candlestick in the conservatory, but what was the motive?

We played an interesting 'game' in ME Social Patterns today.

what 5 characteristics best describe you? rank them in order of importance.
teacher was talking about demographic-type characteristics, mostly, and we pretty much stuck to that, but other things were included, too.

here's what i thought of:
1. student. I put this first because it's really what i am the most right now. I am just trying to learn, i'm just trying to absorb information and think about the world and be theoretical and try new things and experiment and everything. student is a good first defining point, because once you start thinking about how varied the student experience is, you start realizing just how vast and encompassing and ambiguous labeling yourself as a student is.
2. LDS. my religion. believe it or not, sports fans, thinking about G-d and truth and all the implications of all my religious experiences/revelations takes up a large part of my life and defines many of my choices. I do think its subordinate to my role as a student, though, at least at this point in my life.
3. female. I know, i know. I shouldn't have put 'female.' Female is just a biological characteristic and doesn't say anything about the social implications or system concerning my gender. Female is my sex, not my gender. blah blah blah, i know. I was a womens' studies minor for about 2 weeks for pete's sake. but i'm not really comfortable with labeling myself a 'woman.' that implies all kinds of maturity levels that i Know i haven't reached yet. i might be a 'woman' by many standards (i am physiologically mature, i am 20 years old, i am about 80% financially independent of my parents, ect), i don't want to be a 'woman' yet. if you are a woman, you have to wear eyeliner everyday or something, that's what i heard. so forget it.
4. middle class. i think this is a reflection of my obsession (one of dumb, too-scholarly obsessions. g-d, why can't i be obsessed with normal things, like christian bale or something) with class structure, and the attitudes engendered in the different classes, and the things that are different in my life because i am middle class as compared to upper-middle or working class or whatever else.
5...........

I left 5 blank. I did that for a couple reasons, none of which were intentional at first, but i'm a college student and a natural at english-major type b.s.-in', (which is why i'm not an english major, but anyway...), and so i have numerous reasons in retrospect :).

G-d, I sound so dry from this list. Boring.
I think the fact that i'm taking several sociology classes and am now always thinking about my life in terms of how do i fit into the general survey of society influenced my choices.

Things that other classmates put that i never would have thought of:
1. family. almost everyone put something about their family. wow, that would never have occurred to me. i don't know whether i feel happy or sad about that. neutral, i suppose. though honestly: we're twenty-something, are you really defined by your family still? i guess so, most everyone put it. I don't consider my family in any choice i make about my life. I know that is wrong. Or at least, sometimes i feel like it is wrong. But what what about personal liberty? what is so great about loyalty and 'family bonds,' anyway? my family made me who i am, they contributed to the traits i now possess, but now, it's up to me. Anyway, the idea to put 'daughter' or 'sister' of 'dickson' never crossed my mind, and that is probably tragic, or some future tragedy and battle of my identity waiting to happen, but i don't really mind all that much now.
2. Citizen. this was a la Cory (Corey? idk the spelling) and i liked it a lot. I asked him what he meant and he said that he had been realizing lately that he has responsibilities to the community and to the world and things like that, and that it defines who he is. Good answer. I liked it a lot, and it's true: we do have responsibilities, and they should define our actions.
3. Artist. another one of Cory's. he said in explanation something to the effect that he "hates engineers." haha.

all in all, this activity didn't so much apply to class as it did to me thinking about my life and what it means and yadda yadda i am so existentialist.

so what was with my numero cinco?

