Belonging
Day 7. Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?
I find it rather unfortunate that, each time I read one of these prompts, the first answer that comes to my mind relates to dancing. You'd think it was the only interesting thing I did this year. When I wrote a whole PhD dissertation!
But that was one of the strongest appeals of dancing for me. The social aspect. Dancing, or rather going out dancing and organizing dancing events and taking (or teaching) dancing classes, allowed me to be part of a fabulous community. It filled my sense of belonging in a way I had never felt since I stopped playing in low-key orchestras. I made a handful of very good friends, of the kind you can spend hours with talking and talking and talking without any sense of how much time has gone by. But the community goes further than that; and no matter how important close friends are, I find it equally important to have a larger group of people you might not be so close to but can nevertheless relate to and get together with to do things you all enjoy.
Of course it wasn't the only place. It was my fifth year in graduate school and my fifth year blogging, so it is quite natural that I felt both the community of my graduate student peers and the community of my blogging peeps strengthen.
Among the first group, there have been weddings and engagements and pregnancies and dissertations and advancements to candidacy and grants being written (and sometimes even awarded) and graduations aplenty. There's nothing like suffering through similar ordeals to build strong relations between people. From my birthday to my final defense, from Friday lunches at the pub to monthly wine drinking events, from coffee breaks to late night shenanigans, I have felt their support and supported them.
As for bloggers, the best illustration of how strong a community I have found is the overwhelming response I received to the announcement of my grand-father's death. The phone calls with my family, the support of a handful of close friends, the hugs of my roommates, the dances have all hugely helped, but the many, many messages from you readers have been the extra comfort I would never have dreamed of.
So what about 2011?
I will be moving to Germany. I will meet other foreigners, at the very least in my German classes. I will meet other scientists, at the very least at work. Work and school are where you start.
I will try and meet dancers.
I might try and meet musicians and air up the viola. I might have friendly neighbors. I might decide to get more involved in politics (e.g. feminism). Who knows?
