Beautiful as we are (III): Mind the tights

Sitting on a tram this morning, I was wearing a short dress and thick tights. You know when your stop is nearing and you get ready to quickly stand up and get out? At this stage I caught myself thinking whether there were any sharp angles on the metal seat that could potentially ruin my tights. And then I asked myself - do men find themselves in this situation? What about other hassles that not-entirely-comfortable clothing leads to? Shoulder bags that always threaten to slide off your shoulder, high-heels that slow you down or make-up that prevents from enjoying the rain? I'm not sure about the shoulder bag situation, but others are only lived through by women.

In Sweden, men ride bikes in expensive suits and women ride bikes in high-heels. Because why not? 

Getthing back to the topic though, whilst on my stay in Newcastle, England, I wrote a paper on how clothing is meant to restrict women. I stumbled upon that topic barely out of curiosity. I was in the library and I randomly opened a random book that happened to be about gender performativity. And it definitely drew me in. I read plenty of book chapters and articles on it. I read way more than my paper demanded. 

And now I see it. Women are unconsciously restricting themselves every day with their clothing. I sat there on a tram this morning thinking about my tights, and that girl stood under a roof in pouring rain the ofher day for half an hour to save her makeup. Yes, my tights are alright, but maybe that girl got a cold afterwards? Again, I'm going back at the #LikeAGirl campaign I mentioned in "Beautiful as we are (II)" - yes, a woman can be physically powerful and open jars in the kitchen herself. She just doesn't know it most of the time.

Tie-dye!

I've always been fond of tie-dye. All these colors and patterns you could never make purposely, the spontaneous coincidences of the paint settling in one spot of fabric rather than the other, for reasons you could never tell. However, I have never had a chance to wear tie-dye, or do something way more exciting - make it myself. So, as you could guess, I finally did it. Accompanied by my English Studies' classmate, who is also here for one semester, I went to this tie-dye workshop, organised by the arts society of Newcastle university. The  cafe accommodating the event got crowded in no time, and the atmosphere was welcoming with everyone splashing colorful paint on white t-shirts, rolled in tiny balls and restrained with rubber bands. I had so much fun! And, of course, now I am all happy and excited, seeing (and using) what came out of this colorful and 'splashy' experience.

Opportunities that enrich

   One of the courses I am having, called "Introduction to Social and Cultural Studies", has been giving me a lot of thought recently, especially concerning the issues of racism, obesity, and disability and how society 'copes' with it, especially in the post-soviet Europe. I was comparing the views of people from small towns to ones of those coming from bigger cities. Then I thought about the small town I grew up in. People were crazy about football there, and we had two black players in out team, who were the only one making the local community interracial. People loved the sport, and the two guys did really well on the team, but still there were racist comments coming from the crowd every time they were in the field. The black players were being judged and picked on for slightest mistakes they made much more intensely than the other players. Everyone still loved the team but things were different than before.

   What I settled with was just a pile of questions I was going through over and over for the past two or three days. What really struck me was the final understanding that what all this fuss was ans still is about is really just the matter of 'otherness'. Offensively enough, I was able to compare it to a situation where a little child sees something other than  himself and radiates distrust. at it or..gets scared. And maybe that's just it, maybe we're just scared at the sight of someone entering the bubble of trust our society has formed easily enough because we were all similar physically? 

   But then I think about the western culture where the interracial background has been on much longer. Does this have to do with the national character? The soviets and their enclosure on the east part of Europe? The economy? It gets complex as different all these different aspects pile up, but what I think it's going to turn out to be is a matter of time. Time needed for a child to grow up and realize that all he feared was just another opportunity to make his life richer.

Mingling around in the world of blogging

Recently, there have been quite a lot of changes in my routine.. Well, I could cay it has disappeared for a month or so. I changed my university, my location, almost got used to the British accent and started to understand the local Geordies. However, there are still things I feel unfamiliar with. For example, the left-sided traffic is just driving me mad, together with the friendliness of the locals. It's insane, and I guess could not be more extreme after living in Sweden, where people tend to be very reserved and extremely hard to make friends with.
Here, in Newcastle, I am still shocked how cashiers, library workers, baristas etc. call me sweetheart, young lady, love and all these super lovely names that get me smiling before I even think about it. It's just so much more relaxed and laid-back.. So, if you combine it with the cultural differences which are pretty challenging for me as a newcomer, it equals out and makes it so much easier to feel like home.
Moreover, besides all these new experiences, I was given an opportunity to try out blogging on WordPress. Undoubtedly, I took it, so now I have a second blog on my Swedish university's website, which is exclusively about my new university experience in Newcastle. Due to this change, this blog might become less active, but I will still post things here, as I quite often feel the urge to spill the bits of my inner world in this blog, which had become the home of random stuff that I find exciting.
Lastly, I have always wanted to read more on blogging so that I could not only practice more, but improve my writing techniques as well. Also, I just started the course "Writing for the Media: Journalism", which I fell in love with immediately and which I will hopefully benefit from in all aspects of writing, including blogging.