Well, i just really didn't feel comfortable defining that last one. I've worked really hard to be sort of 'undefinable,' in a way. I really couldn't sum up how i define myself or what i think is important about myself in that fifth spot, and so i didn't put anything. And that is the real reason i don't have a five.

other supporting reasons materialized as class went on.
For one thing, i noticed that not one of us put anything about sexual orientation. That's not really surprising---we are at here, in provo, and as far as i'm aware everyone in the room is pretty straight. But even if they weren't, its not like someone is going to list queer or gay or something on a public chalkboard at the BYU. I thought this was interesting because if you do identify as LGBT, then that's definitely something that is going to show up on your Top 5 Demographics list. And it wasn't represented here at all. I didn't even think about putting my sexual orientation.
Anyway, i mentioned this, and right after i said this Cory/Corey asked if i had decided on a 5th--i said no, i said i'd decided to leave it blank. and i hope in the context of that discussion it made everyone think twice about my sexual identity and sexual identity in general and assuming that everyone is straight. I wouldn't say that the LGBT community has a history of being maligned as significant and vast as other oppressed groups, like minority races and women, but it is something that we need to be aware about, like we're aware and sensitive as a society to women's issues or racial issues or being politically correct in other ways.

Which lead me to think about queer theory in general, and how silly, and maybe even inappropriate, in light of queer theory and issues with identity and ambiguity in identity in general.
First, another article (because i heart articles!), though this one doesn't have online access, i don't think. I know you can access it through BYU Library articles, but you have to have a BYU NetID, so if you ain't my classmate, forget it. Anyway, it's from Radical Teacher (see www.radicalteacher.org), Issue #79, called "Queering Public School Pedagogy as a First-Year Teacher." Read it if you can.
Anyway, one illustrative point that the author made was that because her gender was called into question, her race became ambiguous as well. Hmmm. That's interesting. and so queer theory. Reading the article was interesting for me, because i think i'm so smart and liberated from always labelling people and pre-concieved notions and all that pompous other psuedo-progressive tosh, but i had such a hard time with this article. Not because i'm against queer theory in the classroom, no i think it's great, but because i would be partway through this article and be all "so, what, are you a girl or a boy? or you bisexual or a lesbian or what?" and looking at the picture that accompanies the article, it took me forever to spot the teacher, because i was looking for what i traditionally think a teacher should look like--tallish, typical looking late 20s adult with a vague authoritarian air typified by heels or hose or a skirt of some sort of shirt/tie combination.
So i guess the point of that digression is, i can talk the talk but can't always walk the walk, and take the following discourse about identity and queer theory and being comfortable without stereotypical labels with a grain of salt. and also, ignore my liberal use of cliches.
It's just that, what were we doing, with these labels? is this really healthy? most of us put down male or female or woman, but what does that mean? should it carry some sort of inherent sociocultural definition? no, it shouldn't. that is way to confining and oppressive. even the labels of 'gay' or 'straight' both are too defined, and that isn't fair. That is so limiting. How many people really identify completely as male or female or gay or straight or LDS or anything? to find yourself, and to find other people, and to find the truth, you need to destroy this 'identity' obsession that we all have. Deconstuctionists unite!
anyway....
back to normative socialogical discourse...
Anyway, i noticed a few other things. Like, i really try hard to fit in. Isn't that weird! I guess because i obviously don't fit in so much, then i do try to. For example, I listed LDS as my second choice, but i think that in high school, it would have ranked lower. And i don't think it was because i was less religious--if anything, i was more religious back then. But listing my non-mainstream-christianity religious identity would have been the not-so-popular thing to do. i like controversy, sure, i'm the one who alluded to my possible LGBT identity in class on purpose, but sometimes....and here, it is the shiz to be LDS. you basically can't make it any other way, or you can but it would be like high school again, all "you are what? why? you are going to hell!(ish. i guess we technically don't believe in hell)" Yeah. So that is just one example, but i really do just want to fit in. It would be nice. Good thing i usually give up, cuz it ain't worth it.

anyway, the concluding part of this lesson was that we should think about how other people, specifially people in the ME, define themselves, and not how we define them.
Good point. Let people define themselves, instead of imposing identity on them.
But maybe, we should take it one step further and queer everything and forget this whole "identity" schtick.

okay, well that's all. Remember, kids, Imperialism isn't Sexy.