Getting out of the house...

We have been spending lots of time at home, and I've been spending lots of time at school, so we decided to get out for a bit this weekend.  Not knowing people has made it a bit tough to have a social life, but we are working on it.  Through mutual friends in San Francisco, we recently met a couple who just moved to Monterey from Brooklyn, so we gave them a call and the four of us decided to explore Monterey together today.  It was so much fun!

The drive there is really nice along CA-1 -- just under an hour -- and it passes through a heavy agricultural area, so even though we had already visited the Farmer's Market this morning, we stopped off at a farm and got more tomatoes, garlic and persimmons on the way.  Cannery Row was our first stop, and we basically walked with tunnel vision through this highly touristed area.  We ended up down at San Carlos Beach, which is a popular beach for scuba certifications, and it was pretty cool to see so many people out there training.

After a lovely lunch outdoors at a BBQ joint on the lighthouse avenue strip, we headed out to Pebble Beach/17 Mile Drive.  There were tons of surfers and tons of kelp/seaweed as well!  Someone was actually surfing with a paddle (paddleboarding-surfing?), which inspired me to want to find a wetsuit and take paddleboarding lessons; it looked like so much fun!  Continuing our way along 17 mile drive we also saw an enormous colony of sea lions out on this rock (pictured).  It's hard to make them out in this picture, but you can make out the shapes of their heads looking up from the top of the rock...and basically, most of the brown (yeah, a huge area) part of the rock is made up of hundreds of sea lions lying on top of one another:

I have never seen so much kelp either!  I'm pretty sure that Monterey Bay is home to a kelp forest, and this is some of the thick rope-like kelp along the shore.  Apparently kelp in this area can grow 10 to 12 inches per day and can get to be as tall as 175 feet...

The Lone Cypress Tree was an interesting sight as well.  It is the icon of Pebble Beach and is 250 years old.  It is pretty cool as it looks like it is emerging from rock:

California is a beautiful place and what made today even better than just enjoying more of our beautiful new home state was enjoying it with new friends as well!

Time Management

The minute the very idea of time management is mentioned, I can't help but jump to conclusions about the disciplinary and hegemonic nature of time management per Michel Foucault.  In Discipline and Punish, Foucault talks about the timetable as operating under a "principle of non-idleness" that originated in monasteries explaining that "it was forbidden to waste time, which was counted by God and paid for by man, the timetable was to eliminate the danger of wasting it--a moral offense and economic dishonesty"(154, Discipline & Punish).  Nowadays the timetable has become so ingrained in our western existence that we have sayings like "time is money," and worse, we internalize this principle to such an extent that one often feels compelled to call him/herself lazy when indulging in extended periods of non-productive time, i.e. idleness.

I am a good case study for some student in psychology or sociology because I find our contemporary relationship with time to be highly dysfunctional and problematic.  And yet, I have to admit that I am one of the strictest adherents to this philosophy.  I am currently in an interesting position because I am craving more structure and even created a timetable for myself this week...and yet, my new lifestyle is kind of rejecting the timetable at every point.  I wondered where our TA timecards are to ensure that I work my 20 hours a week...and of course, I figured out quickly that there are no timecards.  No one cares how much time I actually work or when or where I do it.  This is a kind of freedom I have really never known.  

If you look online for a book that tells you how to reject time management, you will be hard pressed to find one.  I did about five minutes worth of research to find that there is nothing so far that I can tell that is written explicitly on that topic (note: this research was purely for the blog entry and not for self help).  If you are looking for books to help you resist the compelling power to organize your time, you will simply find books that identify this resistance as a disorder and proceed to tell you how to manage your time.  A search on time management on Amazon.com yielded 142,880 results.  The best selling book about time management appears to be, "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity".  It seems to me that any book that is focused on undoing the notion of time being intimately related with productivity would still have to have a relatively productive title that suggests more productive creativity or something like that.

Do you think that at some point people will start resisting this compulsion to spend their time in "non-idleness"?  Like, what if there was one day a year that people around the world went to work and did nothing in solidarity and the people who do not have work sat in front of city hall or something to show that they are resisting the compulsion to either be productive or be invisible.  I mean, I guess the idea of a sit-in is akin to this, but sit-ins are typically related to a specific workforce in a specific place.  I'm thinking like something on an international scale like Earth Day, International Women's Day or International Day of Peace.  The call to action could be something like: time-oppressed people of the world unite!  It's not quite as slogan-y as "workers of the world, unite"...but it is also perhaps less identifiable with a specific political party.  I mean, lots of CEO's are time-oppressed and this could give them an opportunity to join in on the fun too.  I'm just saying...it seems like an interesting idea.

Filles à la cassette

I'm reading George Washington Cable's The Grandissimes for the first time and am just a few chapters into it.  Already, I've been surprised by a few things that are more unfamiliar to me than I expected, like the term "fille à la cassette," since it is used in the book as if it was a well-known and widely used term in 19th century Louisiana.  I've never heard of it before now!

A "fille à la cassette" is a woman who was brought to Louisiana from France strictly for the purpose of marriage because there were many creole and cajun men who were running after women of color even though interracial marriage was illegal.  Apparently, these "filles à la cassette" were originally taken from off of the streets of Paris, brothels, etc...and although history is certainly vague on the point (as it so often is), I suspect that these women were not so much invited to Louisiana as they were forced to go.  At any rate, it seems that many young women were also taken from Catholic convents as well.  Aha, Bingo!  Trés interessante!  

