Fwd: Shift available at Bear's Den Friday 6/16 2-5pm

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Anna McDormand <anna.mcdormand@maine.edu>
Date: June 12, 2018 9:44:18 AM EDT
To: Alexandria Chamberland <alexandria.chamberland@maine.edu>, Asher Mason <ajm8913@gmail.com>, Betelhem Abay <bethelhem.abay@maine.edu>, Christian Johnson <christian.johnson@maine.edu>, Clarence Theriault <c.clarence_43@hotmail.com>, Davis MacDonald <davis.macdonald@maine.edu>, Edward Angelo <edward.angelo@maine.edu>, Eleanor Brain Busby <eleanorbrain644@gmail.com>, Ethan Carroll <ethan.carroll@maine.edu>, Glenn Taylor <gtaylor@maine.edu>, Gordon Woodin <gordon.woodin@maine.edu>, Guanyu Jiang <guanyu.jiang@maine.edu>, Harry Feero <hfeero@maine.edu>, Jakob Adams <jakobadams2019@rsu26.org>, Jimmy Presutti <james.presutti@maine.edu>, Jodi Munster <jodi.munster@maine.edu>, Julia Hathaway <beaniebabylover@gmail.com>, Kati Morneault <katherine.morneault1@maine.edu>, Keenan Lee <Doublehelix1213@gmail.com>, Keenan Lee <keenan.lee@maine.edu>, Kerry Chasteen <Kerry.Chasteen@maine.edu>, Khoa Kieu <khoa.kieu@maine.edu>, Kimberly Murray <kimberly.murray@maine.edu>, Lakshmi Sai Ram Thubati <lakshmi.thubati@maine.edu>, Levi Ntengu <levi.ntengu@maine.edu>, Matthew Stepp <matthew.stepp@maine.edu>, Michele Landry <michele.l.landry@maine.edu>, Mikayla Mason <mikayla.mason@maine.edu>, Minte Alemar <mintesenot.jakamo@maine.edu>, Nathaniel Hernandez <nathanhernandez1223@gmail.com>, Nibeni Dana <nibeni.dana@gmail.com>, Nick G <nickgillert@gmail.com>, Nickalas Kenny <nickalas.kenny@maine.edu>, Norbert Henkel <norbert.henkel@maine.edu>, Olivia Westura <owestura@gmail.com>, Pamela Johnson <pamela.johnson@maine.edu>, Salissa Lachance <salissa.lachance@maine.edu>, Santiago Rave <santiago.rave@maine.edu>, Saphire Robinson <saphire.robinson@maine.edu>, Sophie Guarino <sophie.guarino@maine.edu>, Steven Ge <xiyao.ge@maine.edu>, Steven Soctomah-Holmes <steven.soctomahholmes@maine.edu>, Tristan Bryant <tristan.bryant@maine.edu>, Victoria Hummel <victoria.hummel@maine.edu>, Yannick Gadimi Essoulou <yannick.gadimi@maine.edu>, Zhi Jiang <zhi.jiang@maine.edu>
Subject: Shift available at Bear's Den Friday 6/16 2-5pm

Hello

we are seeking a student to work this Friday at the Bear's Den assisting with the shut down. Please call Bear's Den @ 944-9382 for more details or if you would like to sign up for this shift!

