Experiencing an Activist-in-Residence

For all three years I’ve been here, Susquehanna University’s Center for Diversity and Social Justice has brought an Activist in Residence to campus. The Activist in Residence visits Susquehanna for a period of a few days and gives talks or presentations on issues relating to social justice. In the past, I haven’t taken advantage of these opportunities, but this year I was able to attend two of the Activist in Residence’s events.

The activist was Reverend Irene Monroe, who is a prominent  queer religion columnist and has previously served as pastor. An African-American lesbian theologian, she regularly writes and speaks on the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and religion, particularly the way religion is used in discrimination against LGBTQ people.

I was very excited to hear her speak. I heard about her visit a few weeks beforehand from my friend who is a student deacon. As a religious life leader on campus who has recently also become a member of Susquehanna’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Irene Monroe’s first presentation, “The Role of Religion in Discrimination,” was really right up my alley.

While the students attending ate the free lunch the school provided, Reverend Monroe engaged us on issues of the Bible and how it’s been interpreted in regards to LGBTQ issues. She pointed out that the dominant religious thinking is that the Bible clearly condemns same-sex relationships and that even people who have never picked up a Bible in their lives proclaim that confidently. Instead of accepting this at face value, she encouraged us to give the Bible a closer look.

She talked a lot about how we interpret the Bible. Much of the time people feel like they’re not allowed to look at these texts with a critical eye—they become untouchable—but Monroe brought up a different way of approaching texts: a hermeneutic of suspicion. This approach requires an examining of questions like:  What interpretation do I want as a reader? Who is normalizing a certain reading of this text? Who is in power? What is the intent behind putting forward a certain interpretation?  There were various examples that Monroe used. In popular discourse, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is associated with homosexuality, though the text is more about violence and inhospitality than sex. The real victims in that text, Monroe pointed out, are women, since Lot offers his daughters to the violent gang rather than the angels. Something else she discussed briefly was translation. The word “homosexuality” wasn’t in the lexicon until 1895, and because sexual orientation wasn’t understood in the same way in Biblical culture, there’s reason to look critically anytime the word “homosexual” appears up in a Biblical translation.  She encouraged students, no matter their faith, to explore these “texts of terror” and said that not knowing what these stories really say is a way of participating in your own oppression.

It was really great to hear from Monroe about these issues, particularly of Biblical interpretation, which I’ve been contemplating and discussing with friends recently. After the lunch, two friends and I were able to talk to her briefly about the talk, which I really enjoyed. It made me look forward to attending another event even more.

Yesterday, I attended her talk “Justice Begins in the Bedroom.” Reverend Monroe talked about how she knows many people who are able to speak eloquently about social justice issues, though it doesn’t translate into their personal lives or sex lives. The focus was mainly on sexual violence and the culture that supports it. I had heard statistics before, but it’s still distressing to hear that about 1 in 4 college women are victims of rape. Typically, women aren’t encouraged to speak up about sexual violence. Instead, they may be blamed by some for the violence inflicted on them because they were drinking, wearing a certain outfit, etc. Many people will actually look to protect, or side with, the perpetrators of sexual violence. She brought up how this often happens on college campuses, where faculty and administration might side with, or be lenient towards, a star athlete or a male student from an esteemed family.  CNN coverage of the sentencing in a Steubenville, Ohio rape case emphasized the emotional duress of the teenage rapists and talked about how they’d now be labeled sex offenders for the rest of their lives; that incident powerfully attests to the concept of “rape culture.”

Reverend Monroe also brought up that a lot of times women don’t even know how to process a violation of their bodies. She shared the story of a young woman who was gang-raped by guys she had been friends with in college. She didn’t label it with the word “rape” or think about herself as gang-raped until she received more education from a woman’s center. She suggested that women are not told what is considered a violation of our bodies. The message women aren’t getting, according to Monroe, is that you have a right to possess your own body.

Like she did in her other talk I attended, Reverend Monroe heavily engaged her audience. During both events, she encouraged students to think about ways to change that culture, particularly on our own campuses.  It is, after all, our college. We pay to go here, and it is up to us to help shape it. I definitely hope that I don’t let these talks slip easily from my mind and that I become more involved in activism on campus.

Spring Break Recap

Many Susquehanna students could tell you riveting spring break stories .Some people from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship went to Chicago, for instance. Other groups on campus did charitable work in New Jersey and Florida. I was very happy, however, to spend March 1^st through 10^th at home. It felt important for me to take that time at home since I might be staying in Selinsgrove this summer to work.

Much of my break was spent relaxing and sleeping. I even got to do some leisure reading. I read a book that I received for free from a vocations workshop here at Susquehanna called Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. I also started reading an introductory book to philosophy of religion that is really fascinating.

