Teach For America

I applied for Teach For America this last month. I was really looking forward to being apart of this program. I really wanted to help children in poverty and was especially interested in helping in Native American reservations. This program was what I really wanted to do once I graduated this May. But this is not going to happen. I was turned down at the application stage. Why? I'm not sure. They only stated that I was not what they were looking for. I believe it's the lake of leadership positions in extracurricular activities. Or the lack of volunteering opportunities. Which does upset me a bit because not everyone has the time to volunteer or wants to be in a leadership position. My problem is that I have a part-time job at a dog daycare and am a full-time student. While I do extracurricular activities at the university with my professors by helping them in the lab or preparing for a conference. I don't have any real extra time to volunteer in other non-profits. Although I would love to volunteer more often if I had the time.

I am also not the type of person to pursue a leadership position. I like to do team work and work with others. I don't like being in charge and telling others what to do. It's also nice to have someone above me in case I have questions. It's not a lack of interest that I don't lead but it's my personality. I can lead if I need to but I'd prefer if we could all just work together as a big group and collaborate. And unfortunately because of these situations, I am not the type of person TFA is looking for.

But that's ok! Because I am in the process of looking into other Americorps programs that would interest me. And hopefully through one of them I will be able to help a community. Even if it's just by helping one person. In the mean time, here was the letter of intent I wrote for TFA.

As a child I had a very difficult school life. My teachers constantly had meetings with my parents to discuss my learning disabilities. They claimed I was too difficult to teach because I either had ADD and was unable to pay attention or that I had some sort of speech impediment that made me incapable of learning the materials they were teaching. I never had a learning disability. In fact, my parents would sit down with me every night to teach me the things my teachers would not. My parents enrolled me in different schools almost yearly hoping to find a teacher that actually cared for me and would take the time to help me. Yet I always had teachers who asked my parents to put me on Ritalin so that they could place me in the back of their classes and forget about me. I was constantly two or three years behind my other classmates in grammar and math because my teachers never took the time to sit down and help me. By the time I reached high school I had given up on school. I passed my classes but I never tried. I always felt that since no one cared about my education then why should I. 

After spending two years learning how to speak Mandarin Chinese fluently and working as a translator for the Navy I realized that my troubles in school were not because I had a learning disability but because the teachers did not want to take the extra time to make sure I understood the material. This happens to children every day in classrooms. I want to help the children who are pushed to the back of the classes and ignored because they are seen as too difficult to teach. I would spend extra time with the child and find different ways to explain the material to help make it more understandable. By doing these things I hope to show children that their struggles are not their faults. Education is worth the battle and I hope to show this to them by helping them in ways my teachers never did. 

I would feel like I have accomplished this goal even if I reached only one child. That is one child more that will continue with his/her education with a positive attitude. Children can have a more positive outlook on life through having a role model to look up to. This attitude can help create better opportunities through working harder and making better grades. This can create scholarships to schools and could even lead to job opportunities that the child may not have originally had access to. Giving these opportunities to just one child would mean the world to me. I would like to be that role model that helps overlooked children realize that they are as capable as they think they are.

Dance Lest We All Fall Down Review

Dance lest we all fall down is a very intriguing story about a woman's change from an ethnographer and anthropology teacher to the co-founder of a ngo. This book is not an ethnography or a memoir. Possibly an auto-biography of sorts but the point of this book is not to tell a section of this woman's life. Instead it is unraveling the structure of an ngo and showing that the ngo is based on cooperation and lots of patience. This is not a story of the noble American going into a shanty town and giving the community something the American thinks they need.

I was intrigued by this book. It read like a story and was very colorful. The conversations were insightful and thought provoking. While some did not like this book because it is very unlikely that the author could remember her conversations in such detail, I read the conversations as a way she was talking out an idea in her head. Sometimes talking out an idea in conversation form can help one come to conclusions one would not normally come to; even if these conversations are in one's head. Yet I do believe she had most of the conversations that are in the book.

There were many situations in the book that forced me to think about things I never would have thought about. Like the concept of foreigner. Or how Americans and Brazilians view inequality in different concepts: Americans through the idea of race and Brazilians through the idea of class.

