I have successfully cultivated a small batch of herbs and vegetable plants on my back porch - a container garden, if you will. I just harvested some juicy little tomatoes from my tomato plants, so I feel like it's time to officially declare this quest a success!
Quest # 22: Contact Lenses
I can see! Glasses are cool looking and all... but I prefer the freedom of not having something hanging onto my face. Maybe surgery will be a goal for next year? :-o
Quests-in-Progress
Quest # 1: Biographies
Although started (and intended for) July, I finally completed this biography in August. Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin was well-written and a fascinating look at the First Lady's life. I recommend the read; she's pretty darn inspiring and strong. I've been noticing a pattern in successful people I've been reading about: they live their lives very intentionally, and they tend to want to prove people wrong. I like the former of those traits a lot, and I'm thinking that may be on my list of things to practice in earnest next year. Back to the book though: Seriously, if Michelle Obama ran for president, I am in 110%.
Quest # 3: Tithing
Tithing money this month went to disaster relief efforts in Louisiana due to their insane and unusual amount of flooding. These areas in Louisiana (the two major areas being the surrounding Lafayette area, and the surrounding Baton Rouge area like Livingston and Ascension ) were not historically flood-prone areas, and many people do not have flood insurance there, so this may devastate the area's economy (and people) for at least the next couple years. I donated to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and my post is here.
Quest #4: Spirituality
I tried going to a Universal Unitarian Church - Yay hippies and atheists! The music may not be as good as what I grew up with, but the messages are refreshingly all about love and connectedness. I'm going to try this out for a while, but not convinced yet that it's my "home." Glad to finally get this quest started though.
Quest #18: Exercise
In an effort to live more active (Quest #19??) and to keep myself working out, I signed up for a dance class that meets once a week. I'm now having dreams of training to get my teaching certification so that I can establish a healthy "side hustle" to fall back on if I need a little extra cash (because, I love this!).
Coming up next:
Quest # 1: Biographies
In September, getting inspiration from both Day of Democracy and Constitution Day, I'm going to read a little more about the people who help keep our country safe. This book follows the lives of a few service women - in various branches of the military - and I'm looking forward to reading about another set of lives so different from my own! The book is Undaunted by Tanya Biank.
*I have decided to stop writing about quests that have no real updates to give. Those bits are kinda boring, and they are frustrating to write... so I'm going to try changing things up a little, and hopefully this will get a little more concise for the rest of the year. Halfway there!!!!
Boss Battle #2 has been completed! Work complete on the replacement of the deck boards. They will need to be stained or painted by the end of August, but the hardest work is finished. I have now finished this quest!
Quests-in-Progress
Quest # 1: Biographies
The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee, a biography by a North Korean defector. I chose this one in honor of World Refugee Day in June. Her story was a page-turner that I am recommending to all of my friends (who are remotely interested in world issues, or adventure/personal growth stories). Her life has had many terrifying moments in it. She is an inspirational, resourceful individual with a well-written story of her life so far.
Quest # 2: Finances
Cranked out a bunch of reports this month, and have made good money again. Big purchase: plane tickets for a trip in October!
Quest # 3: Tithing
In honor of World Refugee Day, I chose to put my tithing money into micro-loans through Kiva. I contributed to two loans: one is a man living and working in Lebanon to support his wife and children in Syria; and the other is a young mother of three and her husband who live in Palestine along the Gaza Strip who are attempting to rebuild their home, which was destroyed during the war.
Quest #6: Exhibits We went to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, in Greensboro, North Carolina! I needed a destination for my maiden voyage (er... road trip) with my new car, and I had always wanted to see where the Woolworth sit-in happened in the 1950's. It's one of those major American historical events I had read in the history books, and marveled at the fact that it was so close to where I lived (History?! In my backyard?!).
Finally having a car that can take me there was exciting. The museum was both depressing and inspiring. It was horrific to hear and see what humans have done (and do) to each other, out of fear and hatred. It was also awe-inspiring to hear about the people who were brave enough to stand up to the violence, and the prejudice. Not only stand up to it, but remain peaceful. Holy moley, think about that. Dwell on it. They were scared, oppressed, abused, discriminated against, and they chose NOT to react with violence?? Ho.ly.mo.ly. I don't think I would be brave enough. But, it does make me take a closer look at what is going on in America today, and realizing that there is an opportunity now to be an ally, again.