What makes this a fascinating point to me is that I never did quite understand the enormous Ursuline presence in New Orleans.  Now it is all coming together.  A few weeks ago in the French course while we were talking about Moliére's play, Les Précieuses ridicules, the professor was explaining that in the late 16th century a widespread phenomenon of conspicuous consumption was beginning to be a problem (and lasted for a long time) among the French nobility, which led to an increase in significant indebtedness.  Exacerbating the issue of diminishing wealth was the fact that families with female heirs of marrying age were at risk of causing the family to fall further into debt because of the large amount of money and pieces of property required for their dowries.  What was a wealthy nobleman to do?!  

Enter the Catholic order of the Ursulines, whose convents were no longer just safe havens for orphaned and poor girls.  These convents also became safe havens for indebted nobility to preserve their fortunes as families of the nobility started sending their adolescent daughters into Ursuline convents--ultimately forcing them to take religious vows and preventing them from getting married--so that the family could maintain their property and manage their debts.  The amount that one paid to the convent was significantly less than one would pay in a dowry.

This form of forced imprisonment led to all sorts of mayhem in the convents as women were confined there (who most certainly did not have a vocational calling or will to become a religious), including rampant supposed episodes of demon possession.  Focusing back on Louisiana, this trend of circulating young women in and out of the marriage market at the will of men in power was something that extended to the colonies, and the Ursuline order was at the center of it.  They were one of the biggest sources of "filles à la cassette" in Louisiana and a much more efficient pipeline than plucking women from the streets of Paris.  It's a fascinating history of women's history that I definitely did not learn about in 8th grade Louisiana history.  

So, now I must decide whether this is a topic that I might introduce in my discussion section or if this is a bit too tangential and far outside of the scope of the discussion?  Maybe I will keep it as my "get out of silence" card if discussion on The Grandissimes isn't happening as readily as it should.  

Getting Oriented

Today was a super exciting day: orientation for the PhD program and presentation of classes for the year.  I began the day at 10 AM (I do like academic life so far in that nothing seems to begin before 10 AM) by meeting the professor who I will be TA'ing for this quarter.  She immediately expressed her enthusiasm by calling my name from down the hall upon her arrival, "Sarah?  I'm so excited to meet you!".  I was caught off guard because I was so excited to meet her!

From there, we talked about George Washington Cable's The Grandissimes which is the first work on the syllabus.  I told her that I considered doing my master's thesis on Cable (he is a Louisiana writer), but decided on Octavia Butler...and quickly qualified that by stating how I know that to most people these authors seem completely unrelated.  Her reply?  "Oh yeah, I can see how you could be thinking about them in the same area of study".   All day this kind of excitement of ideas and encouragement was present!  I cannot overstate how awesome it is for a professor to acknowledge and express enthusiasm in your way of thinking; it is critical to being a successful student!

We also had our first pedagogy course today, which will be a weekly meeting with all of the first year TA's where we discuss how we are conducting our sections, etc.  I'm pretty excited about leading my first discussion session on Monday.  I have about 33 students and most of them are seniors with a few juniors and sophomores as well.  My plan for the first week is to get students to introduce themselves and learn about their interest in this course, which is called "The Historical Imaginary," since it isn't a required course.  

After the pedagogy course, I listened to the presentations of the classes for the next year and had a really hard time trying to figure out what I want to take this year because there are so many things that interest me!  After spending some time thinking about it tonight, I think I will be taking a seminar on W.E.B. DuBois called "DuBois in a Global Context".  I figure it is a good course for me to start with (in addition to the required theory-heavy Proseminar and the Pedagogy courses) since it will focus on considering DuBois as the first critical race theorist.  I've never taken a course specifically on critical race theory even though I have been working with many texts in that genre for a while.  I figure this is a good, solid foundation for situating myself within the genre.

Now, my task at hand is preparing the necessary work for the Proseminar on Tuesday which includes a polished 25 page paper and several readings from Marx, Luce Irigaray, Rod Ferguson and Walter Benjamin.  Apparently reading Mimesis was just required as a backdrop to what we will be talking about...which is good because even though it feels like I read that enormous book for nothing, I'm really glad we won't be focusing on that text for an entire class session.  At the end of the book, the author was analyzing Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse and actually kept referring to the author as "he"!  I mean, I know the dude was writing in the 1950's...but are you kidding me?!  How patriarchal.

As of today, I am feeling super excited about learning, engaging with students, teaching, etc.; the whole spectrum of responsibilities is extremely motivating!  

Note to Self: Do Not Argue with Mathematics

In addition to technology, which I blogged about yesterday, I am also interested in time and theories of time.  So, where does one go for this kind of question?  Philosophically speaking, one goes to Kant, Heidegger, Deleuze, Bakhtin and a bunch of other philosophers.  I usually go to those resources, and half the time I end up with my ideas all in knots...meaning that all of the critical theory that I think I know gets all twisted and confused leaving me to untangle myself.

So, I took a different approach this time.  I went to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.  Let me be clear: this book has not clarified anything for me.  Oh no, it most definitely has not.  It has, however, raised more questions than I originally had.  And that's a good thing.  I think.  This was a good resource to begin with because it reminded me of one important thing that I often take for granted, which is that until very recently (18th century-ish) people thought that the universe was in a constant (i.e. static) state.  Important to remember.

