The Trip Home

For the past few years, every time I come home to Louisiana, I am reminded of what a foreigner I am (and really always was).  It's like I have a big sign on me that suggests it would be a good idea to pick on me.  Last year, a lady in the gas station in Thibodaux said "you're not from here, are you?  you're not, um, complete."  I still have no idea what she was telling me by telling me I wasn't complete, but I basically took it as a compliment.  I assume it meant something to the effect of not being a complete coon ass (i.e. cajun).

Today, I was caught off guard because I was called out in the major (um, okay, minor) metropolis of Baton Rouge...and at the Good Year tire place of all places.  I jumped out of the shower and didn't bother drying my hair because I was going to get the oil changed in my sister's car.  I forgot that in south Louisiana that means you have to put on make up, do your hair, and it would be a good idea to get your nails done while your car is being worked on so that you look even better when you pick the car up.  Well, I showed up at Good Year with my hair wet, and all three men working behind the counter started asking me if I got caught in the rain or if this was a new hair style.  And I was like what are you talking about?  And they, pointed to my hair, and I was like, um, "it's called a shower."  They laughed, and I was confused.  I'm thinking, um, I'm pretty sure that the nickname for people who work at Good Year is grease monkey, and since when are you questioning my appearance?!  Only here.  Seriously.

I share this story because it is so absurd, and also because people are always asking me about the differences between Louisiana and everywhere else.  Most of the deep differences are encapsulated in moments like these when the way people communicate with one another in public is fraught with assumptions about gender, class, race, heritage, etc. that are highlighted by people who are just handing you french fries or selling you beer.  It makes the south endearing in a lot of ways because people do take a moment to notice that you are a person and not another number or something like that.  But it is interactions like these that make this area hard to maintain relevancy in a postmodern and pluralistic world we live in today.

Compassion...Empowered?

Today I heard about the new Justice Party that Rocky Anderson formed with plans to run in the 2012 election.  I really like the idea of new parties forming in response to the failure of current politicians, even though I'm generally cynical about politics and doubt that a third party will ever have success in my lifetime.

There doesn't seem to be a Justice Party website up and running yet, but Rocky Anderson is Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights, so I went to that website.  I'll be honest, I haven't yet read beyond the headline because I'm so struck by the tagline "compassion empowered."  What the hell does that mean?  I suppose it is meant to talk about empowering people to translate their compassion into action against social ills.  However, I think compassion is the absolute wrong word for this, and I'm so sick of it being used in politics. 

To see new parties popping up using the same old propaganda of other parties is really frustrating.  I thought that one of the big lessons from fascism was one about language and the effects of language as an instrument of power.  George Orwell says that the English language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."  What foolish thoughts in American culture have made compassion a political term that supposedly marks the higher moral ground of a political candidate or party?  

A lot of people are studying this question in a very interesting, theoretical way, which is very important.  Kathleen Woodward has an EXCELLENT article on this topic called "Calculating Compassion."  But I'm really also interested in the basic sense of compassion and what we can do in an everyday sort of way against politicians hijacking personal emotions and co-opting them so that every feeling translates into a political statement.  

Trust in ourselves and in others is what Kathleen Woodward suggests is powerful enough to redirect these influences.  I guess I've got to figure out who and what I actually trust.

Natural Flavor with Other Natural Flavor

Not plural "natural flavors," just the singular, "Natural Flavor" and "Other Natural Flavor."

It's finals time, and to get through it all, snacks are a necessity.  I'll admit that I am not the most avid label reader.  Sometimes, the grocery trip is just too rushed to take the necessary time to read everything, so I choose the things that I usually eat and go on about things.

Well, today I was surprised at the label on my Triscuits when I got home.  One of the reasons I usually buy them is because they only have three ingredients: whole grain wheat, soybean oil, salt.  Today I picked up a new flavored Triscuit called "Chile Pepper," and when I got home, I was surprised at the front label, which advertises "Natural Flavor with other Natural Flavor."  What?! 

What distinguishes natural flavor from "other natural flavor?"  The list beyond the basic three ingredients are: chili peppers, onion powder, garlic powder, whey, spices, citric acid, natural flavor, yeast extract.  So, there is an actual ingredient called natural flavor.  Apparently, this natural flavor is the same manufactured flavor that Eric Schlosser discusses in his book Fast Food Nation.  I'm not so much interested in the science right now as I am about the flavor of this new "chile pepper triscuit" because as a chili afficionada, I actually don't think these crackers taste anything like chili peppers. 

I have a pretty sharp palette and can taste things in food and drinks that others may not even notice.  I couldn't identify what was so strange at first bite, until my third cracker made me realize that the flavor I was eating wasn't chili pepper at all.  It just tasted salty and slightly spicy, but not at all like a chili pepper.  I got to thinking today after the failure of this new flavor that if I don't succeed in getting into a PhD program, maybe I can become a flavor scientist.  Okay, perhaps not scientist, but flavor consultant.  I know that I can do way better at making chili pepper flavors and for that matter, BBQ-flavored chips.  That's just a start to what I could contribute to this field!  I even found this taste science website: http://www.tastescience.com/aboutus.html.  They have scientists and psychologists, but no folks talking about how labels and words change the way we taste something.  My official plan b is: "taste consultant, studies human gustatory sensitivity and the effects of contradictory word and taste experiences."