There is always going to be oppression in the world; always one group of people asserting dominance, often violently, over one or more other groups. Being born into the privileged life of a white, English-speaking American, it's helpful to go to museums like this; to bear witness and be educated by information like this; to know that I'm in a position to help make a change, and that I have a responsibility to do so. Yes, responsibility, ye White Person reading this. If you are part of a society, you have a part in, and a responsibility to, that society. Even inaction has effects, you just have less control over what you effect. "No man is an island," and all that jazz... which is trite but true.
Quest #12: Utilize Pinterest
I'm using Pinterest to plan my trip to England and Korea in October. So far, I've created a London board, which is mostly filled with Harry Potter sights and activities. Quest # 13: Garden
I bought a lavender plant to make up for my dead sage plant.... but not sure that it's going to make it either..... I shall persevere....
Quest # 16: Job Work
This month had a rough week, where I got very little sleep every night and ended up pulling an all-nighter to meet a deadline. I slept a lot that following weekend. I keep chanting "I need this money, I need this money, I need this money." Sometimes people need to go through crucibles before they get to the point in life they want to be. It appears this year (and perhaps next) will be my work-life crucible.
Quest # 18: Exercise
I ended up signing up for Camp Gladiator, which is kind of like Crossfit, but outdoors. The trainers are good, positive people and the activities are fun. I still have my gym membership too though....I'm trying to decide which one I want to do more....I don't really want to keep paying for both.
Road trip with my younger brother, to Greensboro and Elon, North Carolina.
A beautiful, beautiful mermaid.
Welcome to Greensboro!
Went on a trip to the beach with mom and the siblings! I realized it had been about five years since I had been to a Carolina beach. I love how peaceful the beaches down here are (and generally clean). I do love the beaches in the Pacific Northwest as well... but you can actually get in the water here and swim around if you wanted - without fear of riptides, rocks, and freezing waters. Yes, there may be sharks... but it's fairly rare to run into one.
North Topsail Beach - starting to sink away into the ocean, and needs walls of sandbags to preserve the homes.
In sad news, my furbaby was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. She's getting so old, I worry that she won't be my companion for much longer....I hate forcing her to take her medicine, but it seems to be working. She has a follow up scheduled in July to make sure the medicine is helping. Good thing she loves seeing the vet!
Coming up next:
Quest # 1: Biographies
Couldn't find my top pick for the biography this month (a specific Eleanor Roosevelt biography), so I am going with another top First Lady biography: Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin.
Quest # 5: Performance
The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games is the largest Scottish games festival in North Carolina. These highland games are one of the things I really missed when I was living in Korea, and now that I have the money for the ticket and the car to make it out there, I am making the journey up the mountain to watch men in kilts toss cabers and play the bagpipes!
Quest # 26: Friends
A friend I met in Korea will be in town for a wedding, so I get to grab a drink with him and catch up on how life has went for him the past few years!
Headstrong, 52 Women Who Changed Science - and the World by Rachel Swaby
I didn't finish the whole book, but I did read through 19 of the 52.
It's a compilation of mini-biographies which are just as fascinating and exciting as they are frustrating - how many times have women been written over, or simply overlooked in history? Their names forgotten in the discovery or invention in favor of the man who discovered her? I'm glad to live today in this time. Although I'm sure this still happens today, I'm sure it happens a lot less than it used to. For that, I'm very thankful, and was able to simmer down.
This book is now on my list of books to buy. A great collection of inspirational women to remind myself of what I could be capable if I put my mind to it - and a supplement to the history and science textbooks if I have children of my own some day.
Here are some samples of the women I read about this month, in honor of Women's History Month:
Anna Wessels Williams (1863-1954) was a bacteriologist who helped develop the Park-Williams 8 (now known as "Park 8" due to the ease of saying something with fewer syllables) bacteria. This bacteria was the most important ingredient in making the diphtheria antitoxin producible on a mass scale - which then enabled the once nearly-epidemic disease to be brought under control.
She was also the scientist who brought the rabies vaccine to the United States, and helped make the production of the vaccine a priority. She also did extensive studies on rabies - what it does to the body, how it behaves - as well as many other diseases and viruses. Below are the first and last pages of her chapter.
Helen Taussig (1898-1986)founded pediatric cardiology; helped develop the Blalock-Taussig Shunt technique, a heart surgery which saved the lives of many infants; helped the FDA discover and block medicines which cause birth defects; received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and "amassed the most comprehensive catalog of congenital heart defects and their indicators ever compiled." All this with a sense of hearing which started failing at the age of 30. Below is the first page of her chapter:
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was instrumental in pioneering the field of entomology (the study of bugs, basically). At a time when most other scientist did not see the connection between caterpillar and butterfly, she diligently documented and drew each stage of the transformation process, metamorphosis. Below are the first and last pages of her chapter:
Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794-1871)invented the aquarium!
