This last week has been incredibly busy. I attended the Evergreen Lobby Day at the Capitol, the Debating for Democracy Workshop, and I had an awesome conversation about research questions with my internship supervisor.
The lobby day was really interesting, I wasn’t really sure what it was before I got there, but I’m very happy I got to go. It was put on through the Trans and Queer Center, and a small group of us traveled to the Capitol campus, heard a short presentation by an ACLU representative, a short outline of what bills had been chosen for us to talk to our representatives about that day, and a brief description of what lobbying is when you’re a citizen. Then we visited Representative Steve Kirby, Senator Sam Hunt, the Legislative Assistant to Representative Beth Doglio, and Representative Brian Blake. We talked briefly with each of these people about the chosen bills, did some reflection on the day and what had happened, and headed home. One of my big take aways from the day was that I really want to be able to move through different social spheres when I am out of school and working on my own projects. I want to feel confident to talk with political and authority figures, academics, professionals, and whoever else I need to. Because it’s really important to know that most of the people that seem untouchable or out of reach can be reached, they can be talked to and you can have conversations about important things that you care about. At least it’s easier to create the right circumstances for that to happen than it seems. Whether or not your conversations and input will be entirely considered is a different point, but access is a starting point at least. I want to feel confident enough to talk with anyone I need to, and I want to help make greater access available for more diverse people.
In the Debating for Democracy Workshop on Saturday we learned some techniques on how to frame arguments in a more coherent, positive way. In other words, how to phrase things in a way that there is a sense that something can be done, that it’s a stance on what you’re for rather than what you’re against, and so you’re using facts and statistics in an effective manner. This was a really productive workshop for me, and I found a lot of value in the way things were explained to us.
We did a couple of exercises that came up with some cool results. At one point we were asked to come up with three words that described your advocacy dream team. I pulled some of my favorite words from that exercise: Empathetic, Resilient, Accessible, Diverse, Inclusive, and Informed. In addition to that workshop I had time to think on one of the issues that is important to me, and come up with a little bit more of a solid idea of what I wanted to promote the most, at least on that day.
I was working on the idea of access to higher education, but over the course of the day I decided that interdisciplinary education at all levels is incredibly important. To promote variability, flexibility, in subject and type of education will create far greater access to education to individuals in varying circumstances. I think this is important at all levels of education, from kids to teens, to college or trade school to industry training; I cannot imagine any kind or form of education that would not benefit from connections to other subjects and fields.
I also had a really cool conversation with my internship adviser about how to think about research questions and findings. We talked about why it’s important to note and think about why certain terms come up with results while others don’t, why one aspect of a topic is studied while another is not, or at least not noticeably. We talked about how I was going to account for these observations in my literature review, possibly in the form of some recommended questions for further inquiry, perhaps to include it in the prose discussion or conclusion, for examples. It was a very informative and interesting conversation that brought up a lot of things for me to consider as I am working on my literature review.
In all, I am a bit stressed about the amount of writing and reading I have to get done, but I am not despairing, and I had a very productive week in terms of thinking and working on cool events.