There were also many great quotes I loved in this book.

• “The city and companies invest a great deal in all these Christmas lights and decorations. They think then we poor people won’t notice the rotted walls they cloak, the decaying infrastructure. Personally, I think the money might be better spent on education and feeding people.”
• Constantly they urged me to buy, something. I refused and grew increasingly uncomfortable acutely aware that my ability to buy these goods underscored and reinforced the economic, class, and racial differences between them and me.
• In a society where he had control of nothing else, capoeira angola gave him the possibility of internal control and self-respect.
• the dance of Carnival held more meaning than that. It also embodied poverty, death, and annihilation.
• Time and time again, I was reminded how credibility has less to do with knowledge or information given, but instead with the class and power of the person making the statement.

Overall I think this is a book worth reading especially if you are going through an anthropology program. 

The GSU Collective

In the Archaeology class today, we were asked to make up our own list of ethics we think archaeologists should follow when conducting fieldwork. Here's what we came up with:

1. Maintain a reflexive research protocol.

2. Foster collaboration, multi-vocality, and partnerships with local communities.

3. Consider the consequences, including unintended consequences, of practicing and publishing research.

4. Promote integrity by maintaining responsible and honest research practices, including obtaining consent from all affected parties (i.e., community members, local governments, etc.).

5. Make results available to local communities.

6. Understand the contemporary relevance and historical context of archaeological research for living communities.

7. Foster educational outreach locally and extra-locally.

8. Avoid the commercialization of research.

Why do Archaeology?

Why do we do archaeology? To preserve the past? To find some new meaning to the present? To learn about diet and disease in an area? Or is it just our curiosity getting to the best of us. I love archaeology but this class, Archaeological Practice and Public, has got me thinking. If the indigenous people don't like what we're doing, then why do it? I've thought about this a bit and I just can't come up with a good answer. Maybe because there isn't one. We are curious. We want to know what happened and why. What did they eat? Where did they sleep? What did daily life look like? We have to know! But I don't want to do it if the natives don't want me to. I want to respect what they think and feel.

This really got me thinking when we had to read two articles by Traci Ardren and Timoteo Rodriguez. These  articles were about the Kochol community in Mexico and the archaeological site in their farm lands. Traci had suggested a museum to be built at the site so that the locals could earn income from tourism and promote their past. This doesn't sound like a bad idea but how Traci wrote about the time and how Timoteo wrote about the time are completely different. In Traci's article the locals were eager to learn about their history and to start the museum. Timoteo writes that there were many who didn't even identify with the history the archaeologists were teaching and they were afraid the museum would be a way for the gringos to take over their land. These articles are completely different yet what ultimately made me side with Rodriguez's article was when Ardren suggested the museum to be a living museum. I actually gasped at the thought of that. No! Really? You think it's a good idea to have people dress up and farm "like their ancestors" for tourists to watch? It's like a zoo! I would be furious if someone suggested something like that to me.

Another part of the articles that interested me was about the papaya tree. In Ardren's article she claims that the locals suggested planting papaya trees in the museum since they were grown by their ancestors. Rodriguez, on the other hand, says that the locals planted papaya trees in spite of the archaeologists because of how destructive trees can be to sites. That the papaya tree was a symbol of what the locals wanted. Their land to farm on. He also suggested that the museum was a symbol of what the archaeologist wanted. A validation of their work and of the place.

Whether I would have still sided with Rodriguez's view if there had been a more neutral tone to the articles, I'm not sure. But I do know that if I ever do archaeology with a native population, I will be aware of their cultural identity and their feelings of the land and artifacts before I make assumptions of what they want.

Cute Conversations with my Boyfriend that makes me laugh Pt.1

Sometimes the conversations with my boyfriend makes me smile. Ok, not just sometimes but a lot.

‎"Who sings this song?"
"Me."
"No, I'm serious. I like this song."
"You'll never know."
"It's ok. I'll just search for "hola mi amor."

"You still won't find it because that's not what they're saying."
"Oh right. They're saying "oye mi amor"
"No!!!!!!!!"