More on the new courses I am taking and my uni-related adventures - in my other blog: http://blogg.mah.se/studyabroad/author/emilijariaukaite

As for now, as they say here in Newcastle,
Cheers!

Creativity takes over

So this is a story which I wrote at about 5a.m. tonight for one of my courses.

Elijah, a five year-old, was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the endless hills outside, which contained all possible shades of green, roughly interrupted by some red, white or pink bits of blossoming wild flowers. He was alone in the house. Alone, but not lonely. He was used to this feeling, waiting for his dad to come home from the corn fields. It’s been like this for a long while, that actually lasted more than he could remember. However, when he was way too little to be left alone, his aunt Cora would stay with him throughout the day, talking to him, sometimes calming him down so that he would stop crying. He was such a cry-child! He took her as a family member. But as he grew old enough to stay alone in the house for the whole day and do some cleaning, she became a guest, a visitor. She would come once a week, every Thursday. More and more often, talking to her felt completely different, strange, even awkward.

He saw Caleb walking across the tall grass towards the house, a chocolate-brown figure, surrounded by the greenness of the sun-lighted hills. He finished the day’s job and until the next day he was free. Elijah watched him, relaxed, getting closer and closer to the house, waving to him. The little boy waved back. He felt sympathetic to Celeb, although the old man did not seem to mind the obligatory work in the fields. Elijah might have to go and work there one day, too. Just like his grandfather did, just as his dad does. But he might as well not. Caleb told him that things were getting better, everything was changing. However, seeing his dad so lively and happy every time he was coming back from the fields, he felt like this kind of work was all he needed for a good life. It seemed to Elijah that it was enough to feel useful, enough to be treated fairly, to eventually gain respect from the whites, which, Caleb used to tell him, was an important goal to achieve. The door opened and he heard a cheerful and lively voice, calling his name. Impatient and excited, he waited for Caleb to take of his shoes, then jumped off the chair and ran to greet him.

  What, from your point of view, was the main idea of this story?

A new skill or just wordiness?

So, this time, I decided to write about my writing.
I started drawing my own path of creative writing when I was about fifteen. What I started with were essay contests, and this new beginning appeared to be quite successful. Since then, I have written quite a lot of essays and short stories. But when I graduated from school, my productiveness in creative writing fell to almost nothing. Unfortunately, when I made it to Malmo University, English Studies, I got obliged to write, it became my new routine. However, not being pleased by this state of unproductiveness, I was never going to complain about that. Suddenly, the amounts of text I wrote got really big, especially when compared to the amounts I had to produce in high school. Instead of 500 words a week, I was suddenly supposed to write three essays of 1000. Oftentimes, even more. And that was where the real skill-building progress began. For some time in the beginning, it was all about writing: courses, lectures, homework..everything. Now it's about other things as well, including linguistics, but writing is still a major part of my entire degree. So now, having almost finished my first year in English Studies, I can say that so far it is giving me a priceless skill: ability to write much more than before, but not by getting wordy. I started to think more about reasons and consequences, fill the text with thoughts of my own, but also search for the answer, considering all possibilities. Although it's not so much about creative writing anymore, it's still something I enjoy very much. Besides, I feel like that is what I want to do, and a huge part of what I want to become.

Blogging works!

Blogging.. Now I think that it was pretty smart to finally start doing it. What gave it a push was an open lecture I attended this Thursday. It was about writing for media. So, in the lecture there spoke a man, who studies the same thing as me (he's just about to graduate now), who has already started working as a copy editor, and a woman, who's a professional at marketing and has her own company. They spoke about what an English student should do to create a path to his/her carrier when still studying. So, I went out of the lecture room carrying two main ideas: take the Copy Editing course, and..start a blog. The marketer gave us this idea. She said that if we wanted to associate our future carrier with writing, we should get used to it, practice it. Then she mentioned blogs. What there is to add, she also said that having a blog might give you some extra points when searching for a job. And, of course, it will help you develop your own voice and style.
Although I am still not sure I will be able to keep up regular blogging some time later, I am really enjoying it at the moment. 2 posts a day, and still actively searching for new ideas and topics to write on. By the way, if you ever happen to wonder what I think about some particular things or learn something related to what I do in my free time, you can always ask for it. I am open for this kind of stuff :)