Outrageous Acts

I've decided to do one outrageous act a day, as this website/project by the Ms. Foundation is calling for people to do.  

This video interview with Gloria Steinem in particular has inspired me.

Discovered the project through Feministing, who had these awesome acts (among others) to add to the ever growing list: 

1. Buzz cut your hair.

2. Give a huge tip to someone that makes you coffee.
3. Join a union.
4. Come out at work.
5. Learn everything you can about a foreign conflict.
6. Tell the person you're making out with exactly how you like it.
7. Tell an old woman how beautiful she is.
8. Stop buying magazines that make you feel like shit about your body. 
9. Write a letter telling that magazine why you're not buying it anymore.
10. Go see an independent film made by a woman.

And so far I've added a few of my own: grow my own herbs and vegetables, tell people why victim blaming Rihanna is horrific (and giving props to people who do the same thing - yeah Oprah and Tyra!), share Outrageous Acts with all of you, have a rogue compost pile and guerilla garden on campus, and see a documentary about Uganda's child soldiers like I did tonight. 

But I'm feeling a little more outraged about this last one than I thought I would.  Not about the subject matter, but about how it was presented.  This is an extraordinarily pressing cause, and we should be taking action on it, but frankly I was offended at how the documentary was made and talked about the presenter.   So in the spirit of outrageous acts I've decided to share my critique.  Three young, trendy and clearly well off white boys go to Uganda to "make a difference".  Throughout the film there is such a pervasive undercurrent of  privilege and basic imperialism that I felt sick.  The rhetoric is all about "what we did," and "how we helped".  Maybe these guys chose this angle to appeal to youthful, privileged and globally Northern audiences that would identify with them, but I'm pretty sure this is going too easy on them.  Clearly these boys haven't unpacked their own knapsack of privilege, because there is such a depressing and ever-present theme of the 'great white savior' going on here.  The Ugandan government and it's citizens are predominantly presented as either beastly monsters or grateful supplicants.   The only person breaking that mould in the film was Betty Bigombe, the chief negotiator between the Ugandan government and the reble forces of the LRA.  So go you, Ms. Bigombe!  And finally towards the end of the film, in the crowd shots of action being taken (which we are to assume is happening in the United States) the kids in the foreground and close-ups are all white and trendy.  (Side-note, speaking of trendy, when I saw that young dude #2 was wearing one of those fake kaffiyehs - his was purple and yellow - I almost left the lecture hall.  Seriously?? You're supposed to be an activist and yet you'll make a mockery of another struggle's symbols? grrr)  

So that's my true outrageous act for today.  Not being afraid to critique something even if it is a good cause.  I've done some quick research and here's a local, emancipatory organization that supports the people of Northern Uganda and former child soldiers if you're interested:   http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/700/proj699a.html 

but please feel free to find your own cause to support.  Let us never be silent in the name of the greater good!!

Howdy

Wow! I had no idea it's been a whole month since I last posted!! To be fair, there have been a few things going on; namely personal stuff, my thesis proposal being due on the 6th, and then my (moderately) impromptu week long trip to London. But I'm back now and feeling wonderfully energized. After going going going all week in London I've realized how dull it is to just sit in my room, so I've been working on various projects and getting out into Dublin even just to walk around! Speaking of I need to head into town to get fabric for my room revamp (ooooo!) probably at Hickey's, the Woollen Mills at the Ha'Penny Bridge, and Rubenesque for trimmings. More to come later I promise!

Twitterings & Photo Friday

So as y'all can see from the new sidebar I've given in and joined Twitter! I'd been hearing about it for a while and was never that interested, but I finally looked into it and realized that this'll be a great way for me to give little updates between blog posts etc. Oh and please join me! I get the impression that twitter is only as fun as the network you've got on it. But if you aren't that keen on joining you can still check in either here for my updates (ie tweets - how cute is that btw?), or here if you want to see older updates (my blog widget is only showing the 5 most recent).

Also! Check it out!!! We have some very healthy coriander in the top corner, emerging chives right below it, and some baby basil to the right of the chives. There's also about 3 visible teeny tiny parsley shoots as well. The mint is being lame though :(, I got nothing yet from that corner.

Busy Busy Week

It's been quite a week! So warning, long post ahead; but I'll break it up to ease your darling eyes.

