Leadership in Social Work

A few years ago, I attended a campaign training for progressive individuals who were looking to run for office. Throughout the weekend, the training organizers brought in elected officials, campaign professionals, lobbyists, and other people involved in public affairs with the intention of using their knowledge and insight to benefit those intending on running for public office.

At one point, a state legislator came in to talk about her experience on her campaign as well as being a public servant. And during the Q&A, one of the attendees started his question with the statement, “well, we know that we need to elect LGBTQ women of color…” He continued to list these off, not as separate identities, but as the identities of one singular person.

When he was finished, the state legislator, who is herself a woman of color, replied with something along the lines of “you don’t need someone who checks off boxes. You need someone who is a servant and is passionate about serving their community.”

God in Active Voice

The Series Finale Approaches

Have you ever gone back to the beginning of a show that you're caught up on and think "wow. I forgot how different that character's hair was back then" ? And then you start to remember how much has happened to that character and all the development and plot arcs. All the introductions of characters that help make the show worth watching. The subplots that turn out to have major effects later on. All that stuff.

Let's imagine that my college experience is a TV show. We are nearing the end of season four, which is supposed to be the series finale (for now at least... producers are supposed to pick it up again in a few years). Season Four Beth is the best version of the character so far. Things really fell into a groove and the character developed really nicely. And I'd like to honor that development with a series recap.


SEASON ONE

Season One starts out with the character Beth in a rough place. A few months before the series began, her paternal grandfather died unexpectedly, which set up a few things later. Then, just days before the first episode, she got cut from the marching band at her college. This is the first Major Plot Point. 

Look at that picture, at that character.She's so young. So naive. Look at her taking a selfie with the White House (she doesn't know what Season Four is set to bring). Her hair is long and she's wearing contacts. Things are not great, but they're okay.

This picture was taken days before the second Major Plot Point of the series: the death of her maternal grandmother. It would influence the events and characterization of both seasons one and two. In fact, the entire second half of season one is just the aftermath of this plot point, for Beth and all her family.

However, it is in season one that we introduce a couple new characters. Because Right As Things Look Terrible, Beth decides to join a club. Here we are introduced to Miranda, Ashley, and eventually Kalindi. These are very important characters that will prove invaluable in later seasons.

SEASON TWO

Season Two also starts off really rough. Despite a cool little subplot in Honduras, season two starts off with a break-up and it's a bad one. First fifteen minutes of an hour long car ride. The writer's reaaaallly wanted some good drama there. The character of Beth in the above picture looks happy but was actually very sad. Her hair is long and straight (which may or may not have been an unconscious theme as the character explored herself deeper post break-up?)

However, they started to pull the other characters that we met in season one into the story. They had started to become more important as the first season went on, but they really became crucial in season two. 

The girls and Beth really start to develop those deep friendships most shows can only dream of showing. They spend a lot of time together (almost every episode) cooking, laughing, goofing off. There was a sleepover episode, a musical episode, and so many more. As the post-break-up drama unfolded in season two, these characters really made it worth watching.

Also, it's just about the second half of season two where the writers started to really get the character of Beth. So far, she had been a goody two-shoes nerd type, taking a lot of chemistry and watching a lot of Doctor Who. It fit well for a while, but it was around this time that the character kept going to events or meeting characters who changed her interest more into social justice and public policy. And that's where it gets interesting.

SEASON THREE

Season three would be unremarkable if it wasn't for the introduction of a new love interest for the character Beth. I mean sure, she started enjoying her classes, moved in with a couple of the characters, and got a cool new job selling drugs, but otherwise it was pretty normal. What made it really interesting was this subplot of Beth joining a college humor magazine. One thing's for sure though: the show got a lot funnier from then on. 

Perhaps the most important introduction in this season was the character Allan. He started off as a side character that Beth was growing friendly with due to their shared interest in musicals. But after a two-part episode first featuring the musical Billy Elliot followed by an awkward third-wheel situation in a cornmaze, the writer's started to flesh out their relationship more and it worked really well.

