Day 10: Everybody's Fight

cardiomachine: 20 mins psychbike, 15 mins ellipsicle
(William Tydeman's The Medieval European Stage, 500-1550)
stretching: yes
pushups: twenty
crunches: thirty
breakfast: two eggs, potatoes and toast at Ann's Soup Kitchen, vitamins
lunch: root vegetable tostada from Tacubaya in West Berkeley (compliments of my lovely wife)
apartment clean?: certainly

Ann's Soup Kitchen has a 15% discount for anyone wearing UC Berkeley gear. Before I stepped up to the counter, I quickly grabbed my Cal gym shorts from out of my bag and put them on over my jeans -- the cashier told me that the discount only applies on Fridays, but that, yes, the shorts would have counted.

On the way from Ann's to the gym, I bumped into a former student of mine. She asked if I was going to the rally. We spoke for a few seconds, I awkwardly said "Well, I'm not teaching this year, so I've got nothing to strike from... it isn't my fight, I guess," then she went to the rally, and I to the gym.

Later on, I sent her this email:

"It was nice to run into you today -- just to let you know, I did end up attending the end of the rally, and marched through the streets of Berkeley in the protest. Two minutes after we spoke on Bancroft, I realized that I had actually said the words 'this isn't my fight,' which is untrue anyway, especially because any fight, anywhere, that affects access to education is a fight I shohuld consider 'mine.' I
don't agree with everything that the protestors were saying, but I reminded myself that marching in solidarity is not the same as marching in lockstep, and that an imperfect gesture is still sometimes better than no gesture at all. So, thanks for reminding me, if only accidentally, of what my priorities are."

My voice is hoarse from the chant-yelling (when I do such things, I do them right, and yes, I did get on the mike for the giant speaker system so that I could rustle up the crowd); my favorite part was when we marched outside Berkeley High and did a special cheer just for them:

This is everybody's fight!
Berkeley High is hella tight!

As usual, the Berkeley protesters have offered up a massive prix fixe spread of broadly-defined and often half-baked demands and philosophies; I prefer to order a la carte. At the march, between the deafening calls and responses, I discussed with Keith (from Performance Studies at UC Davis) all of the points I complained about in yesterday's post, particularly because Keith's thesis is on a relevant topic. Keith shrugged after a while and said, "Yeah. It's hard to be smart at a protest." I said, "Exactly. Exactly." And we marched on, in solidarity but by no means in lockstep.