A blog reflection by Women’s Center intern Mariana de Matos Medeiros 

I’ve been working on a draft for this blog post for over 6 weeks. It’s been intimidating and scary to be vulnerable in such a public space.

I was hoping to describe how I self-silence and how I struggle to find words that match my thoughts and feelings. I often try to polish them, make them perfect and pristine. Drafting and editing about a million times and still feeling like what I’ve written is not quite right. Sometimes I feel that folks are all too willing to accept that femme women often struggle with expressing their unique voices.

Further, my ideas and how I express them through writing—in other words my voice—have often been devalued. Whether through my experience with academic writing or the constant rhetoric that lived experience is less valuable than ‘objective’ facts found through scientific research. Often, lived experience is closely associated with emotion and thus femininity. It feels invalidating and that my thoughts are only valuable if I can back them up with an outside source.

Recently, while scrolling through my various social media pages, I noticed that I share poetry quite often. In fact, out of 20 posts on my Facebook about 12 of them were poetry by Rupi Kaur.

Some of them include:

Sharing these images and words is how I communicate with my friends via social media. Often, the poetry I share is a reflection of my thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

Which sounds like the definition of ‘my voice’ that I described earlier.

Perhaps, it’s fine that I can’t find my own perfect words to convey my voice. I’m finding that self-expression does not have to fit into a box of what other people expect. Also, that there is value in empathizing and sharing other people’s words in addition to creating my own.

It is self-expression anyway and if I feel accurately represented by the words and images that others have created, then so be it.

Poetry has played an immense role in my healing from sexual violence. The words of others have also served as a reminder that I am not alone. My experience did not happen in isolation. The personal is political. I have a community and that realization has changed everything for me.

This journey to finding my voice belongs deeply to me and I can make it my own.

John 14:13-14 (NIV) - “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

When we read these two words, “whatever” and “anything” it may seem to imply we have something like a blank check of prayer. We fill in the blank and we get what we requested. But when we take into account the numerous passages on prayer, we see there are guidelines and conditions in how and what to pray for - having faith, being in accordance with God’s will, and the right positioning of our hearts to name a few.

Even in these verses in John we see two points of teaching in how to pray about the works we will be doing. First, ask in Jesus’ name. In today’s terms it’s like name-dropping, because I know so and so that gets me exclusive privileges due to my association with that person. The doors are not opened for us because of our name, but because of the name we are asking on behalf of, we pray in Jesus’ name - His authority, power, dominion and rule. When there are kingdom works we need to do, we ask in Jesus name, let it be done. The second point is we will experience answered prayer for the works that give God glory. God desires that we experience His works because it makes Him known, and it stirs within the hearts of all people worship, praise and glory. That is why the invitation to pray is so inviting and all-encompassing with the words “whatever” and “anything” because there are many works, many wonders, many breakthroughs, many things that God is willing and able to do amongst us.

Today let’s pray as we head towards the end of 2016 and the start of 2017. Let’s thank God for the works we’ve witnessed this year and then pray for the works to come. The works that depend on Jesus’ authority, the Spirit’s power, and give God glory. The works that God says, “I will do it.” Let’s pray in faith as we see God’s visions and dream His dreams through our prayers.

-AK

Faced with production line problems costing potentially thousands of dollars each week, a local brewery turned to a fresh source of technical knowledge from outside the industry: UMBC engineering students.

As part of a capstone project, about 30 UMBC students, led by Neil Rothman, professor of practice of mechanical engineering, worked to address five issues identified by Jailbreak Brewing Company. The largest concern was a halt in production that would happen once an hour when a can would fall off the track. In addition to losing valuable production time, the company would need to throw away beer exposed to too much oxygen during the delay.

Throughout the semester, students wrote proposals to address each identified problem, observed the production line and distribution processes to assess the issues, and determined budgets and timelines to implement solutions. In addition to solving the canning problem, the students developed a new system to let customers know in real time how much of a certain kind of beer is available in the taproom.

Working with UMBC students was rewarding, Kasey Turner, co-founder and COO of Jailbreak Brewing Company, told The Baltimore Sun, in an interview about the collaboration. “They dedicated real time, effort and expertise to these problems,” he said, adding, “The results speak for themselves, that they were able to solve these really hard problems in a very short period of time with a limited budget.”

Tackling real engineering challenges with real clients, while also being supported by faculty, is essential to the capstone course, explains Rothman. “It’s not just me teaching [the students] the process, but working with the clients and real issues that come along,” he noted. The complexity and even the messiness of that process is what Rothman wants his students to experience, to make them as fully prepared as possible for engineering careers.

Read the full article “Jailbreak Brewing Company collaborates with UMBC students to solve brewery issues” in The Baltimore Sun.

Image: UMBC students presenting during the mechanical engineering capstone poster session. Photo courtesy of Neil Rothman. 

The Children’s Theater Production Company at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts at The Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC is seeking a Musical Director for the Spring musical. The Musical Director will work closely with the director on the overall quality and integrity of all musical aspects of the performance. The ideal candidate will have a background in children’s theatre production and at least 3 years in musical theater experience.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: