Beginnings

Wow! It's been a long time since I last blogged at all. I saw that a friend of mine is making it a goal to blog every day this summer, and while I have lots of commitments this summer and don't know if I can blog every day, I'm going to give it a try to be here more often, even if it isn't to say anything particularly interesting. This summer I'm doing something absolutely fascinating to me. I won a URO scholarship from Ryerson to conduct my own paid undergraduate research project. I'm doing a project that is exploring the lived experiences of Deaf youth. It's a qualitative research project, so we (Meaning my supervisor is helping me with all the planning, but I'm going to be the one responsible for doing it) are going to interview Deaf youth to find out things like the kinds of supports that they have that are good, the supports that were not so good, issues that Deaf youth face today, and all kinds of really amazing things like that. Right now things are really at just the beginning stages. Doing lots and lots of reading, and working on creating a lot of the research-y papers that you need, like consent forms, interview guides, recruitment flyers etc. It's been really great!

 On top of that I just planted a bunch of stuff in my garden this morning. I have plans to take over the backyard of my apartment building with a much enhanced container garden from last year. I also bought swiss chard today and I'm a bit fascinated to see how growing that goes. I'm not entirely sure what you do with it (Or if I'm allergic to it since I'm allergic to collard greens, but I think swiss chard is okay), but I'm looking forward to the adventure. I also have some beets growing and I hope that works out because I love beets.

Other than that, things keep on going. I'm super depressed by the political climate right now. We are in a weird time of back and forth, where we have things like a trans discrimination bill passing a second reading, but Federally women's and Aboriginal services closing. Funding for more and more community services is becoming precarious with many organizations being forced to close their doors. It sucks because we want the outcomes that these services have, but no one is prepared to pay for them. I think I'm going through a phase where I have less energy to fight those things right now. They are too big, and I don't think that the rest of the world quite understands why social services are so important. I seem to be focusing on smaller fights right now. Learning about how to use the system at Ryerson as much as possible to support interpreting. All kinds of things. There have been a million and one small and not so small fights lately.

 I'm looking forward to this summer though. I see lots of things changing. I'm realizing how personal research is. That I am researching people like me. It's starting to sink in how much of a privilege it really is to be asking people to share those experiences, and realizing how those experiences are going to resonate with me and creep into how I define my own identity. Even as I'm doing all of this reading I see things shifting, going back and forth, one way or another. Realizing how everything all fits together in new ways. It is scary being out there in a place where this has never been done before, but at the same time, since I live it, I do have some idea of what I will find out. I don't know. This has kind of just become ramble-y rather than having any kind of focus, but I'm okay with that. It's a beginning and I don't think those are ever completely certain.