Tissues on standby & tears on my hijab [(short) RANT]

 

Filing this under 'history' because right now I'm pissed off, but I am well aware the tears will dry. 

Riddle me this: why would a professor select my application out of over 1,100 (implying I was in at least the top 99.4th percentile of applicants), interview me, mention specific details about my application, then tell me, 'To be transparent, you don't have the technical background I'm looking for, & I don't want to waste your time.' Bless your heart, but you already did.

She could have gathered that lack of applicable technical background from my application, which she obviously did read, so I simply do not understand!

Aaanyways, I wholeheartedly believe that what is meant for me will never miss me, & what missed me was never meant for me. (& believe me, my camel was tied. In fact, my annoyance stems from how long I spent tying that knot — I may be stretching the metaphor thin— perhaps as that rope was stretched thin, for the camel seems to have wandered, despite my best efforts.)

Messy thoughts on indeterminate Indonesian education nonprofit

I just came off of a call with the CEO of an emerging education nonprofit in Indonesia. I won't say the name of either the CEO or the nonprofit — I'm sure search engines do not particularly favor a college student's blog post, but I don't want my completely unaffiliated thoughts polluting their online presence, both out of respect for their mission & because I don't want to get into any trouble. (I sound like a startup intern who has signed an NDA: ~ stealth nonprofit ~.)

I wanted to put this down as a blog post because I foresaw myself wanting to tell friends & family about this conversation & I realized I'd be saying/texting the same things over & over, so I might as well write it down here. + that was the whole point of this blog, record-keeping of such things.

I was first struck by how we speak the same — a Sydney-to-Jakarta upbringing, it turns out, doesn't sound too different from my Indo-centric American upbringing. We conversed in primarily English, punctuated by clauses in Bahasa. I only lost her once, when she mentioned the name of a Sumatran regency — a kabupaten — the syllables were too fast & unfamiliar for me to catch with my pink Muji pen.

I was next struck by how we speak the same — this time, in terms of educational equity & impact *at scale*. Ever since hearing somebody use the words 'at scale' in an educational change context last summer, I have been spamming this phrase to no end. But only because it really resonates with me! I am so interested in how researchers, policymakers, & nonprofits can design & improve entire systems in education — how can we do right by students, making positive change for as many students as possible, at geographic scale & numeric scale? Keeping in mind that with great power comes great responsibility, & that impact can swing either way. I also loved her use of the phrase 'virtuous cycle' — it's so social-good, systems-change, optimistic in a way that also resonates with me. Is there any reward for goodness except goodness? [55:60]

Though... I am slightly skeptical of the nonprofit model & their theory of change. I think a lot about teacher service fellowships (e.g. Teach For America & the broader Teach For All ecosystem), & I wonder whether this explicitly marketed emphasis on 'fellowship participation is an investment in your own professional growth' can be extractive, in that your 2 years of service becomes, intentionally or unintentionally, a phase of 'slumming it' for the résumé. & I so trust that the majority of people applying for these selective teaching fellowships do have good intentions, but I've also read so much about these good intentions ending up in burnout, teacher churn (which has demonstrated negative impacts on student achievement), & fellows being used as anti-union scabs, at least in the U.S. context — I should read more broadly! I am dually hopeful & cautious.

& I very much respect the energy & passion that the CEO brings to the org. I worry I might have come off as very scatter-brained, since my sentences are rarely linear, but she told me I clearly have a lot of energy & passion myself (true), that I don't seem like a trend follower (avante-garde!), & I definitely seek out info (i.e. I asked her so many questions). Which I suppose is a positive assessment? Maybe I need to stop worrying what people think of me. She gave me some insight into her own professional trajectory, having started in government, moved to fintech (product & regional expansion), then education nonprofit work. She advised me to take advantage of my youth to grow as fast as I can, gaining as much money/knowledge/fulfillment/[whichever success metric is most meaningful to me] as possible. & she emphasized that growth comes from taking on immense challenge, backed with immense support. She had those talking points down, masha'Allah. 

Very interesting convo — I always love to read/think/talk about TFA, & lately I've been thinking a lot about similar models in the Indonesian context, so very fascinating to talk to someone at the top! Will definitely stay in contact & track the nonprofit's progress.

Reflections on a Smithsonian summer 🌞

The day I was introduced to contra — thank you Smithsonian Folklife Festival & Appalachian friends!

To know me is to know that I LOVE museums.

I myself didn't realize just how much until I started writing my application essays for Smithsonian Institution internships about one year ago.

In 9 applications across 3 museums & 2 Smithsonian offices, I waxed poetic about 'wonder' & 'temples of knowledge' — the true wonder is that my supervisor Fiona saw past the platitudes & offered me an interview, then an internship.

During that first Zoom conversation, I told Fiona, former English major that she is, that I was at a Plathian 'fig tree' point in my life — I could see my life branching out in so many different directions, I had so many interests, & museums were a frontrunner.

Last summer, I interned under the Office of Education & Experience at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Quite a time to be in DC, working in the cultural sector — as the Trump administration *attempted to* redirect funding from the National Museum of the American Latino & the Anacostia Community Museum & *attempted to* do away with the Institute of Museum & Library Services, which supports museums, libraries, & archives across the U.S., as well as *successfully* pressured National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet into stepping down & *successfully* initiated an internal review of all Smithsonian exhibits to snuff out all traces of 'divisive narratives' in anticipation of the Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary of America, indexing from the Declaration of Independence). Not to mention the whole fiasco of the NMAH impeachment exhibit, which even got Colbert airtime, ooh la la. Never a dull day!

While I did, for a few fleeting hours, occupy the NMAH building (a veritable stone fortress constructed at the height of the Cold War, originally billed as the Museum of History & Technology) at the same time as Vice President & Smithsonian Board of Regents Member J.D. Vance, I was decidedly far from the political action. As a Daily Experiences intern, I designed, prototyped, & facilitated daily experiences during peak season at the 8th-most visited museum in America. 'Daily Experiences' implies employee/volunteer docent/summer intern-facilitated educational programming — not tours, but interactive programs designed to enrich visitors' experiences & engagement with history.

Eager guinea pig for Berea broom-making lesson!

With my lovely intern crew of Evan, Charles, & Eliana, & under Fiona's patient tutelage, I helped develop Semiquincentennial programming to accompany the 'Buff George' statue, i.e. Horace Greenough's original 'Washington Monument,' which originally sat in the U.S. Capitol rotunda & now greets visitors as the landmark object of 2 West (the 2nd-floor west wing, in NMAH lingo). Through running the stereoscope cart & the World War I animals cart (ask me about daguerreotypes & messenger pigeons — I am happy to talk about either), we helped visitors of every age, from around the nation & the world, understand that 'history is all around us' & 'the past connects to the present.' Individually, I researched Civil War nursing to assist museum theater specialist Julie with developing a theater program. In behind-the-scenes tours, we got to see Mr. Rogers's original sweater, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch, dresses dyed with arsenic, & so much more. & I would be remiss to omit our dear 'cousins' from Berea College — Alethia, Baella, & Beth — intern colleagues whose work often overlapped with ours, & who became good friends over the course of the summer. I learned so much about history, public history in particular — I like Evan's definition of 'however we make history palatable to the general public' — education, museums, & the politics of cultural institutions in the nation's capital. 

2012. Probably my first visit to D.C., & I'm 90% sure we went to at least the National Air & Space Museum.

In 1826, James Smithson, an Englishman who had never set foot in the Americas, entrusted the United States with his fortune, with which he requested the government create an 'establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge.' Almost 200 years later, & after so many years in awe of the Smithsonian Institution, I got to play an active role in that diffusion of knowledge, & it was truly an honor.

—

To 'get political' again (though I believe most everything is inherently political), I want to offer some thoughts on cultural institutions:

I grew up at the public library, & at the museum, & listening to NPR on the way there & back. On my weekends, I maxed out my family's library cards & watched PBS Kids. I was raised on the publicly funded diffusion of knowledge, & I am all the more knowledgeable, kind, & civically engaged for it. 

The Trump administration tells us we cannot afford our cultural institutions — that our museums, libraries, & archives are frivolous dead weight to be shaved off of an inefficient bureaucracy.

Simultaneously, the president places his name on the Kennedy Center, seeks to whitewash National Park discussions of slavery, ... I could go on (& I did, some paragraphs prior). How telling! 