She needed a way to study marine life, so she designed a glass box which could hold her specimen in, alive, while she learned about their habits and lives. Below is her entire chapter.
February Biography: Negroland, a memoir by Margo Jefferson
In honor of Black History Month, I picked a biography about the life of a black/African American woman, and I am so glad I did. This is one of those books that changes the way I see the world around me. Even before I finished it, I was already interpreting actions and reactions of people in the news differently - even music and other entertainment. I was seeing through the lens of Margo Jefferson's experience.
I'll note now: I am sorry if any word choices or opinions offend you, the reader. If you are easily offended, I would advise perhaps not reading further. However, if you choose to continue reading, please understand I write the following with thoughtfulness and respect, with no intention for degradation or slights toward any gender, skin color, or culture.
This memoir brings the reader along in the experience of a woman of color in america, and especially the tightrope-walk-balance of being a middle-class woman of color. She starts with a brief history of what her parents and their generation lived through, and then began her reflection on her years growing up. Through childhood, college life, and beyond, she talks about her experience, situations she faced, and how society evolved and changed through the years; how society's view of the "Middle Class Negro" (as she says) changed, and how their own view of themselves changed.
Her struggles were a lot more complex that anything I have experienced as a white middle-class woman. However, my experiences and struggles as a Woman did help me sympathize, appreciate, and put myself in her shoes emotionally. It made me so frustrated and angry for her. So many of the struggles are the same as they were that she is writing about from the 1970's. Isn't that a shame? Like, a crying, screaming shame.
I wish this was required reading. You're going to be an adult in our society? Here. Read some books about what life is like for people who do not look or act exactly like you, and don't have the same opportunities that you have. Read, and understand.
To clarify: this book wasn't like some sort of "cure" to my ignorance. I honestly wish I had some friends of color that I felt comfortable talking with them about this book (of the acquaintances and friends I do have, I don't want to impose. Like "mmm excuse me, would you like to be an ambassador and educate me? Pls, thx!").
One of the things I was sad about when I moved back home, was that I felt like I had stopped being around another culture. I was back in my birthplace and felt like I knew the basics of everything I needed to know about American culture. This book was encouraging: other cultures (than my white, middle class one) are here, I just have to go a bit out of my normal life habits to get into and learn about those cultures.
If I could talk to someone, I would want to ask: what is that person's experience nowadays? What do they find the most frustrating/unjust? (other than police brutality. I kinda get that one)What things have changed for the better, and what feels like it could be the solution? In the meantime, I'm watching you, Beyonce.
Some Quotes and Topics I Wish I Had a Bookclub to Discuss With:
(unless otherwise noted, quotes are from Margo Jefferson)
Although trying to warn and prepare us for life in the "real world," our parents often accidentally pass down their own negative feelings and viewpoints to us:
"The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair. And as a result of these, a sense of perpetual violation."
Although I have not personally experienced as much sexism as my mother or the women before her, I know through their stories. I know the injustices which have happened, and I have taken their anger as my own. Yes, I also have experienced sexism and injustices through men (and sadly, sometimes women). But lately I have wondered how that has fueled a pre-existing distrust, or if my awareness has made me simply more aware of the fact that what they did or said was wrong. Awareness is good, and important. Hand-me-down hurt is not.
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On page 136 of the book, she talks about seeing black actors on television, in movies, and in plays. There weren't very many. Some roles that they played were shunned and scorned by other members of the middle class, so she learned/memorized that these roles were embarrassing (and anyone nowadays would most likely agree. The writers were not very educated or perhaps did not care too much about dignity).
I was also watching an old Gilmore Girls show recently, where the mother was heavily making fun of the woman character of the show they were watching - a stay-at-home wife who was unnaturally cheerful and always baking.* I agree that it is important to understand how damaging these roles are.
People see these (highly unrealistic/stylized, yet not intentionally comedic?) portrayals, and if it's the only way they ever see that type of person, their expectations of real life can be horribly skewed. A black or Asian man as intelligent, powerful, and sexy? Or a woman of any color in a powerful, main-character role? Or in a role where she is important but her sexual appeal is NOT in anyway the focus? These are not very common things to see still on television. As a result, it is difficult for anyone to envision them in those types of roles.
