It’s only two weeks into the new semester, and I am behind! I know this is kind of a generic lament for college students, but really it has little to do with the schoolwork - I’m only enrolled in 13 hours. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not enrolled in any basket-weaving classes or anything (although underwater basket-weaving always seemed like it might be difficult to me, so I never got that expression); I share the American Indian Lit class with graduate students, and my Ethnicity and Sexuality class is also a graduate course being taught this semester as an honors seminar. We’ve only had one class of E&S, and already I’m supposed to meet with the prof. to discuss projects. Well, okay, as far as schoolwork goes, I might be a little behind.

I don’t know, though, I guess I thought “hey, I’m only taking 13 hours spring semester, that means I have lots of time to do anything!” I’ve already mentioned I’ve committed to Tae Kwon Do, which is a fairly useful skill if you’re five-foot-two and girly. Not that I have that much to fear in Lawrence; but then again, there was that one dude awhile back that would lurk behind cars and jump on people in the Lied parking lot. And then there was the one guy that would break into women’s apartments and sneak into their beds and…all right, I’d better stop, I’m sounding like my mother!

In addition to Tae Kwon Do, I’m helping out with the Student Union Activities, which I did last semester but didn’t really mention before cause I don’t feel like I do a whole lot for it. SUA is involved in planning campus-wide events, and the neat part about it is that it’s entirely done by students. Basically we get a whole bunch of money and are told, “hey, entertain us.” I’m on the Comedy and Concerts Committee, which is self-explanatory - we bring concerts to campus mostly, but occasionally a few comedians. We brought the likes of Bill Cosby and Ryan Adams last semester, which was actually rather kind of exciting. You can never fully appreciate the scope of what goes into planning an event until you’ve become involved in it. Nevermind all then paperwork and the organizing of volunteers that went on before, just setting up the stage for Bill Cosby took an entire day and then some. And then the event itself was maybe an hour. A hysterically funny hour, but an hour nonetheless. Then afterwards, all us SUA lackies set to work on tearing down the stage and cleaning up until the wee hours of the morning. The next time you go to a show, whether it be rock concert or piano recital, try to be appreciative of all the grunt work that went into propping up the stars of the show, making sure they’re well lit so that you can see them, and catering to the performers’ demands (apparently one band that we’ve hired requested in their rider tube socks. I don’t think they ever found out why on earth the band wanted these).

In addition to that, I recently joined the Sexuality Education Committee on campus. Kind of a different direction than the last two things. I’m not sure what prompted me to join this semester as opposed to any other; I’ve always been kind of interested in it. You might be familiar with the saga of Dennis Dailey, if not, here’s a brief summary:

Dr. Dailey teaches Human Sexuality on our campus. As with many professors who teach Human Sexuality courses on college campuses in the Midwest, he’s been the target of lots of local controversy. Enter Senator Susan Wagel (Wagle? Whatever, “Sen. Nutjob” is what I usually call her in conversation). Sen. Wagel, who hails from my home town of Wichita (yet another reason why Wichita sucks) has had it out for Dailey and his ilk for a long time, I suspect. About two years ago, an intern that worked for Sen. Wagel enrolled in the HS course, and began filing complaints to the university about obscenity and even charged that Dailey personally harrassed students in the class on occasion.

Long story short, the charges were unfounded, but the whole scandal blew up so much that Dailey’s class was featured as a spot on the O’Reilly Factor. Dailey refused to go on the show, but some of his supporters did, and proceeded to have a grande olde time on that circus punditry orgy of a show. Sen. Wagel, meanwhile, introduced legislation that would cut funding for the School of Social Welfare at our university if they continued to support Dailey’s class. After a huge media/political campaign, Sen. Wagel lost and Dailey’s class was not shut down, nor funding for the already-underfunded School of Social Welfare cut.

That’s just one example of what we’re fighting here in the Midwest. Actually, the entire country. This country’s attitude toward sexuality is ridiculously bipolar - hey, you’re a woman? Are you madonna or whore? A Mandy Moore or Paris Hilton? There’s not room for an in-between, a healthy conception of sexuality, instead of a pathological fear or hyper-obsession. Anyway, as you can probably tell, this is something that’s confounded me for awhile. I’m joining SEC not just because it interests me, though, but because it’s a critically important issue that’s becoming more and more relevant when we’re talking about things like the ban on gay marriage amendments (which is currently being debated in our Capitol) or recent challenges to the Roe vs. Wade decision. Choices are rapidly being eroded in our time, and it scares me to see what things will be like five years from now, or even less.

Oh yeah, and on top of that, I’m still involved in coordinating ecojustice awareness, specifically about the wetlands area in Lawrence. Hooray, another potentially hopeless cause! And I’m participating in another novel challenge, in light of the fact that I failed miserably at the last one. This one’s called “Book in a Month” (BIAM), and it’s also 50k words, but it’s in February. Which I had anticipated would be less busy than November, but now I’m not so sure. I might lose this one, too - again, how pathetic is it to lose at a writing challenge where quality doesn’t matter?

Looking back, I kind of wish I hadn’t committed to so many things this semester, but I am not going to give up just yet. I can do this! I am not overwhelmed. I am simply whelmed.