One of the most exciting elements of my break was the drive home! I have probably never chronicled it on this blog, but when it comes to driving, I am a very late bloomer. I didn’t get my license until this September, less than a week  before I went abroad. Because I’ll most likely be living on-campus this summer, I want to feel confident about driving from Selinsgrove to home. When my dad came to pick me up this break, he let me drive back. We both survived, so that’s a victory in my book.

I also went to see my high school’s production of Into the Woods. Susquehanna actually did Into the Woods this fall. It’s one of my favorite musicals, so I was disappointed that I missed it while I was abroad. It was nice to get a chance to see it on stage, though I didn’t know many of the performers. Overall, it was a really enjoyable performance.

It made me think back to my high school theater days. I was in three musicals and two plays during high school, and I got a bit nostalgic since I don’t do any theater here. I would really love to do a show again one day, even if I can’t imagine cramming theater into my time here at Susquehanna! 

Besides feeling nostalgic, I also felt a bit awkward. There’s something strange about going back to that high school environment. My high school started major renovations my senior year of high school that didn’t get completed until after I graduated, so the lobby and auditorium look very different. That probably adds somewhat to the unsettled feeling. It’s also a bit strange running into people I knew from high school that I don’t talk to regularly. It seems weird to ask someone how they are when both of you know so little about each other’s current lives.

Speaking of people from high school, I did get two chances to hang out with friends from high school who are still a part of my life. Susquehanna’s spring break was a bit earlier than some other colleges, but two of my friends got home during my last weekend of break. My friend Bev and I got brunch together at a nearby diner, then watched some Teen Mom 2 and Made together at my house. I was able to meet up with another friend for pizza. We also ended up watching TV—Amish Mafia, which was outrageously fake.

I got to do some shopping as well. A lot of my jeans have torn recently, so I bought three new pairs at the mall. Some of my shoes were also falling apart, so I got two new pairs of shoes over break. I also bought a few things to prepare for my new Little’s initiation into the coed service fraternity I belong to, Alpha Phi Omega. I went to the movies with my parents, as well, which was fun.

Overall, it was a nice break. It wasn’t too eventful, but that’s probably just what I needed after a stressful first half of the semester! I’ll admit, I would’ve been quite fine with break going just a few days longer.

Edinburgh: Haste Ye Back!

Graveyard in Edinburgh

One of my favorite weekends when I was abroad was a trip I took with three friends from Susquehanna to Edinburgh, Scotland.  I may have arrived Friday morning and left early Sunday afternoon, but the city left such an impression on me.

My friends from SU were all studying in England, so they took a train to Edinburgh together. I bought the cheapest possible plane tickets from Belfast to Edinburgh. My flight left very early on Friday—departing at 7-something in the morning.  This wouldn’t have been such a problem if I lived in Belfast. However, since I was about two hours away from Belfast by bus, I didn’t see any affordable way I’d be able to get from Coleraine to the airport on time Friday morning. I figured the best plan of action would be to head into Belfast Thursday night, stay at a hostel, and then head to the airport early in the morning via an Airport Express bus.

This started off well enough. With the directions I printed out, I was able to easily walk from the Belfast bus station to the hostel. I checked in and went to KFC for a quick dinner, then headed back to the hostel Things took a turn for the worst when I was trapped in the hostel bathroom because the door was jammed. I had all of my stuff with me when I went to the bathroom, including the brochure listing the phone number of the hostel’s front desk. I called, and they were able to get the door open. Things didn’t get better from there. 

Edinburgh!

I tried to fall asleep early, but I’m a natural night owl and had a schedule that skewed towards staying up late while I was abroad since my classes didn’t start until noon. I accepted that I probably just wouldn’t be sleeping and decided to hang out in one of the hostel’s lounges until I had to leave for the airport.  Probably because I’m an inexperienced traveler, and also a very cautious person, I was planning on getting to the airport very early by catching a bus that left before 4 a.m. I thought I could stay on my laptop in the lounge until check-out (since check-out was 24 hours), but eventually, the person at the front desk told me I would have to leave the lounge. This wouldn’t have been a problem if, back in my room, I hadn’t dropped the key in the dark (someone had already been sleeping) and thought—quite foolishly—that I didn’t have to bother finding it since I didn’t plan on staying in my room.

I figured the easiest thing to do would be leaving the hostel and taking an earlier bus to the airport. I was making a big assumption that the bus station would still be open at night! When I got to the station, it was closed. If I wanted to take the next Airport Express bus, I would be waiting outside for quite some time, I wasn’t too keen on doing that by myself alone in Belfast.  There were various taxis on the street  where I’d be waiting. A driver offered to take me to the airport. I knew it was going to be expensive, but I ended up accepting the offer.  The thought of waiting at the bus station by myself made me feel too anxious.

