So Winter Quarter is over – and I can’t believe how fast it went by!

I’m done with the Gateways program, at least for enrollment’s sake, and this is pretty crazy. We spent a large portion of the final week presenting the individual research projects we had been working on all quarter, and this was so interesting! I was amazed at the different directions my classmates went in- from public schooling and criticisms of the nation’s education system, to mental health and ablism/extraordinary individuals, to hip hop and theater…it was all very exciting and thought provoking, especially in seeing how it all tied back to the political economy and popular education that make up the foundations of our class.

My project was working on a film with three of my classmates, and showing the rough draft 35 minutes we had at quarter’s end was very gratifying experience, after the hours and hours of footage we went through and numerous interviews and taped round table discussions we set up. The project was meant to document what the Gateways program is, how it was developed, and how other organizations in our community are doing similar work all in vision of a greater movement of prisoner advocacy and social change. We interviewed Books to Prisoners and the Birth Attendants, which both do prisoner advocacy work in Olympia. We also interviewed past and present Gateways staff and participants, including a number of the guys at Green Hill.

The founder of the Gateways program, dreamer and schemer Carol Minugh, gave an interview that was very inspirational in re framing what the work we do is, and the reasons for doing it. I get chills whenever her voice comes on. I am sad to be done with the class, by excited for what I experienced while doing it, and for all the ways in which this amazing program can continue to grow and develop. And, I’m not completely leaving- I will be working next quarter to help the growth of a new partnership we have with a facility working with GIRLS.

Anyway. Its spring break. I’m going to try really hard to not think of school at all for the next seven days, and concentrate solely on working full time at Y-Care for conference week. After all, Pretty Pretty Princess takes some pretty heavy concentration.