Self-Identity Assignment

Addictions Community Outreach

[kallynoelle]

In conclusion...

In my conclusions, I will be considering a few questions that wrap-up my discussions on self-identity and how my identity will come into play in my future work. These questions include: How might I experience privilege or not? How could this and my self-identity impact my future work?

My dream will be to have a Masters of Social Work and be able to work in the military as a Social Worker, focusing on PTSD. To even have the option to go get a Masters is incredible privilege, not to mention the privilege I have to have gone to Dalhousie for an undergrad and NSCC for an advanced diploma. Education = privilege, and that is so wrong and twisted and I’m glad that I am not afraid to acknowledge this privilege and the lack of privilege that others have and how saddening and wrong that is. It is also a privilege to be able to choose whether or not I join the military, many before me did not have that kind of autonomy.

There are many things about my identity that will benefit me in my future work, even before I potentially join the military. I am a benevolent, compassionate person. I have experienced and continue to experience poor mental health and sometimes my wellness can be pushed aside and forgotten, often unintentionally. I want to be an advocate for those who suffer from mental illness and work with those who experience things similar to me and completely different things from me. As a feminist, it makes me internally so proud of myself to be so keen on joining the military, a workforce that was once only considered suitable for men. As well, as someone who is so connected to family, I look forward to being able to potentially work with the families of service people and helping to ensure a healthy relationship continues even through the tough times when families are separated for long periods of time.

However, it is important for me to recognize some of the worries I have for going into this kind of career. I am scared of the potential discrimination I might face as a woman in the military. I know it is now common for women to join the military, but I still feel like there is a lot of small-minded people who don’t think women should have that kind of job and there is still a lot of toxic masculinity throughout the military services. It’s scary, but not scary enough for me to not try to achieve my dreams.

[kallynoelle]

After talking about how much I love animals, here are my beautiful pets. Ella, Oliver, Cookie (who has passed, but he deserves recognition for being the best cat I could have ever asked for), Joey, and Kip. 

[kallynoelle]

Here’s a “self-identity wheel” that I made for myself! 

What this pie chart exemplifies is some of, what I consider to be, the key elements of my identity. 

1. Student/Education: As I have already made quite clear in this blog, I have been a student for a long time now and who I am as a student has really taken up a part of my identity as a whole. However, once I finished at Dalhousie, I noticed that it’s prominence in my life is lessening and that likely has to do with the fact that I’m not living in Halifax, in an apartment or residence anymore. I also think it’s important to note though that I love education and I want to continue learning forever. Once I’m finished my “formal” education, I hope to learn more from life, work, travel, other people, and what I read. 

2. Feminist: Like the previous one, my identity as a feminist has been made quite clear already. I think it’s important for me to highlight again that I did not always see myself as a feminist and I didn’t truly know what feminism was until I went to Dalhousie. I believe that my feminist-identity takes a similar role in my life as it would for gender/sex in another person’s life. 

3. Family/Heritage: My family has always been important to me, but it was not until I reached my 20′s that I truly started to appreciate those around me and the quality time I spend not only with immediate family, but extended family too. I am a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin and I am so thankful to have such a big family. I’ve also become a lot more curious and interested in my family heritage and history of my family lineage and town (because a lot of my family has been in Bridgetown for a longggg time). This curiosity was really sparked when I was working at the James House Museum here in town and was able to read about many different family histories and work alongside a local genealogist.  

4. Skills Development/Employability: This was something that I was a bit conflicted about including as an “identity”. I decided to keep it because it is growing to be so important as I reach a time in my life where I may actually be employed sooner than rather (YAY), rather than applying to a new program. Most of my “skills development” has come from my education and past jobs I’ve had. In this new program I am in, Addictions Community Outreach, I have been able to gain much more practical skills and knowledge than I’ve ever obtained from my time spent at Dalhousie (because all I really did was read and write papers). So how does this fit with “identity”? I think it does because being employable means being hard-working, dedicated, respectful, creative/imaginative, a problem-solver, a good communicator, being positive, realistic, and so on. These are things that I work really hard to achieve and maintain, therefore I see this has being a pretty big part of my identity and that will help me get the job of my dreams in the future. 

