Reflection: Danna Walker - Striding Woman Society

We all read Danna Walker's blog post. Some of us found her story strong, some found it self-righteous, others found other things. We all prepared questions to ask her, but when she walked into the classroom, one had to wonder if she should have done some of the equivalents.

Prof. Walker appeared to me to be a walking paradox. She publishes a blog of personal essays, accessible by anyone with an internet connection, yet she was visibly hesitant when being questioned on what she had written. She exemplified this in saying consistently throughout the session, "I'm a little uncomfortable just standing up here and talking about myself." Understandable, who wouldn't be? Answer: someone who volunteered to do it, someone who has written about and speaks ad nauseam about their life and accomplishments.

Aside from the perplexities on this issue, I found Prof. Walker very interesting. She, like my mom, was old enough to be a militant feminist and, from hearing her speak, lived up to her abilities. Her experiences in the area, especially in work, brought her reasons for interest into perspective in a way that her blog failed to do.

Another thing that I found confusing was her take on modern journalism. Unlike almost any other journalist that I have met, she likes the turn towards internet based wikinews that so many others fear. Citing that newspapers had created their own downfall by becoming to corporate and superficial, Walker said that current news readers simply needed to be able to sift through all of the ideological BS that is found on blogs. This seems like a valid point paired with a useful skill, however, current bloggers find much of their world news through traditional news outlets and use their personal blogs to reiterate and comment on them. Without these traditional, corporate news outlets spending money to place skilled journalists in foreign countries, it will be tough for our current transitional stage of news consumption to continue.

All considered, the most interesting and helpful thing that I found to come out of Prof. Walker's visit was not part of her feminism or life story, but her list of favorite writing exercises. These included:

• Writing your own obituary to see how you want your life to turn out
• Writing your thoughts to hash them out and to discover if they are as good as you initially thought

Mildly cliché, yes, but helpful. It was the life wisdom of Prof. Walker that I found most inspiring, not her awards, achievements, etc. Walker's wisdom included:

• Think about your time spent drinking. When I stopped drinking, I started traveling and getting degrees. I'm not saying don't do it, but think about how much.
• Everyone in college is insecure, no matter how confident they seem. Everyone is looking for who they really are.

In the end, I must say that I come down in the middle. What I expected from Prof. Walker is not exactly what I got, but I got what I did not expect.