and the month winds down

howdy everyone,

today while walking around listening to my ipod (a favorite ritual here), i had the strangely poetic sense that my walk felt a bit like the end credits of a "coming of age" type film...in which lauren varner goes to amsterdam, learns about sexuality and "finds herself" during a month of bittersweet loneliness...ha! as dramatic and self-indulgent as that sounds, i realized that i have changed a lot here in a relatively short amount of time, and i feel a lot more "sure of myself" as an independent, capable and confident human being. i felt really young when i first got here, not just in the academic setting of the summer institute, but as i tried to navigate the city by myself, and just in my own conception of myself as very young and clueless and frustrated. but in just a few weeks of being here, i feel like i've come to "own" my cluelessness and be a little bit more proud of it. Alice Miller, who i've mentioned probably way too many times in this blog, (she taught last week's rights course) told me that she's been clueless a million different times in her life and hasn't died yet, and encouraged me to go with the flow and not worry so much about being successful in "the future." it was great to hear that from someone in a position that i really respect tremendously, and i felt like a big weight came off my shoulders. i'm really lucky to have so many interests, as well as the resources and social position to explore them, so my overwhelming sense of this experience is, simply, of gratitude...

it's been a neat trip, and a month abroad is not nearly as long as it sounded originally! apologies for the delay in sending out all the postcards i've promised, i really want to send one to everyone before i've left the country, but you might not get them until i'm already home. i haven't been souvenir shopping much yet either (though i have found time to go to H&M and buy stuff for myself...hehe) so please let me know if there's anything special from Holland that you fancy (don't say hash brownies, because i might have some difficulties with customs...)

The last two classes began today, and I think it's going to be a terrific week. The morning class is taught by a filmmaker and media scholar from India named Shohini Ghosh, and the class is called "Representation and Sexuality." It's really more of a media studies class than a sociology, psych or anthro class, which is great news for me! I didn't realize I'd have the chance to use some of my media and communications knowledge here, and it should be great to get into the question of how we represent sexualities (esp in film, which is her central area of work and research) and what that means for our real lived experiences...

The afternoon class is called "Infinite Heterosexualities" and is taught by a young Wellesley professor named Sea Ling Cheng. I'm still getting a feel for what this class is about exactly, but given today's lecture, it's the class that's resonated with me the most all month. I hope the next 3 days continue that way! We're reading articles about the supposed feminist political subversiveness of non-monogamy, the constructions of how we define "real sex"/legitimate sexual behavior, a rural culture in China that doesn't prioritize a marital bond at all....really fascinating stuff that I think anyone would enjoy, not just students of so-called sexuality studies.

Hmmm, what else...yesterday I spent almost the entire day walking, walking, walking, from the northwestern end of the city all the way around the concentric canal ring to the south and back up to the north on the eastern side, where I visited an awesome microbrewery that's housed inside a real old windmill! I struck up a conversation with a British woman named Elizabeth and her Dutch husband, Jasper, and had a great evening chatting with them about anything and everything. I'll add a couple of pictures that I snapped of the brewery to flickr as soon as I finish writing this...

Well, I've got a bit of a cold coming on that I need to vanquish completely by Friday, so I better get offline, finish reading for tomorrow and catch some z's. Thanks everyone for your comments and for reading my painfully verbose blog entries. I try to keep them short, but I want to remember everything that's been on my mind! (maybe I should have registered two blogs!)

Can't wait to see everyone in Denver in a couple of weeks, and everyone else as soon as possible!

All my love,
Laur