*On the flip side, I don't think it's alright to make complete fun of some of these stereotypes. What's wrong with a housewife/househusband? Nothing but our own perception. In fact, I think it's wonderful when a partner is able to stay home at least part time and take care of the home and health of the family. This is a phenomenally powerful role which has been largely undervalued.
Chelsea Does : Racism, a documentary/somewhat of a comedy on Netflix
Yesterday I watched a mini-documentary by Chelsea Handler ("Chelsea Does." a mini-series of documentaries on Netflix) where she discusses and investigates racism. She's a bit...unfiltered... but I thought it was an interesting watch. It definitely had cringeworthy moments, as this Washington Post article covers. But, in one of her interviews, the Native American woman she talked with mentions that when we don't have people like us (you, whoever is watching) on the screen, we sort of become "non-people" or "non-existent" in the imagination of society. I believe that we need to see positive reflections of ourselves on the screen, in the media, in our entertainment, to help us envision ourselves in various roles and possibilities.
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She talks about the incredible amount of pressure the middle-class people of color went through. It was so stressful that she says, "in Negroland boys learned early how to die." It was even more difficult for the girls, with so many stipulations on how ladylike, chaste, intelligent and strong they must be.
During the feminist movement of the '70's, white women had the privilege of expressing their depression and melancholy. White women were able to be "freely yielding to depression, of flaunting neurosis as a mark of social and psychic complexity." which were feelings that were not allowed for a woman of color to express "because our people had endured horrors and prevailed, even triumphed, their descendants should be too strong and to proud for such behavior."
"We were to be ladies, responsible Negro women, and indomitable Black Women."
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At one point in the book be shows her collection of quotes she related to:
"I had wanted to compromise with Fate to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privations and small pains. Fate would not be so pacified . . .
'But if I feel, may I never express?'
'Never!' declared Reason.
I groaned under her bitter sternness. . . . If I have obeyed her it has chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love." Charlotte Bronte, Villette
(My note: it's infuriating how unwelcome expressions of anger and hurt are, when we have experienced something unjust. Anyone who hasn't gone through that experience - anyone at the top of the social food chain ::ahem::white men::ahem:: - gets uncomfortable and tells us to be quiet. If we express our hurt too much, they start to shun us, calling us crazy, angry, irrational people)
"You are you and you are going to be you forever. It was like coasting downhill, this thought, only much much worse, and it quickly smashed into a tree. Why was I a human being?" Elizabeth Bishop, The Country Mouse
"I have stories to tell?
I have cuts and bruises that do not map a course. Wendy Walters, A Letter from the Hunted in Retrospect
"And none of them are justified unless you find a way to make the story worth telling." - Margo Jefferson
(My note: I have gone through periods where I feel like there is no one who will accept my feelings as justified, unless I can find a way to put it into a more palatable, more interesting and pleasant story. I guess that is always the case, for any situation, but it does make a person feel a little more isolated and hopeless)
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On Florynce Kennedy, a lawyer, protester, organizer; an activist for civil rights, anti-war, black power, feminism, and gay rights:
"She used to say something like this: When black women tell me feminism is a white woman's thing, I tell them: you've spent all these years, all these centuries, imitating every bad idea white women came up with - about their hair, their makeup, their clothes, their duties to their men. And now, they finally come up with one good idea- feminism- and you decide you don't want anything to do with it!"
Margo Jefferson writes that "I won't trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class." that these are all "basic elements of on's living." In the end, it's a question of "How does each matter?" (Not "which matters most?"). As she says,
"Gender, race, class; class, race, gender - your three in one and one in three."
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My conclusion: this was very important to read, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement currently, and the recent hoopla about Beyonce and her Black Panthers reference at the Super Bowl. I hope teachers are using material like this in school. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing what you can to try to understand people who are not living in your own personal sphere of existence.
Knowledge is power, and the understanding that comes with knowledge leads to peace.
Although started (and intended for) July, I finally completed this biography in August. Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin was well-written and a fascinating look at the First Lady's life. I recommend the read; she's pretty darn inspiring and strong. I've been noticing a pattern in successful people I've been reading about: they live their lives very intentionally, and they tend to want to prove people wrong. I like the former of those traits a lot, and I'm thinking that may be on my list of things to practice in earnest next year. Back to the book though: Seriously, if Michelle Obama ran for president, I am in 110%. 
