Writing in Class

One of my classes started this week. The first things my professor did was have us write a bit on a few different subjects, and we shared our writings with the class as part of our introductions. I thought I may as well share what I wrote here, more or less as I wrote it, with only minor editing because a few things came out really awkwardly.

Also, a note...right before class, I had been chatting with someone I had some classes with a few years back and have kept in touch with on Facebook. After same sex marriage was legalized nationwide recently, I responded to a post of hers on Facebook about how she feels that no matter what, either gays or Christians will face discrimination. I also said that I normally wouldn't comment on something like that on Facebook, but that her stance has me baffled since she's one of the sweetest people I know. To this, she suggested that we get together over coffee to talk, and we agreed to meet on campus before my class would start. Our conversation, and the curiosity on both sides of it, was fresh in my mind when the professor gave us our first subject to write on.

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Current social problem or concern: Considering the conversation that I just came from, the subject of willingness to listen to other people comes to mind. I was just talking to someone about her Christian beliefs versus queer rights, and how both can live alongside each other. She talked about “compromise,” but I don’t see how “compromise” is needed since I don’t see how her own rights are being infringed. Maybe I need to learn to listen better? But maybe she just means that she wishes she could express her own feelings without people coming down hard on her for them. Both of us walked away from the conversation being glad that we could just talk, and she was asking me about my Pagan beliefs. So, problems: 1) That some feel queer rights and Christian freedoms don’t coexist well. Is there a solution that makes everyone happy without anyone feeling like they’re compromised? 2) Willingness to listen to others when you disagree with them, this doesn’t happen enough. The second seems to be a human nature problem, and is a conversation well worth having throughout all human history. The first is a problem particular to here and now, at this time in history and in this place, though others have had this conversation (and others will again) in other countries.

Writer I admire, type of literature/genre I’m drawn to: Jim Butcher, Tamora Pierce, Ursula K. Le Guin. Writing that gets into what makes us tick, is very serious in that way, but manages to also have a sense of humor about it. I love fantasy/science fiction in particular, but I think in other genres I particularly love the books that fit the above description.

Greatest fear, one of them: Being alone, with no one to help me. This may be what drives my agoraphobia, since it frightens me that anxiety might take hold of me when I’m out and about, feeling dizzy and feeling distant from the world, but not have anyone to hold on to to anchor myself, someone who is my “lifeboat” or my safety net, I suppose.