By the time I got to the airport (much earlier than I had planned!), I felt completely stressed. I had ended up paying about thirty pounds for a one-way trip by taxi when the bus would’ve been about 14 pounds for both ways. I was also tired. I remember sitting in the airport and writing out a prayer on my laptop about how horrible and overwhelmed I was feeling.  This semester it’s easy to idealize all the time I spent traveling, since I can’t do it now, but traveling alone can be really draining. 

St. Giles Cathedral

Fortunately, I had such a great weekend at Edinburgh that it was worth all the turmoil! After a very short flight from Belfast to Edinburgh (less than 45 minutes), I arrived at the Edinburgh airport. As I left to catch a bus from the airport to the inner city, I passed through doors that said “Haste ye back,” the Scottish equivalent of “Come back soon.”  This was my first trip outside of Ireland, and that small detail helped impress on me the fact that I was in a different country. I wasn’t aware, then, how much this weekend would convince me to “haste… back” to Edinburgh if I could.

I took a bus to the train station where my friends would be arriving. I was so thrilled when I got a first glimpse of them with their bags. I hadn’t seen any of them since May, and it was so nice to see familiar faces in the midst of immersion into a completely new place.

Scott Monument

We were all impressed with the beauty of Edinburgh as we headed to our hostel. I’d personally never heard much about Edinburgh, except that it was the capital of Scotland, so I was surprised it was so gorgeous. That day we ended up seeing a fair amount of sights, such as the Scott Monument and Edinburgh Castle. We walked the Royal Mile which is the big tourist street in Edinburgh. One of my favorite things we saw on the Royal Mile was St. Giles Cathedral.  It was very beautiful, but unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures inside. We also did some shopping. I have a peplum top that I bought for 8 pounds that will always remind me of Scotland!

Edinburgh Castle

Celtic cross outside Edinbugh Castle

We had told ourselves we were going to stay out late that night, but we were all too exhausted. We went to a pub called The Tron for dinner and had drinks with our meal, but headed back to the hostel pretty early. Most of us fell asleep around 11 p.m.!  I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t sleep at all prior to a trip. It also helped that the room in our hostel was so nice and toasty. We’d been able to get a great deal on a private room, just for the four of us.

Plaque about J.K. Rowling

The next day, we went on a literary tour of Edinburgh. The day before we had seen a sign advertising the tour, which met outside a museum about Scottish writers. All four of us were Creative Writing majors, so this was perfect. Nobody showed up for the tour besides us, but it was still a fun experience. The tour guide, an older Scottish writer, had a colorful personality and led us to parts of Edinburgh we wouldn’t have wandered to on our own, as he pointed out sights s like cafes where J.K. Rowling wrote and the school Arthur Conan Doyle attended. We also checked out the Museum of Childhood that day, which contained a lot of different toys and creepy dolls, and a free history museum.

Museum of Childhood

After much indecisive wandering, we ended up back at the Tron for dinner since we’d liked it the previous night. Afterwards, we intended to find another nearby pub to go to for drinks, but most of the pubs looked really crowded  or were a demographic that just wasn’t right for us. We ended up at the Tron for the third time that weekend. Edinburgh had been very cold while we were there—much colder than I expected—so that didn’t really help motivate us to explore as fully as we could. At one point there were even flurries!

It was sad having to leave the next day. There was definitely still so much to see in Edinburgh that I hadn’t seen, and of course, it was a bummer saying goodbye to my friends again. All in all, though, it was a great weekend and totally worth the stress to get there. Edinburgh made its mark as some place I would love to return to one day.

The Midpoint

When this post goes up, I’ll be home for Spring Break. It’s so strange to think that I’ve been back at Susquehanna for half of a semester already.

In some ways, it’s like I never left, while in others, there was definitely a lot of adjusting to do. For the most part, it’s been pretty easy to transition back into the social setting at Susquehanna. My friends are still my friends, and that wasn’t going to change because we were apart for one semester. Transitioning back into the work load has been a bit more difficult. I’m far from being organized and effective at time management typically, but this semester I’ve felt a bit more frazzled than semesters past. I think this is due to my study abroad semester being very laidback. Though being abroad had its stresses, I think Susquehanna is ultimately more stressful. There’s much more of a sense of this is the real world, and things, to some extent, seem to matter a lot more here. There are more issues to face, relationships to maintain, etc.