I do think his dialogue could have a little less in the way of puns, but his character has this cool theme/phrase thing where he lists "Things In This World I'm Perfectly Alright With". It's really cool and becomes really important in some plots in season four.

SEASON FOUR

WOW. Season four has been a whirlwind from start to finish. From the get go, Beth was out and about doing really awesome things. First there was this multi-episode plot arc in New York City (with guest appearances by Seth Meyers and Lin-Manuel Miranda, among others) followed by an episode where Beth learns she wants to run for office?

Then it picked up with Beth having to finish all her classes at once in order to get to do an internship special in the second half of the season. This made for good TV as there was never a dull moment. From the pharmacy drama and the classes to the subplot in which Beth was a semifinalist for a major award (I am still bitter that subplot didn't pan out better).

And Beth gets a tattoo and chops off her hair and then starts the internship plot arc after the show picks up in January. And BAM, suddenly the character of Beth is a professional adult. She starts working for a non-profit, planning all these programs. She's in a play, she starts a novel, she gets more tattoos, she writes a song. Everything comes together for the character of Beth. She's finally the character that she was meant to be all along, from her interests to her hair, to the tattoo inside her right wrist: She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
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I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost...

Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time in the year 2003, there was a young girl named Beth. Beth was a very fun kid to be around, always enjoying attention and ready to talk about anything (until you made her stop). Sometimes though, Beth had a bit of a hard time connecting with her fellow third graders because Beth was very smart and (unfortunately) she knew that. 

 This is Little Beth.

In Beth's opinion, it was much easier to talk to grown-ups. The other kids didn't really like the same things she liked, like space or reading books far past her grade level.

Then along came a cartoon called Scooby-Doo. 

Scooby-doo was a classic even way back in 2003, but it was around that time that Scooby-Doo had been rebooted. Cartoon Network had "What's New Scooby-Doo?" with what is arguably the best Scooby-Doo theme song of them all, and in theatres around the country played the live-action remakes Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Little Beth fell deeply in love with Scooby-Doo. She read the books, watched the movies and cartoons endlessly, and made up stories to play whenever she could.

Scooby-Doo changed Beth. She finally found something that she could talk about with other kids, because everyone knows Scooby-Doo. But something deeper was happening too: Beth had finally found a character she could identify with by the name of Velma Dinkley.

Velma was the smart girl of the Mystery Incorporated team. She often solved the mysteries, built gadgets, and was a critical part of the team. Beth saw some of herself in Velma and wanted to be like her. (So much in fact that when Beth complained that she couldn't see the chalkboard at school, her mother hesitated to take her to the eye doctor because she thought Beth wanted glasses to look like Velma).

Skip ahead to 2016. Little Beth has grown into Big Beth.

Big Beth still loves Scooby-Doo and the character Velma. In fact, she considers it even better now because she has true Velma glasses (and true Velma eyesight) as well as all the stories on Fanfiction.net, Archive of Our Own, and Tumblr to entertain herself with.

This is Big Beth.

A few days ago, Beth went to go see the new Ghostbusters movie. Twice. In one weekend. (That hasn't happened since the last Harry Potter  movie came out). Like she was with Scooby-Doo all those years ago, Beth is in love. 


Okay. Enough third person.

Yes. I've seen Ghostbusters twice this past weekend when it opened. And you know what? I'm gonna see it again. I liked it that much. Whether or not it's well-written, funny, or possibly has a lot in common with Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed is besides the point. 

Though I think all of the aforementioned points are indeed true, I really like it because I can't help but think of Little Beth.

When I say "fell deeply in love" with something, I mean "became utterly obsessed to the point of no return". No really. I consumed all that Scooby-Doo media because I just couldn't get enough. I still maintain that the Scooby-Doo franchise is one of my favorites. I still really love the character of Velma Dinkley, all because I could identify with the smart girl character and could talk about it with the other kids.