Evidently, the truth is precisely the opposite — we cannot afford to lose our cultural institutions, whether to defunding or bad-faith revisionism. These buildings, their collections, & what they represent, alongside our laws, our courts, & all the rest, are institutions that underlie American democracy. To quote Devon Akmon, chair of the board of the American Alliance of Museums, cultural institutions are 'guardians of truth, education, & collective memory.' The past year's political attacks signal at best a disregard, at worst a disdain, for these institutions' crucial role in educating the American populace. (Sidenote: I find it noteworthy that the U.S. is one of few OECD countries that lacks a dedicated Department of Arts & Culture.) The Trump administration's control of cultural activity should make you uneasy — if I were feeling alarmist, I'd call it a harbinger of fascism.

On that cheery note, I sincerely hope my fellow museum people keep up the good fight — that we do not go gentle into that good night.

I am hopelessly in love with this piece: MVSEVM by David Beck. What breathtaking attention to detail, & what ingenuity to tell the story of the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery through miniature, drawing from the aesthetics of Wunderkammer/cabinets of curiosities. I visited SAAM/NPG maybe 8 times over the course of the summer, & I never got tired of seeing this beaut. (I also never got tired of that gorgeous courtyard — if you know, you know.) MVSEVM perfectly captures why I personally love museums — it's the collecting, the preserving for the benefit of the public, it's so noble, & so profound! That status symbols conceived out of colonialism & elitism are now spaces we go to to feel the awe of the simultaneous individuality & universality of the human experience ... maybe now you have some sense of what Fiona was reading in that application essay. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick also speaks to this love.

A new confidante!

I was an avid journaler for many years. More accurately, a diarist — from third to tenth grade, I kept diaries that evolved from My Little Pony covers to classy Peter Pauper Press gloss. No matter the cover, my diary's name remained constant: Saoirse Esperanza Diary — last name Diary. 

My loyalty to the pen petered out in eleventh grade. The reason, as I explained in a Google Doc poem last edited June 17, 2022, was — 

I stopped writing in my diary

and started talking to my friends.

I feel like a teenager.

It’s a constellation of Kodak fireworks in the dark,

the silence of a cue ball hitting its mark.

I’ve never laughed so hard, 

or so much.

Our coming of age is here, on its way out, at the back door, shotgun house,

too fast for me to mark it down in the guestbook Bible.

I try, but what I write is costumed lies

stumbling across an ink-flooded stage,

papier-mâché trying desperately

to convince you it is china.

Maybe when we are done and through

and we avoid each other in supermarket lines and half-alive groupchats,

when there is nothing we can talk about and it used to be that there was nothing we couldn’t talk about

and reunions sound like hell but we suggest them anyways because it’s what we’re supposed to do,

maybe then, I’ll sit myself down

in a cubicle in a city I swore I would never live in and

write to the old confidante

and in retrospect everything will be colored honest and blue.

For now,

the sentences I cannot arrange

the adjectives I cannot find

the moments I cannot put into words

will loiter like mourners

around the stack of books beside my bed.

For now,

people listen better than paper.

I italicized it so you could skip past it more easily — teenage joy-turned-angst is hard to read. But I included it because I find I still like some parts, despite the triteness. TL;DR: So many noteworthy things were occurring in my life, I was so happy with my friendships, & I felt I could not adequately capture my emotions/memories, not at the pace life was moving at. (As a sidenote, the prophecy is coming true — said groupchat is half-alive, I've attended reunions I regretted. *I've yet to see friends in a supermarket line or work in a cubicle — insha'Allah I get a job, cubicle or not, in this economy.)

This blog is not the old confidante. Saoirse has been laid to rest. But I've found myself missing the regular practice of writing; concurrently, I've found myself thinking thoughts (how novel!) & wanting to put them someplace. & though these thoughts are often academic/professional/intellectual (I hate using the word intellectual in self-reference, forgive the pretentiousness!) in nature, I cannot bring myself to post on LinkedIn — I feel like a jester.

Though there certainly remains an element of performance in this blog — if I wanted my thoughts unread, I could've relegated them to Saoirse once more. I'm not sure who my intended audience is, & I'm not sure what balance of professional/personal I'm aiming for here. I think that's something I'll figure out.

But I wanted to have a record somewhere, of Biruni & the becoming of Biruni (I'm thinking about Educated by Tara Westover, the way she writes about education as transformation). I am an archive enthusiast, & I hope this corner of the internet can serve as a lil archive — a documentation/memorialization of me, my studies (inside the classroom & out), & (ideally) my progression.

Bismillah!