Service Learning Weekly Blog

            Our Service Learning Project is forming more into an event than just ideas and notations that were sporadically scribbled down on a piece of paper as the thoughts came to me. Surprisingly we already have a reasonable amount of people attending and the project itself was just made known to the public yesterday. How did we do this? Facebook is a magical place. Sarah created a Facebook page called “UCF – PDA Day” of which I wrote a description for to give people the jest of what was going to take place and we added everyone and anyone we could. Thankfully a lot of people have shown interest and have been posting statuses on the page saying how excited they were and how it was such a good idea.

            We began planning how we are going to advertise the event other than by Facebook and word of mouth, and decided that putting up flyers around campus—in the bathrooms and wherever possible—would allow for good exposure. The flyers are in the process of being made, but the main concept of the flyers is on the more “scandalous” side so that it will A) grab attention and B) increase the odd’s of people reading them to see why there are two females kissing. The photo shoot for that will be done this weekend and flyers should be up by later next week.

            This week we talked about women and work. Some might find it hard to relate PDA Day to work, but with an open mind it isn’t horribly hard to find a connection. We learned that unproductive work affects productive work and vise versa. Unproductive work is what is done in one’s personal life that doesn’t create an income while productive work does produce and income. One’s personal life does in fact, usually, include affection. However if a woman were to be in a non-heteronormative relationship she may feel as if displays of affection are not appropriate in public because it is considered taboo. However, only a little bit of confidence is needed to challenge the cultural and societal expectations for heteronormative expressions of affection. Consequently if a woman were to gain confidence from PDA Day, knowing that her relationship is no different than anyone else’s then perhaps that confidence would translate over to her work life and allow for further success in her field.

            What am I getting in return? I’m getting practice for what I hope to achieve later in life. I want to be an activist for the Trans community so this event is giving me practice with coordinating a large event as well as executing said event. On a more personal level, it gives me satisfaction knowing that maybe I helped one person become more courageous by realizing they are no different than anyone else.