Midyear Resolutions Update

Hi again!

I had the idea that it would be wise and consistent with actual commitment to my New Year's resolutions to take this opportunity, as we conclude the first half of 2017, to assess how I'm doing on actually doing the things.

Also!  Because I can just never shake that perfectionistic itch, I'm feeling mad I haven't written more than one post per month.  So: TWO posts this month bitches!!

This also gives me an opportunity to share a bunch more Pusheen!

Commence!

Resolution 1: Regularly smash the patriarchy.

I had a relatively concrete plan of attack for patriarchy-smashing.  It included:

--Participate in regular direct advocacy with my elected officials.

Me whilst faxing

Some success!  Although keeping up with the daily text alert-prompted phone calls has unfortunately not been so sustainable (which is not meant to dissuade use of this exceedingly helpful service), I discovered yet another tech-facilitated app that is awesome and has enabled me to send indignant faxes by text message.  In fact, my new approach is to use the daily text alerts I receive to inform the angry faxes I receive.  I'm so tech-savvy!  It's AWESOME and very satisfying!

--Set up recurring donations to advocacy organizations that will protect causes that are important to me, including civil rights and preservation of other democratic values like freedom of speech, assembly, and press.

Success!  I'm proud to say that Husband and I did this!  I'm really grateful to finally be in a position to be able to actually engage in this kind of support for causes that matter to us.

--Ongoing self-education through self-directed reading and, ideally, participation in courses to learn about dismantling systemic discrimination.

Not so much!  While I've managed to keep puttering through articles relevant to issues that are important to me, as you'll see below, I have continued to find it frustratingly difficult to tolerate regular contact with the news due to higher-than-typical levels of chronic despair.  This is a genuine area of struggle for me, because I think being regularly informed is a central responsibility of good citizenship.  I am really unhappy with my current lack of fulfillment of this responsibility.  I'm still waiting for my tolerance to come back and am not yet sure what will help me recover it.  

--Advocacy, conversation, and education with colleagues to ensure they feel empowered to stand up for the vulnerable communities we serve as expert, ethical practitioners.

Success!  With the input of some of the incredible trainees I worked with this year, I put together a multicultural seminar at work.  The seminar emphasized cultivating greater self-awareness of cultural influences on our work and, given that psychology is an inherently social justice-driven discipline, identifying ways that mental health practitioners can weave social justice into their practice.  It was not easy or perfect, but I'm glad to have been given the opportunity to do it and to push myself to take the lead on something that is both really important and values-driven but also really intimidating.

--Practicing my right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate.

Some success!  While I feel I could always do more of this, I've gone to several demonstrations in support of issues that are important to me and have found them really inspiring.

--Regularly consume news media again.  

Nope!  The most I've been able to manage is NPR's five-minute morning news summary.  This has definitely fueled several early-morning rage faxes, but is nowhere near enough for an appropriate level of engagement given the extremely dire circumstances of the current era.

Resolution 2: Learn all the stuff and things.

Some success!  While unfortunately I really have not continued working on my Swedish, I have been reading a lot more for leisure.  I am so grateful for this development in my life, because I was frustrated to be unable to read for fun through so many years of grad school and am so enjoying it now.

Resolution 3: Find ways to meaningfully and consistently set limits with work.

Guys.

Guys.

GUYS.

GUYS I DID A THING.

...Pending success!  I've actually done this!!  And it will actually maybe start achieving full effect in like two weeks, and even more so in the fall!

Success mermaids!

Resolution 4: Write more.

Some success!  By writing this post I am totally on my way to more than 13 posts per year, and while my frequency of journal-writing has decreased somewhat, I have still actually kept it up to at least once a week.  This is in part maintained by my enrollment in a stickers-by-mail monthly subscription and resultant self-reinforcement with stickers for every journal entry I write (because we've already established how embarrassingly reinforceable I am by stickers).

Resolution 5: Watch at least 52 movies.

Success!  Or at least, I am fully on track, as evidenced by the fact that I need to wrap this up so Husband and I can go see tonight's entry in my at-least-52-movies list!

So this actually feels really great while also being a helpful reminder that, as always, there's still work to be done.

Yay!  Onward into the next half of the year, with gusto!

{Heart}

Living "Under the Shadow" of Feminist Horror

Hello!

A dear friend and graduate school colleague of mine shared a great horror movie with me recently.  It's called "Under the Shadow" (2016).

It tells the story of a mother and daughter stranded in post-revolution Tehran and the parallel terrors of the city's constant bombardment as Iran battles Iraq and being hunted by a child-hungry demon.

The stage is set as Shideh, played by Narges Rashidi, is conclusively informed that she will be blocked from completing her studies to become a doctor.  As the film unfolds, the claustrophobia of living in a society with newly-introduced sweeping oppression of women slowly suffocates.  Shideh hides the fact that the family owns a VCR from strangers, appears to be the only woman left in her neighborhood who still drives, and must cover herself head-to-toe when she leaves her home--even, we learn, as she flees her apartment in the middle of the night with her child--because the religious police are waiting to scoop her up for any failure to cooperate in her own subjugation.  "Under the Shadow" reminds us, as the serialized version of "A Handmaid's Tale" rivets viewers, that a horrifying reversal in women's liberties in a previously modernized society is hardly a fiction; it is chillingly and recently possible.

The claustrophobia only deepens when a bomb lands, but fails to detonate, on Shideh's apartment building.  Although Shideh has determined that leaving is impossible, as the bomb threatens to explode and a lurking evil makes itself increasingly evident, remaining begins to stretch the limits of her sanity.  The images of the hulking explosive puncturing the roof of the building harken to another favorite horror movie of mine, 2001's "The Devil's Backbone", which featured a rusting World War II bomb nose-down in an orphanage's courtyard as a pointed symbol of the fearful forces residing in the surrounding buildings.

Awkward?

Driving Shideh's aforementioned midnight flight is the increasingly aggressive pursuit of a djinn, a demon who wishes to ensnare Shideh's young daughter Dorsa (played by Avin Manshadi).  The djinn first manifests as a mysterious fever striking Dorsa soon after the bomb lands on their building and their upstairs neighbor dies, possibly of frank fright, possibly due to a darker force.  Shideh struggles to banish Dorsa's fever, becoming increasingly exasperated and cabin-fevered as her daugher's malaise-driven whining and her own feelings of inefficacy grate her last nerve.  Ominous portents accumulate as this and other more minor signals that something is amiss build into more overt actions by the djinn.  Shideh frays between the impossibility of djinn actually existing and the urgent wish to protect Dorsa from demonic kidnapping.  As a portrait of ambivalent motherhood under terrorizing circumstances, "Under the Shadow" finds its partner in the deliciously terrifying Australian horror film "The Babadook" (2014).

All the scary things!

Between resonances with other excellent horror and its fresh perspective on scary storytelling, "Under the Shadow" is a well-crafted and scarily fun film.  It's Rotten Tomatoes certified fresh, and you can watch it on Netflix!

I gave it a 4.

Go watch it!

{Heart}