First post

Ok, first post. Deep breath. Not that I ought to worry, I don't intend on letting anyone know I'm blogging until I find my feet a little.

I find the concept of blogging to be intimidating, but suspect it will be cathartic. This is really just a substitute for me sending rambling, ranting feminist tirades at my girlfriends while they're trying to work; or getting increasingly heated as I yell at Mr Tesseract over a few glasses (or bottles) of red about what is so damn wrong with the world and why we need another feminist revolution, while he nods and agrees and wonders when we can put on some sci-fi 'cos the converted don't need so much preaching.

Tesseract: a four-dimensional hypercube. The wikipedia entry pretty much sums up the geometry of the hypercube. In particular I was attracted to the 3-D projection of the tesseract performing a simple rotation. The tesseract, for me, is a powerful representation for identify; complex, interconnected, shifting. Similarly, the fourth dimension often represents time, which taps into ideas of personal and societal history and future. For me the personal is the political, and it is ideas about the dynamics of personal identify and larger political discourse, through time, that I like to think and write about. I use the word political loosely here, if politics is power then politics is everything.

[With the linear passage of time my days as a political science major are increasingly distant...as is my grasp of the nuances of the jargon that goes along with it.]

Should I tell you about the set of characteristics that supposes to make up my identity? It's the only honest thing to do I guess, you have the right to know where I'm coming from, where I am priviledged and where I am subordinated. I'm hesitant all the same, because it allows people to place someone into a tesseract, a box within which you believe you understand the linkages; I know because I do it all the time to people. But here we go anyway: female, heterosexual, white, my body operates within parameters that are considered 'normal', middle class, left wing, not religious, university educated, green. I'm 26 years old. I have family (parents) who are stable individuals with disposable income, this provides me with a significant safety net should things ever go ass-up.

So I'm a woman, but not especially good at being girly, apparently. More shoes and make-up are a feminine remedy I'm not interested in committing to, financially or otherwise. My mother finds my opinionated nature rather 'unladylike'.

I'm married to a man and we live in a monogamous relationship. I guess this makes me functionally and socially a heterosexual.

White. But not quite. Whiter than my Asian best friend, not quite as white as my blond cousins. "Where are you from?" is a question I sometimes have to endure, but not as much as others.

According to government records, I do not live with a disability. How long my eyesight will hold out on this count is unknown.

Middle-class. I grew up in a poor, single parent family in a poor neighborhood (it's now trendy as hell). Currently half my income goes on rent. But somewhere in between there I went to a private school and lived in a 'nice' area. My immediate family is middle class. I suspect all this makes me middle class.

My political leanings (left and green) have been driven largely by a sense of social justice, where that came from I'm still discovering.

Atheist on a good day, agnostic on a bad one. Which of course makes me agnostic, atheism is more an aspirational goal.

I have recently finished my masters degree, after doing two undergraduate degrees.

I promise I will never talk about myself so much on this blog again. I just thought it was good to get it out there. Off to see Ms W and the Red Ferrari crew now. Peace out.