The Black Keys

http://www.theblackkeys.com/elcamino/

Apparently, for five days you can listen to five new songs from their new album until it is released on December 5th.  I think the song "Gold on the Ceiling" is my favorite from this list.  Its a great list for air guitar...which I can't do right now because of my dizziness, but I'm looking forward to getting back to my rockstar self soon, and this album will be on the playlist.

It's a pretty perfect playlist for hustling through submitting my first PhD applications, which are due TODAY.  I have deadlines from today through January, so the heat is on.

Statement of Purpose Word Cloud

I've been working so hard on my Statement of Purpose for only um...like five months now. Why is this thing so hard to write?! Oh yeah, because you are competing against hundreds of applicants, it is pretty much the only personalized thing that is included in the entire application, and it is supposed to convey all of my varied interests and desires in pursuing a PhD in 500-1000 words.

At this stage in the game, I felt like the best way to see if I'm really conveying my interests was to make a word cloud.  Narratives!  Subjectivity! Suffering! Work!  Yes.  That sounds like me.

Discovering the Ordinary

As I've been relegated to rest for the past week and for another week to come, I've been thinking a lot about how stressed I've been and why I've been pushing myself so hard lately to pursue my graduate degree and work full time in order to make my education possible.  There are lots of motivations that make that question nearly impossible to answer directly.  But one thing I know for sure is that I'm working toward this degree and hopefully a PhD because critical theory has been an incredibly meaningful and fulfilling way for me to make sense of everyday life. 

Perhaps the most prolific stereotype about academia is that it is totally removed from the reality of everyday life, and I definitely see how that is true in some circumstances.  However, the truth of the matter for me personally is that academia is where I am finding answers to real life questions that I find are answered on a fairly superficial level in the "real world" of social policy, etc.  One of the theorists that I am currently reading and have been for the past few months, Lauren Berlant (in addition to many of her articles that I've read, I just finished Compassion over the summer and am currently reading The Female Complaint), is someone I've mentioned before, but who I continue to return to because her work deals with the everyday in a critical and deeply thoughtful way that offers insights into widespread suffering that most people experience on a daily basis.  She doesn't deal with traumatic suffering, it is the kind of constant suffering that many people experience because of quotidian forms of suffering like financial woes, institutional racism, discrimination, etc.

I'm writing about her today because I was just listening to this podcast with her, and I think it is a really nice discussion about her new book Cruel Optimism which looks at how and why people desire the very things that are obstacles to their flourishing.  I think she is a really smart critic and thought many of you might enjoy this interview since it discusses issues that most of us think about on a daily basis and offers new insights and ways of thinking about them.  The interview starts at minute 3:30 on this site and is about 30 minutes.  I hope that you enjoy it and definitely let me know your thoughts if you do listen.  I'm always finding ways to talk about this stuff (as many of you found out at my birthday party last week).

R&R

I’ve had a bike accident that has left me with a diagnosis to take it easy for two full weeks.  No work, no school.  My doctor wants me so bored by the end of the two weeks that I’m aching to do ANYTHING. 

So, I am finding myself so far outside of my normal orbit that it has taken me an entire day to simply absorb this information and try to remember what rest and relaxation means for me.  TV actually has a high stress potential because the terrible plot lines and flat characters often frustrate me more than they entertain me.  Streaming movies is okay too, but there are only so many movies that interest me – and it turns out that about 75% of those are on DVD and not streaming online.

What is it then that relaxes me?  Well, as for day 1, it seems that finding ways to understand things I’ve been trying my hardest to understand helps me to relax big time.  It’s like that “aha! moment” is one long and extended aahh.  So, rest and relaxation for me looks a lot like reading and revelation.  I’m into Marx’s Capital right now. It’s only like the 15^th time I’ve tried to pick this book up.  But this time I have an amazing guide, David Harvey.

I just learned about David Harvey from my Global Mobilities class, and as I was looking up his name to try to decode some of his writing, I stumbled on his website months ago.  I’m reading Capital and following along with David Harvey's online course on it.   If the first lecture is any indicator, I think I will learn a lot…and relax a lot in the process.

Abstract Desires

I've just spent all day working on a 250 word abstract for my final paper in the Global Mobilities class.  It's amazing how long it can take to work on this stuff.  I've done a few things today besides that, like eating, filling out the general information for two more PhD applications, and spending a whole lot of money at ets.org to order score reports for the schools where I'm applying.  Here I am about 12 hours after starting on this assignment, still in my PJs, and I've finally posted the abstract.

The concept of feeling rewarded in my work is eluding me lately.  When I first started the master's degree I really felt fulfilled by the act of turning something in.  Now that I have more specific goals and desires for my work, I'm finding it harder to feel a strong sense of satisfaction once I've completed an assignment.  On the one hand, the lack of satisfaction is what keeps me driven toward pursuing this degree and the next phase toward a PhD.  However, I also realize that shuffling through my work without a sense of accomplishment is a recipe for burnout, even if it takes a while to get there.

I just came across this article, "Grad-School Blues," written for the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2009 that begins: "Graduate school is gaining a reputation as an incubator for anxiety and depression.
Social isolation, financial burdens, lack of structure, and the pressure to produce groundbreaking work can wear heavily on graduate students."  Yep.  That about sums it up just right.

Marching to Your Own Beat...

...is hard in a standardized test.