A few other things that the book taught me are:

1) The universe is expanding by between 5% and 10% every thousand million years.

2) Hawking was married to Jane Wilde (until 1990 when they divorced, and she recently published a memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen).

3) there is something called quarks and "matter on the earth is made up mainly of protons and neutrons, which in turn are made up of quarks".

4) It may be that our very existence is a consequence of the production of protons.  Put another way, we are all made up of quarks.

5) The earth and the sun will likely collide in about a thousand million million million million years.

6) Scientists often argue against one or more predicted results of their discovery before some other scientist proves through experiment that the predicted result is valid (for example, Einstein wrote a paper arguing that stars would not shrink to zero size even though his theory of relativity led to proving the existence of black holes).

I also learned that I am fighting a losing battle with mathematics.  According to Stephen Hawking, "one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem."  Really?!  This could be the answer to my poor performance in math.  I'm always arguing with equations or proofs that don't make sense to me and when I ask someone to explain it, s/he is always like "it is what it is" and simply restates the equation when I am looking for the history of how that equation came to be...and that's not really a question I can handle.  Obviously, I am not going for a doctorate in physics or anything of the like.

Hawking ends the penultimate chapter like this: "To summarize, the laws of science do not distinguish between the forward and backward directions of time.  However, there are at least three arrows of time that do distinguish the past from the future.  They are the thermodynamic arrow, the direction of time in which disorder increases; the psychological arrow, the direction of time in which we remember the past and not the future; and the cosmological arrow, the direction of time in which the universe expands rather than contracts."  I can make sense of this in some ways, but in other ways I am totally lost with this and wondering if I actually really did just read the book or did I just daydream my way through it?  

Hawking also claims that "if you remember every word in this book, your memory will have recorded about two million pieces of information: the order in your brain will have increased by about two million units."  Yeah, I definitely did not register two million pieces of information...  I'll be grappling with Hawking's assertion that quantum gravity is the key to understanding our universe and how people are trying to get there...but I do know that it has a lot to do with math.

For now and forever, I think I will stick with the psychological arrow of time.  Another benefit of reading this is that I think those philosophers mentioned above will seem way more accessible when I get to reading their work on time.  And of course, reading things outside of my scope is good for keeping me humble.  Very humble.

Prometheus

Technology is a pretty important interest area in the humanities at the moment, and it is one of my primary areas of interest.  I keep wondering how far back I need to go to learn the ins and outs of the history of technology while also wondering how far in the future I need to look to understand the potential direction of technology in order to support my work.  Looking into the past is manageable, but how would I look into the future?  Well, science fiction literature, for sure, since that is my beat, but also recent patents for proposed new technologies would be a good source of information as well (I think).  

In fact, apparently the U.S. Patent Office actually has a weekly "Electronic Official Gazette" that provides information on patents issued that week.  This publication puts some data behind all the talk about innovation.  California appears to have around 700 patents issued EACH WEEK.  That is three times as much as any other state.  This week, Texas had 171, New York had 167, and Washington had 153...California had 780.  Fascinating.

In order to not go down too many rabbit holes (although rabbit holes are part of what makes research so fun!) while trying to learn more about technology and find solid footing in this large area of research, I've re-focused on the Greek myth of Prometheus.  Most literary criticism dealing with technology points back to Prometheus, so it makes sense for me to revisit this story and understand it more fully.  Prometheus is widely known in Greek mythology for being tasked by the gods with creating man and subsequently making Zeus angry by supposedly favoring humans over the gods (Zeus in particular).  As Zeus becomes angry with humans, he decides to take fire away from them.  Well, Prometheus goes to Hephaestus, known as the god of technology (which I learned by reading The Iliad a few weeks ago), and steals fire to give it back to man.  Prometheus' act of giving fire to humans marks the birth of human technology, and this is why the story is so important to my work.  

I didn't originally understand why critical theory and philosophy put such a strong emphasis on Prometheus and not on Hephaestus, but I understand now that the concern of critical theory and philosophy is a human-centric concern and doesn't really care that the gods had technology.  Technology becomes important once humans have this capability because it shapes our history, culture, and ultimately our future.  

The story of Prometheus is a fascinating one, and sadly, one that I think would only fare well in a film adaptation with the utmost care and attention.  Unfortunately, I get the sense from the previews that the film Prometheus which came out this summer simply takes the idea of Prometheus and turns it into something horrible rather than giving it serious philosophical attention.  I haven't seen it because I'm pretty sure that it will disappoint me.  But who knows, maybe I'll see it on DVD....

So You're a Camper Now?

Up until this year, I have really never been into camping.  I had been on too many youth group trips as a youth myself and as a youth group leader to know that sleeping on the ground for one night or more was a recipe for misery.  And what about all of those bugs out in the wilderness--not to mention snakes and whatever other wildlife I might encounter?!  Let's not forget the idea of not showering or likely showering with cold water for the weekend.  Worrying about these things did not exactly add up to my idea of a fun or relaxing weekend.

In 2012 -- year of the dragon--unexpected things are meant to occur.  Of all the unexpected things to happen in my life this year, becoming someone who enjoys camping might be pretty close to the top of the list.  I went from camping zero times before 2011 to camping twice last summer and four times this year!  So, what's been the big change?

