Category Archives: life and how to live it

Reading for Fun (Or, Can I Pass Down My Love for Reading?)

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I taught first-year writing while I was pregnant with my daughter. One day, one of my students asked me if there was something I wanted my daughter to inherit—you know, something like my Spanish language or my boyfriend’s height. I told her I wanted my daughter to love reading; one of the things that scared me was the possibility of my daughter not loving books. I told the students that my love of literature was one of the things that brought me to the English department and that it was something my boyfriend and I had in common. We have a sizeable library in our apartment, and we both grew up around books. Reading was truly, in our case, fundamental.

My daughter, fortunately, is surrounded by books, and I know this is half the battle, or at least that’s what some studies say. Before she was born her book collection was growing. We got her a bookcase for her room because we thought it was important for her to have a place for her books. Story Time is part of our bedtime routine, and she delights in taking books from her bookcase and leafing through them. (She also takes books from our bookcase on a regular basis; one of my pastimes is taking pictures of her “book of the day,” whatever random book from our bookcase that she seems to obsess over that day. So far her taste ranges from What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Richard Wright’s Native Son to Dick Schaap’s Flashing Before My Eyes to Edward Soja’s Thirdspace.) But I came across an article this past weekend that made me think about what can really make a difference in a child’s reading habits.

Lisa Belkin (ex-New York Times Motherlode blogger and now Huffington Post’s Senior Columnist for Parentlode) posted late last week about her new Parentlode Book Club. For now, Belkin says the club will focus on books about getting children to love reading. She mentions how she remembers as a child immersing herself in books while on vacation, and hoped her children would feel the same enthusiasm toward books. However, that’s not exactly how it panned out; it wasn’t until her son discovered Harry Potter that he felt that same ravenous desire for books. (And who knows if this indicates a ravenous desire for literature in general. I know people who may devour the Harry Potter series but don’t really care for reading in general.) Although this is not necessarily uncommon, what stuck with me was something one of the commenters, RMizrahiMSEd, mentioned: this person suggested that perhaps what shaped her son’s perception of reading was the fact that Belkin read for pleasure on vacation, but not around the house. Vacation, for Belkin as for so many others, meant that she could immerse herself in the books she couldn’t read when she was working. As a result, her son may not see that reading for fun was an option, reading.

This made me think about my own reading habits. My relationship to books is a little different from that of other people. Like I’ve mentioned before, my love for the written word prompted me to become an English major, a graduate student, and now a writer. I love reading, but, to a certain extent, grad school has spoiled the reading experience for me. Reading is part of my career…and it’s not as glamorous as it sounds, at least not right now. So when I want to take a break from work (and breaks keep me sane, despite the myths we create about academic work) I don’t usually read. I watch tv. On the other hand, I have taken to reading more on my computer screen or on my iPhone, whether in the shape of blog posts or articles or emails. I do a lot of my reading on the go. (Some may even say we read a lot more because of these devices.) And with a small daughter on the go, and with a two-hour commute, when I get home I like to spend time with my family, relax, and sometimes cook a good meal. I actually have to schedule time for reading for pleasure, like when I traveled to Las Vegas and planned to read Scott Poulson-Bryant’s The VIPs. I’d had that book for months, and I knew a plane ride was the perfect time to sit back and enjoy a good book.

Now that I think of it, my daughter doesn’t get to see me read. I work on my dissertation when she sleeps, and I try to take the time to relax with a good book (or with my Kindle) once she is asleep. I thought our story time and having books around would be good, but I hadn’t realized how my own reading habits would affect my daughter’s.

The New York Times recently reported that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended, yet again, that parents keep children’s screen time to a minimum; interestingly, the article points out that adults spend too much time staring at a screen, and not necessarily a tv screen. Whether it’s a tv, a phone, a laptop, our children see us staring at screens all day long. I wonder, though, how do we balance this out with the amount of reading some of us are doing on those screens? And how does that beat holding a book, if we’re still reading?

To be honest, I feel a tension between the exhortation that we spend less time staring at screens and more time engaging our children and staying active when there are some of us who do a lot of our reading on those same computer screens. I read books, but I also get a lot of reading done on my laptop and on my iPhone. In fact, I consider myself better informed now that I read on both devices. So, to break it down: Reading more? Good. Spending too much time in front of a screen? Bad. Reading more on a computer screen? Hmmm, gray area. How do you transmit the value of reading to a child who only sees you staring and staring and staring into the light?

