The Poltics of Small Town Voting

I made the leap, y'all. I did the unimaginable, though completely inevitable. I'm excited and ashamed and don't know if Daddy will still respect me, call me son, and slip me gas money every now and again after I confess my transgression.

I switched my voter registration from Mississippi to Tennessee. *Gasp* There, I said it, it's forthwith known throughout the world that I'm a traitor to my Dixieland DeSoto County roots.

Well, really, it's not that catastrophic. It's just more convenient to go down to the precinct in Knoxville in November, cast my vote for Obama, and walk away with my head held high. It sure beats the hell out of the alternative: absentee voting, which is what I've always done until now. In Mississippi, in the primaries, you have to vote with your party, and when I called back in February, I could feel the contempt oozing through the phone lines as I told the woman at the courthouse I'd be needing a Democratic ballot. "Oh, really," she drawled, and I was sure she'd "mistakenly" lose my address. I still shudder when I think about it.

In college, I was very active with the UCA Young Democrats and the Young Democrats of Arkansas. Hell, even the Young Democrats of America, because back in August of '05, I went to the national convention in San Francisco as a representative from the Natural State. Where I wasn't even registered to vote. Oh, the shame.

Despite myriad opportunities to switch my registration, I never did it. Spent countless hours tabling in the Student Center registering others to vote, but never did confess I wasn't an Arkansas voter. Granted, I am a voter. Make no mistakes about that. I've voted in EVERY SINGLE election I could since I turned 18. Even those inconsequential elections to determine the Superintendent of Education and county commissioner. It's just the way my daddy raised me. Daddy is not a religious man. He is skeptical of institutions that require 10 % of your monthly income and water-dunking initiations. But the man votes. Voting is singly important to him, and he raised Jeffrey and me to understand that it is our duty as Americans to vote. He fought for that right in Viet Nam, dammit. Not to vote would be to slap him in the face.

And not to vote in Mississippi will break his heart. Though I haven't lived in Mississippi full-time in 5 years, my father still operates with the understanding that once I'm finished with school, I will move back to DeSoto County, set up a trailer on the 40 acres, and cut his grass when he's too old to do it himself. I won't go into the pros and cons of that set up right now (except to say that I hope Jeffrey feels more inclined to accepting that future than I do), lest I distract myself from the issue at hand: My father is a life-long Mississippian, a law enforcement officer in the Magnolia State, and damn proud of it. He always talked me out of switching my voter registration to Arkansas for some reason or another, and I heeded to his daunting tales of jury duty, the perils of switching my car insurance, and the destruction of the family unit as we know it if I did not vote in the same place he did.

But last night I was out at a free concert in Market Square. The Obama folks were out, and I wanted to find out how I could help out. Well, mostly I wanted a free sticker. When I saw the voter registration forms, I unhesitatingly filled one out. The Obama girl assured me she'd mail it in, and in ever how many weeks, I'll be a registered Tennessee voter. I'm more than a little bit excited.

But please, don't tell my daddy just yet. This is a delicate situation.

Teaching at Tennesse--Day 2

Wherein technology almost foiled my lesson plan.


My mentor sent me an amazing YouTube video created by an introduction to cultural anthropology class at Kansas State University. It's about the failings of the current post-secondary education curriculum for Gen Y students, essentially. I thought it tied in beautifully with article on Gen Y attitudes about work I'd assigned the students Monday. My plan was to come in, have them watch the video (and also pass out some candy, because it's Halloween, after all), and have them respond to these questions: In what ways is school like a job? What are your motivations for being in school? I wanted them to see that they are self-interested, goal-oriented, financially aware young people, as the article I had them read suggested.

My technology mishap occurred when I couldn't get my mentor's lap top to access UT's wireless Internet. She and I both worried with the computer for a few minutes before I decided I'd have the students just respond to the questions and dive straight into the article. The video was a wonderful supplement, but I could work without it. Fortunately, in the 6 or 7 minutes I had them write, my mentor was able to access the wireless and the video went off without a hitch.

I quite shocked myself by being on my toes enough to have a plan b (though I hadn't initially prepared a plan b). I felt really comfortable altering my lesson plan, and I didn't freak out by the thought that (my god!) I might have to spend an extra five minutes blabbing away instead of having the students watch the video. I'm learning to be more flexible.

The greatest part of my teaching experience today was the students' responses to questions I had them write about. These guys, man, they are smart, they think critically, and they know what they want in life. It makes me wonder if I was so pulled together when I was 18...

In other news, I've been writing, writing, writing about all that stuff I don't want to write about for the past couple days (sorry for the angsty post, btw), so poetry class, beware. I'm reading Paradise Lost and realizing, yet again, how much I don't like Milton. I understand how influential his work is. I can agree that his text is culturally and historically important. I'll even go so far to say I understand (slightly) why people should read (parts of) it. Still, that doesn't make me enjoy it anymore.
I think I finally decided on a topic for my Renaissance Tragedy seminar paper. I want to look at the division and measurement of love in King Lear. I'm interested in Lear's preoccupation with hearing he possesses (but not really needing to possess) all of his daughters' affection, why Cordelia refuses to tell him what he wants to hear, and, essentially, why so much in the play (especially Act 1, Sc. 1) rests on the assumption that a person's capacity for love is finite, and that love only exists in one manifestation. Indeed, I want to explore the economic quantification of love in the play. My God, I'm becoming such a Shakespeare nerd.

I'm going to remain tight lipped about the Democratic debates last night and Obama's allegedly anti-gay rhetoric that's been burning up the blog world (Atrios, anyone?). Still processing all the info into an informed opinion.

I realized yesterday upon hearing some classmates talk about veganism that I haven't eaten meat in a good while, and I should just switch to eating strictly vegetarian. But, then, I don't like doing anything strictly. Plus, Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, is coming up, and what's turkey day without the turkey? So, I ate a chicken sandwich and moved on with my life.