Well, "sun of my life" is probably the biggest reason I have come to enjoy camping.  I don't feel embarrassed around him for my lack of camping know-how like I do with other people, and he and I seem to pretty much always like doing the same things when outdoors and have the same expectations for food and comfort stuff too.  Now that we are hip to bringing an air mattress to sleep on, I'm actually enjoying most aspects of camping and not just doing it to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone.

This weekend we went to Yosemite National Park as a relaxing, adventurous weekend away to mark the end of the summer language program on Friday and the beginning of the school year at UCSC this week.  It was a stunning place!  We arrived Friday evening and set up our campsite at Wawona campground on the south side of the park.  Saturday, we went up to Yosemite Valley and hiked up to Vernal Falls since Yosemite Falls (upper and lower) are dry at this time of year.  It was a pretty strenuous 1.8 mile hike because it was basically completely vertical.  To give you a sense of how steep it was, it took us about an hour and a half to climb up and only half an hour to get back down.  Here are a couple of pictures from that hike:

We also went to Glacier Point and got an amazing view of Half Dome and the falls (Vernal Falls is at the bottom right corner of the picture):

Today (Sunday), we spent a few hours in Mariposa Grove, home of the giant sequoias.  And seriously, these sequoias demand your attention and contemplation as some of the oldest living organisms on the planet.  The "Grizzly Giant" is the largest in the park and is 100 feet around at the base...amazing!  I also loved the "Faithful Couple" tree, which is so named because these were two separate trees that grew together.  Sequoias share roots systems and help each to nourish each other, which is why they can survive in such close proximity to one another. 

 (Grizzly Giant)

(Faithful Couple)

I never would have thought of camping as a relaxing getaway before the official start of my new life as a PhD student, but it was really exactly what I needed!

Syllogisms

I'm writing this post because I will admit openly that I don't really know what a syllogism is.  In academia, you don't really get points for half-knowing something, unless you are good at bullshitting, which I am not.  So, I've got to learn more about it so that I know what I'm talking about.

For the first day of class, I have to have read this book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, which is a book that I also had to read as an undergraduate, and I'm not really enjoying it anymore today than I did then.  But I am understanding a heck of a lot more of the argument than I did 10 or so years ago. The book is now published in a "fiftieth-anniversary edition", which is kind of unheard of in literary criticism as far as I can tell.  Any theory book that has a distinction of being around for a long time (in relative terms) AND has a forward by Edward Said is basically an irrefutably important book to know about as a literary scholar.

The author, Erich Auerbach, is going through the history of western narrative by beginning with Homer's The Odyssey and ending (553 pages later) with Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse.  He keeps talking about syllogisms in certain narratives, and I'm finally realizing that my basic understanding of a syllogism as "a form of deductive reasoning" is not going to cut it.  I have to get down and dirty and get to know the details of syllogism in order to fully understand the method and purpose of Auerbach's argument.

So, apparently syllogism is a form of logic introduced by Aristotle, which, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, has had an "unparalleled influence on the history of Western thought."   The formula of a syllogism is that you have a major premise (example: the world changes constantly) and a minor premise (example: I am part of the world), and a conclusion is drawn from these two premises (example: ergo, I change constantly).  Logic is something I obviously know about and use, but it has not been something that I have objectively studied.  So, I took an "arm chair logic test" for fun to gauge my base level, and I scored a paltry 80%.  I obviously have a lot more to learn than just syllogisms.

Apparently, syllogisms are the most accepted form of logical reasoning today, and there are basically three different kinds: hypothetical, disjunctive, categorical.  So, why is a literary critic talking so much about it?  Well, I'm still not exactly sure.  As Auerbach himself is aware, in literary criticism, breaking up a paragraph of a literary work into syllogisms can appear too pedantic.  However, he actually uses this process to get to the core logic underlying a dense passage with a lot happening in it.  I can't see myself ever writing an analysis in this way.  However, I am now seeing the value behind using this format as a study method to pull out the major and minor premises within particularly dense passages to get to the logic guiding the author's thoughts.  

In fact, I'm thinking this is actually a useful exercise that I might see if I can apply to some theoretical readings.  At any rate, a more universally interesting example of the syllogism at work is in humor.  Jerry Seinfeld is a master of it:

Out of this World

I've had an affinity for space -- worlds beyond earth, extraterrestrial beings, you name it -- ever since I can remember.  Being a child of the 1980's at the tail end of the cold war era space race may have something to do with it.  It may also have been through narrative since two of my favorite books were It Zwibble, the star-touched dinosaur and Space Witch.  When I think of something that is "out of this world," I think of it as something that must be AWESOME, in all caps.

Of course, this is not a personal language preference, "out of this world" is a standard idiomatic English expression.  It had occurred to me that this might be a specifically English saying, but it had never really occurred to me that this exact expression might exist in another language and have a directly opposite meaning from the English meaning.  As we were translating Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Le poete a sept ans" today, I found out that the world "immonde", which translates to "out of this world" in French, means "disgusting".  Um, C'EST QUOI?!  

I find this fascinating, in part, because discoveries like these reveal a certain depth of the psyche of an entire language.  How is it that this saying comes to mean something superfantastic in English and yet, in French it is deplorable?  Apparently, the French word comes from the Latin "mundus," "of the world" and "uncorrupted".  Whereas "immundus" means "corrupt" or "filthy".  So, I guess that something described as "out of this world" suggests a certain contamination from some other world that has come to bear in this world...something along those lines. 

