#ourclass

Hola Humanos! 

I am Sarita Alejandra Balbuena! I am a proud 22 year old  Mexicana-Americana (Chicana)! Currently, I am a Senior at Middle Tennessee State University Majoring in Psychology and Double Minoring in Health and Women’s and Gender Studies. I plan on earning my Masters in Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies Certification at Middle Tennessee State University. 

People, especially women, have always fascinated me. From a young age I was extremely observant and inquisitive about the world around me. I noticed that women were not treated as equal. In addition, my experience has been that my Mexican and Latin people have not been treated equal either. 

Combo: Woman + Mexican = Target for Sexism and Racism

Women’s Voices is an outlet for women to freely speak about their shared or unaddressed concerns and experiences with esta vida. 

I will start a conversation with some questions that fellow women have answered already on womensvoices.tumblr.com

How would you describe your love life or relationship status?

The 26th of May, Jesus and I will celebrate one year of marriage. 

I have NEVER EVER felt SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH inner HAPPINESS and JOY in my heart! 

Jesus and I are two independent, intelligent, charismatic, and confident humans. We both are so similar, but never get bored with each other. 

I have found my equilibrium. 

Some days this equilibrium may be thrown off kilter because I am overly sensitive and he is being goofy when I am in a serious mood. However, the little triangle in the middle is the love and silly moments we have together. 

He is my biggest supporter and I am his. We go places and he talks about me as if I was the person to cure cancer. Jesus supports me in every endeavor I currently am doing or want to do. 

I suffered for so damn long, it LITERALLY feels as if I am dreaming.

I finally found someone who believes in me as much as I believe in myself! 

I love him un chingo de madre!

 Do you feel pressured by society, family/friends to be in a relationship or actively dating?

My family always wanted me to avoid dating growing up. This being said, if I did  date someone, they were never demeaning or upset about it. I had crushes and boyfriends since I was in second grade. I thoroughly enjoyed hugs, sweet pecks, playing, and emotional intimacy from my boyfriends at that age. 

Pressure to be in a relationship erupted when I could not stand living in a toxic home environment any longer. I found an outlet in one of my friends and ended up dating him for close to 5 years. His family literally adopted me from their goodness of their heart. I felt pressure to stay in this relationship because of the love, support, and stability I found with being in their family. I had never experienced this in my life before. 

Eventually, this boyfriend and I realized we were not meant for each romantically and no longer had any romantic feelings for each other. I will forever cherish this family’s friendship and loving sanctuary towards me. 

How do you think your relationship status has changed you as a person, and how do you view yourself as a woman?

I do not believe being in a relationship has changed me at the core. At my core I am an optimistic, energetic, intelligent, outgoing, beautiful, empathetic, and confident woman. `

However, I will say behaviors in me have changed. One prominent example, I definitely do not party Wednesday - Sunday anymore and go to work and school with less than 4 hours of sleep. 

Hey! My name is Lauren Hamblin. I am currently a senior at Middle Tennessee State University with a major in English and a double minor in French and Women and Gender Studies. I am from Hendersonville, TN, and grew up in the area around Nashville, but I was born in West TN, in a city called Dyersburg. 

Apart from school, some of my hobbies included studying witchcraft and attempting to read my friends’ and families’ tarots. I also enjoy reading (English major!) and watching shows and movies on Netflix and Hulu. Along with tarot and witchcraft, I am particularly interested in East Asian cultures, especially Korean culture recently, I’ve been listening to a ton of BTS!  

After graduation, I hope to get my teaching license in order to teach English as a second language and I’d like to travel somewhere for a few years to teach English and have fun in another country. My long term career goal is to eventually get my Ph.D. and teach English classes focused on either Children’s and Young Adult Literature, or the idea of “celebrity” in popular culture. Ultimately, I want to be able to have an open dialogue about women’s issues not only in the Western Hemisphere but also across the globe and I hope that through advances and more studies done in Women and Gender Studies, we can achieve that. I look up to the many women around me for inspiration on how to navigate a world which is still largely male-dominated but has many women that are attempting to dislodge that idea in our culture. 

How would you describe your love life/ relationship status:

- I’ve never really been one to “date” because I have always been focused on myself and my school rather than being in a relationship. For me, it was always more important to be secure within myself than to look for someone else to essentially “complete” me. Dating was also something that I saw a lot of my friends doing when I was in high school and I saw how much of their time and energy was put into maintaining their relationship and I guess that kind of turned me off of dating because I felt like that’s how relationships were and I felt like if I was in a relationship, I would forget about my own needs and my goals because I would be trying to constantly maintain my relationship with another person.

Do you feel pressured by society, family/friends to be in a relationship or actively dating?

- I don’t think right now I feel pressure from my family to date just because I am still in school and my family has always instilled in me the idea that I need to be successful myself before I start a relationship with someone else. So no, I don’t feel pressured by them right now, but I can’t say for sure that won’t change in the years coming because I am graduating in a few months and I will be expected to start doing adult things, which may or may not entail dating and/or getting married. That is not something that I personally am looking for now, but my family and my parents specifically might start to put pressure on me to get married once I graduate college. Also, I don’t feel pressured by my friends because I surround myself with strong women who believe just like me that women do not need to rely on a man to take care of them.

 How do you think your relationship status has changed you as a person, and how do you view yourself as a woman?

- More importantly than anything else, I think not having been in a relationship teaches me every day that I can accomplish things on my own and that I do not need to rely on anyone else to be successful. I think my own self worth is so much higher because I know my own capabilities and I know what I can do without help from anyone else. I don’t think not having been in a relationship makes me feel less than or anything because I know that I am happy being single right now in my life and I know that I am not looking for a relationship at the moment. 

A song that defines me as a woman? 

- There are too many to count, but I guess I’d say NO by Meghan Trainor. ;)

Shout out to all the women out there who work their tails off to make the world a better place for women! #girlpower

Our class of LEA gathers students who didn’t knew each other and students who already know each other.

One day, we were having a conversation and we noticed that when we entered the class, the place of each student was already attributed. It means that the class was divided in groups even if everybody spoke with each other. Sometimes the class was separated in 2 groups, on the right side the girls and in the left the boys. We noticed that our group of friends was mainly composed of colored persons and on the other hand there was another group which gathered white people. Our class is full of diversity !

Concerning the people who are often late in class, we can observe that their are people who come in public transports and people who drive to go to the university. People who lives near the UPEM and those who have a car tend to arrive right on time or to be often late, while the people who live far arrive earlier. It can be explained by the schedules of the public transports which does not necessarily match the schedules of classes. But sometimes the ones who are late, are late because it is simply in their nature!

But despite the different groups in class everybody talks to each other and nobody is put aside, which create a good atmosphere in class.

Wait, wait, there’s more

One-Night-Only Event, Monday, April 13 at 7pm, directed by Cosmin Chivu, The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center and the Polish Cultural Institute New York present a New York debut staged reading of Our Class, Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s critically-acclaimed play. The star-studded cast includes  Emmy, Oscar and Tony-winner Ellen Burstyn; Obie winner Alvin Epstein; Tony-nominee Boyd Gaines; Mamie Gummer…