thanks

Anna

--

Anna McDormand

University of Maine 

Auxiliary Services  

Assistant Dining Services Manager Wells

207-581-4935 office

anna.mcdormand@maine.edu

On College Life

On College Life

YA nonfiction
No one saw this coming. I ran out of library books.
Fortunately I was prepared with a stash of books I'd picked up at yard
sales and thrift shops for exactly this kind of emergency. What's
pretty neat is I had two books on college life: one a serious guide
and the other a spoof of serious guides. Who better to evaluate them
than a future student services professional?
Things have changed a lot since many parents of high school
students attended college. When I attended Gordon College we didn't
have the hook up culture as a "relationship" norm. OK, I went to a
seriously Christian school. But in the early eighties I don't think
it had penetrated (bad pun intended) the Ivies. Even more important,
those ubiquitous electronic devices hadn't made an appearance. While
computer science classes were attracting the technology inclined,
electric typewriters (gasp!) were state of the art for most of us.
At least many of the basics such as getting financial aid and
selecting classes are essentially the same. For first gen(eration)
students, however, the transition from high school to college can be a
formidable, scary one. There are so many seemingly arcane details to
handle. Many perfectly qualified students can feel like they don't
really belong.
Harlan Cohen's The Naked Roommate And 107 Other Issues You Might
Run Into in College is the book I wished I'd had when my children
started college. I would have given each a copy. Cohen has
interviewed students on hundreds of college campuses all over
America. Each of his 108 tips is centered around a nugget of wisdom
from a current student or recent grad and contains the story behind
the epiphany.
Tip #1, for example, Expect the Unexpected, is expanded to
"Don't create too many expectations. You might think you know what
will happen in college, but really you don't."
The narrator, a Northwestern University freshperson, found that
earning good grades and making friends proved a lot more challenging
than she'd expected. A long distance relationship she expected to
last forever was impossible to maintain.
Cohen doesn't tiptoe around the tougher topics: sex, drugs,
alcohol, STDs... For instance, in the chapter about fraternities and
sororities he includes:
"And now, this is where the chapter gets ugly. Sometimes people
get carried away and 'tradition' overrides rational, intelligent
behavior. That's when members end up forcing pledges and other
members to do stupid things. And if you're someone who wants to
belong, you might do things you never wanted or expected to do,
because not doing these things can mean not being part of the group.
But please, never put up with hazing. In fact hazing is a crime."
If you have a family member headed for college, this book makes
a thoughtful gift.
If you're more in the mood for satire, you might enjoy Michael
Powell's Forbidden Knowledge College: 101 Things Not Every Student
Should Know How to Do. Its 101 tips cover topics such as:
*choosing a party school,
*sleeping with your professors,
*blowing off your parents,
*finding a campus booty call,
*cheating your way through exams,
and *kidnapping the dean.
If you're in the mood for a good laugh this book and a cold beer
(providing you're over 21) should do the trick.
On a personal note, I'm getting ready for Artsapalooza which is the
evening of the 16th. It's a celebration where all the venues in
downtown Orono turn into venues for music and the spoken word:
everything from the library through the restaurants to the churches.
It's a total festival! I'm back by popular demand. In fact this will
be my 4th year!!! I'm so looking forward to it! I'll be reading
poetry at Harvest Moon (which is, BTW, an awesome venue) from 7:00 to
7:40. Artsapalooza is such a blessing for writers and singers and the
kind of noncommercial community building event we need much more of.
I'm also really excited because Maine is one of the first states to
have a nonbinary gender option on drivers' licenses and state ID.
When we have them renewed we will have X instead of M or F. In the
meantime I can get a free sticker. I'm gonna so do that. You know
I'm proud to be two spirit (gender nonconforming). That's why I
prefer Jules to Julia. It feels more like who I really am.
A great big shout out goes out to the others who are getting ready to
perform and working out last minute logistics and the people who made
nonbinary licenses and IDs a reality.
jules hathaway



Sent from my iPod

A Better Life

A Better Life

DVD
I just watched A Better Life. It put tears in my eyes and fire
in my heart. I want you to watch it. I want you to get mad as Hell.
Those of us who are parents want the opportunity for our
children to have good lives. We do what it takes to make that
happen. My husband and I didn't want our children to succomb to the
learned helplessness that is so pervasive in our neighborhood. I
didn't want our daughters to become teenage mothers. He wanted better
than construction work for our son.
The one thing that differentiates us from Carlos, protagonist of
A Better Life, is the good luck of being born on the more fortunate
side of the border. Carlos works dangerous, taxing, under the table
jobs. His 14-year-old son is the light of his life. He is very
vigilent in making his son stay in school and out of gangs.
A boss who is going back to Mexico offers to sell Carlos his
truck. At first Carlos is reluctant, sure that to stay in the States
he must remain as invisible as possible and stay off the ICE radar.
But he begins to dream. Maybe with more money he can move to a better
neighborhood with the promise of better schools for his only child.
In what has to be one of the most heartbreaking scenes in all
filmdom, Carlos and his son sit helplessly in the truck with red and
blue lights flashing and a police officer asking for license and
registration.
I'm confused. Don't we have this iconic statue, a friendship
gift from France, inviting the world to send us its tempest tossed?
If Lady Liberty could get off her pedestal (paid for by school
children's pennies), she'd get herself a lawyer and sue this country
for breach of promise.
What would you do if the only way to get a safe, decent life for
your children was to break the law?
On a personal note, I worked this weekend. UMaine hosted the Special
Olympics. So they needed food service people. I couldn't imagine
serving a more gracious, polite group. I think much of the
neurotypical world could really learn from them. One of the meals was
a cookout on the mall. That was especially fun. It was a perfect day
for a cookout--sunny and breezy. I love my job. The people I get to
work with are kind, thoughtful, and welcoming. The things I do are
things I've done as a volunteer so often. At least once a shift I
think, "They're paying me for this!!!" And the pay will enable me to
be in the academic program of my dreams. I gotta be one of the
luckiest two spirits in Penobscot County!!!
A great big shout out goes out to my new work family, especially Anna
gave me this wonderful opportunity.
jules hathaway