Then, in English, the phrase has become an informal saying to express hyperbole.  I'm taking a huge guess here, but I wonder if "out of this world" evolved from the late 19th century phrase "top of the world", which was also hyperbole.  Maybe during the age of space exploration, "top of the world" sounded trite and "out of this world" was adapted in its place?  Regardless, this is one of many of those phrases that were lost on me in translation.  The discovery of this different concept of other worldliness represents one of the more fun parts of the challenge of learning and deepening my understanding of a foreign language. 

Now, I'm back to work on the last article for this French class, which ends this week.  It's been a fun ride, but having hours of French homework every night is kind of a buzz kill.  

A Re-Do!

How many times do we find ourselves wishing for the opportunity for a re-do in life?  You know, that one thing you said or did or wanted to say or do, etc.  Well, I have the rare opportunity for a re-do right now, and I want to make the best of it.

The professor for the PhD proseminar course is requiring students to bring in a polished 12-25 page essay to the first class meeting.  We are meant to address any previous commentary we've received on the paper and shape it up in time for this class.  Presumably, we will receive additional feedback from the professor (and/or maybe classmates?) and have an opportunity to continue to work on this paper with an eye toward making it a publishable piece.  

Perhaps my language falls flat, but anytime a lowly PhD student mentions anything in the orbit of publishing it is a BIG DEAL!  Publishing a piece of work in an academic journal is often what gets you job interviews in the future, opportunities for postdoctoral fellowships, and other important opportunities that are necessary for a successful career in academia.  Publishing something also takes time because there is that whole peer review thing and the frequency of the publication -- some are monthly, but most seem to be quarterly -- can be another barrier.  In other words, this can be a fairly long process.

TIme is of the essence for us students because we need to start establishing ourselves in the academic marketplace and showing our chops.  So, the opportunity to work toward a publishable piece as a stated goal of a course is pretty awesome.  I've got my paper all picked out: "Postmodern Affect and the Ethics of Survival in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower".  This topic may sound eerily familiar...like something I was working on for my thesis.  And you are right, I'm using the paper that inspired my thesis and returning to it with all of the knowledge and writing that I accomplished through the thesis project and hoping to revamp it into a focused, interesting, and PUBLISHABLE essay.  

As exciting as this is, it is also somewhat paralyzing.  Just as it can be embarrassing or frustrating to look back at a situation when you said the wrong thing or didn't say the thing you wanted to say, looking back at previously written work can inspire an amazing ability to block out the episode or avoid taking further action.  Reading your own writing translates into errors glaring at you all of the errors that somehow seemed minor when writing the paper and editing it in a frenzy.  I'm trying to put my subjective self-critique aside to look at this paper objectively in order to evaluate some of the structural mistakes that I abstractly know I make, but am often at a loss to specifically identify when I'm in the midst of the writing and editing process.  

One thing I have noticed already in my review of the first few pages is that I'm very clumsy in the way that introduce my topic.  I seem to think that introducing my topic means that I must introduce all of my insights that I will make in the paper in the introductory paragraph so no one is "surprised" as they continue reading.  I was once told in the middle of the paper that the professor was "surprised" by a topic I brought up in the paper because I hadn't mentioned it in the introduction, but I will take full responsibility for fully misunderstanding that criticism.  Because the insights along the way are what has made whatever topic/project interesting to me personally, I'm often not able to get enough distance to see that the topic itself is interesting and needs to be given its fair share of time in the spotlight of the introduction to ensure that others see how interesting it is.  

Thinking of this as a specific task makes this a lot more fun and creative...and as of right now, I'm FINALLY feeling motivated and empowered enough to tackle this thing "bird by bird" (thank you, Anne Lamott).  

The Greek Festival

After reading The Iliad and then, quickly reading through The Odyssey this week, it seemed all too fitting to go to the Greek Festival taking place in Santa Cruz today. I always enjoy these festivals, but it does strike me as kind of strange that the festival by and large is a food festival with some Greek music playing in the eating area.  What about all of our rich cultural heritage?  I think there should be public storytelling of The Odyssey or something like in addition to the food, music, and dance.  I do, however, see the value in food as a celebration of ethnicity because of it's ability to cross all sorts of barriers since everyone has to eat!

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the focus on the food at all.  Especially since you will never probably find me rolling grape leaves meticulously to make dolmades regardless of how much I enjoy eating them and the same goes with basically anything requiring phyllo dough, so I appreciate always having a good festival to get dolmades, spanikopita, and baklava at the least.  I imagine the reason for this is that these festivals are put on by Greek Orthodox Church communities and thus, they don't want to secularize it too much.  Plus, Greek food is something that all Greek families can contribute to a fundraising festival whereas other goods that could be sold or displayed require more specific expertise.  I don't know, but I do think that adding some of the rich storytelling history and maybe some fund language lessons or something would be fun.

I've also been have my own personal little Greek Festival of reading over the past week.  I actually quite enjoyed it.  I mean, The Iliad was not too entertaining for me.  It was all about war, battles, weird male warrior pageantry, and trickery.  The Odyssey, on the other hand, was so good that I couldn't put it down!  I think when I've tried to read it before I was just too lost because I hadn't read The Iliad and was getting mired in the details of the stories being told about people who were integral to the action of The Iliad but had no place in the action of The Odyssey.  The other thing I liked is that this is the story of an underdog, as opposed to the story of an aggressor (i.e. The Iliad).  I'm always a sucker for the underdog; I just can't help it.  So, when the story begins with Athena empowering Telemachus, Odysseus' son who doesn't have a father figure in his life, to take a journey to find out what has happened to his father while also coaching him into "becoming a man", it is quite touching and also an interesting coming of age story.  Odysseus' journey is also pretty darn interesting.  He is held as the goddess Calypso's sex slave for something like 8 years, and she wants to make him into a god, but he doesn't want all that.  He just wants to go home to Penelope and his son, which is a much different male/female interaction than you seen in The Iliad.