One thing is for certain, Belkin’s article made me think about my own reading habits and my daughter. I will try to make an attempt to take out books to read when she’s reading her own. Instead of pulling out my phone and catching up on news or sending out a quick email I forgot while she takes out her books from her bookcase, I will try to bring my own book so we can read together, even if we’re not reading the same thing.

I Do (Or, Feminists Want to Get Married Too)

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Photo: "Wedding, Pregnancy and Wait, What??" by Flickr user Notnef via Creative Commons License

As I made my way to the cash registers at the grocery store, I caught sight of the magazine racks stocked with different bridal magazines. It made me think about how we women are bombarded by the idea of a traditional “white” wedding, whether it’s on tv shows or magazines or music videos. A cultural institution as pervasive as marriage is bound to be problematic, especially in the context of a patriarchal society. But what if, as a feminist, you still want to get married?

Last month, my youngest sister tied the knot. A few weekends later, my boyfriend and I flew to Las Vegas for my brother’s wedding. Coincidentally, that same weekend Radioguy and I celebrated the fifth anniversary of our first date. On top of that, several of my friends are either getting married or just got married. All of this talk about marriage had me thinking about my own relationship, not because I feel pressured to get married (or maybe I do, I’ll let you be the judge of that) but because of the nature of my own relationship with Radioguy.

A little over five years ago Radioguy and I started corresponding online. I still remember getting his email in my inbox, checking out his Myspace (yes, THAT Myspace) profile, thinking “this is the kind of person I could be friends with!” and emailing one of my best friends to ask her what she thought. She knew I’d been on the dating scene for a while and that until a week before l I had been on an online dating website. However, she also knew I was done: I had gone on several dates with several guys, some of whom were weird, some of whom were nice, and some of whom never called/emailed again. But my friend encouraged me to email Radioguy back, and I did.

From the beginning we broke a lot of rules of modern dating. We spent a lot of time with each other from Day 1. He called me the day after our date, and we went on a second date almost immediately. We became official without really talking about becoming official. I started dropping off my stuff at his place with no warning, and he didn’t say a thing. We spent Thanksgiving together with each other’s families in New York City two months after we started dating. We fit a lot into those first few months, and felt comfortable with it. I must confess that I knew early in our relationship that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Radioguy, but dismissed the thought because–wait for it–I thought that was irrational.

In the first two years of our relationship we never really talked about marriage in depth. I wouldn’t talk about it, but I did think about it. A lot. I’d tell myself, “it would be nice, but not necessary.” Radioguy and I both believed in living together before getting married. So, we lived together, we had careers, we had lives together and apart. I thought to myself, “I don’t need him to put a ring on my finger to know he loves me.” I felt very smug that we were living together and not married; the academic in me refused to believe that my life would only make sense if I got married. That is not what I wanted to be. That’s not who I was supposed to be, at least.

I did a lot of rationalizing.

But deep down I wanted a ring. I wanted a wedding. I wanted to call him my husband. It felt like a dirty little secret, something I wasn’t supposed to want or think about. That’s probably why it took me so long to actually admit it to him…and to myself.

In the past five years we’ve had our ups and downs, very much like a married couple (and I talked about the downs at Small Strokes Big Oaks). After our “hiatus” we decided to get back together and patch things up. It took us a while to even think again about getting married, but eventually it came back into the picture.

Radioguy and I never really talked about getting married before our daughter was born. I now recognize that part of the reason we didn’t want to discuss it was because getting married would mean we’d have to make concessions in our careers, the big thing that mattered to both of us. We’d have to find a happy medium, and neither of us at the time knew what that looked like. But after Miss E was born, we discussed it. I said out loud, perhaps for the first time ever, “I want to marry you.” I couldn’t reconcile the free-thinking feminist with the woman who talked about how she wanted to get married. But I was finally honest and true to my feelings.

Since then, Radioguy and I have seriously talked about getting married. We both agree we want to marry each other and that we won’t wait another five years to do that. We both are vocal about our desire to have a very small, private ceremony. We’ve joked about what song I will play when I walk down the aisle. But we’ve also been very candid about what we can and cannot afford right now. At this point we’re not getting married for appearances; we’ve been living together for years. We’re not getting married because we have a child; cat’s out of the bag. We’re getting married because we want to make it official to each other and we want to celebrate that union. So we will save and we will wait.