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Beautiful Trouble

Beautiful Trouble

Adult nonfiction
"'Human salvation,' Dr. Martin Luther King argued, 'lies in the
hands of the creatively maladjusted,' and recent [2012] events are
proving him as prescient as ever. As the recent wave of global revolt
has swept through Iceland, Bahrain, Spain, Greece, Chile, the United
States, and elsewhere, the tools at activists' disposal, the terrain
of struggle, and the victories that suddenly seem possible are quickly
evolving. The realization is rippling through the ranks that, if
deployed thoughtfully, our pranks, stunts, flash mobs, and encampments
can bring about real shifts in the balance of power. In short, large
numbers of people have seen that creative action gets the goods--and
have begun to act accordingly. Art, it turns out, really does enrich
activism, making it more compelling and sustainable."
Things sure have gone downhill since the optimistic introduction
(quoted above) to Andrew Boyd's Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox For
Revolution. The one percent are living large at the expense of all
the rest of us. Encouraged by the current White House resident, the
hate groups are coming out of the woodwork. The questioning of
science is imperilling every species on this planet.
That is why we need this amazing book more than ever!
Being an activist in 2018 can feel very discouraging. We rush
from one crisis to the next. Distractions such as presidential tweets
divert people's focus from evils to ephimera. We seem to be preaching
to the choir. And there are never enough live bodies to get the work
done. Never mind money...
Sound familiar?
Reading Beautiful Trouble is like drinking ice cold water after
a slog through the desert. It encourages us to really look at what
we're doing, question assumptions, and try new and exciting projects.
We can be inspired by the achievements of over eighty organizations
and other entities. Whether you skim, search for specifics, or read
the book cover to cover, if you're anything like me, you'll be
invigorated and ready to take on the world...or at least a little part
of it. The book is divided into four sections.
Tactics are strategies and ways to make them work and avoid
potential pitfalls. Creative petition delivery, for example, can wed
online and offline activism. If done creatively enough, it can
capture press attention. When Avaaz petitioned the World Health
Organization to investigate and regulate factory farms they were able
to set up 200 cardboard pigs, each representing 1,000 signatures, in
front of their headquarters.
Principles are the insights gleaned through work in the field.
My favorite is, "Take leadership from the most impacted." The people
who have the most at stake know the problem and possible solutions
most intimately. We must go into a situation as listening allies, not
arrogant saviors.
Theories are the big picture ideas that provide insight into the
world and how to change it. The concept of environmental justice
looks at how industry wastes are usually dumped on poor and minority
communities.
"What is at work here is not only racism, but a widespread and
devastating ethic that witholds compassion from the environment and
denies the humanity of ninety-nine percent of the world's people,
treating them as resources to be exploited at best, or as entirely
external to the economic calculations at worst."
Read the book and act on it.
"Millions around the world have awoken not just to the need to
take action to reverse deepening inequality and ecological
devastation, but to our own creative power to do so. You have in your
hands a distillation of ideas gained from those on the front lines of
creative activism. But these ideas are nothing until they are acted
upon. We look forward to seeing what you do with them."
On a personal note, this is one of the most special days of the year
for me: Joey cat's 15th birthday. As I write this I hear him playing
with kittenish energy. You'd never guess he's a seriously older cat.
It's a bit of a miracle that he's still here, in the game, healthy and
happy, because of medical problems he was born with. Twice he's had
to have very serious surgeries. Every day my little friend is with me
is doubly precious for his being there.
A great big shout out goes out to my birthday cat, the gang at Veazie
Vet, my husband who buys the cat food and litter and paid for the
surgeries and plays with Joey, my children who grew up with him, and
my friends who are his friends.
jules hathaway