The other thing I really liked about The Odyssey is that we learn about the things that have happened during the last 8 years between the end of The Iliad and the present.  I like that kind of storytelling because it isn't just random, people are talking to one another and trying to get information and stories are told.  For example, I found it far more interesting to learn about Agamemnon's horrible fate from Menelaus than I would have if it was told as its own stand alone story of violence and treachery.  I guess that's just my preference.

Anyway, as cheesy as it may sound, I feel like I've connected with my ancestry in some ways this week.  I don't often find ways to connect with my heritage since I don't speak Greek or participate in any Greek communities.  The one way that I do stay connected to my ancestry is through my great-grandfather's and grandmother's recipes, and eating at the festivals is always home-cooked food that taste just like what we used to eat at yia yia's.

What's up with these crazy Greek epics?

What a group of characters these Greek gods and goddesses are cast in The Iliad!  

A quick refresher before we begin, epics begin in medias res which simply means in the middle of the action (as opposed to the beginning).  

In short (very short), the story begins with Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks, taking the brave and awesome warrior Achilles' "war prize", which refers to the woman Briseus who Achilles won in one of the battles during the Trojan Wars.  Achilles is super pissed off about this and speaks with his mother who talks to Zeus (Zeus apparently owes Achilles' mother a favor) and together they hatch this plan to lead Agamemnon into Troy without the help of Achilles thus letting the Greeks suffer many defeats until Achilles re-enters the fighting and shows what an invaluable warrior he is.  Of course, the way that this happens is pretty whacky.

First, Zeus sends a "lying dream" to Agamemnon that is a false vision of he and his men conquering Troy.  Really, a lying dream?!  I love it!   Achilles is part of Agamemnon's army...so, I ask, doesn't their failed attempt at Troy ALSO hurt Achilles?  And I am answered with a resounding "duh. that is exactly the point."  Okay, moving on.

For the better part of the narrative (up until Book 18 of 24) Achilles is too angry with Agamemnon to fight in the battles against the Trojans, so he is just hanging out in the ships pouting while his buddies are getting killed in battle.  Achilles' best friend, Patroclus (whose relationship many people refer to when talking about the perfection of male friendship), is killed in battle in part because Achilles isn't fighting. What the hell?!  It feels like one long temper tantrum, and I do not empathize at all with Achilles and his need for revenge (or what is undoubtedly called his "moral dilemma").  

I do realize that The Iliad's lasting legacy as a foundational text in Western history automatically makes me sound trivial to call it a temper tantrum.  But what I'm interested in sharing here is the real experience of reading an epic text like this.  From my perspective, it's also hard to invest myself in a story in which women are prizes and part of the pillaging and battle swag stolen by winners of a war.  

So, seriously, what is this mess?!  I am no expert on Classical literature.  In fact, I'm a really poor reader of these works, which is one of the reasons I don't particularly enjoy reading them.  I'm reading The Iliad simply because I'm figuring out what it means to be a professional student and reader of literature.  I see a great value in having read certain works that have become tropes in other literature, and thus, I'm reading The Iliad.  Anyway, that's my disclaimer which is meant to affirm that this post is purely my personal response to the process of reading this story and NOT a critical assessment of this work.  

Typically, I hate to write things about my original perception of a book out of a fear of not being learned enough or a serious enough reader.  However, lately I am acknowledging that not all important literary works register as important on the first reading.  I want to get comfortable with the fact that there are many things that one doesn't enjoy the first time s/he is reading them or that I may even find myself unable to take the work very seriously at first.  The last thing I want to happen as I work toward a career in academic teaching, writing, and research is to lose a connection with the discomfort of the reading process when reading something that is not simply meant for my personal enjoyment, enrichment, or edification. 

This text has been a good reading experience because for all of the things that annoyed me about the plot, I did appreciate the saturation of emotion.  After all, it is usually an emotional attachment to something that produces the most heroic and un-heroic acts in The Iliad, like Achilles not fighting with his men because he feels he has been humiliated by Agamemnon and then defeating Troy's most formidable warrior (Hector) in response to his best friend's death.  

Overall, I must say a decent read.  And perhaps more than that, a good effort in discipline toward learning to engage and grapple with a text that I have feared having to read.  It really wasn't so bad, and in fact, when I compare this to the mundane and annoying tasks at my previous job that I had to do whether I wanted to or not, this was way more motivating and interesting work.

Making Friends

It will come as no surprise to you, dear friends, that I (yes, me!) am impatient!  Yes, you know it, and I know it too.  And that is why you will also know that when something happens more quickly than I expect it to (even though I definitely expected whatever that thing was to happen already, so it can't REALLY happen faster than I really truly expected it to), it is an awesome moment.  Today, this kind of thing happened.

