Rainy days should be spent reflecting. What else is there to do when you can't go outside?
And who would want to go outside and get your hair all messed up and socks all wet?

So on this day of reflection, I've thought about a number of things.

First, I actually really enjoy spending time away from mine and Glenn's home in Algonquin and staying with Tessa in Champaign. It allows me to forget that I'm married and in "that phase" of my life. What phase is that you may ask? Actually, I'm not quite sure, but I've been told that as a married woman, I'm expected to live a certain lifestyle. Perhaps that lifestyle entails wearing an apron and a string of pearls - things that I don't own nor want. hmm. i'll reflect on that later.

ok so back to refuge in champaign. i never thought that i would find champaign as a space of refuge. but it is, as i can pretend to still be my independent single self. sure, it's not in a big city, like i had always imagined myself living in growing up. but it's a place where i'm on my own - independent. where i own my time and decisions.

Second, i realized that i must go to the gym more often. granted, i've improved a lot. but when i opened that gossip magazine and saw jessica alba back to her perfect body on a few months after pregnancy - i realized that, fuck, i need to work out harder.
thank god for my trainer and for the cheap university rates.

Lastly, on this rainy day of reflection, I found inspiration.
In her book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, bell hooks, talks about the hostility she faced as the only woman of color in a graduate class on Feminist Theory. When she confronted her peers, all of them being white women, they turned on her and said that she was the angry and hostile one. On this she writes,
"Often in situations where white feminists aggressively attacked individual black women, they saw themselves as the ones who were under attack, who were the victims."

I felt outrage and comfort while reading these lines. Outrage at the overt racism taking place and comfort in the idea that bell hooks also felt isolated in her graduate program. However, bell hooks is one of the most successful scholar and activist, proving her capability to rise up against the challenges such as racism in the classroom. I felt comfort in her strength and seek to draw from my own strength to survive in the hell that is called grad school.