Time for grad school recovery

The last few months have been all consumed by grad school. During that whole process I felt  like this:

And I had to see things like this, which I hoped to never see again.

Oh silly pre-grad school Ashley would probably see that stack of books and think, oh wow cool! I want to learn those things! Post-grad school Ashley mainly thinks, OMG vomit, get those out of my face.

Anyways as of yesterday all my paper work has been turned in and signed. I am done. D-O-N-E baby, yeah! Now I feel like this:

If you are wondering, yes that is my computer mouse in my hand. I am sure there is some fancy way to time photos with my webcam but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Please, stare at those for a long time. They get better the more you look at them.

Now that I am done with grad school I am left with the sad sack of human that was chewed up and spit out by the fine institution I attended. Needless to say during the process of …

• Getting a new job
• Fighting the federal government trying to take away healthcare from women
• getting another new job
• conducting and analyzing research data
• writing my culminating
• writing my culminating again after getting it chewed up and spit back in my face by again that fine institution I attended
• Doing other weird things – lobbying, testifying and so on

… there was little self care. I went from a 85% vegan to a 100% pizza, fast food and whatever else was cheap and would fit into my mouth kind of eater. I also went from 8 weeks into a marathon training plan to absolutely no exercise.

Correct, NONE. That is pretty impressive really.

Now it is time to pick up the pieces and make my next moves when it comes to self care. During this whole process I learned a lot. I have changed my views about healthy living, well really living in general, and thus also what the purpose of this blog will be.

I am off for a run to try to get myself back into some regular fitness schedule. Look forward to more posts about my adventures in trying to figure out how to live like a human being again.

And now your moment of Zen, a sparkly GIF in honor of my shiny new degree. PS – nothing says higher education like sparkly GIFs!

(source )

Culmination

Tomorrow I am presenting my culminating project. During the past two years so much has changed, so much has developed.

I am excited to open the next chapter, and begin using this blog to further grow and explore topics I am passionate about. Stay tuned, things are about to get for real.

Poem Alert: Keep Going

complex, tired, pushing, searching

I am complex, and have many dimensions to my wholeness

I am tired from the heartbreak of a world unfair

I push each day to make the world better

constantly searching for truth

to be whole is to be complex

to be whole is to be tired

to be whole you have to wake up each day fighting – pushing, searching

I might not care about whether there is a god, or is not a god

but I am for damn sure – I have faith, in the beauty and possibilities of the world we live in.

What to Blog about

Since sometime last year I have wanted to start a blog. I follow a lot of other blogs and hoped to emulate them. My blogging attempts have taken on several forms, but there were two main directions I saw my blog going – body image/fitness/nutrition and/or social justice.

I felt like I had to pick one. I didn’t know how.

Part of me feels like talking about my body image issues, challenges to living a healthy life, and the such is too frivolous. Who really cares about that stuff besides me. I guess the fact that I am the only person who would care about those things was exactly the problem. The premise was self-centered. That made me feel guilt, to be so self-indulgent. I also felt guilt because these problems seemed shallow and show in some way I am a weak person.

The places where we are weak, are also the places that make us human. Maybe it is nice to have those weakness. Also I find that when I feel guilty, it usually means I should give myself a break. Self-indulgence isn’t completely wrong, maybe just in excess.
I blog a lot about sexual health, culture, LGBT issues, and so on over at Amplify Your Voice. That blog felt more like my “work” as an Ohio Advocate. It felt wrong to blend something that was more part of my professional life with parts of my personal, very personal, life.

So what should I do?

I think the reason why I had a hard time piecing these two things apart is because they are both so deeply part of me, it is hard to see where one starts and the other begins. They are both me, and I want this blog to be genuine, so I guess all of me is the answer.

When you read about starting a blog they tell you to have a focus, a main topic. Think of your topic and your audience then write. They tell you to do lots of other things to.

I guess my topic is Ashley, and all the disconnected things that entails (training for races, constantly going to school, politics, sex education, unhealthy habits, culture, feminism (and other isms), healthy habits, worries about growing up etc …)

I guess my blog will appeal to runner-activist-health educators-feminist-20 somethings. Maybe not a huge net to cast, but oh well. In the end, this blog is for me, if others read and get something out of it, bonus. Just a little self-indulgence to help a giver feel refreshed is surely a good thing.

The Arc of the Universe

from here.

“I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. ... When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am Still Alive

This has been a WEIRD year. 2011, what are you? Blogging is something that I WILL return to, once I am done with graduate school and have ensure Planned Parenthood is safe.

Until then, talk later gater, and follow my more reproductive justice/activist blog here.

What it means to me to be a 3rd waver

I don’t know a lot about feminism. I remember the first time I was asked, why was I a feminist, I had no response. I had never identified that way. I started my journey promoting health, because to me health equaled happiness. When I learned people could not live healthy lives because of social structures and factors outside of their control, I have became an activist for social justice.

My love for health, and comfort talking about sexuality and sex led me to reproductive justice, which opened my mind to feminist. I really claimed that work when I got engaged last summer. That was the first time I felt so much social pressure to perform, as a woman, and fit neatly into a construction of femininity that I did not identify with at all.

To me, being a 3rd wave feminist is being thankful for all the women before me that gave me the right to speak, to vote, and pursue ventures outside of the home. These women gave me the ability to go to school and pursue the career I wanted to. I never questioned going to college, because of these women. I was raised to believe I was intellectually, emotionally, and any other way as capable as my male counter parts to pursue my dreams in life.

These women gave me the pathway to an education, now my job as a 3rd waver is to figure out how I can make the world more justice with the privileged education I was able to receive. My job is to understand the intersects of race, gender, sexuality, abled-bodiness and any other identities or classes. My job is to work with environmentalist, organized labor, LBGTQA groups, and others that fight for justice and fairness of all people and the planet. My job is to make the world more fair for men and women, and fight more subtle battles of internalized and systemic oppression.

My job is also to prevent women and others from going back in time, when it comes to their rights. Everyday a war is fought over the rights of women’s bodies, their ability to receive equal pay as men, and many many other fights. There have been large gains within the women's movement, and it is my job as a 3rd waver to protect those advances and not let them go. The moment I think they will be there forever, is the same moment I leave myself and other sisters vulnerable.

My job is to work between generations, and foster hope and enthusiasm among youth within my movement. With out young people, the movement will not move forward.

Today was a long day. I saw a fetus testify, and was last to be heard in the hearing. I was one of few women in that room that spoke for themselves, and were not a prop for a radical anti-choice stunt.
This post rambles, I did not proof read it, but these words are true, honest and from my heart.
Trust me, a more substanial post will follow soon with all the details from the now infamous fetus hearing.
Thank you to all the amazing women in my life who inspire me!