I will continue to dream about my wedding to Radioguy because it is something I want. I decided to marry him, I never felt obligated to do so. Ultimately this is what feminism, for me, is about.

The Digital Divide Goes Beyond Digital

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Earlier today, one of my followers on Twitter suggested I read a post by urban fantasy author Seanan McGuire. In her post “Across The Digital Divide,” McGuire talks about how, in the arguments against and for e-books, one thing is overlooked: how this digital divide affects the poor. While many of us obsess over the merits of books (Books are beautiful! Books are priceless! Books are cool!) or the merits of e-books (E-books are easy to carry! E-books are cheap! E-books are cool!), we forget that e-readers may be convenient and useful but they are not accessible to those who live in poverty. McGuire says that a print book (whether new, used, handed down, or borrowed) will always be more affordable than an electronic copy.

This post really made me stop and think, which is why I wanted to share it with you. First of all, poverty has become the sort of thing that U.S. mainstream society doesn’t want to talk about anymore, at least poverty in these here United States. When we continue to espouse a mentality that “anyone and everyone can make it here,” it glosses over the inequalities that keep a lot of people across racial lines oppressed. Poverty is a reality, and that reality is closer to us than we think. McGuire points out that the “official” definition of what counts as living below the poverty level is outdated and therefore leaves out a lot of people who have trouble making ends meet on a daily basis, something that is left out of many conversations about poverty.

"The only way to read" by Flickr user ajleon (under Creative Commons license)

Not only that, but there are a lot of things that we think make our first-world lives easier, more fruitful but that are inaccessible to those without the means. Gadgets like smartphones and tablets and e-readers are touted as revolutionary devices that will change the way we learn and read. We, especially in higher ed, talk a lot about the importance of access to knowledge and how those gadgets enable access to knowledge. Take for example universities like Seton Hill University that are providing iPads and Macbooks to their students for free. Obviously someone thought this would be a good idea for students, that this would enable learning in some shape or form. I for one can say that even though I don’t read long texts (like novels) as much anymore, I do a lot of reading on my tiny smartphone. However, these conversations about technology and how useful it can be ignore one major issue: what about those who can’t afford it? Systemic oppression can’t be fixed by giving away iPads.

This is why McGuire’s post hit me so hard: she pointed out how so-called outdated forms like print books are actually necessary to keep around. At one point she confronts possible naysayers:

Some people have proposed a free reader program aimed at low-income families, to try to get the technology out there. Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the secondary costs. Can you guarantee reliable internet? Can you find a way to let people afford what will always be, essentially, brand new books, rather that second- or even third-hand books, reduced in price after being worn to the point of nearly falling apart?

She is not calling upon her readers to walk away from their e-readers, but to consider the importance of keeping print books around. Like McGuire, I like that I can access books that are hard to find or out of print. For example, I recently purchased an electronic version of an academic book that I needed for my dissertation but couldn’t find anywhere, at least not for a reasonable price. Indeed, e-books have made my research easier and cheaper to the extent that I can live in Kansas City and continue working on my PhD even far from my home campus. So in this sense e-books (and technology in general) have made knowledge more affordable for me. But what McGuire points out is that if we were to forego print and go electronic all the way, there would be a lot of people left behind. If e-books make research a little easier on my pocket, it is only because I have the resources for it. There are thousands of people who do not have the means or the literacy to access all of this “affordable” information.

I want to leave you with a thought by McGuire, and hopefully it’ll make you think about the digital divide too: “Libraries are losing funding by the day. Schools are having their budgets slashed. Poor kids are getting poorer, and if we don’t make those books available to them now, they won’t know to want them tomorrow.”

Our Bodies, Our Selves (Or, Body After Baby)

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Almost two years ago I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. Shortly after I found out, I saw my obstetrician for the first of many routine check-ups. We chatted about what to expect the next few months, how my body would change, what I needed to remember (coffee was off limits, for example). When she asked me if I had any questions, the first thing that came to mind was this: “how much weight should I gain?” Even though I was excited about becoming a mother, I was afraid of gaining too much weight during the pregnancy. Since my pre-teen years I have been worried about my weight. Like so many women, I have been monitoring my weight since as far as I could remember. And the fact that my body would change and that I had no control over it scared me.

It sounds superficial, but pregnancy and motherhood have reflected back to me my biggest insecurity: my weight.