1) Kíla - Turns out traditional (trad) Irish music isn't just for old-man pubs and tourist traps! Turns out it can ROCK! Last week Kíla (music plays with page), an Irish/Eastern Euro/Spanish/African/I-don't-know-what fusion band, came to UCD for the Irish Language Week; ie Seachtain na Gaeilge (haha or shock-ta na gale-ga to us foreigners). At times it was very trad, other times just a little yazz-flutey. If Santana were Irish, this is what they'd be playing. The best part was their performance. They were simply electric and the crowd (full of students) was jumping and clapping and cheering along. The whole time I kept thinking how very Austin it felt, well except for the band only speaking and singing in Irish!!



2) Rubgy - AAAAHHH YES the 6 Nations Tournament has STARTED! Went into a pub in town for the Ireland - France game on Saturday. 30-21. Eat it France.

3) Thesis - Eek my first rough draft of the proposal is due next Monday. Still don't have an exact hypothesis and research question pinned down but I'm essentially going to be exploring the reasons for why healthy, affordable food is much more readily available in suburban Ireland than suburban United States, with a focus on local produce. I'll be looking at the potential economic, ideological, historical and political reasons behind the differences. Feel free to share resources or ideas with me. I'd love input.

4) Hanna's House - The program I'm interning with has its first seminar on Wednesday in Derry! I'm going to be in charge of registration (for 150 people!!!). We've got a meeting tomorrow with volunteers, so I'll be heading up tomorrow morning. I'm very excited :D

5) Gardening - I've decided to start guerilla gardening!! Grrrr! I already have a rogue compost pile (Why hello path walkers, pay no attention to the girl digging off to the side...) and I've realized what a nice little clearing its in. Now it isn't true guerilla style because it's not really abandoned, but it would be quite nice to have a pretty flowering/growing alcove there. A few people in my course are going to help out too! Obviously we'll have to wait until the frosts are done (ie mid-April) to put plants out, but who knows it could end up being awesome.

Why look it's tiny basil plants!

I Slept with a Bag of Compost Last Night...

Tippland Multipurpose Compost to be exact.

Yesterday in town I stopped at Hackett's garden shop and decided I was finally going to grow some plants from seed! I decided on a simple herb pack that had basil, mint, coriander, parsley and chives. Each plant came with two seed mats and each mat has approx 20 seeds. The very helpful salesman got me kitted out with a seed tray and the ubiquitous compost bag (which is now safely stored in our dark kitchen storage closet btw). I only sewed one seed mat of each, because even if only half the seeds germinate and grow I'll still need to cull the sickly ones before I transplant them into proper pots. And if all goes well I can either start the other set or dress them up prettily and give them as a gift!

My supplies: seed mats, tray, compost, mug shovel/waterer

Seed mats. Oh, if only my plants will look as vibrant and hale!

"Firmly pressing" each seed mat into the soil before covering them.

I'm rather proud of my handmade labels :)

ETA (Edited To Add): I just found out that today is St. Brigid's Day, and celebrates "the stirring of Spring and the sprouting of seeds"!! How serendipitous! This clearly bodes well :) People traditionally baked bread as well, so with our new mini oven (woot Argos) I'm so going to do it this evening!!

Photo Friday!

I've still got about 13 minutes of Friday here in Dublin, so the post still counts ;) Here's my cowl that I finally purchased and sewed on buttons for! I'm making a matching pair of fingerless mitts which will each have one of the smaller buttons and coral and olive colored embroidery.


P.S. - Andrew Maxwell was awesome!
P.P.S. - Would you?

Hello!

Sorry for the hiatus everyone! What with the holidays and then pretty much nothing happening after the holidays (or so it's seemed) I haven't had the time or the motivation to post much. But I've decided that these next few weeks shall be activity time, so here's a big meaty post.

Last Friday was Defur's birthday and over the weekend the group of us made the grand tour of McHugh's, White's (this bar is older than the United States!!), the Roost and back to downstair's McHugh's (fancy Radio K! [fwi: links to a myspace]). It was all really fun :D

Today was decidedly quieter, as one of my friend's and I went for a super long walk/photography excursion...which I just spent way to much time making a map of it on GoogleMaps! It really was a nice walk and I got some awesome photographs.

Lovely surprise house on Greygates Ave

Whoa cool graffiti colors

Old Martello Tower

Dart pedestrian overpass, even more great colors!

See??

Semi-abadoned fishing spot

We decided that this is a
moor-your-secret-smuggling-boat-in-the-dead-of-night rope.

Hungry birds on the Merrion Rd strand

Overall it was about 4 miles and quite a nice walk. Tomorrow I get my loan refund available (yay!), so I'll be making a big grocery shopping expedition (don't worry Mom I haven't been starving, just eating a lot of soup haha). Then on Thursday I'll be seeing Andrew Maxwell, he of my visit Ireland side-bar video fame!! Although this video almost makes me cry laughing.