I cannot imagine what Little Beth would have done if she saw a movie with FOUR smart girls.

It's very likely she would have exploded. 

But really.

FOUR girls who are smart? FOUR girls who are funny? FOUR girls who can kick butt? FOUR girls who all look different?

I was lucky enough to be raised by a mother who always pushed my sister and I to be more. She told us "'they' will tell you girls can't do math and science. You have to prove 'them' wrong."

If one smart girl character could make Little Beth proud of being smart and learning all she could, what could four do?

That's why I choke up a bit when I see pictures or videos of little girls dressed up as Ghostbusters meeting the Ghostbusters. Because when we say "this movie is for little girls" I know exactly what they mean. I was that little girl. And I am now the woman who recognizes how important that is. 

So I'm gonna see it again. I'm gonna giggle and laugh at the four brilliant ladies to bring the story to life on screen. And I'm probably gonna cry a little when I those pictures of the little girls seeing themselves onscreen. And I'm gonna think about Little Beth because Little Beth would have been all over that... probably a little too much.

Image source: AP, retrieved from popsugar.com

Disjointed Thoughts: Day One

• I have never known a time without hardcore airport security. 
• So much for millennials and their technology. The two 20-somethings sitting here are the only ones reading paper books.
• This flight is probably only the third time I've ever used airplane mode on an airplane.
• Do not cry on the plane. Do not cry on the plane. Do not cry on th
• God be with me. God is with me. God be with me. God is with me.
• I swear I just peed twenty minutes ago.
• Don't drink Starbucks before a flight.
• I almost lost an earbud thingy already? What the hell I just put them down for like two minutes.
• "Uptown Funk" is a good song to listen to when trying to regulate rhythm to relieve stress.
• Stomach, why didn't you tell me you were hungry before we got on the airplane.
• "And in that moment, I couldn't tell what was vibrating faster- the plane or my heart." - an excerpt from a longer piece of Revolutionary Young Adult Fiction I wrote while the plane taxied. 
• [Peter Pan voice] Here we gooooo!
• Isn't east the other way?
• Holy shit
• I don't care what they say. The Greater Columbus Convention Center does not look like train cars even from the air.
• Clouds
• I can see all of Pennsylvania
• I have to pee
• Mini pretzels have never tasted so good
• Wow. Pepsi and Coke products?
• Conspicuously watching the lavatory door...
• Oh thank goodness
• Is that fracking or strip mining? Well whatever it is it ain't good.
• NEW YORK CITY
• There's a sign for a dog run but I don't see any dogs. What lies.
• I'm in the greatest city in the world and I want to take a nap.
• A firetruck stopped by Times Square traffic
• 30 Rock. 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Good. I remembered the address this time.
• I have taken 15,000+ steps today. Standing for 8 hours every day at Walgreens has trained me well. 
• Just keep walking and show no expression. They'll never know.
• Trains! Trains are exciting! Trains smell weird!
• Dogs! Dogs are exciting! And they smell weird too!
• I feel weird that the waiter assumes I'm 21 and offers me a drink menu even though he'll be right in less than three months. 

This Post Starts Out Fun, but You'll Never Guess What Happens Next

Yesterday my boyfriend and I were discussing Star Wars. Recently he, as well as my mother, roommate, friends, and a probably a significant portion of Americans, are disappointed in me because I, a self-proclaimed nerd, have not seen all of the movies.

Commence groaning.

In the month since the seventh installment was released, I have been exposed to more Star Wars than I have been in years.  And through this exposure, I'm starting to think I have seen them. Or at least I know what I need to know: use the Schwartz and the one guy is the other guy's dad.

See? I got it. 

But as we talked about the movies, I mentioned how, despite seemingly universal dislike, I wanted to watch the prequels because 1) I am required to and 2) Natalie Portman.

