Service Learning Activism Log, Entry Two.

1) This week has been rather uneventful. I talked to Anjella about room reservations for our reproductive health movie night, and to my surprise, because we would like a multimedia room, we need a faculty advisor who must be present at the time of the screening. Women's Studies, as we all know, is run by some of the busiest faculty members around, and there aren't many of them, so I'm still trying to figure that quagmire out. I was specifically hoping for an evening screening to get the best turnout, but obviously, that is the time in which I'm least likely to be able to find an available staff member. I left my number with Anjella and she's going to give it to Lindsay, so I can try to work out a time that she might be available. Otherwise, at Dr. Malaret's suggestion, I contacted Cristina and Rachel from VOX and I'm going to see if NOW can co-sponsor the event, as I'm not sure VOX is a RSO, and NOW most certainly is, in which case, I can have a room in the union and all of the multimedia equipment for free. Basically, details are getting ironed out, but nothing solid has happened yet, which really isn't a big deal, as I'll be tabling for Men's Health Week quite a bit. On that note, Men's Health Week has been scheduled for November 15-19, and I've been emailing Rachel about that as well.

2) As always, VOX is an incredibly vital aspect of UCF's progressive community, and greatly enhances our understanding of reproductive health. The immediacy of these issues is evident in our text, with the articles that analyze the consequences of allowing governmental intervention into the experience of childbearing, as noted in Harjo's essay (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 239-242). Being encouraged to have agency through choice has been denied to women through many means in the past century, and following the reproductive life timeline just because it seems safer and easier is not making an informed choice. Though I was initially reluctant to choose Juno, I feel it is a very sound choice now because I find so much problematic about how the conventional choice has been rebranded as "alternative." Of course, there is no easy choice concerning an unintended pregnancy, nor any "wrong" choice where anyone but the prospective parents are concerned, but I feel that delving into the cult of teen pregnancy as a perverse status symbol is vital to our understanding and encouragement of informed choice.

3) Planning all of this has given me lots of physical exercise, running between offices, and my formal email writing skills are improving by leaps and bounds. It's a lot of experience with practical conflict resolution skills as well. Such and such went wrong, so now I need to do ten more things and talk to a number of other people in order to set up what I at first believed would be a relatively painless project. Regardless, I'm still enjoying the brainstorming process, with respect to what I want to do with the Q&A portion, and depending on the turnout, I'm seriously considering bringing homemade snacks, so that would be a lot of fun.

Works Cited

Kirk, Gwyn, and Okazawa-Rey, Margo. Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.

Word Count: 546