I was trapped inside during a blizzard on Valentine’s Day when I got the email that I was accepted to UT’s Language and Rhetoric M.A. program.  One of the first people I called was my dear friend Ashley who had also received a letter of acceptance.  A few months later we decided to be roommates when we would move to Austin in the Fall.  

 

I am by no means a good decorator. I can’t even sew buttons.  However, Ashley (she’s way more crafty than me) and I really wanted to work to make our big old creepy historic house a great place to live.  We were having a great time decorating, but the coffee table was a bit of an issue. We wanted to make something really awesome for the center of our home.  Thus, the TRANS project.  Our idea from the table came out of the class title: Dangerous Borders and by class discussions and readings on compartmentalization.  That is, we are constantly being separated by the different aspects of our identities, when we should be looking to combine them.  Mosaic made perfect sense.  We crossed a lot of boundaries to get here: state lines, ending relationships, starting new ones--all to come together in our home.  These fragmented pieces of glass seemed to represent all the craziness it took to get here--and once they were stable, everything just fit.  Plus, it’s green. Plus, it has Al Gore on it.  How great can it get?