And as I explained this to him, I found myself saying something like this:  "If you haven't noticed by now, all of my favorite characters as a kid were the women. And they still are. Mostly girls who kick ass or girls who are nerds. Preferably girls who are nerds who kick ass, because that is who I am."

He laughed and said this:  "Of course. I mean, how dare you like characters that you identify with and want to be like?"

I don't think he knows how much I have been thinking about this comment. 

I mean yes. Identity has a lot to do with it. 

I like the character Velma from Scooby-Doo because she was a smart female character who was loved by her friends and was necessary in solving mysteries. I felt a similar thing with Hermione Granger. 

Over and over I identified with female characters because of things like this.

So when he said this out loud, it struck me as to just how much I have perceived this as a bad thing. As in, I have trained myself to think that enjoying these characters (and sometimes real people) to the extent I do is embarrassing. 


But as I've thought about it further, I have found myself thinking more and more that it's not just about identity. It's about simply liking the character.

There Are As Many Names For This Post As There Are People In New York City

Many times when I get emails from the OSU College of Pharmacy, I double check which listserv they were sending it to because I didn't believe it was meant to come to me. I don't need to attend PharmD lectures or do APhA stuff or whatever. 9.9/10 the emails go straight to the trash.

Thank goodness I did not delete the BuckISERV email.

BuckISERV is an OSU organization that does Alternative Breaks.They send a thousand or more students all over the US and world to do service work for a week out of their break. For Spring Break 2015, over twenty different trips went to four different countries. 

The specific trip was meant only for Bachelor's of Science of Pharmaceutical Science (BSPS) students. We learned about it way back in December 2014, and I knew immediately that I wanted to go. I mean, the participants paid only $375 and the trip leaders paid $190. When will I ever get to go to New York City for less that $200 again? Never. Of course, that is not all I spent in NY. The $200 only covered lodgings and transportation. But still. 

Seeing as this was the COP's first trip with BuckISERV, there wasn't really anything pharmacy-ish about it. Instead we worked with the Youth Services Opportunities Project (YSOP), a Quaker organization that works with 90+ hunger and homelessness agencies around New York City and Washington DC. 

Our trip of 15 was divided into three groups, matching three groups from the University of Arizona. Yeah they got a bit of a shock when arriving to east coast weather. Anyways, each of the six groups were sent out to a new location around the city each day. Between all of us, we served over 3,000 people in some kind of aspect of hunger and homelessness.

My group went to Brooklyn twice and to the Bronx twice. As much as I loved the subway, I was not pleased to have to ride it for two hours or more everyday. It's only so cool for so long.

Day 1: More Grace Redemptive Center

The first day we went down into Brooklyn to serve at a food pantry called More Grace. It was run by volunteers, the leader of which was named Rose. Since we were there on Monday, the volunteers were readying bags to hand out on Tuesday.

The most memorable thing about More Grace was the thousands of onions we bagged for the next day. Literally. Twenty fifty pound bags full of red onions were bagged in grocery bags to give out the next day. We began to worry we'd get weird looks on the way back for smelling like onion.

In addition to bagging onions, we bagged up a small thing of groceries. Each bag had the same basis: a cereal, a box of milk, a jug of juice, three cans of veggies, some kind of grain, and some kind of protein. The ladies would line them up on top of some freezers, and once all thirty were all lined up and had the same items, Rose would say go and we would bag them all up and load them into carts. 

Overall this day was pretty good, though there was not a whole lot to do. After lunch we kept asking for more things to do, but they said "we'll come get you" over and over again. It was fun to have a break for a while, but we already had to leave early to get back to YSOP, and we didn't feel like we did a whole lot. 

Day 2: Immaculate Conception Soup Kitchen/ Baby Buggy/ YSOP Dinner

This was a day where we learned just how important it is to have the proper contact. 

We arrived early and asked for our jobs as usual and they told us to wash down the tables and then roll the utensils. We got all of this done within half an hour or so. 

This was a mistake.