As a young girl, I was teased for not being as thin and trim as the other girls in my class. I was referred to on more than one occasion as “big boned.” Although size 12 is an average size for women, when I went shopping I always felt like nothing fit me right. As a teenager in high school I obsessed over numbers: calories, pounds, meals, sizes. Every meal I ate and every top I bought were measured in numbers. And in those numbers I saw myself. Junior year of high school I managed to lose a lot of weight (in part because of my obsession with those numbers), but I continued to compare myself to how other girls in my class looked. They always looked teenier than me. They also seemed to be surrounded by suitors, while boys always saw me as their best friend. It took me a very long time to get over that.

In time, I figured out that there were other things about me that were interesting, and so I worked on those. My sense of humor was one. I figured people saw me as interesting and/or funny, so my rationale was that if people thought I was fat or unattractive at least I could beat them back with funny. I also applied myself in school. I set myself academic goals and read a whole lot, everything from Austen to Rolling Stone Magazine, and that became a major part of my identity. Being smart had nothing to do with my weight; people might poke fun at me for being nerdy but they respected that I was smart and that I was headed to one of the top universities in Puerto Rico.

Three summers ago I reached something close to my “ideal” weight: I was going to the gym every day that summer, I was eating healthy (and eating for energy over eating for pure pleasure), and I was doing Weight Watchers. I was almost at the same weight I was when I graduated high school (which is when I was at my thinnest as an adult). I felt good about the way I looked, and I felt healthy. However, I couldn’t sustain that lifestyle once the summer was over: the gym membership got expensive, I couldn’t afford WW, and I dove head first into my post-coursework graduate research. So I did gain some weight, but I wasn’t particularly upset over that. I was still in the 160 range. That’s when I found out I was pregnant.

After I gave birth to our daughter and I sloooowly lost the baby weight, I thought hard about my relationship to my body. I don’t want my daughter to have my same hang-ups. Lord knows she will have some of her own (hopefully not.) I try to be aware of how I talk about myself around her and, more importantly, how I see myself. I want to be an example for her of how to love oneself and not let what others say about her get to her. I want her to love herself how she is. I want her to love her curls, her brown skin, the shape of her body. But I know she sees me when I look at my little pooch of a belly when I put my jeans on, or when I get frustrated that a pre-pregnancy blouse doesn’t fit me right.

A lot of women told me when I was pregnant that I would get my figure back. I heard a lot of “you’re breastfeeding, you’ll lose the weight!” Or, “you’re young, you’ll bounce back!” Or “just give it time, you’ll fit into your old skirts in no time!” I wish people hadn’t told me that. I spent a big chunk of time the past year fretting over whether I’d fit into my teaching outfits (a wardrobe I had invested a lot of money into over the years), or whether I’d be able to zip up my Gap Straight Jeans. Although by the time I stopped breastfeeding I lost about 43 pounds of the 45 I gained, a month after I stopped breastfeeding I gained a few pounds right back. Also, my body does not look like it once did. I have a different shape, so a lot of what I used to wear fits me differently.

At this point, what with a part-time job, a dissertation, and a two-hour commute on a regular basis, I have given up on starting a rigorous exercise regimen or watching every bite I eat. Frankly, I did that once upon a time in high school, and it took over my life. Not a good way to spend your time. So instead of getting frustrated that I am not back in the range of 160 pounds, my approach now is to love the body I’m in and not obsess over changing it. My body produced a beautiful baby girl, and it deserves some slack for that.

One of the pieces I had to let go. *Sniff, sniff*

So last week (as I was procrastinating from finishing chapter 3 of the dissertation) I went through my closet and purged it of all the clothing that doesn’t fit me right. If I’m going to love my new body, I might as well look good in the clothes I wear. And even though I don’t have the budget to shop for a whole new wardrobe (maybe we can get Stacey and Clinton from What Not to Wear to come out to Kansas City and give me a $5,000 Bank of America card to go shopping???) I will work with what I have. I can’t afford to not feel beautiful in the skin I’m in.

No more hatin’. End of story.

Life Happens (Or, My Commitment to Grad School)

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I didn’t post last Monday. Maybe you noticed. If you didn’t, that’s alright. I won’t hold it against you. But I do want to point it out. I won’t pretend that didn’t happen because I committed to posting twice a week.