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Boy Erased

Boy Erased

Adult memoir
"I was here by my own choice, despite my growing skepticism,
despite my secret wish to run away from the shame I'd felt since my
parents found out I was gay. I had too much invested in my current
life to leave it behind: in my family and in the increasingly blurry
God I'd known since I was a toddler.
God, I prayed, leaving the office and making my way down the
narrow hallway to the main room, the fleurescents ticking in their
metal grids, I don't know who You are anymore, but please give me the
wisdom to survive this."
The "this" Garrard Conley, hoped to have the wisdom to "survive"
was Love In Action, a program designed to save gays and other sexual
"deviants" from "unnatural" lifestyles, lifestyles that would
allegedly alienate them from God and stand in the way of salvation.
He was in a two-week assessment day program which would determine how
much in-patient treatment he would "need"--anything from three months
to years. In his no-holds-barred Boy Erased, he shares this
experience and the events that led up to it.
Conley grew up in the South in the very fundamentalist
Missionary Baptists, the denomination both his parents were raised
in. They were Biblical literalists, taking every word of the Bible as
literally dictated by God. Concepts like evolution that questioned
God's creating the world in six days were considered heresy. The
Rapture was always just around the corner. If it caught someone in a
less than pure state of thought, word, or deed he or she would be
doomed to eternal damnation.
Needless to say, when a classmate outed Conley to his parents in
his first year of college, it did not go well. His father, a car
salesman who aspired to save a thousand souls before he died, was en
route to becoming an ordained minister. He gave his son an
ultimatum: if he ever acted on his feelings he'd forfeit being able
to set foot in his home or have his education paid for. Not
surprisingly, in despair, Conley decided to agree to whatever his
parents had in mind.
[Reviewer's note: a number of transgender college students
receive a similar ultimatum: if they transition they'll lose family
membership and financial support. Can you imagine having to choose
between being accepted and supported and being comfortable in your
skin at any phase in life, never mind such a vulnerable one? Isn't
this supposed to be the Twenty-First Century?]
The whatever turns out to be the ironically named Love In
Action, a twelve step program loosely based on Alcoholics Anonymous
with detailed rules for every facet of life. Conley is told to forgo
reading anything but his Bible and LIA handbook. He's stripped of all
his personal belongings and told that all the stored pictures and
messages on his electronic devices will be scrutinized.
"We want to encourage each client, male and female, by affirming
your gender identity. We also want each client to pursue integrity in
all his/her actions and appearances. Therefore, any belongings,
appearances, clothing, actions, or humor that might connect you to an
inappropriate past are excluded from the program. These hindrances
are called False Images (FI)."
In Boy Erased, Conley masterfully segues between his childhood
and teen memories and his LIA experiences. It's a must read for
anyone wishing to understand how such programs work, particularly
those of us who love our LGBTQ friends for who they really are.
On a personal note, we've just had ourselves two cold misty days.
Community Garden was cancelled. For night reading I wore Hello Kitty
footed pajamas and fluffy bathrobe. Joey was happy to cuddle on my
lap. I wrapped a corner of my blanket around him and he looked like a
kitty burito. A purrrito?My latest opinion piece has come out in the
Bangor Daily News. I'm getting really good feedback on it.
A great big shout out goes out to the BDN readers who are appreciating
my piece.
jules hathaway