I’ve been a bit more nostalgic for my study abroad experience than I expected I would be.  I had a good time abroad but dealt with some home (or Susquehanna) sickness at times. By the time December 15^th, my date of departure, rolled around, I was excited to go home and be reunited with my family. I thought this meant I wouldn’t spend that much time missing Northern Ireland. Whenever I look through photographs, though, or write up a reflection post for this blog, I do want to go back. It’s still so surreal that I got a chance to be in Northern Ireland for a semester and to see everything that I did! It makes me want to travel again—a part of the reason why I’ve been thinking about applying to graduate school fellowships abroad.

For me, though, this nostalgia doesn’t outweigh my enjoyment of being back at Susquehanna with my closest friends. I am glad to be back at this school that I love, even if it wasn’t completely seamless to return to it.

As I go into the next half of the semester, I hope that I can feel a bit more on top-of-things than I have this first half. Even more than that, though, I hope that I can create some valuable memories. This is my last semester before I’m a senior in college! I’m sure next year will bring plenty of its own hectic-ness as I take on a capstone project, a Novel writing course, my senior portfolio, etc.—and oh yeah, trying to determine some sort of post-graduation plan. I am sure senior year will brings its own joys, but I definitely want to make the most of this time I have left in my junior year…and not think about how, when it comes to my Susquehanna education as a whole, I am way past the midpoint.

Rathlin Island

Ferry to Rathlin Island!

One of my favorite parts of studying abroad in Northern Ireland was the scenery. Though I got chances to take in the natural beauty all the time—sometimes simply by looking out my bedroom window—one of the best opportunities was on a day trip to Rathlin Island.

Rathlin Island is an island off of Northern Ireland’s North Antrim coast. Some of my flat-mates had gone on a trip there, and they had beautiful pictures. My two flat-mates from Hong Kong, Vicki and Tiffany, invited me to join them on their own trip to the island. To get there, we took a bus from our town, Coleraine, to the town of Ballycastle. Though I don’t think Coleraine and Ballycastle are all that far from each other, it was a lengthy bus ride. We had to hurry to find the ferry terminal in Ballycastle so we could make the ferry we wanted and have enough time to spend on the island. Riding that ferry reminded me of how much I don’t like boats! We spent about forty minutes on the ferry on the way there, and I felt fairly queasy. I’d taken some motion sickness medicine, though, which I’m sure helped me feel a lot better than I would have otherwise.

I was definitely relieved when we made it ashore! It was cold (most of my semester in Northern Ireland was), but a nice day at first, and the island looked gorgeous. We wandered over towards the tourist center and saw that it was closed for the season. That meant we were on our own to make the most of the day.

We ended up following the signs that pointed towards walking paths. One of us also had snagged a brochure that had a color-coded map of the walking trails. We ended up a bit confused along the way. The trail seemed to stop suddenly and didn't take us where the map said it would, and it took us much longer to reach the lighthouse we’d been heading towards than we had expected. The pathways were also much muddier than anticipated! My jeans and shoes were completely covered after the trip.

Even so, it was a great day of wandering through the island and marveling at nature. Included are a few of the photos from my trip. Hopefully you can see what I mean.

The highlight of the trip was definitely getting to see seals. Rathlin Island is known for its wildlife. It has a variety of wild birds, and if you come during the summer months, you can even see a puffin! Because it was the middle of autumn, though, we didn’t get a chance to see puffins. Seeing seals in the wild was more than enough for me. I hadn’t even been that interested in the seals, compared to my two flat-mates, but when we spotted them, I couldn’t stop myself from being thrilled. We stood by the rocks and watched them for a long time. I am pretty sure they were watching us too.

As we were returning the way we had come on the trail, a downpour started. We decided to cut our trip a bit short since we were getting soaked. Of course, as we made our way to the ferry, that was when the rain stopped. At least that gave us a chance to see a fantastic double rainbow.

Once the ferry dropped us off in Ballycastle, we had a little bit of time before the bus to Coleraine came. I remember being quite cold as we went into a small grocery store. I picked up a box of Ritz crackers to eat on the bus ride back to Coleraine. I was excited to get back to my flat, have dinner, get out of my muddy clothes, and be warm. As much as I was itching to get back to my flat, I was happy that I had made the trip to Rathlin Island. All we really did was walk around for a few hours, but in a place like that, walking around is more than enough.

I would love to be able to spend an extended period of time there, though. A Writer's Chair was erected on Rathlin Island to commemorate all the writers who have visited or spent time on the island. I can definitely see why it would attract writers. The views are inspiring, and it's definitely a get-away from everyday life. A week there to work on writing would be a fabulous retreat! Maybe I can make that a reality one day.