It's been a rough week.  A lot of unexpected things have happened in a time when I only have barely enough time for the things that are already happening.  I have no room for error right now, and there's been a lot of error this week.

I keep thinking--frankly obsessing--over errors as I work toward a successful GRE subject exam this weekend.  It's an enormously frustrating thing.  I figured that if I bring my frustration to bear on my community of friends who read my blog, perhaps sharing and diffusing my pains will make it all feel a little better.  And maybe you will find this interesting.

Of all of the annoyances of the GRE, I can think of at least two things it has done for me over the past week of cramming:

1) I learned that marching to the beat of your own drum comes from Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1843): "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."  Now, of course, it is riddled with white patriarchal language.  But now I know where it comes from, and I do like the sentiment.

2) I read Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1616), which is an excellent story.  My cynicism says that Marlowe will show up on the exam in the form of "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love," which I'm not sure I will recognize.  But hey, at least I had a moment of pleasure in the midst of my studying.

And now, for my moment of optimism, I will share my top two frustrations lest you all think that I actually value this test or the time it is taking me to study for it (which is time that I am taken away from PhD applications, writing sample, statement of purpose, homework, household duties, social time, etc. etc.):

1) Who the hell needs to know about Robert Herrick's "Julia Poems"?  Herrick is apparently a "cavalier poet" who is one seriously lustful man.  In a poem called "Cherry-ripe" he talks about...take a guess?  Her lips.  He even writes about her clothes: "WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,/Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows/That liquefaction of her clothes./Next, when I cast mine eyes and see/That brave vibration each way free ;/O how that glittering taketh me!"  Is this really literature?  Me thinks not.

2) Thomas Carlyle.  What?  You've never heard of him?  That's because he wrote one thing, Sartor Resartus (the tailor re-tailored) in 1833, that was barely publishable then and certainly wouldn't be now.   The main character, Professor Teufelsdrockh, ponders "the philosophy of clothes."  I cannot understand why this shabby piece is considered part of the cannon and the majority of 20th century literature that most of learn is not on this damned exam.

What's a student to do with this ridiculous form of testing literature?  Did someone say bunburying?

Too Much Testing Makes the Student Go Blind

So, the good news is that I got the official word that I passed the comprehensive exams! The bad news is that I can't quite bask in the awesomeness of that because now I'm onto cramming for the GRE Subject Test, which happens this weekend. I somehow went from not having any kind of exam for years to having the GRE general test, the comprehensive exams and the GRE subject test all within a 3 month period. I even have a final exam -- a rarity in a literature program -- on December 19th!

All of the cramming--because really, at this pace, cramming is the only way--is having an effect on me. It's showing through in my dreams, for example. I'm having very weird dreams where I'm either flagging pages with post-it notes or telling people about how irrelevant John Ruskin is in my dream conversations.

I've even tried to maximize my time by watching the most horrible film adaptations of classic literature (like the Odyssey from 1997, which is really just too awful for words) to refresh my memory on the name of the islands where he gets lost and blah blah blah...the movie is so bad that in the movie trailer they resort to citing praise from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

My waning optimism has been reduced to a hope that I might finally fulfill my wish of being awesome at pub quizzes. I'm usually too slow to respond, and I think of the answers at like midnight long after the quiz is over. Anyone (which is pretty much all of you who have ever played a game with me) who has beaten me at trivial pursuit or any other game might reconsider me as a worthy team member. That's all I'm saying.

Baby Marx

I don't really know if I can retrace my steps to explain how I stumbled up on this, but I'm slightly intrigued and slightly baffled.  It's no Strindberg and Helium, that's for sure.  But it makes for an interesting microwave experiment...maybe not better than exploding peeps during Easter, but you decide:

The puppets don't resonate with me like they do in Avenue Q, but if you like this, it's an ongoing series through the Walker Art Museum. 

MCM and The Phallus

So, in all honesty, as much as I like to think that I have always been "in the know," I had absolutely no idea at this time last year that the phallus was so important in studying literature.  There is a difference between having the phallus and being the phallus and there is even a lesbian phallus.  I'm still trying to get my mind out of the gutter and into the abstract to understand it all, but the point of this posting is that I've been thinking about the phallus more than usual...and more theoretically than usual because of preparation for comps. 

Yes, it is totally relevant to the MCM, believe it or not.  Imagine my surprise when I went to check out the Marine Corps Marathon course map today to think about my many friends who will be running this year and to ponder whether or not I will be able to make it out to the course or not in the stupor of post-comprehensive examdum...and I all I could see were several phalluses on the map indicating the route.  You can see for yourself what I'm talking about:
http://www.marinemarathon.com/MCM_Runner_Info/Course_Maps_908.htm

In some ways, I think this gives me my answer.  My head might very well explode if I go out there because of the time-space compression of theoretical knowledge, geography, the exam itself, and the fact that a number of required texts for the comps trope on the theme of maps.  (Which, by the way, includes the book entitled Maps by Nuruddin Farah, and I highly recommend it to all of you)

Got Comps?

So, I have the comprehensive exams for the my master's program this coming Saturday. It's not nearly as catchy as the "Got Milk?" campaign, probably because it feels and sounds more like an infection that I "have" or that I "got."