I've been in a funk for a few days.  Not for any real reason, which is what makes funks so damned intolerable.  Even "sun of my life" has been in a funk.  In the same breath of expressing annoyance he will actually say that he is not only in a fine mood but in a damned fine mood.  Of course the truth is that we have both been in FINE moods, but we haven't been in necessarily EXCELLENT moods, and there is an important degree of difference between fine and excellent.  In a survey that would be the difference between like 3 and 5 on a 5 point scale.  It's a big deal.  3 indicates serious structural improvements.

Anyway, tonight has changed all of that...at least for a little bit.  We actually not only experienced the joy of Santa Cruz as a lovely place that the two of us enjoy in all it has to offer through hiking trails, sunshine, beaches, etc., but as a place that we can enjoy WITH other people.  We may have made our first friends here tonight.  

Our neighborhood bar around the corner didn't entice us at first because it is in a strip mall with Safeway, Ace hardware, and our dry cleaning place.  But it turns out that this is THE place to be on the westside of Santa Cruz.  It was an inviting place...again, I will take a moment to note that being in a crowded place in this town where there is not a seat to be found makes people be GENEROUS by making space for you at the bar, something I have never really experienced.  A busy bar in DC meant someone actually might purposefully put a purse or a butt cheek on the chair that you were just grasping for because s/he didn't want you to invade his/her space...even though we are in a public and not private space.  Here, we simply asked if two seats were taken and not only were people polite about it, but they actually moved over to make space for us.  I was speechless for a few moments.  

As we hung out there and enjoyed ourselves and the lively crowdedness of the bar, one of our neighbors actually walked into the place!  After a while, we got to talking with him and then, his wife came and we got to talking to her and next thing you know we have so many things in common aside from our address!  We have exchanged numbers and have expressed interest in hanging out.  I'm so excited!  Oh, the exhilaration of connecting with people.  It's so important to really settling into a place.  Of course, we've only been here a few weeks, but it's also been a few weeks, and it was feeling like it was about time to start meeting some folks.  All the better that they are our neighbors.    

Frustration

Frustrate: To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart; to cause feelings of discouragement or bafflement in.

I didn't blog yesterday because I was kind of in a bad mood, and then, today I found myself in the same mood as I woke up to the news of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.  I can't decide not to write something every time I'm in a funk, right?  Or even when I don't have any idea what to say.  So, what to write about today?

Well, I'm thinking a lot about censorship and about my personal set of ethics.  There are times when I find myself totally convinced on the injustice of something and total clarity on how to fix it.  This is usually in situations regarding labor issues, human rights, civil rights, and disenfranchised individuals and groups.  Lately, I find it difficult to articulate -- or really even to locate -- my personal position on some specific ethical matters and that is a source of major frustration to me today.

One of the issues that is in the forefront of my mind is using photographs of the dead in the media.  I find this hugely problematic.  Today, while reading a story about the death of Chris Stevens in Libya, I was looking at the photo coverage, which included a picture of Chris Stevens' dead body.  The photograph was focused on his face.  I was horrified, but I'm finding it difficult to articulate the specific reasons that I find it horrifying.  The first is that it seems to me that dead bodies are not merely pieces of news for circulation, and when they are treated as such, the value of life is reduced to a symbol of propaganda that supports whatever the media is reporting.  Do I believe in censoring the media?  Absolutely not.  Do I believe that it is heinous to circulate pictures of the faces of dead men?  Absolutely.

My irritation about this was exacerbated by the uproar at American University regarding the professor who brought her sick child to class and nursed the child in the middle of the class.  Her act has sparked enormous outrage on campus and a much wider debate about when and where women can nurse their children.  I feel that I should have a position on this, but I can't seem to find solid ground to stand on.  I do see it as unprofessional to nurse a child while lecturing rather than inserting a break into the class.  However, I'm also aware of the supremely slippery slope that these basic opinions toward nursing a child in a public space lead to reducing basic rights, which would make it even harder for mothers to care for their children AND provide support for the child by working.  

This is a debate that has been going on for a long time and women have fought hard for every single right we have to be in the workplace, and we are still fighting for equality.  I would never want to support any idea that hinders equal rights for women in the workplace.  Further, I definitely do not think this was an eggregious offense; I think it was a simple matter of unprofessionalism, which happens ALL THE TIME.  How many unprofessional moments have non-gender-specific professors been guilty of in the classroom that might be similar but more socially acceptable?  How about the many times I have personally been patronized by male professors, in particular?  Another example I can provide is that I definitely sat through class when a professor have had to briefly answer a phone call from his wife ensuring that a visit to the hospital with their child was successful.  Would this have made it into the student paper?  Not likely.  But at the same time, do I think that nursing in the classroom should become a regular part of the classroom experience?  No.

Anyway, I suppose I have a lifetime ahead of me to better grasp with my personal ethics.  I certainly have strong principles that I live by, but today has highlighted the areas where I do not have much clarity.  I do think there is great benefit to having an active, evolving set of personal ethics that requires me to consistently interrogate the principles that guide my behavior.  However, at times, when an issue gets heated up in the news or simply in conversation, I find it paralyzing to clearly state a position for or against an issue that has disturbed me emotionally.  I'm interested in further understanding this disconnect between feeling that something is not right and articulating what a just and moral response would be.  I suppose I simply must keep working to bridge that gap.

In the meantime, I am preparing for the start of school by reading The Iliad, and at the least, this reading adds even more ideas of morality into this mix.