I’ve been thinking about commitment a lot lately. I’m committed to being a mother. I’m committed to being a writer. I’m committed to doing well at my new job. (Did I tell you I have a new job? I do. This is kind of a big deal.) I’m committed to being my boyfriend’s partner. And a long time ago I committed to graduate school, to getting my PhD. That’s the commitment I’ve been thinking about.

I had a draft of a post for Monday. I typed it up the night before, and woke up early Monday to do a quick edit and post it. However, I woke up frustrated, anxious, panicky. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that I was worried.

I was worried about paying my bills.

I was worried about finishing my dissertation.

I was worried about whether getting a PhD mattered if I didn’t have a full-time job to pay my bills.

I don’t think it helped that my tweeps were still buzzing about Pannapacker’s latest piece in Slate about the dismal state of the humanities. Despite the fact that writing means a lot to me, that morning writing couldn’t dispel the anxiety and, well, hopelessness I felt on Monday (and Tuesday, and Wednesday). So instead of editing I closed my laptop and made coffee.

I’m not about to go into a spiel about the broken state of higher ed or respond to Pannapacker’s piece. Frankly, plenty of folks have already responded, and I don’t think I’m bringing anything new to the conversation. Also, I admit that I didn’t read Pannapacker’s article, not because I dislike Pannapacker but because I need to safeguard my brain. I came across Pannapacker’s better-known posts, “Just Don’t Go” and “Just Don’t Go, Part 2” at a very emotionally fragile moment in my grad career and my brain almost short-circuited. I was a new mom in a new city with a new job as an adjunct instructor and with half of a dissertation chapter written. I stumbled upon those posts and ate them up, even though reading them just made me feel worse about my tenuous position as a PhD candidate and an adjunct. “Why didn’t I read this sooner?” I thought. And yes, there were several occasions in the past year where I almost gave up. It took me a while to get out of that funk and frustration, and to get back on the wagon. I hadn’t felt that depressed in a while…until Monday.

I’m sharing what happened on Monday because I know I’m not the only grad student who feels this way. Granted, I’d had days like that several times over the summer (unemployment will do that to you) but Monday was the roughest day I’d had in a while. Having a (part-time) job makes things a little better, but I still have bills to pay and I still have a dissertation to write. And at times I can’t reconcile both of them. The idea that I need to write and finish my dissertation doesn’t make sense when I think I could be working a full-time job and making more money to get myself out of my debt-hole.

People think professors only work when they’re teaching; the same goes for graduate students. There’s this whole other dimension where graduate students struggle to balance work and school life, lose confidence in their ability to write (or in themselves), or sink themselves into debt because they were told going to conferences and presenting their work around the world will make them more appealing on the job market…or worse, they don’t have the money to begin with because they spend most of their money on gas and food to commute to the two schools where they adjunct. The cushy life of the mind that some think graduate students live is not the reality of many graduate students. Sometimes I think to myself we need to revise what the humanities doctorate is all about. But I don’t even know where to start.

Once upon a time I lived the high life of a graduate student. I had a fellowship. I taught one semester per academic year. I had the chance to create my own courses. I had a semester where all I did was read for a field exam and write–and I got paid for that. I had no daughter to raise at the time, and I didn’t have to worry about health insurance. But that was years ago. The biggest struggle I face now is financial, to be honest. I have complained on Twitter several times that you really can’t think deep thoughts when you don’t know how you’re going to pay your bills. But for now I’m trying to be resourceful and creative while I write. I’m trying to use the skills that I have to earn a living while I finish. Graduate students DO have skills beyond thinking deep thoughts.

In times like these, I know I need to believe that things will get better for me and not lose hope; I also need to remember that I really want to finish writing my dissertation even if I never go on the job market for another professor position ever again. It’s important to remember why we do this in the first place. So I’m committing to finishing. Screw the “Just Don’t Go” mentality: I’m finishing my PhD because one day I set myself the goal of getting a PhD, and I’m almost there. I’m finishing my PhD because, ultimately, that PhD is a major accomplishment for me and for people like me: women of color, first-generation college students, working mothers, Latinas, puertorriqueñas. I’m finishing my PhD because I want to be an example for my daughter; I want her to look at me and realize that it was tough but I made it to the other side. I want Miss E to realize she shouldn’t give up just because some dude says she can’t afford to dream.

Sometimes reality hits you and it hits you hard. And you fade away into the woods until someone reaches a hand out and says “hold on.” I’m glad I found a few hands to hold onto this week to remind me why I do what I do.