This last week has been an incredibly busy one, it seems. The mid quarter writing assignment was due, I was training to be one of the tour guides for the State Supreme Court Judges on Monday, I was doing my work at the TQC, and thinking a lot about story telling in different mediums and how details create rich layered and effective stories.
I have taken several tour trips for practice around the campus, and though I was not trying to learn the entire tour, there was a lot of learning about different areas of the campus and making sure I included all of the elements in each place I was to talk about. Since I was going to talk about the SASS hallway, Sem II, and the Comm Building, there were a lot of elements to remember. It’s interesting to see and hear the kind of conversation that goes into the background work for such an event. There was talk about how we were supposed to deal with ADA routes if that was necessary, where to go in depending on how time worked out, and how we were supposed to react in various circumstances, as well as the differences between what parts of the campus and its systems to highlight differently for adult visiting judges than would be highlighted for prospective students and their parents.
The day of the tour itself was pretty straightforward, there were a couple of pictures with the GSU, Judges, George Bridges, and the students doing the tour. A few of the Judges visited a some classes and spoke with students, answering questions and talking about their experience. I was in the classroom with Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst and Justice Debra Stephens, where some of the topics discussed were around the connection between philosophy and law, the paths each of the Justices took from their education to their current positions, what kind of interdisciplinary learning and understanding they needed in their positions, and what affects new technologies will have on law, all of which were very interesting topics.
On the tour itself, it was kind of funny how many things on campus got in the way of being able to speak and be heard, and it was great how much we ended up talking about light and windows. On the tour itself there weren’t very many topics or note or particularly interesting conversations. The event itself, and that the experience was a good one for the Justices, was incredibly important. It’s the first time they’ve ever visited this college, and obviously it’s necessary to make a good impression. And it’s hard to balance the right amount of the progressive, responsive image of the college with the right amount of traditional catering to make that good impression.
On one of our training tours we were talking about subtle things that you don’t really notice when you’re living on campus or going to school here, but you certainly notice when you’re looking at it from the perspective of making a good impression on a group of important people in authority with fairly uncertain personality and sensibilities. Small things became incredibly important. A pair of rainbow suspenders, and a giant event poster advertising a pleasure based sex education workshop with ‘Orgasm’ written in giant letters hanging in the library become points of discussion. What to do with personal expression, and what to do with the different campus culture.
At one point during last quarter I went along on a lobby day, I think it was set up through the TQC, but I could be remembering wrong. And I decided, partly seriously and partly because it was an amusing thought, that I wanted to be someone who could walk around the Capitol campus in a Deadpool t-shirt and talk with the important people there, and be taken seriously. The idea of being someone who had enough credibility or knowledge to get away with breaking the social dress code of power was really cool to think about. I’m already in a position where I have quite a bit more privilege than many people would, but even still the idea of breaking dress code rules in various places makes me really happy, and seems a lot like progress.
So to me, it doesn’t seem like the small things are as big of a deal as they are to most, and it’s really interesting to note that. Dynamics of power and funding, and universal design toward underserved or marginalized students is an incredibly important and complicated topic for its own sake. I have the impression that most insitutions are dealing with populations of LGBTQIA+, veteran students, students with various visible and invisible disabilities, first generation students, and margainalized students, and yet the systems in place for supporting these students, if there are in fact any in place, are reactive, meaning that much of effort of getting that support is put onto the student rather than the institution.
Additionally, another interesting dynamic to consider is how students were chosen to be tour guides. I can’t speak for other students, or other events, but there have been several times at this college where I have been chosen for events or student leadership roles simply because I am in the right place at the right time.
This makes sense, since so much of our interactions as humans are done through networking, but it means it creates a circle of people who are active in the student leadership roles, and it’s hard to new students, underserved students, or new perspectives in those places of student leadership and student lead change, which is unfortunate.
The other thing I’ve been thinking about this week has been the different ways that different mediums of story telling create rich worlds. I saw Secret Garden at 5th Avenue Theatre this week, I have continued to read Octavia’s Brood, and I have read the comic book Red’s Planet. Three different mediums, but very rich stories in their own right. Live theatre can incorporate music and lighting to the feelings you get when you watch. Depending on your seating you have facial expressions from the actors, or you have gestures and larger motions. You have sets and choreography.
In Octavia’s Brood there are all the mechanics of beautiful well put together writing.
In Red’s Planet, there is the simplified style of writing that is mainly shown through dialog, while the rest of the scene and world is set and built around the art style, the content of the panels, and the level of detail. Motion is portrayed through static visual clues, and even while the page stays still, you see the characters moving and their facial expressions changing when the story telling and visual elements are well put together.
In a lot of ways, I want to incorporate the social justice and political elements in my writing as a background, part of the setting, part of the world that affects the characters. It will come to the forefront when it’s needed, but it will also be part of what helped make the characters who they are. In my mind, that’s an effective way to include those elements in writing, especially when some of the elements I want to include can’t come from my own direct experiences.
So these are some of the thoughts I’ve been having over the past week, and thought I know they’re not all fleshed out or put together, I think they could contribute to the process of other’s thinking, and they will certainly contribute to the process of my own thinking.