Around 10:30 am, an older man came over to us and started yelling at us. Apparently, YSOP never tells them when volunteers were comingand there was a group of adults with developmental disabilities doing workforce development that come everyday and we just took all the work from them.  We apologized as best we could saying that we were only given locations, to which he basically told us to shut up. 

We worked out a new location with YSOP, and ended up on another hour and a half train ride, this time from the Bronx down to Midtown. We apologized again and left.

It turns out that the woman who was supposed to work things out wasn't. YSOP told us that normally all the volunteers work together and it's a lot of fun. Just goes to show how important good communication is. 

We ended up at Baby Buggy, an organization started by Jerry Seinfeld's wife to make an upper scale thrift store for new or gently used baby items. We spent about an hour sorting clothes. It wasn't bad, but we were so tired and angry that it kind of sucked. 

That night though was one of the best experiences there. 

The New York Society of Friends is based in runs a 12 person private shelter, and that night we cooked dinner for our guests. We made lasagna, salad, garlic bread and brownies. Around 6:30 our guests arrived and we served them food and played games.

I invited one of the women over to sit with me and our the two trip advisors/ COP career advisors. At first it was really odd to break the ice. I mean, it's always difficult, but it is always harder when you know the reason you're there. 

Next to us on the table was  pack of cards, so she pulled them out and taught us how to play spades. It was so fun. We started off kind of slow and by the end of the night we were all laughing at how one of the advisors couldn't remember the trump cards even though we had written them out for him. 

As we played she talked about her life a bit and something stuck out. She talked a lot about wanting to go somewhere where she could ride horses or how much she liked swimming really far out off of Coney Island. 

Later on that night, all of the OSU teams got together at our hostel to have a group reflection. Our theme was Humans of New York, because the photographer does such a good job of giving everyone he talks to a sense of humanity. I asked people to think about any "Humans of New York lines" they heard, or what sort of thing stuck out to them. There was definitely something significant about the woman we talked to and how much she seemed to want to get away.

Day 3: Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger

On Wednesday we went out to Brooklyn again. We signed in and began talking to the woman in charge named Regina. She showed us around the office where they assisted people with taxes, helped people apply for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program aka food stamps), and the warehouse where they had the food pantry. 

Each person got a certain number of points based on the number of people in their family. These points could then be used to get three days worth of vegetables, fruits, grains, and protein. It operated very much like a store, but with volunteers who made sure people only could take as much as they were allowed. They could "shop" the full pantry once a month, and come for fresh fruits and veggies once a week.

One thing that stood out to just about everyone on the trip was that there were volunteers who seemed not to bat an eye at turning away these people who were hungry. Of course they do this all the time, and in the five hours I stood there directing people to get the right grains, I could start to tell how they did it. Most people respected that they were allowed this much, or couldn't get that this week, but there were some who insisted anyways. At first I gave in a bit, but then I noticed it more and started to understand. The amount of food available compared to the number of people coming in was not a huge margin. 

The best part of this day was this one guy. When he got to my station I asked how he was and he said "I'm blessed". He had this huge smile on his face, and he was so happy. I helped him get the pasta and rice he wanted, and he moved on to the next one. You could hear in his voice how excited about life he was from the time he entered until he exited. 

Day 4: St. George's Love Kitchen

This was the best day by far. 

We arrived to this soup kitchen in the Bronx around 9:30 and expected to be immediately put to work. Instead we got the chance to introduce ourselves and chat with the other volunteers a bit before the rolls arrived and we started to help out

The doors opened at noon, so once the rolls were buttered and the tables were set, we got more time to talk with the other volunteers. They explained that it was the third Thursday, which meant their group came to help instead of the kids from the school. 

One guy named Artie told us about his grandchildren and how often they go to see them. He told us about how he had lived in the same house for almost fifty years, and he didn't like to ride the train so he drove. One woman named Florence told us about how long she had been volunteering and how she started. 

