Sirens Conference

End of the semester posts coming up, when I have a moment to think to myself. Sweeping surveys, analyses, things I did—my internship, cultural events, what have you. But this isn’t what this post will be about. No, it’s more about…

OMG I REGISTERED FOR THE SIRENS CONFERENCE AND I AM SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!

There.

For those of you who haven’t heard me squeeing, Sirens is a conference being held in Vail, CO from October 1-4, on women in fantasy literature. Coming from the vantage point of my Lit Hum syllabus, when pretty much every woman in those books was either a virgin or a whore (or both! see Sonya), a sacrifice (Iphigenia), suicidal (Dido), a flaming harpy (Medea), defined by suffering (Monica), or just plain scheming and nasty (Goneril, Regan and even Cordelia to some extent). Even Austen’s text is gendered female, and only with Virginia Woolf do we get central female characters who can’t be put into these categories.

And not all of this is on the part of the authors, who were, of course, writing in their appropriate social context where women were accepted signifiers of x and y. That’s what I like best about speculative fiction, because we can depart from the realm of the real, and dare to imagine a society with different social codes. And I prefer fantasy over sci-fi mainly for its aesthetic, with its historical and naturalistic settings. (I do like urban fantasy too, but my favourites have always been the kind where technology ends in the Victorian Era.)

Sirens is therefore tailor-made for me. I mulled about it for a while, wondering if I had the money to go after being abroad this summer, but in the end I decided I really just couldn’t miss this. I can’t miss an opportunity to meet Tamora Pierce AND Sherwood at the same conference, on the types of books I love most, with people who love these books too.

The only thing I need to work out now is hotel. As for airfare, I probably have enough airmiles saved to get me to Denver, and I can just take a shuttle to Vail (hopefully the conference will sort that out). Roommates will probably be the best bet–just have to find people now (anyone? anyone?).

But squee!

the weepies

I realize that I have neglected this blog from a combination of stress, overwork, other random things. The past few weeks have been okay, for those of you who wonder—I got upset a lot and I was also happy a lot, which neutralises to a more general contentedness. I pride myself on not getting down for long.

I read a story in the Times this morning that gave me the weepies. I just sat there and sniffed at my computer for a while, not really knowing what to think. How do these kids keep it going? How do you manage to live on $10 a month in New York City? How do you suffer the deepest pains of poverty and still manage to be cheerful, excited, enthusiastic about life?

The story was linked to me by my school’s alternative news source, because one of those kids listed will be going to Columbia this fall. I don’t wish to sound callous, but I feel like the student body here is split into two “main” categories—the privileged, legacy, wealthy applicants that Columbia courts for their parents’ purses, and then the applicants that had to undergo some form of hardship. Not that I would ever put myself in the category of the kids mentioned in the story, but that’s what it feels like—people who have never known want, and indeed been excessive of want, seated next to someone who grew up with nine siblings under the care of an ailing single mother.

My father arrived in Canada in 1989, after already getting his Ph.D. in physics back in China, already a monumentally difficult task. He was the only one in our family, to this day, who has managed it (except for my cousin, who couldn’t have done it without my dad’s help). He got a full scholarship to the University of New Brunswick, and when my mother and I joined him a year later, that’s what we lived on after the cost of his tuition. It wasn’t much, but we were together, we lived in a room in an old Edwardian house on George Street shared with three other families. My mother never went to university—years later she got an associates degree in accounting, but when we first arrived she used to set up a stand at the flea market selling spring rolls for $1 each.

I don’t think I owned anything new until I was about 8 or 9, but I had nothing to miss, so I had nothing to complain about. Every time we moved, and we moved a lot, we would compile furniture from nearby yard sales or cast-offs from people we knew. We didn’t have cable until we moved to the US (… yes, no cable until I was fifteen), and neither of my parents care for buying new clothes. They always bought for me what I needed, otherwise I would have to pay for what I wanted. This still holds true for today—though Columbia gives me a fair bit of grant aid, my parents pay the rest for food and housing, and everything else I pay for. I’m almost embarrassed to ask my parents for money. It’s always been like that, education is on the list of “needs”—and they’ve saved up for years for it, denying vacations and other luxuries.

So when my mom goes off on a rant about me living in a hole and making only $30,000 a year as an editorial assistant, I know where’s she’s coming from. I don’t know what to tell her, besides to reassure her it’ll be all right, and I’ll figure it out. For them it’s always about getting food on the table, caring for a family, making sure there’s a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. In a sense, I have been so lucky, that I am living off their sacrifice. I don’t think I’ve ever known “need,” so reading this story… I don’t know. I sniffed. I’m still sniffing.