Oye Mi Amor - Mana

Hypothetical Class Assignment

If I had to teach a college level class what would it be?

 The whole time I've studied anthropology I always thought I'd want to study Mayan hieroglyphs. I mean, it's perfect for me. I love language and I speak one that uses pictures for words instead of an alphabet. Win win, right? Not really. While I think Mayan hieroglyphs are fascinating and beautiful I have learned that I'm really not a linguist at heart. Yes, I love learning new languages but, really, I'm only mediocre at them. Also there's that one professor who has been warning me not to go into Maya Archaeology because it is over saturated with other archaeologists. In fact, I should just stay away from the Americas all together. Ok, then. That's going to make it harder to find a graduate school once I start looking. And since I already speak Chinese my professor said I should run with that. "China is hot and sexy right now in archaeology." Cool beans. I'll try my luck at archaeology in China. But what would I want to study (or teach for that matter)?

During my Mesoamerican Archaeology class I learned that trade between groups really interest me. It forces me to remember that these societies weren't in their own bubbles. They were connected to each other more then we can ever really understand. It's fascinating to me to learn how these societies interacted with each other through trade or even immigration. This also happened a lot in the Mesoamerican area.

I think if I were able to teach a class it would be on this idea. I would look at different parts of the world and how trade affected their societies. Mesoamerica would obviously be an area I'd teach. But also areas like the Silk Roads or the trade routes in Africa or what is most fascinating are the trade routes in the Polynesian islands! Maybe it's just me but being reminded of how connected these civilizations were is very fascinating to me.

Another class I think would be interesting is on how immigration affects a society. And especially undocumented immigrants. It would be interesting to look into how not only the immigrants affect the society but also how the society's views affect the immigrants. This would take a lot more thought into creating but could be extremely interesting if taught correctly.

Thoughts on the Ideal Gender "Norms"

This is something I've never thought of outside of women's health care rights and gay rights. And it's probably because I grew up with these expectations of what is considered normal in the United States. But today's Gender/Race/Class in Complex Societies class has me thinking what is considered normal for a woman to do with her life.

When I first signed up for the Navy, long ago in 2002, I came across this norm and thought it was weird but never really gave it a second thought. When picking the job I wanted in the military, the petty officer assumed   I wanted to be a corpsman aka a nurse. Nope, not me. I can't stand the coughing, sneezing, runny noses...... if it comes out of your mouth or nose, I'm going to gag. I don't know what it is but spit and mucus really grosses me out. But on top of that, even just the mention of injuries can make me feel like I'm going to pass out. So no, being a nurse is the worst thing for me.

The only thing I cared about was if my job gave me a sign on bonus. aka they give you lots of money just for picking that job. And the job? Aviation Ordinance Man. Ha! This job would have had me loading bombs onto jets. Thinking back I'm glad I never ended up doing this job. I finally got a great job in the military: Cryptologic Technician Interpretive. Or for layman's terms - a translator. I was a Chinese interpreter for 4 years. And I hated it. But that's another story.

I always found it weird that the man would assume that I wanted a nurse type job. Did he assume that every female that joined wanted this job? Did he ask every woman that entered the navy if they wanted to be a corpsman? I'm not sure.  I am sure he didn't make that same assumption with the men that joined the Navy. "I know what you want to be. A Navy Seals!" Yeah, maybe he did. Why not?

It was odd to think that I would want a nurturing type of job only because I am a woman. He was even surprised when I told him that was the last job I'd want to be in. I was "the first girl to ever tell him that". Is it really that common for women to become nurses in the Navy? Though afterwards I still ended up in a female dominated field. Even though the military is around 80% male, my job was about 50-50 or slightly higher female percentage. So maybe I did still end up in a job that was seen as "socially normal" for a woman.

This was a photo from my 5th year anniversary. Looking through my photos I realized I took very little photos of myself in my uniform. 

The day I graduated from boot camp. With my dad who came all the way to Chicago from Atlanta to see me. I'm look extremely tired because the day before I had run battle stations which is when you run around the base all night and perform tasks you might need to do on the ship in an emergency. At this point I had been up over 24 hours.