Once the guests arrived, most of us acted like waiters. First soup, then spaghetti and vegetables with a piece of bread, then their dessert bun. It was busy for about forty-five minutes, and then most everyone had left. 

We helped clean up a bit, and then they offered us food. We accepted and started eating, but what fascinated me was that they kept offering more (even when they gave half a plate's worth of pasta). We talked more about volunteering with another woman who had been a detective for almost thirty years before she resigned and was volunteering to figure out what she wanted to do next. 

Before we left we got hugs from everyone and Artie walked us out to make sure that we knew where we were going. It was the best day so far, and a perfect way to end the week.

I couldn't decide on a name for this post because of all the amazing things I did this week. Here are a few I considered:

• Service and Showtunes
• Live from New York... It's Saturday Night! (And Also The Rest Of The Week)
• I Saw Idina Menzel Perform Live On Broadway And You Didn't
• One Short Day Week In New York City
• I HAVE OFFICIALLY SEEN WICKED ON BROADWAY I CAN DIE HAPPY
• Ain't No I in Island
• When Did Food Become A Privilege And Not A Right?

Amongst others. 

The real topic here though is the last point. 

I have been taking a social policy class and one of the most poignant things I have learned about was food inequality. 

The big thing was the SNAP Challenge. The assignment was to live a week on food stamps, or $30 for one week. We got a day off, but we had to go six of seven days. We kept a journal and at the end we wrote a reflection.

At first it was okay. I made some casseroles, a had stuff for sandwiches. I felt pretty good. In fact, having misjudged the amount of broccoli in the package, the casseroles were probably the healthiest things I had eaten in a while. I was okay. For a while.

As the week went on, I started to feel worse and worse. My classes were really difficult. Taekwondo club was more trouble than fun. I was tired all the time from working ridiculous hours at my job. And on top of that I couldn't eat.

I couldn't take it by the end, and I gave in. It had gotten to the point where I was crying everyday because I was so overwhelmed. I was also writing an addiction paper at the time. I could totally understand if someone's life was like that all the time why they'd want something to take the edge off.

As we learned about this, I was also preparing for the BuckISERV trip. As a trip leader, I did training every week in addition to a Kick-Off event the week after the SNAP Challenge. And going on the trip peaked my interest even more.

Because everything I had ever heard about food stamps and food assistance was about how people were using their money to buy x, y, and z instead of food. Or that this person was caught doing this. Or that they just needed to get a job or a better job or an education or anything. 

That's all utter bullshit.

Yes. There are some people who are fraudulent, but 99% of people are not. They are hungry. And hunger doesn't mean starvation. It means that they aren't able to get healthy food for cheap. It means they have to eat processed food because it is the only thing that they can afford. Think about how many cans of food or Ramen noodles you could get for $20. Now think about how many heads of lettuce or organic meats you could buy. Which is better food? But which one is cheaper?

But if you look up news about hunger, you only see the 1% of people who are cheating. Of course, then we have to treat the other 99% who are just trying to survive the same way, right? We have cut it even more, so that that 1% of people can't cheat? We have to let children go hungry, or people get health problems from eating bad food, or telling people that they are inferior because they don't have enough money to afford decent food. 

It totally makes sense that we treat food like it's a privilege as opposed to a right. 

And by totally makes sense,  I mean it's time for a change. We cannot deny people the right to get healthy and fresh food because they don't make as much money as someone else. 

I am still trying to figure out the next thing that I want to do about this because I'm still trying to figure out the big picture. This, as well as every other social justice issue, is interconnected to 10+ others. How we move forward is under debate because in order to fight the big problem we have to figure out how to fix the smaller ones. 

In New York, we heard a speaker from YSOP who has been doing advocacy and activism throughout her whole life. She said in order to make a big change, we need to help foster a generation who cares. As she said "we need to teach the next generation to give a damn".

I think we can be that generation. We can be the ones to stand up and say "this isn't right" and "this needs to change". We can be the ones to give a damn.