our in our stores and markets. That from that movement a whole generation of youth were born that began the foundations of Chicano history and movements that also swept the nation during the time of the more known "black movement." Her response was that I was being narrow minded for not wanting to discuss the "other part" of MLK's life and that the history that Cesar had contributed and thousands of other Chicanos in this nation was not significant enough to dedicate time to talking about in the history class. I admit to probably cutting her off and speaking in a very confrontational tone, however I never said one cuss word or used my body language to signify that I was going to become violent. She was overwhelmed that I was taking up her class time with an argument that would not result in us seeing each other's viewpoints. I was then sent to the principal's office, but instead cut out to the park with a couple of the homies.

    Another incident that happened at Cleveland was a more positive and motivating one. As you might have imagined, I failed the US History course because I just didn't go to class and didn't do any of the assignments. Eventually I found that I had to retake US history, but this time it was with a younger woman who was doing her student teaching at Cleveland for one quarter. We rarely used our text book, however had engaging conversations and debates surrounding US history. As a class project we had to pick an entity or person that had a significant impact on US history, specifically from the civil rights movements. This was one of the most motivating tasks I was given in all of my four years in high school. I had a wealth of options, however I choose a more intimate one. I chose to do the presentation on the community organization that I had been involved in since the age of nine. This organization has an amazing history and was a significant milestone to the Chicano Movement in the Pacific Northwest. In 1972, there was a English as a Second Language class being given to the community through Seattle Central Community College. The program's funding was cut halfway through the course, however the Chicano movement was already starting to emerge within the community of Seattle. The individuals that were apart of the ESL class had began to exchange ideals about leading a progressive movement to addressing the issues afflicting Chicanos in Seattle. There was a multitude of services that were not available to the Chicano community, as well as, a place they could organize around social and political issues. After being outraged by the funding cuts, they decided to take action and found resolution in an abandoned elementary school building in Beacon Hill. On October 11, 1972 hundreds of students, families and community organizers walked into the abandoned school building and began a 35 year-long struggle of social and civil rights work. They named the organization El Centro de la Raza, meaning the center of the people.

    At the end of my presentation I received support and admiration from both my classmates and instructor for bringing to light a history that many were not aware existed locally. The discussion ranged from people's curiosity of the work that El Centro de la Raza did to the possibility that the concept of racism is still being perpetuated in school and society. Even though there is always a sense of pride when the work you've done is acknowledged, it was a stronger sense of pride in the fact that I used all three personalities to effectively contribute to the knowledge of the classroom. My poetical talent with language was used in the presentation, I brought to light the organizing work I was involved in outside of school, and I was able to feel like I was part of the learning process of my classmates. This entire event began to empower my ability to contribute to the classroom and my own learning.

    In contrast to this empowering event, the original altercation I had with my first US History teacher was not motivating to my learning process and gave me a sense of disempowerment. Coming out of that classroom I felt that I was not a valuable member to the atmosphere of the classroom. Dewey states, "When education is based upon experience and educative experience is seen to be a social process, the situation changes radically. The teacher loses the position of external boss and dictator but takes on that of a leader of group activities." What my second US history teacher was able to accomplish was not only empowering me to be a learner and feel that my contributes to the class were valued, but also to appreciate her ability to orchestrate that process.