My study buddies and I were just laughing about how everything we are asked to do lately ends with something like "I can't, I've got comps" or "Can I have an extension? I've got comps." Or some empathetic souls in the Literature department may preemptively say something like "You've got comps, right?" or polling the class "Whose got comps?" There is no antibiotic for it, unfortunately. It just has to run its course.

Luckily, that course will be run from 9 am to 4 pm this Saturday. I'm feeling mildly prepared and mildly stressed. In general, I feel really prepared for the test in terms of content. What I'm nervous about is the fact that I am a really scatter-brained writer. I jump from one thing to the next, and I don't actually write a thesis statement until I'm nearly finished with the paper. So, this exam has two questions with three hours to respond to each one. I hope I have the stamina and energy to write a productive and cohesive answer!

If any of you have forgotten your grad school days, this might jog your memory:

We've Finally Made it to Men-Ups

I grew up with Bop magazine....

And then, there was Big Bopper.....

And now, more than 20 years later (Mark it!), we have Men Ups.  I am way way impressed:

"Unhelpful in the Extreme"

The title is in quotes because it was said by someone else. It is my title because the comment was directed at me.  Yeah.  Thank you graduate school for breaking me down and reminding me to be humble.

So, what kind of writing receives a comment that marks it as "unhelpful in the extreme?"  

Lists.  I've been working SO HARD on my statement of purpose for months now, and I finally got the courage to send it out to folks for review over the weekend.  I got written feedback from one prof who said "this is everything and the kitchens sink" (not in a good way) and commented that I'm "all over the place." No surprise there, being all over the place is kind of my modus operandi.  Although, of course, I do realize that this is not the impression that my statement should give about me.  I am actually supposed to work really hard to hide that in my statement of purpose.  (Once they know me, they will come to love that about me, but they can't know it too early)

Then, came this last blow of how the listings of my interests and research projects are "unhelpful in the extreme."  I also watched my prof laugh while reading it...ouch.  But it made the process feel more human today, and actually, getting such harsh feedback spurred me to defend myself and my lists!  The meeting turned out great because I was forced to articulate the core of my interests and put together a narrative and then, she basically helped me to write it all out.  Helpful in the extreme.

I wish I could convey what exactly it feels like to be writing a statement of purpose for a PhD program...AND having professors read it.  I mean, I know that many of you have probably done some form of this before.  But, somehow, I really do feel like doing it for Literature programs makes the stakes that much higher because we are in the business of narrative!  The statement has to be academic, eloquent, concise, focused, intelligent, interesting, and all in direct phrases and ACTIVE VOICE.  Damn that active voice. 

Essentially, when I share my statement with my profs or talk about it with them, I feel the exact same way that I feel when I wake up from a dream in which I was naked in public.  So, the question is, where in the hell can I find some clothes?! 

Immigration Day

I've been slightly bitter today because I had been planning to have today off of work not realizing that AU does not celebrate Columbus Day. Now, I have no love for Columbus. So, it actually makes me happy in that AU is not celebrating. But I was also looking forward to a day off...and quite frankly, I am more invested in being selfish about my time right now than I am about righting the wrongs of history. 

 

And then, I read this article that confirmed my selfishness and how very American it is of me to be selfish. I like this idea of celebrating Immigration Day today. How very appropriate to be working myself on a day that celebrates the immigrants who come to the U.S. not only to perform jobs that no one else wants to do, which reduces the complexity of immigration to a simply monetary exchange, but also the immigrants who are here to pursue love and vocational work, like academic and scientific pursuits that they are more qualified than Americans to perform. 

Of course, immigration day celebrates my family's heritage since my great grandfather came over in 1907.

Irony

Ironically, I was just complaining last night about deer and the potential for an accident.  Well, tonight I had an actual accident with an animal.  A party animal.

The whole scene seemed like it was staged.  I was buzzed.  Before I left my friend said "be safe, you've had a few drinks."  I blew off the comment and said "don't worry, I'm riding on the sidewalk." 

Well, the sidewalk is a real obstacle course for bikers.  Pedestrians don't understand that bikers can ride on the sidewalk.  So, there is a lot of hostility built into a bike ride along the sidewalk rather than the road.  See, I had to ride on the sidewalk because I planned really poorly for the day, in general, and I didn't have my bike lights with me by the time I was heading home after 10 pm. 

So, I was doing just fine, ringing my bell incessantly and slowing down for pedestrians, trying to maneuver the crowds.  Until, drunk asshole #1 shows up right in front of Benetton on Connecticut Ave.  He was doing some kind of performance for the girls he was with, and I was ringing my bell and doing all I could to alert him to my presence.  And then, it happened.  We had a collision.  I thought the idiot would move.  But he didn't.  And I ran right into him.  My handle bars lodged right into his ribs.  I had to jump off of the bike. 

It was really the most anti-climactic moment ever.  He yelled "oh, yeah." And I yelled back, "ohhhhh, yeahhhhhh."  And then, his girlfriend huffed.  And then, I huffed.  Then, it was all over.  I got back on my bike.  And I headed home.  I really had no idea what had actually just happened, but I wasn't about to look back.