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Impounded

Impounded

Adult nonfiction
"Dorothea Lange challenged the political culture that
categorized people of Japanese ancestry as disloyal, perfidous, and
potentially traiterous, that stripped them of their citizenship and
made them un-American. She would have liked to stop the internment
and, although she could not do that, she surely hoped it would not be
repeated. She was as eager to defeat the Axis powers as any other
supporter of democracy, and worked on other photographic projects to
honor those who contributed to the war effort--for example, in studies
of defense industry workers. She too thought World War II was a "good
war," honorable and necessary. If her photographs of a major American
act of injustice had nuanced this verdict just a bit, that fact would
hardly have undermined the national commitment. And the added nuance
might well have contributed to developing among Americans a capacity
for more complex critical thinking about ensuing U.S. race and foreign
policy."
I was elated when I learned that Linda Gordon, who clued us in
on the second coming of the KKK, had written other books that were
available by ILL. Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of
Japanese American Internment by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro
looked especially intriguing. How often do you get a world class
historian, a trail blazing photographer, and pictures censored by the
United States gubmint all in one volume?
Lange had worked for the government, documenting Depression era
rural poverty, creating the photographs for which she is well known.
At a time when nationalism and racism were rampant she didn't buy in.
She took a lot of pictures of people of color. Not surprisingly, the
gubmint overlooked them, using only her pictures of overwhelmingly
white Okies. Wouldn't want to threaten those Southern good old boy
politicians.
Lange received a Guggenheim fellowship and then had to put it on
hold. Pearl Harbor happened, plunging the United States into World
War II. President Roosevelt ordered all Japanese Americans to be
interned in concentration camps and created the War Relocation
Authority to achieve this. The WRA hired Lange to document their
work. Unlike Ansel Adams, who took cheerful portraits, she took
pictures to show the abuse and degradation heaped upon innocent
civilians. I'm sure you can guess whose work the gubmint used.
Gordon's excellent narrative constitutes the first part of the
book. In the second part Okihiro exposes more lies we were taught in
high school. Pearl Harbor did not come out of the blue in any other
sense than that planes dropped the bombs. Fear of Japan has a long,
inglorious history in this nation. In the not so good old 1920s, for
example, (when the KKK was experiencing a revival and the Supreme
Court was making forced sterilization of undesirables the law of the
land) the organization that would become the FBI warned that Japanese
would swamp the "superior" white race. Preparations for internment
camps were started in 1936 by President Roosevelt. That's five years
before we were attacked.
The third part of the book is the best. It's the photographs
along with Lange's captions. They speak for themselves.
Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat its
mistakes and evils. Impounded contains a lot of wisdom we need to be
learning. I highly recommend the book.
On a personal note, we had a lovely gardening day in Orono Saturday.
Sunday my church had our annual picnic with perfect weather. Today I
had my latest opinion piece published in the Bangor Daily News in the
center of the op ed page with the day's cartoon. As always I felt very
proud. I'm getting good feedback.
A great big shout out goes out to my editor and the BDN readers who
will read my piece.
jules hathaway


Sent from my iPod

Very Good Lives

Very Good Lives

YA/adult nonfiction
"Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or
so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The
commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British
philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has
helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I
can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery
enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertantly
influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or
politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard."
If you guess that the author of the above quote is J. K.
Rowling, congratulate yourself. This writer, best known for her Harry
Potter series, delivered a Harvard commencement speech. She
concentrated on two topics that are very close to her heart: failure
and imagination. Luckily those of us who weren't present can read her
narration, beautifully illustrated, in Very Good Lives.
Rowling wanted the newly minted grads to know that failure is
not the end of the world. It had figured prominently in her life.
Seven years after her own graduation she was a very poor, jobless
single parent. She found poverty very challenging. But she found
that she could survive failure.
"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from
setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to
survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your
relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such
knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has
been worth more than any qualification I've ever earned."
I can second that idea. I've failed twice big time. In
undergrad college I was headed toward vet school when I flunked
organic chemistry. No problem. I could get my PhD and become a
college professor. I did just fine in grad school until I got one
grade too low on a required statistics class. I survived both times.
Thirty-one years after that grad school fiasco I am starting the
masters program of my dreams and believing that this time I will
prevail. Oh, yeah, the dark cloud had a shiny silver lining for me.
I met and married the love of my life and had three amazing children
who never would have been born if I'd "succeeded."
When Rowling discusses the importance of imagination she is not
just alluding to the ability to create enchanted kingdoms. She means
it more in the sense of empathy: "...the power that enables us to
empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared." One of
Rowling's first day jobs was with Amnesty International's London
headquarters. She learned about the depths of evil people are capable
of. She also learned how a committed organization can harness
people's empathy to fight that evil. One of her last paragraphs sums
up the concept beautifully.
"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your
voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify
not only with the powerful but with the powerless; if you retain the
ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have
your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who
celebrate your existence but thousands and millions of people whose
reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to transform our
world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we
have the power to imagine better."
Amen to that!
On a personal note, this summer is all about getting ready for my
fall grad school adventure on three fronts. The first is financial.
I have a part time cafeteria job on campus. I'm looking for side gigs
like animal companion and child sitting and odd jobs to supplement.
I'm even crocheting scarves (from yard sale/thrift shop/repurposed
yarn) to sell while I sit in church or meetings. All I earn goes for
tuition and books because I'm only using bottle and can recycle money
for personal expenses. Second is getting ready for the time demands.
I'm quitting Peace & Justice Steering Committee. I'm writing my
opinion pieces for the paper and my reviews ahead of time. (See,
readers, I'm thinking of you.). And I'm cleaning the house and shed to
make them easy to maintain. Third is getting ready for the course
work by reading and reflecting.
A great big shout out goes out to you, my readers, who won't have to
do without my reviews at least fall semester.
jules hathaway


Sent from my iPod