(no subject)
Day two of the Weekend from Hell is about to end in five minutes. Yes, dear everybody, it is 11:55 on a tired Sunday night. My Women Studies paper remains in the rambles of beginning outlines and my list of quotes and ideas remains scattered throughout 5 pages, broken up by page breaks and paragraph signs. I would sigh and say "If only I had but one more day," but we've all heard that song before. What frustrates me is that I really do need just one more day to do this. I'm in a good "need one more day to finish" place right now with it. Initially, I was just so overwhelmed with the amount of information that could potentially go into this prompt:
"This five page paper, due on November 5th, should examine the themes of oppression and resistance in the medical establishments centralizing the perspectives of those affected most directly--their patients. Drawing on the materials assigned for the second unit of the class and using specific examples, analyze how poewr and agency play out in gender non-conformist people's daily lives and their negotiations with medical institutions. Synthesize differing positions on access to surgical interventions, with the importance of consent, class, and race figuring prominently."
What's odd is that I feel constrained by it, but at the same time overwhelmed with the possibilities of all the material we've read. Not to mention I still feel like we're all (in the class) going to be citing the same articles, the same quotes, same figures--same results. If all we're doing is drawing on the material, I feel like all I'm going to end up doing is reciting what the authors of the reading material found in their own course of writing. And if I try to find anything new--well that's pretty much moot anyway because this is such a huge subject. It covers so much ground and the articles are so varied that I don't even know where to start. I finally decided to settle on a few main topics:
1. The "old" medical paradigm concerning intersex infants
2. The "new" paradigm
3. Diagnosis of transsexuals by doctors and the subsequent decpetion sometimes necessary to receive surgery
4. The question of whether we can continue with a binary gender system.
Problems include:
A. There is so much shit I don't know. I keep trying to write intelligent sentences, and nothing comes out sounding right. And it is really just highlighting how ignorant I am. And that's frustrating because I have read so much for this class, and I still feel ignorant. I can't even remember which articles had quotes I wanted to use; I drown in all the material.
B. I keep messing up the spelling of paradigm. I want to spell it "paradighm." Typing the "h" just comes so naturally after the "g."
Anyway, it's officially Monday now. My paper is due today. People write entire books on this prompt. I'm writing five pages. And I'm overwhelmed. Cool.
I think a good way for me to look at this though is just as if it were one of our weekly responses that we do at the beginning of each class. See, each day our teacher, Amanda, puts up a prompt on the board that relates to that week's readings, and we just write for fifteen minutes. Maybe that's the kind of free-flowing writing that will help me get this done. Before 3:00, preferably.
All right, much as I don't want to. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I get to sleep.
Although I have to mention: UW Drama has a musical theatre class. I'm totally auditioning for it on Tuesday.
"This five page paper, due on November 5th, should examine the themes of oppression and resistance in the medical establishments centralizing the perspectives of those affected most directly--their patients. Drawing on the materials assigned for the second unit of the class and using specific examples, analyze how poewr and agency play out in gender non-conformist people's daily lives and their negotiations with medical institutions. Synthesize differing positions on access to surgical interventions, with the importance of consent, class, and race figuring prominently."
What's odd is that I feel constrained by it, but at the same time overwhelmed with the possibilities of all the material we've read. Not to mention I still feel like we're all (in the class) going to be citing the same articles, the same quotes, same figures--same results. If all we're doing is drawing on the material, I feel like all I'm going to end up doing is reciting what the authors of the reading material found in their own course of writing. And if I try to find anything new--well that's pretty much moot anyway because this is such a huge subject. It covers so much ground and the articles are so varied that I don't even know where to start. I finally decided to settle on a few main topics:
1. The "old" medical paradigm concerning intersex infants
2. The "new" paradigm
3. Diagnosis of transsexuals by doctors and the subsequent decpetion sometimes necessary to receive surgery
4. The question of whether we can continue with a binary gender system.
Problems include:
A. There is so much shit I don't know. I keep trying to write intelligent sentences, and nothing comes out sounding right. And it is really just highlighting how ignorant I am. And that's frustrating because I have read so much for this class, and I still feel ignorant. I can't even remember which articles had quotes I wanted to use; I drown in all the material.
B. I keep messing up the spelling of paradigm. I want to spell it "paradighm." Typing the "h" just comes so naturally after the "g."
Anyway, it's officially Monday now. My paper is due today. People write entire books on this prompt. I'm writing five pages. And I'm overwhelmed. Cool.
I think a good way for me to look at this though is just as if it were one of our weekly responses that we do at the beginning of each class. See, each day our teacher, Amanda, puts up a prompt on the board that relates to that week's readings, and we just write for fifteen minutes. Maybe that's the kind of free-flowing writing that will help me get this done. Before 3:00, preferably.
All right, much as I don't want to. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I get to sleep.
Although I have to mention: UW Drama has a musical theatre class. I'm totally auditioning for it on Tuesday.