The other thing I realized in this moment was the serious level of uncoolness that I embody.  I was wearing my helmet - the helmet that I use everyday and that everyday fits my head just perfectly.  Well, tonight, it was as if all of the work on PhD applications shrank my brain and as a result, my entire head.  My helmet, which is supposed to protect me, was my biggest enemy during this duel with the drunk idiot on the sidewalk.  I was yelling at him as if I were a professional biker and he was a professional idiot.  And all the while, my helmet wasn't actually on my head, and the strap was choking me, but I was trying not to let on to those facts.The wind forced my helmet to fall behind my head, so it looked like I was wearing a helmet scarf and having some kind of sado-masochistic moment of pain with my head-protector.  It was just awful.  I felt extremely self-righteous on the sidewalk.  

And as I panted up the steep hill from Dupont Circle to Adams Morgan, I realized that although in my mind, I did everything right in that situation...perhaps to the outside eye I seemed a bit crazy.
 
Sadly true story. The End.

Oh Deer!

We have FINALLY had consecutive days without rain, which means beautiful weather for biking!  I had an unusual encounter last night and again tonight with fearless deer in the stretch of Mass Ave between AU and the Cathedral. The deer are on the sidewalk, very near the road, hanging out, and not looking out for bikers. 

There is a lot I am still trying to learn about biking...like how I just finally learned this week how to inflate my own tires!  But dealing with deer while on the bike is both awesome and terrifying.  I had no idea how to manage the fact that there was an entire family that I couldn't just swerve around...there was one on the sidewalk, one on the right side of the sidewalk and one further ahead on the left side.  My first thought was something like "deer in headlights...surprise...frozen...unpredictable."  I had no idea how to alert the deer and to prevent one of them from bolting right in front of me.  I started blinking my light and ringing my bell, and the deer didn't even look up!  I guess that's what happens when you graze every night along a busy street.  Then, the one on my left ran across the street and actually just kept running.

Now I'm feeling a bit bad about how I handled the situation.  Did I scare the little bugger away unnecessarily?  Or was I right to ring all of the alarm bells and lights? 

One of the roads I ride home on displays your speed, and I am usually going about 27 mph downhill, so my guess is that I was going about 27 near the deer and started braking hard once I noticed them.  I'm not sure what kind of damage that would do in a collision with a deer, but it seems like potential for something bad.  I turned to Google for advice, and found out that Matt Lauer dislocated his shoulder in a bicycle accident with a dog a few years ago.  So, apparently it happens....

I wasn't concerned about this -- frankly, I hadn't even considered the possibility of danger -- until a yappy little dog actually jumped up near my peddles as I was riding down Connecticut Ave and tried to latch onto my leg a few weeks ago.  FREAKY!

Passive Voice

Writing can be so joyful, and it can be so demoralizing. 

I can't seem to get beyond the passive voice in my writing. I know that we aren't supposed to use it...but I'm not convinced of WHY we shouldn't use it. Certainly, when I am talking about myself, I would avoid the passive voice. but why can't I say, for example, "the envelope rhyme scheme is executed masterfully." Why do I have to say "The poet executes the envelope rhyme scheme masterfully." ?

I realize that active voice "makes for forcible writing," according to the masters of style. I guess I just don't see it as such a big deal, though. I don't think that forcible necessarily makes an argument stronger. I think the facts and reasoning that you lay out is what makes an argument compelling. This is pretty much always a number one reason I get marked down on papers. Granted, I admit that I am prone to use passive voice when I am rushing through a paper. So, there are usually other problems with those papers that result from editing in a rush. However, part of my problem with editing is precisely that sometimes passive voice seems like the natural way to make an argument, and I have a hard time editing it out.

For example, for me, the passive voice allows me to present facts and examples that support my argument while letting the literature maintain its authority. In the example of the sentence on rhyme scheme, I think that the passive voice allows me to remain deeply in the poem and in the language and "located" on a certain line. It feels to me that making the poet the subject of that line takes the emphasis off of the rhyme and instead focuses too heavily on the technique of writing rather than the AFFECT of the rhyme and its ability to move me.  Passive voice helps me to stay inside of the poem rather than having to talk about the author's technique from the outside, I can unravel the technique from the inside.  I'm not saying the author is dead or anything that profound...but I want to be able to use passive voice without it weaking my argument.

Am I the only one out there who actually likes to use the passive voice? Any grammaticians or rhetoricians out there who really care about passive and active voice?

My Worst Nightmare

Okay, maybe its not my worst nightmare.  But it's definitely up there.  What is it?  The thought of Nicolas Cage being immortal.

I can't stand Nicolas Cage.  My disclaimer is always the same, I love the movie Adaptation, but really it works out because his character is meant to be so dreadfully annoying in it.  I can't stand him in anything else, and I refuse to watch his movies.

How horrified was I today then to come across this creepy Civil War era photo of someone who looks just like him.  I really don't even know what to say to this since this is way more uncanny than seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast.  My horror also makes me wonder if there is a profit to be made out of this.  If I didn't hate Nicolas Cage so much, perhaps I could take the Jesus Toaster idea (which is AWESOME!  I want one so bad!) and make....toast of Nicolas Cage's face?  Absolutely not.  I hate his face so much; I could never stomach it.

One thing I love about this photo mystery is that, in some small way, it shows how truly unoriginal Nicolas Cage truly is.  I also love when literature and life intersect, and this is one day when it most definitely does.  I've been thinking about faces all week, and in general, I think about faces a lot. 

