Announcements from Women's and Welfare Officers

Women's

These events are primarily aimed at Pembroke undergrads and organised by the JPC, but you are welcome to attend:

**SOLIDARITEA - PEMBROKE'S FEMINIST DISCUSSION GROUP**

(Thursday 28th November, 7pm, NCR.)

This is the first ever meeting of Pembroke's feminist discussion group. Join Charlotte Chorley and Abby Jitendra, from the JPC, for a relaxed talk about feminism and intersectionality. Open to all, this will be a chilled, safe space for airing opinions on topics like:

- what does feminism mean to you?

- is feminism too angry?

- why do we have a women's officer?

- how does race/gender interact?

- is cambridge sexist?

Don't worry if you don't know all the jargon about binaries and privilege, this is about real-life experience and opinions (and we can run through some theoretical terms if you want).

**SAY YES TO CONSENT - SEXUAL CONSENT WORKSHOP**

(Friday 29th November, 6pm, NCR)

The JPC will be running a sexual consent workshop which aims at busting myths and spreading the word about what consent really is. OPEN TO ALL: This is so important, and is a really good opportunity to discuss this issue and any queries you have.

Welfare

Here are the links for those who want to suggest movies for Tuesday film nights!

suggestions form:

www.tinyurl.com/pembrokefilms

view previous suggestions:

www.tinyurl.com/pembrokefilmspreadsheet

This Week's Announcements from International, Women's and LGBT+ Officers

International

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT FOCUS GROUPS (SIGN-UP TO PARTICIPATE)

 

The University of Cambridge International Student Team and the Graduate Union International Officers are actively searching for international members of our student community to take part in “focus group discussions” on how to improve academic and socials aspects of international student experience at the University of Cambridge.

Each hour-long group interview (max 10 people) will take place at the 17 Mill Lane Graduate Union Lounge, 12PM and 7PM on the 19th, 20th and 21st of November. By filling out the short form below you will be entered into a list of potential interviewees to be involved in this historic process, and the selected individuals will be notified on Sunday, the 17th of November (refreshments will be provided).

We would like to thank you all in advance for your participation, help and support. If you have any ideas/comments/suggestions, but cannot make it to the focus groups, please e-mail Anna Maxim at Anna.Maxim@admin.cam.ac.uk

Click for link to form.

Women's

I hope everyone is keeping well/recovering from the multiple Freshers' flu strains wandering around this year, and finding work manageable (if not enjoyable).

I wanted to remind you of a few things that, as Women's Officer, I help to provide for the GP (and not just for women either!): first, the Welfare Box sitting on top of the lockers by the men's bathroom next to the GP contains condoms, pregnancy tests and dental dams. Feel free to take whatever you need from the box (within reason, of course), which gets restocked regularly. In addition, if you need sexual health supplies that are more specific, such as latex-free condoms or dental damns, or an attack alarm, feel free to email me and I can source these for you for free.

You may also be interested in some of the things the CUSU Women's Campaign is putting on this term:

- The next Women's Forum will be on Thursday 21st November, 7 p.m., in the Chetwynd Room at King's College.

- The Women's Campaign magazine, Gender Agenda, is calling for submissions: art, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc. Basically anything you want to create as long as it's on gender (and of course is not misogynist, gender-phobic, transphobic, racist, homophobic, ableist, or in any way abusive!). You can find out more at http://www.gender-agenda.org.uk/discuss/

Just a couple of things there from the campaign: if you'd like more information, the CUSU Women's Campaign has a regularly updated Facebook page, or you can check out http://www.womens.cusu.cam.ac.uk/

LGBT+

Public Talk

1730, Monday 18 November 2013

In conversation with...

 Professor Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol

Sex, Gender and Heteronormativity: Seeing ‘Some Like it Hot’ as a Heterosexual Dystopia


Venue: Upper Hall, Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL

All welcome!

CRIBS: Chez Mullens

Freshers after interior inspiration could possibly find no better model for their home than last year's notorious Chez Mullens, usually filled with pizza boxes and people. Our GP President's room was of such calibre that one grad student - following the charity auction - paid to spend an evening there, despite the awareness that everyone was always welcome.

Care and Feeding of your Dissertation-Writing Friend, Part 3: PROcrastination Tips!

By Penname von Pseudonym

You may have noticed that this blog took a while to go up. This is almost entirely due to the fact that I recently got a smartphone (hellooooo 21st century!) and have been spending most mornings playing Boggle in my bed (compared to how much work I’ve actually done on my dissertation in the last two weeks, finding an 8-letter word at 9AM feels like one heck of an achievement).

Photos from the GP Garden Party

Care and Feeding of your Dissertation-Writing Friend, Part 2: WHY I'M SO STRESSED

By Penname von Pseudonym

It’s generally acknowledged that writing a dissertation is stressful. People think that this is because you have to write a lot of words in not a lot of time (for reference, my dissertation is expected to be in the vicinity of 50,000-60,000 words, but in other departments you have to write more). While the whole lots-of-words-writing thing is definitely stressful, I would argue that it is not NEARLY the most stressful part of the writing-up process.

Therefore, without further ado, WHY I’M SO STRESSED:

Care and Feeding of your Dissertation-Writing Friend, Part 1

by Penname von Pseudonym

Recently, I read a great article about “Caring for your Introvert,” which was followed up recently by the equally as insightful “Careand Feeding of your Extrovert”. Both articles talked about what it was like to be an Introvert/Extrovert and how that affected their interactions and feelings.

This series is about Care and Feeding of your Dissertation-Writing Friend.

I am qualified to write this blog because I, too, am writing up. I am loaded with all the stress and uncertainty and, frankly, disappointment that writing up entails. Some days I wake up and I am so happy that in just a few short months, I will (hopefully) be done with this wretched document, and others I open my eyes only to think: “Good lord, they gave me three years and this drivel is all I managed to produce.” That’s a topic for a different post, though...