A re-introduction to me

I figured since this is the last normal post I will be doing for this class that I would round things out by introducing myself like I did the first week, but in a way to reflect on the growth from this semester.

Hi, my name is Hannah Flach.  I am (still) a music education major.  My primary instrument is tuba and I also love to sing.  I am from Baltimore, and I am spending my quarantine inside the house I was raised in.  I have never moved, but I would certainly consider Shepherdstown my home.  The feeling I get when I drive down Shepherdstown Pike on my way to school at the beginning of the semester and coming back from breaks is that relief of being a place where you are free.  Growing up was like being in a cage.  I was like a pet.  I was fed by my family, even walked.  I went to school, I did what I was told and I lived by my parent's rules. 

I have a 19 year old sister and 15 year old brother.  My sister is an early childhood education major at Elizabethtown College and all my brother cares about is his bike.  Both of my parents are teachers so I have always grown up with a love for learning.  I have a dog names Tripp, after the camp my parents worked and met at. 

Since the beginning of the semester I have learned a lot about my self.  I have learned that my anxiety is like a super power.  I have learned that the stand up comedy I love to watch with my boyfriend goes far deeper than just the performance on a stage.  I learned the value that humor has, and the power it carries with it.  Humor was something that women have fought to have a place in.  Women have fought for quite a bit in the last century, and while the right to vote and receive equal pay hold much more power than simply cracking a few jokes, the humor is free speech.  Our right to freedom of speech is given to us in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and in that lies our right to get up on that stage, strike the pencil on paper, and speak our mind.  I learned that women were expected simply just to laugh at the crude jokes of men to have a sense of humor.  Today, there are comedians like Fortune Feimster and Tig Notaro who are breaking down these barriers of what is female comedy. 

Throughout this semester I have come to terms with my own sense of humor and found comfort in using it in my daily life.  I can let go of the shame I felt when using humor in papers and in teaching.  I have learned through research the value and importance of using humor in teaching.  I have also come to terms with my gender presentation.  It doesn't tie in as closely with my humor, but it does tie closely with the discussions we have had regarding the expectations of women and the society-written gender norms we are expected to abide by.  I don't always want to stay in my expected role.  I don't always want to act "ladylike" or hold my tongue when a man offends me.  I don't want to be a housewife and raise children and cook and clean and make myself presentable to my husband so he is treated like a King when he comes home from work.  I don't want to, and in the words of Amy Poehler, "I don't fucking care if you like it."

This class has allowed me to grow into my own, and while I will always be the daughter of two teachers, the owner of a crazy intelligent black lab named Tripp, sister to a bike-obsessed brother and the most gifted-with-children sister.  I will always be from Baltimore, and I will always be a musician.  But what I have learned is those are only my roots.  From there I have grown, and I have grown so many beautiful branches and sprouted so many gorgeous flowers of self-identity this semester through this course.  I want to thank you all for being a part of that.  I want to thank you all for being my safe haven from the music department every class following my Gen-Ped course with a crazy professor.  Thank you GWST 350/HNRS 389.  Thank you for not only teaching be about the power of women, but the power of myself. 

P.S. We should totally keep this blog going