My favorite theorist, Barbara Johnson, got into "thing theory" in part because of an aversion to eating things with faces (she uses the example of an aversion to gingerbread men).  In literature, we are kind of obsessed with simulacra, and I love this trope in movies, like Paul Henreid in The Scar.  So, this whole face thing with the photograph is creating a real conundrum for me. I want to think about the uncanny similarities between these two faces, but I really can't think about Nicolas Cage anymore than I already have for this posting.

The Marble Faun

In addition to taking a full course load, working on the research portion of my thesis and preparing PhD applications, I am also five weeks away from taking the comprehensive exams. The six-hour exam that culminates the master's program...and yet, is scheduled right in the middle of the two-year program. Anyway, they have reformatted the exam this year, and on October 29th, I will be one of the guinea pigs taking this new format.

This weekend I finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, which is on the comps reading list. At its heart, it is about the transformation from innocence to experience. Yet it manages to do so without being didactic.  It explores the complicated dynamics of love, innocence, knowledge and desire setting the scene in Italy, which balances the deep interpersonal questions with meditations on art, travel, the beauty of Rome, and the Italian countryside. There is a lot more in the novel too about religion, for example, but those were some of the things that intrigued me most.

It's most interesting aspect, in my opinion, is the steady concentration on what it is that makes us human and how that can and cannot be communicated through the arts. It is a great novel, and I highly recommend reading it! Maybe it's because I'm returning to his work more than 10 years after reading The Scarlet Letter, but I enjoyed this way more than that book. It is also the kind of novel that we don't really find being published anymore.

If you do decide to read it, let me know. I'm dying to talk more about it!

Winning the Moral Victory

To make a long and very emotional story short, I got ripped off on the grade of my final paper in one of my classes this summer, which in turn gave me a lower-than-deserved grade in the class overall.  I went and spoke with the professor about it who conceded that he had not honored the strong scholarship of the paper despite some of the flaws in the structure of my paper.  This concession was supposed to lead to him changing my grade in the class.  Now, two months later, the grade is not changed.  I spoke with another professor about it who advised me to let it go and take solace in the fact that I won the moral victory...and to gain closure by getting the paper published.

It's good advice.  I know it is good advice, especially the publishing bit.  However, I keep thinking -- a week later -- about winning moral victories.  What does it mean to have failed to inspire or enact a change while knowing that most people agree that change is necessary...dare I say "moral"?  I'm not trying to conflate issues here (although it is a tendency of mine!), but there seems to be some resonance between the specific way that my personal singular "moral victory" feels like failure and the fact that this situation translates to so many broader issues.  

Have YOU won any moral victories that you might like to share to give me some comfort?  

Just for kicks, I wanted to see if Google could support me in detangling this concept.  Searching for "winning the moral victory" leads you to a bunch of sports-related "moral victory" pages.    Is this language outdated?  Is everyone too afraid of people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to talk about moral victories? 

97 Blueberries

Have you ever experienced a moment -- or an extended moment -- of OCD?  Well, I had one of those moments this week.  I had a handful of five blueberries, and one of them went tumbling to the ground.  As I watched it fall, I experienced a brief moment of stress.  I immediately picked it up so that I wouldn't step on it and make a blue squishy mess on the floor.  And then, I actually couldn't bring myself to throw it away.  I washed it off and ate it.  Yes, I did.

What makes me drop rice all over the floor...and while we are at it, let's add pieces of apple, a stray ring of chopped onion, etc...and not care one bit.  But this single little blueberry, well, I just couldn't let it go.  This is the moment that brought me into uncritical, full blown OCD.  I proceeded to re-open the refrigerator and pull out the carton of blueberries...and count them all, one-by-one.  I counted 92 + the 5 I had just eaten = 97.

In case you were wondering how many blueberries you get for your buck, it's about two cents a berry.  Not bad.  

This is for all kindred spirits out there who continue to ponder things like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

 

This is the Modern World!

Tonight was my first day of my second class, Global Mobilities.  If you are interested, you can actually read a little bit about here: http://globalmobilities.wordpress.com/course-overview/.  I love this course's starting idea of constant motion in the modern world.  We already had three articles to read in time for tonight's class....and I was happy to dive right in, head first.

I love thinking about feeling and how the more connected we are through technology, the more often (I believe) we actually feel isolated because our interactions are ever more mediated.   And now, I have a whole semester to meditate on it.  The best part?  Lauren Berlant, currently my favorite affect theorist, is on the syllabus too!  I'm just finishing her book, Compassion, which has been wonderful summer reading. 

Ah yes, I do love modernity.  And I look forward to spending my future in academia exploring modernist notions of interiority and making fun of it...while also taking it seriously.  Perhaps this is why I always like the band, The Jam?

Enjoy!

Back to School!

Today was my first class of the fall semester.  I have to shout it from the rooftop -- I really am in love with school right now!  Apparently, the three week break and a solid GRE score were enough to leave me feeling rejuvenated and ready for an intense fall line up.

I started with a poetry genre class tonight, which I was half-terrified and half-excited about since I love poetry, but it often eludes me.  First off, as opposed to my summer classes, I am back into graduate seminars and don't have any undergraduates in the class, which means that the depth of discussion was WAY above what I was dealing with all summer.  The tug on one's morale when sitting through asinine comments by undergraduate seniors who think they know everything (which means they aren't yet smart enough to know that they don't know anything) cannot be overstated.  Second, the class is small - only 9 people - so it feels intimate, which is in keeping with the nature of poetry.  Finally, we kicked off the class today with Emily Dickinson.  