5. Traveller: Travel is so important to me and I believe that this is an aspect of my life that truly lets me explore and expand my identity and cultural awareness. As I have already wrote, I really hope to be able to travel a lot more in my future as I feel like travel is what truly makes me feel human and puts life into perspective, especially if you go to somewhere “non-Western”. 

6. Animal-lover: Let’s get things straight right away - life simply is not worth living if you don’t have animals around you or have access to animals. I’ve had pet’s my entire life and have been around horses and other farm animals, creatures in the woods (frogs, snakes, turtles), fish, birds, rodents, all kinds of animals! There is something special in every species (except arachnids, earrings and ticks - those guys need to go away and never come back). Eventually, my true goal will be to work with service animals, dogs specifically, and those who suffer from PTSD and other mental illnesses. 

7. Benevolence: I strive to be a kind and compassionate person in everything I do. I consider this to be an important aspect of who I am and who I wish to continue to be, especially in my future work (hence why this slice of the pie is the largest). This is something that I will be discussing more in my next post, as I go more in depth about my future work and what kind of worker and community member I wish to be. 

[kallynoelle]

A tired student...

[kallynoelle]

There are many things that I would like to have in the future, a house, multiple pets, great friends, time for hobbies, and so on. However, there is something that stands out as an ultimate goal for my future, that being that I would like to be financially stable enough to travel.

Travel has always been an important part of life, but due to financial constraints and having parents that are not super into travelling, I haven’t been able to do nearly as much as I would like. My parents always took my sister and I on little family vacations to New Brunswick, PEI, and within Nova Scotia, but we never left the maritimes. Our first big trip was to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for my cousin’s wedding. We got to go because everything was paid for, and thank the lord for that because it was an incredible time, despite some sketchy encounters off of the resort.

My second trip was to Ecuador with some of my fellow schoolmates and teacher in high school. We travelled with EF Tours and MetoWe. This included a ton of fundraising and the generosity of my family who helped me pay for the remaining total. This was an opportunity and experience of a lifetime. We stayed in hostels and worked on the foundation of a new cafeteria for a tiny rural school in the mountains of Chimborazo with another school group from Toronto. I met great new people, experienced a new culture, tried new foods (including guinea pig), was introduced to the Spanish language, and saw what appeared to be an entirely new world compared to Nova Scotia.

My third and most recent trip was to Greece. I was able to go on this trip because my grandmother (whom I was going to visit) paid for my flights. This was an interesting, stressful, and less inspiring trip than my Ecuador travels because of family conflict, and once again, for being a female and being around men who think of females as objects to gawk at and make comments towards. However, I was able to go on a four-day bus trip on my own. Once again, I met so many incredible people from all over the world. I ate great food, laid on beautiful beaches, and got to spend quality time with my grandmother in the place that she calls home (something that I never thought would happen).

What I hope to convey from this post is that travel is so important to me. So I hope and I pray that someday I will be at a job that pays me enough to be able to live comfortably, as well as be able to continue travelling, without having to worry immensely about the money side of things.

[kallynoelle]

My beautiful university...

There are so many things that I regret and certainly do not miss about Dalhousie. However, I look back very fondly of my time spent at such a beautiful campus, studying such fascinating and challenging subjects. 

[kallynoelle]

My family...

Mom (Cathy), sister (Ashley) holding fur-nephew (Oscar), basically brother-in-law (Jared), myself holding lil Oliver, my nan (Linda), and dad (Danny). 

