3 hours later, an opinion column.

After spending the last three hours grinding away at this column for my media writing class, I can say with a high degree of certainty that I am not meant to be an opinions writer. At least not for a very long time.
Nevertheless, "Homeless or Hipster: Poorgeoisie at SPU."

As a happy consumer of commercialized clothing, the newest SPU fashion movement troubles me. The homeless are taking over campus.

One man, asleep in Tiffany Loop, has a scraggly beard and dirty, torn jeans, too skinny to be tasteful. A group of women meanders through Gwinn Commons wearing flannel shirts and leggings, which conspicuously attempt to double as pants, but fail. One poor man in Martin Square seems to be without shoes, walking barefoot despite pouring rain and dropping temperatures.

It takes less than a keen eye to spot them; on any school day, these questionable characters abound and if you did not know better, you’d try to offer them your spare change.
In truth, they are simply members of SPU’s community of Indie-type rich kids, but the question is just begging to be asked, “Are you homeless or hipster?”

The answer, as it turns out, is neither; they are the “poorgeoisie.”

A play on the French term, “bourgeoisie,” the poorgeosie are “those who conceal their affluence with a (carefully crafted) down-at-heel look,” as the New York Times reported in June 2009.

According to a study by Vogue, 72 percent of magazine readers are still buying designer fashion, and 59 percent are buying more or the same amount as before the recession.

But you’d never know. In July, the New York Times reported that stealth wealth, which is “shopping discreetly or buying unbranded products in an attempt to make one’s consumption less conspicuous,” is on the rise.

SPU students have bought into this anti-consumer mentality, from TOMS shoes and too-tight skinny jeans all the way up to flannel shirts and ratty hair. At least, that’s what they want you to think.

Look a little closer at some of some of these flannel-shirted women; they still carry Coach. Look past the scraggly beard at the label on some men’s deep-V neck tees; that simple cotton shirt can cost up to $50 at American Apparel, a pretty penny for someone paying to look poor.

But that is the essence of the poorgeoisie: It is spending to look as though you have not spent at all. It is shopping to make your expenditure less evident. It is just the thing to be in this time of financial hardship, when the stereotype of the poor, struggling student should be more applicable than ever.

Maybe that is why poorgeois culture found a niche amongst SPU students. In an environment that encourages world change and praises social justice and responsibility, it seems to be way to alleviate the guilt of attending an expensive, private university.

Though not all students who attend SPU are wealthy, we can all recognize that the sheer cost of tuition breeds a culture of affluence on campus.

This may be the case, but we should not have to pretend to fit in with the homeless because of it.

Despite what our culture leads us to believe, there is no shame in wealth. However, pretending that we are poor is a lie, and we cannot fully act in God-like love while desperately believing it to be true.

For whatever reason, God places people in many different financial walks of life; while some are never strapped for cash, others operate on a paycheck-to-paycheck budget. In spite of these financial differences, His call for all people to love one another is the same.

The challenge is to embody the mission of the University. If we can truly act as Christians are meant to act, it does not matter if our jeans cost $500 or $15.

I can change a light bulb all by myself.

I'm so glad it's Friday. I feel like this quarter is whoosh-ing by, and it's already six weeks gone. Fall, where did you go?
I think I'm getting sick, too.

In other news, I want to be this woman:
http://imagejournal.org/page/blog/cheap-grace

She has beautifully put into words one of the things I have been feeling for a while now. I feel like I don't really fit in with the campus culture at SPU, because I'm not Indie or hipster. Oh well.

There's a joke that puts it perfectly:
"How many Indie kids does it take to change a light bulb? ... You don't know?"
No, I don't know. And I didn't understand until several friends condescended to my level to explain. I still don't think it's funny, but it fits the general culture here so well.
I wear American Eagle jeans because they are comfortable. I do not own a flannel shirt, and I do not think leggings should act as pants. I wash my hair every day and I refuse to wear it ratty and messy. I've accepted that I may not look the same as everyone else here, but I think I look just as good because of it.
I don't have any problem shopping at Safeway. I admit that McDonalds is one of my fast food weaknesses. I do not like hummus. I listen to mainstream music, and I think some Indie music is so bad it doesn't deserve to exist, and I do not feel like a bad person for saying this.
My worst crime of all is that I don't have any problem working for Starbucks. I genuinely like Starbucks, more so than all of the other kitschy little coffee shops combined, because I feel very out of place when I go anywhere else. I feel like an impostor, masquerading as someone cool when I'm just the opposite.
I'm not just airing personal grievances, and I'm not ranting about people who are really, honestly into flannel shirts, ratty hair, indie music, and small batch coffee.
I just want to be who I am, and there's nothing wrong with that.

...Plus, I needed a way to justify my love for McDonalds French fries.

So Seattle Right Now.

Currently: sitting in El Diablo Coffee on Queen Anne Hill surrounded by paintings of naked babies, mermaids, and the devil.
Drinking: Double tall americano. So good.
Eating: Coconut cupcake. [Happy birthday to you, Mom!]
Thinking: I love this place. After a stressful week, I love that I am able to get away, get some caffeine (not from Starbucks), and get some perspective. The last part is most important. It's so easy to lose sight of things when you're in the midst of them, and looking back at the last few days, I'm grateful they're over. I wouldn't want to do them over. On the other hand, they're what make days like today so enjoyable.
I actually should be: Working on my phonology homework. On Tuesday night, I went to the UDistrict and met with two Chinese women. They both attend UW as grad students and they have been in the US since last September. As part of my assignment, I recorded them reading an elicitation paragraph of English, nonsense sentences that are written to elicit certain errors in pronunciation. I have those recordings and I need to transcribe them in IPA.
Instead, I am: Blogging. Sipping coffee. Eating cake. Considering how long I can put off that homework.
I am: So Seattle right now.

Meditation.

"Hurry is not of the devil," Carl Jung said. "Hurry IS the devil."
That's the quote that struck me so forcefully four weeks ago when I decided to focus upon meditation as a spiritual discipline for UFDN this quarter. Hurry is the devil and, boy, do I know it.

Check out my schedule for the past few days:
Sunday: Starbucks 2 p.m. to close
Monday: class, interviews, write and edit articles, class, Senate until 11:30 p.m.
Tuesday: Starbucks 5 to 10 a.m., class 10:30 to 12:50 p.m., write articles, do Falcon stuff, sleep?
Wednesday: class, Starbucks 3 p.m. to close

Um, maybe it's just me, but that's ridiculous - I haven't had any time for myself to rest. When I get busy like this, I know that one problem is rest for my body. The other problem is rest for my soul. It's no coincidence that the times I become most insecure, most spiritually unsettled, are the times in which I haven't found rest in God.
And I'm saying this at 12:30 a.m. while waiting the finish this week's edition of the newspaper. I have been awake since 4:30 a.m. yesterday, yet I feel strangely satisfied with my musings now.
Rest. That would be a good thing.

If at first you don't succeed...

...blog, blog again.
So much for being a good blogger.
Well, I tried, but it's been two weeks (ish?) since I've written here.
I think the general theme is that I've burnt out. In so many ways. I'm tired. I'm worn down. I'm beat.
Life 1, Melissa 0.
That's the perpetual score.
So here I go again. For the month of November, I will attempt to post something - thoughts, musings, reflections, ramblings, rants - on this blog. And I will do it happily, even if I'm not always happy (which seems to be the case).

I need to write more.