Student Life goes On
A phone call jarred me suddenly from my intense concentration, and, shaking film analysis from my head, I glanced from my laptop screen to the raucous cell phone on my desk. An unknown, local number appeared. I grabbed the phone and rushed out my room to the staircase in hopes of getting semi-decent reception.
“Hello?”I answered.
“Hello, is this Mikayla?” an adult woman’s voice asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Hi, this is Nancy Thompson, the Dean of Students.” Surprised that the Dean of Students was calling my cell phone, I listened carefully. “I am calling about your hunger strike and was wondering if we could meet sometime this afternoon to talk about it? There are some things I feel that, as the dean, I should know and talk to you about.”
I agreed readily, but we had to settle on 1 ‘o clock tomorrow because my afternoon today was full of classes. I’m not sure what we’ll talk about, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that she’ll be supportive. She heard about the strike yesterday when I went to the Diversity and Social Justice coffee hour.
I entered the Glen House yesterday afternoon, the scent of coffee and sliced pumpkin bread causing my stomach to moan, and settled into an absorptive couch away from the fireplace.
For awhile, the conversation focused on campus activism and the college’s attitude towards it. “Is there an ethic of caring here?” they asked. I listened quietly for about half-an-hour, then feeling pressured by the time and an upcoming practice session with the Brass Ensemble, I diverted the conversation away from the nature of activism to activism itself.
A deep breath as the facilitator called on. “All this about the ethic of caring, and the effectiveness of activism is really important to me right now because I’m…I’m sort of embarking on my own journey of activism,” I explained. Usually, I get nervous talking in front of people, but this group was welcoming, and the calmness of my voice encouraged me to press on.
“I’m going on a hunger strike for the sake of climate justice issues. The premise of the movement is based on the fact that the planet is warming and this warming will have adverse effects, especially on the global south. Of course, the global north will experience the consequences too, but the global south will disproportionately bear the burden, even though they contributed the least.”
The room had grown quiet. My neck and ears warmed. My comparative literature professor leaned forward, her eyes intent on me, her eyebrows pushed down in intrigue. “Anyway,” I continued (despite my body kicking into defensive mode), “this is the sixth day of my fast and my intention is to go until the end of the Copenhagen Conference. I guess I’m here because a lot of this movement’s success depends on people knowing and caring about the issue. I guess I came because I thought you’d care and might be able to help.”
A brief silence followed. Then several people chimed in. The room quickly filled with comments of support, encouragement, and ideas. “You came to the right place,” said one senior woman. “We have connections.”
Another girl, raised her hand and said, “You know, I might even join you for awhile.” My spirit soared. My group of supporters! After a few minutes of brainstorming, I unfortunately had to excuse myself, but thanked them sincerely and added my name to the Social Justice Initiative list serve. There is an SJI meeting pending in my future…Today, a couple members followed up with me. Thank God for responsible people.
Otherwise, my life as a student goes on. I don’t know what interests the general blog-reader, but things happen every day about which I could write.
I met with my academic advisor today and frustrated her. During our meeting, I pulled from my book bag a long list of interesting-sounding classes and from my head little idea about my intended major. “Mikayla,” she said. “I can’t give you much guidance when you haven’t picked out a major and have such long list of classes.” *Sigh* I can’t help it. There are so many things to learn and so many ways to learn about them. How am I supposed to focus? I guess I’ll think about it this weekend…
Our school’s friendly Muslim cleric hosted a drumming event this evening, and thinking it might be relaxing to beat on a drum I trudged up three flights of chapel stairs to the warm, couch-filled upper room. The five of us sat around a table (laden with cheesy, golden, shimmering, aromatic pizza) and beat out rhythms on the cone-shaped Middle Eastern drums. Dum-tek-dum-dum-tek-e-tek-tek-dum. The hand-thumping was meditative, but an obligation to work interrupted the session.
Tech crew: the job I proudly hold on campus. I help set-up and run stage, lighting, and sound for concerts/events on campus. Tonight Zee Avi played at our bi-monthly Acoustic Coffeehouse. She’s got a beautiful, liquid voice, and tonight, I got paid to enjoy the music. The scent of freshly baked brownies, warm chocolate chip cookies, and cinnamony chai tea made it difficult to focus entirely on her voice though.
But such is life. I still feel pangs of hunger.
-Mikayla
Your life seems to be too busy with taking student classes and any other activities so please manage some time for your life and be relax.
By christmas gifts, USA on Sat, 28/11/2009