[kallynoelle]

A feminist outlook

I often think to myself, “at what point did my mind start connecting my identity to be a feminist”? I still don’t have an exact time, moment or event that I can describe for you. My time spent at Dalhousie really helped me though, there are a lot of experiences from university that led me to who I am today. I didn’t know what a “feminist” truly was in my first year, I still equated feminism with man-hating, and I don’t identify with that. I agree with equal opportunities for everyone and every gender. 

Sexual violence in the university environment is something that really influenced my new perspectives. There were only so many times that I could stand for sexist, machismo men minimizing myself and my girlfriends to objects of pleasure. There were only so many times that I could be taken advantage of after having a couple drinks downtown. There is such a deep and disturbing lack of awareness of what is really happening to women at universities. How can we, as a society, allow women to be repeatedly raped and violated and not even know that what happened to them was rape. 

I am passionate now. I am more compassionate than ever. I do not hate men, and I never will. However, my weakness is that I lose patience quickly with those who are unwilling to acknowledge that women are and continue to be disproportionately abused (sexually, physically, emotionally, etc.) by men and society as a whole. 

I find that there is such a generational gap of acknowledgement of these facts and statistics. I’m not ageist and I realize that this is not true for everyone. However, this is what I have found throughout my experiences and this likely has something to do with where I grew up. My family sometimes infuriates me. I’m trying to be someone who can stand up against some of the people in my life when they are wrong, but it’s very hard! I also don’t want to be called the “angry feminist”. I’ve been called “over-sensitive” before as a result of my reactions to what I’ve heard come out of my family member’s mouths. 

I could go on forever and a day, but I don’t need to continue rambling, I think you get the point. 

[kallynoelle]

Who am I?

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kally Noelle Phinney. I am a 23-year-old caucasian female, born and raised in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. My father’s side, the Phinney’s, come from Poland, and my mother’s side, the Bishop’s, come from the Worcestershire county of England. My parents have both been at their jobs for four decades, my father a baker and my mother a continuing care assistant (CCA). I have an older sister (by 2 and a half years), Ashley, who now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick with her partner and my two sweet and furry nephew and niece. Ashley was the first in our family to receive a university degree (Media Arts).

Where does power, privilege, and culture come into play here? Well, I’d like to continue from my sister’s university degree. I loved to visit her in Fredericton during her first two years of school. I got to participate in some of her classes, read some of her books, meet her new friends, and explore a new city. I didn’t think university was a possible option for me until she went! My high school did not prepare you for university, but I am still privileged to have graduated from high school with fairly good grades.

I applied to Dalhousie University for a Bachelor of Arts degree, wanting to study Anthropology. I got in, despite my little volunteer experience or extra-curriculars, I am privileged. I am privileged because I was allowed to choose my major (Sociology and Social Anthropology) and my minor (Philosophy), many people are not given an option as to what they study. I was naive to think that I could change the world with my undergrad, despite graduating on the Dean’s List (privilege). I wouldn’t get a job, I knew that. At least, not one doing what I wanted to do. So I went back to school at NSCC, taking an Advanced Diploma in Addictions Community Outreach. This is where I am today, and I am SO privileged.

Coming from my tiny, rural town, I was not destined to continue my education and there was an expectation that I would stay in my town. I’m back now, but guess what, I’m not staying for long. I get to live with my parents again (for free - PRIVILEGE) while I’m taking this one-year program.

Despite the fact that I am incredibly in debt now after an undergraduate degree and this program, I did not really have to work throughout my education... once again, this is a huge privilege factor. There are limits to the privilege I have, but it’s ignorant to say that I have no privilege or power.

This is only a slice of my life... as I continue on this page, I will explore different aspects of my identity and how power, privilege and culture influence my life.

[kallynoelle]

For this assignment, I will be exploring who I am and how my identity may/will transfer over to my future workplace. Some of the questions I will be focusing on are: What do I bring to the table? What is my privilege? How has my culture influenced my identity? What do I hide from the world, and why?

Follow my page to keep up with my self-analysis!