2009 mighty fine

return to seattle, not rain nor sleet nor snow will keep me away!
determined to make this year and this quarter more of a compromise, so that academia will not control my every move. other realms must be allowed to speak as well...the art and the words and the music and the physically stimulating, not just mental...if I am to survive this I need that balanza and sustainability.

the doubt is still there...if this is the right path...and despite many doors opening for me here and many words of encouragement, i still can't seem to find the groove that fits. prolonged sensations of writers block, or speakers block, or thinkers block, where i feel i cannot mold myself into this regiment. doubt that i am capable of fulfilling such a mold, doubt that i could be happy molding myself as such.

would it be so bad to get a masters and go teach community college? to establish myself in oakland and just teach, since i have already affirmed that teaching is what i am after, is what i am capable of and am most fulfilled by. it is not that i don't believe i could keep up with all these academics, keep up with the banter and dichotomies and loathsome jargon...if i really wanted to i could...but do i want to? everytime i sit in on a lecture such as today's, discussing the neoliberal neglect of black ghettos in the US, i get really excited about the subject until the lecturer starts spouting jargon so thick you lose sight of the injustice present....global tropes? c'mon now...this knowledge needs to be accessible, needs to empower....it doesn't need to be reiterated in a language so dense that it can only be discussed in a room full of academic ego-strokers. i was completely deflated...although his research interested me, his language left me with a sour taste in my mouth. it made me want to succeed in this arena, to conquer it all, only so that i could later unravel the very system that spawned me. to gain acknowledgement and credibility you must fit this mold of academic reason and robotic analysis...i want to shatter these molds of legitimacy...you do not need to conform to such a rigid structure for your thought processes, your knowledge, to have value.

if i am to continue down this path, which i will be for at least another two years, i need to focus my thoughts on what is important to me and what is important to my education. recognizing the legitimacy and voice of those who are normally deemed powerless, the 'subjects' who are not allowed to use their own voice to represent themselves. empowerment through education...local forms of knowledge and skills that we don't often allow access to the academic realm of knowledge. social movements, acts of solidarity, empowerment through disobedience...the sort of actions that make my eyes water everytime i see a group of people unified for acknowledgement....that surely is a sign that i should be involved with that.

the questions remaining are how and where. i want to draw connections between the local (domestic) and the local (international)...i want to create something that gives voice to others...but if others are writing there own could that still count for my dissertation? a patchwork quilt of voices, from three different regions, working towards a common cause? an activity they all partake in, in which they write what they believe is necessary for the future, for educating and empowering their community...could be! or maybe more than three regions...maybe several countries, throughout the americas...spending two or three months in each place...offering my time and labor and gathering voices in the midst of it...could such a dream be made a reality??

i just need to plow my own path amdst all this...i have never been conventional...now is not a time to start...