What more could I have asked for????  I love her poetry so much!  We talked about one of her poems for a full hour, which was just awesome.  I am sharing it with you below so you can share in my joy of uber-modern interiority and abstract bliss!

As an added bonus...I laughed to myself thinking of "the Seal Despair" as the seal that ate Buster's hand in Arrested Development...and the resultant despair that plagued him due to his dangerous prosthesis.  I do love puns, and apparently my subconscious does too.

And now, I give you Miss Emily Dickinson:

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons--

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt it gives us--

We can find no scar,

But internal difference, 

Where the Meanings, are--

None may teach it--Any--

'Tis the Seal Despair--

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--

Shadows--hold their breath--

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death--

43 Hours in Philly

I did feel a certain duty as a Louisianan to show my friends in DC how to have a real hurricane party.  I learned from talking about hurricane parties with many people that many of you actually think that one drinks hurricanes during a hurricane party.  How silly!  Of course not!  Hurricanes are usually reserved for mardi gras or other such occasions.  If you are going to be drinking for days on end without power in the house, light beer is usually where its at.

But I was doing what any self-respecting Louisianan would do during the threats of Irene: laugh in the face of danger!  There was no way that I could take that hurricane seriously, although I must admit that after enough television in the hotel room in Philly, I did insist on having a supply of bottled water.  Instead of waiting out the storm in my own home where I would have to fend for myself and be frustrated by the local over-reaction, I persisted on with plans to spend the weekend in Philly.

I've been to Philly a lot recently for work, but I haven't been there in a long time for fun.  We had a great weekend, especially the first night before the storm hit the next day.  Friday night we had a delicious dinner at a Portuguese restaurant, Koo Zee Doo, in a neighborhood called Northern Liberties.  Then, we walked around the neighborhood, visited the outdoor piazza and found some awesome kitsch retailers, and ended the night at an open air rooftop bar, Standard Tap.  It was really a great return to the city and inspired us to visit the Rodin Museum and the Mutter Museum the next day before hunkering down in the hotel.

Since I have more and more trouble turning off my current obsession with emotion theory, I was pleased to find a particular sculpture to contemplate: Shame (Absolution).  The woman's tucked in legs, overflowing hair that covered her face down to her waist, and arm shielding her face left me thinking about how shame is articulated by the body through inward contortions that shield the front of the body from the outside world.  Shame is a lonely feeling and its expression further isolates the suffering.  Rodin's combination of shame with absolution places shame in the arms of a gentle body that bears the weight of the suffering woman and protects her.  The one who offers absolution is not a priestly figure, but instead also appears to be a woman.  The museum's entryway features the Gates of Hell, which can't help but set a certain tone about religious condemnation...and condemnation of religion.  His attention to the body reveals its expressive capacity, which has left me thinking a lot more about body language this week.

So, there was drinking, TV watching, and general gallivanting in Philly while Irene looked a lot more like a typical summer storm than a crazy bitch looking to take down the East Coast.  

How about that earthquake!

I was in a meeting in the Library -- a concrete monstrosity -- for a meeting when the earthquake was felt in DC. It was a scary moment since I realized I had no idea what to do, had not bothered myself in my 8 months on the job to learn about emergency exits, and not to mention the three floors of stacks and stacks of books directly above the room the meeting was in.

We evacuated...but instead of being sent home like the majority of DC, we had to continue on our work day. It was so bizarre to have had this thing happen and then, to sit down and try to be productive for the rest of the afternoon and act pretty much like nothing happened. I was in China last year when DC had a minor earthquake, so this was the first time I've experienced one!

And now, we are expecting a hurricane this weekend? WTF?! How many natural and unnatural disasters can DC expect this August? From the debt crisis to the earthquake, it sure makes things feel a wee bit eerie around here.

Is milkmaggedon next??????????????????

100% Mynd Use

I was recently introduced to the term "navel-gazing."  I can't remember if someone said it in conversation or if I read it somewhere or what.  But now that I've heard it, I'm starting to see it everywhere, like this Washingtonian review of Uncle Vanya, which says that the production's "comically morose characters make our 21st century navel-gazing look positively paltry in comparison."  I realize I'm late on the uptake here.

At any rate, I've been thinking about navel-gazing and how of all the problems that I do suffer from and with, I think that self-absorbed complacency (OED) isn't at the top of the list as it seems to be for many other Americans.  This term made me appreciate local DC artist B.K. Adams' mantra "100% mynd use" all the more.

My friends introduced me to B.K. Adams after learning about him because he has a studio in the basement of their condo building.  We attended the opening of his exhibit at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum this Sunday.  It is a really delightful exhibit!  It is definitely worth a visit.

His pieces explore several themes -- like journey of life, cycles, and a lot of funny puns -- in a variety of ways -- sculpture, canvasses, video, and photography.  I really enjoyed the show; my favorite piece was entitled "family reunion." The sculpture was made up of broken chairs, wine glasses, and bicycle tires among other things.  And yet, the tone was light and the colors were bright, so it didn't feel like a condemnation of the chaos of family so much as an observation of the chaos.  


The exhibit was a wonderful journey through the mind of someone who the Smithsonian says "demands both himself and everyone else to think and be creative."  I really appreciate and respect his demand.  I suppose it is something I strive for myself and look for in others.  


