I'd like to preface everything by declaring that I am ridiculously inconsistent when it comes to journaling. My schedule is erratic at best and nonexistent at worst. Also, when I haven't written in a while I tend to ramble, but I promise there's a point buried somewhere. So, in the case that this "blog" isn't touched for several weeks after this entry, it doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything. Far from it, I find myself more regularly (ha!) active than ever before.

Last semester (fall '07) I joined one of UMN-TC's many environmentally-themed clubs, only to be disappointed by the general lack of direction/action. I was also taking two EXCO classes, developing WeCAN, and vainly attempting to get other students involved in Focus the Nation. All while taking a full course load (including analytical chemistry and quantum mechanics). I got overloaded, dropped EXCO and the environmental club, and focused more on what I wanted to do, rather than what other people wanted me to do (more or less).

(Before this I was active in my former college's gay-but-not-officially Allies group and their Green Team, which I've heard has grown exponentially upon the college's announcement about building a new, large, expensive, and potentially LEED-compliant student union.)

Toward the end of the semester I found the Women's Student Activist Collective; now I'm a full-fledged member, their Web developer, and I staff the office four and a half hours a week. I must say, this is the most fun I've had and the most accomplished I've felt in a while (except for maybe after river clean-ups, but considerably less dirty).

I've also joined WSAC's sister-group, the University Pro-Choice Coalition. They just hosted as series of discussions about reproductive rights. I missed the first one, but last week we discussed "Abortion in an International Lens", and this week's topic was "Male Birth Control" (read MN Daily articles from Thursday and Friday). These were wonderfully enlightening, and it's so much more fun to be a part of a discussion as opposed to being lectured at. (Which is just more inspiration for my Blueprint, but I'll get to that next time.)

The problem I'm having at the moment is environmentalism and feminism don't overlap all that much. Or at least they don't anywhere around here. In fact, I've found that some people have a strong aversion to the words "environment+al/alist" and "feminist/ism", and the two together would probably cause people to panic.

What's worse is I feel like I need to pick between the two -isms. And, because of everyone scheduling meetings and events at the same time, I pretty much have to. So, although I'm planning environmental things for my Blueprints and freelancing as an environmental adviser for Alicia, I spend most of my free time in the Women's Center (as we've now affectionately dubbed CMU 202) and will most likely attend (productive) UPCC meetings over (lackluster) enviro-club ones.

Post Script: I'm trying to compromise by getting a minor in both Sustainability Studies and Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. And also English, but that's neither here nor there.