Moving from a state-funded public university to Carleton, I felt flush, endowed with a 50% increase in pay. It's not that I felt particularly restricted before--after all, I survived (and saved) on a graduate fellowship of 12 thousand dollars. But Carleton's pay level provided me with new, easier circumstances that brought material comfort as well as spiritual discomfort in the certainty of my middle-classness.
So, while I do occasionally look around at the cars in the Rec Center parking lot and think to myself, "hmmm. I'll never be able to afford that one," mostly I feel uneasily privileged. I have not always been able to say yes to things (a pizza, new clothes, a concert) and, now that I can, I remain conscious of the "easiness" of each transaction. And I'd rather not lose that awareness of my class privilege so that I can remember that many people around me do not share it.
- Adriana Estill
So, while I do occasionally look around at the cars in the Rec Center parking lot and think to myself, "hmmm. I'll never be able to afford that one," mostly I feel uneasily privileged. I have not always been able to say yes to things (a pizza, new clothes, a concert) and, now that I can, I remain conscious of the "easiness" of each transaction. And I'd rather not lose that awareness of my class privilege so that I can remember that many people around me do not share it.
- Adriana Estill