Pre-Break Madness

It's been a crazy past couple of weeks, rushing here and there and trying to get all these things done before break. Once I get through exam week things should be much calmer since I'll be done with school, but between French and junior thesis and Los Angeles and the GSA it looks like I'm going to be on my feet pretty much until the day I leave. But that's not a bad thing :)

So, I guess I'll start with the news immediately pertaining to France: I finally have my departure dates! I'll be leaving New Mexico on the twenty-eighth at around seven in the morning, get into New York later that afternoon, have my pre-departure orientation, sleep (if I can), and then my flight for Paris leaves at eleven pm the next evening to arrive at about eleven am. I still don't know where I'll be going after Paris, but all things in good time, I guess.

The POCC/SDLC Conference went amazingly well. To be honest, most of the information presented in the workshops wasn't new to me, but I learned worlds from the other students there. It was incredibly moving and powerful to see so many people who had never felt safe or represented find the space to be able to stand up and say, "Yes, this is who I am, and I'm proud of it." It gave me a lot of things to question in myself and in my community, as well as the tools to work through those questions. I've had and been having so many great discussions with people stemming from the conference; I just regret that I don't have the time to talk to everyone I'd like to talk to. It's difficult to condense, especially for the five-second, afterthought, "So, how was that thing in New Orleans?" But still, I feel like I came out of the experience changed on a profound level: more self-confident, more comfortable in expressing my opinions, and better able to work strategies for building a more inclusive community. Definitely worth it. I hope I can go again next year. 

The adjustment to being back has been a little difficult in terms of catching up with everything that I missed and keeping up with the new material, along with working to help set the agenda for the first GSA meeting, which was today. 

It's been a long, intense process in getting it set up, and the turnout was just incredible: seven or so faculty members and around twenty-five/thirty students. Everything went smoothly-- we even got done a couple minutes early-- and at this rate I think that the group will be ready to start in with activities and events when school gets back in in January. I'm really going to miss being a part of it while I'm abroad, but I'll have the entire year next year and hopefully I'll be able to come to some of the January meetings before I leave. Mainly, though, I'm just happy that all of our efforts has finally come to something concrete.

I thought about how at this time last year, I was only just starting to come out to my friends, and would have been nervous to even show up at a GSA meeting, never mind help to direct it. Amazing how much progress can be made in so little time. 

I'm curious to see how things are similar and different for LGBT students (and just for LGBT people in general) in France.

Updates as they come.