So, stop navel-gazing and get your ass to a part of the city that most of us don't venture into very often!  Support neighborhood business and get coffee or lunch when you visit at Big Chair Coffee and Grill.  

Our National Poet Laureate

I haven't had much time to think about our new poet laureate, Phillip Levine.  So, I'm sharing with all of you as a first step. 


As a first impression, I do note that this is yet another white male poet laureate...which has been the case every year for the past 10 years except for Louise Gluck in 2003-2004.  The Librarian of Congress has been in his position for about 25 years, and I just can't help but wonder if his Princeton education has given him a fairly narrow view of what outstanding American poetry looks and sounds like. 


But I share those merely as first impressions and not as an educated opinion for or against the choice of Phillip Levine.  I am working on becoming better acquainted with Levine's work.  After my poetry genre course this fall, I'm sure I'll have something more substantial to put forth.  For now, I'm happy to share his poem, Alone.


Alone
Sunset, and the olive grove flames
on the far hill.  We descend
into the lunging shadows
of goat grass, and the air

deepens like smoke.
You were behind me, but when I turned
there was the wrangling of crows
and the long grass rising in the wind

and the swelling tips of grain
turning to water under a black sky.
All around me the thousand
small denials of the day

rose like insects to the flaming
of an old truth, someone alone
following a broken trail of stones
toward the deep and starless river.

Post-Exam Bliss

Well, I won't ever have to take the GRE again, and that is a pretty amazing feeling. I got a very decent score, which is one major step towards a successful PhD application! WOOHOO!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not any less outraged than I was two days ago about this exam. I still find the whole thing ridiculous. But now I no longer have to think about it -- ever again. So, want to know what it feels like to have such a stressful exam over with and completed with high marks?  Well, to fully understand, I have to delve back to my first round of GRE misery.

I studied for months on end with a couple of friends back in the summer of 2009 in preparation for my initial application to graduate school. I got several books and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to memorize Kaplan's word groups as synonyms for words that are merely similar, but not synonyms, blah blah blah. I invested a really disgusting amount of time preparing without raising my score at all. I literally got the same exact score that I got the very first time I took it as an undergraduate in 2003.

My score from 2003 and 2009 was only in the 75th percentile, which was far lower than the cut off score at most highly ranked universities. I not only broke out into tears immediately upon walking out of the building, I went a little crazy. Just as I was trying to compose myself at home, I pulled a shirt off of a hanger in my closet. The feeling of it was so satisfying in that moment that I proceeded to rip everything in my closet off of its hanger one-by-one until the whole closet was a big pile in the middle of my room. Yeah.

So, now, fast forward two years. I was really not eager to relive the experience. I bit the bullet and signed up for a Kaplan course, and studied for exactly four weeks. I did zero preparation on math, and I did one round of vocab memorization before abandoning ship. This time I simply learned the silly test methods, and voila! 85-90th percentile!

The post-exam moments were far better this time around too...I shared the experience with my friend and colleague who also took the exam yesterday.  We celebrated with wine and stayed up until 3 am chatting outside on a beautiful night.  Ahhhhh, the relief of having completed one big hurdle in the lengthy application process, feels great!

GRE: Gimmick Ridden with Equivocations

Who is ready to play along with the new GRE?

I haven't been blogging as regularly these past few weeks because I've been overwhelmed with the demands of summer school, preparing for the GRE, a pressing amount of work professionally, and contending with the fact that summer school to-date hasn't been relaxing at all. 

Right now, I'm about 40 hours away from taking the GRE.  Yes, I am in graduate school.  Yes, I am succeeding in graduate school.  Yes, I still have to take this standardized test that is supposed to predict my performance in graduate school in order to apply to PhD programs.  What a farce!  This whole thing makes me angry for personal reasons, such as the fact that I do not see things in strict binaries of black and white and right and wrong.  Thus, I have a whole host of troubles trying to answer GRE questions that are supposedly straight forward, but are only straight forward if you think about things from a very narrow perspective...which is not a highly valued skill in English departments.  In fact, I am doing so well in graduate school precisely because I question people's assumptions and pick apart underlying meanings.  I really could go on and on about this.

I am also outraged at the big business of the GRE and how every school requires it, and it requires stupid tricks and techniques rather than real intelligence to perform well.  So, if you aren't of a very specific and certain kind of mind, you have to pay for study materials and possibly classes, etc.  You have to pay for scores to be sent to more than 3 schools and at the end of the day, GRE makes hundreds of dollars off of impoverished students without really telling anything about the potential for that student's success. 

But really, what I'm fired up about right now is the new format, which is supposed to be more useful...but really has a whole lot of questions based on a very specific type of logic that seems suspect to me.  You have social scientists and English majors all trying to take this damned thing, and I can't foresee how students who have been taught to think critically in either discipline will do very well with these ridiculous questions.  The biggest section that I am getting wrong...and whose answer choices are consistently rooted in faulty logic are the new "inference" questions.

I don't want to leave y'all out of this terrible experience because misery does love company.  So, I'm challenging you try out a few of the easy sample questions here to get a taste of how silly the new structure is: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/content/verbal_reasoning.  Remember schools require you to be in the 85th percentile for the most part, so if you get just one wrong out of four, you are sliding down a slipper slope.

Best of luck!  Bon courage!