Getting Schooled

I am currently going to school as part of the summer session for French and learning a lot as a result.  I am also, however, getting schooled.  This is an entirely different thing, although not as unrelated as I would like to think.

It seems that I am a person that people like to pick on.  Not in a traditional sense of taunting, but taunting nonetheless.  A friend who reads this blog can attest that I got picked on at a Caribbean take out joint in a most bizarre yet playful yet "I'm-not-sure-I'm-in-on-the-joke" kind of way.  It's like I wear a sign that says "I have mediocre self-esteem, please make me feel bad because I have an ounce of dignity to spare".  Or maybe I just look naive?  I had a professor at AU that anyone who went to grad school with me knows all too well taunted me...perhaps not purposefully...but still.  It was like every interaction was fraught with me being humiliated in some way through our interactions and severe lack of ability to speak each other's language.  

I am sad to report that I am ALREADY in this same situation in this meager, no credit, "French for Reading" course.  Today, the professor -- for the third time in only 5 classes -- had me read the longest and most complicated passage (and no, I am not the best French speaker in the class) and watched me suffer through about 40 minutes of our three hour class to do it poorly. It's a long story, but he went off on some tirade in the middle of my attempt at translation, which seemed to refer to me specifically and me as a representative of all American graduate students, about how I (we?!) don't ask enough questions for fear of not sounding stupid, but we are stupid because we don't know these things and more stupid because we don't ask.  Yeah, ouch.  The worst part is that I thought that I had just asked him a question.  

This is akin to what I went through as a master's student, and yes, I alone have begged and pleaded to take on at least three more years of this not-so-subtle breaking down of my pride and dignity.  Mind you, this professor selected me to TA for him in the spring...but my best guess is that he didn't necessarily "select" me because I'm guessing no one else applied to work with him!

At any rate, after a break in the class, he then, somewhat playfully, returned to me -- even though there were still several people in the class who had not translated anything at all today -- to take on a passage of a Victor Hugo poem.  He said "Sarah, since you like long passages so much, why don't you take this one".  Um, what?!  I basically lost it and cried out "Why are you torturing me?!"  To which everyone laughed...but I wasn't joking.  I was really miserable and humiliated and confused at his taunting and seeming playfulness.

I'm not sure what this post is meant to share other than the fact that I learned a long time ago that the things that shame someone are the hardest things to share with others and suffering shame alone typically leads into some form of self-loathing.  But I guess because I also feel like this is an example of what getting schooled is like.  You get smarter, and you get to learn a lot of interesting things at the very same time that you are left feeling dumber and less learned than you have ever been in your entire life.  Even though I haven't yet matriculated, I believe I have had my first official day as a real life PhD student.  It's pretty terrifying.

Playing Trivia Pursuit tonight, which I've always played terribly, with smarty pants "sun of my life" was also probably not the best way to respond to the day.  I've been schooled.  Again.

Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me...No, Really, Don't.

On my favorite NPR quiz show this morning, I learned about the German magazine, Brigitte, and the end of the magazine's three-year -- what I will call here "project" -- to feature "real women" as opposed to models who were so thin that they actually had to airbrush fat ONTO them rather than OFF of them.  I am so disgusted by this for a number of reasons.  Three of these reasons I will outline here.

Problem # 1: Using "Real Women" 

You can either be a professional model or a "real woman," not both, according to the paradigm that Brigitte set forth.  After reading this article, it becomes clear that their effort to use "real women" meant that they were not employing people who actually knew how to model, which is no surprise since a "real woman" cannot likely make a living as a model and thus, does not have training or experience in modeling.  Thus, she is being used by the magazine for this trial.  This whole "experiment" of using "real women" uses women to re-instantiate their/our own self-hatred.  No, I don't think the magazine did this overtly and consciously (because after all, I am an optimist), but rather because this is how deeply ingrained hatred of women's "real bodies" are in our culture.  I am horrified that they were not more critical about the project, which leads me to problem #2.

Problem #2: Objectifying the Problem

Why not revolutionize your magazine and do the hard work of actually making the project of "real women" a full project about the depth of femininity rather than simply about images of femininity?  There is convincing scientific evidence published this summer that proves the deep level of objectification of women in mass culture.  And yes, THIS IS SO EXTREMELY OBVIOUS!  But again, I appreciate having a study about this.  My problem with Brigitte's "project" of employing "real women" as models is precisely the fact that is was a "project".  A predictable failure, in my opinion.  In fact, I'm surprised it lasted three whole years!  You trade objectified models for "real women" who will then become objectified in the pages of the magazine.  Um, what was your plan exactly?  By suggesting that the whole problem of "unattainable beauty standards"...a term I despise because it purports that we are seeing that ideal, but no one else can achieve it except the person pictured who supposedly embodies this ideal, its a total mind f*ck!...is that they are using new images to replace old ones in the hopes that our psyches can replace the objectified images of women with NEW objectified images of women, which leads me to problem #3.

Problem #3: It's the Content, Stupid.

Seriously, IT'S THE CONTENT!  How in the world do you expect a magazine, which is funded by food advertisements and beauty products (i.e. the same products that were funding the magazine when they were using models), to change ideals about female beauty when they continue to write stories all about how we can get shinier hair, smaller waists, and better orgasms (this last one is sadly a joke referring to MALE orgasm since the content is far more likely tells us women how we can give better hand or blow jobs)?!  You have to REVOLUTIONIZE content if you are going to change your image.  You cannot be singing the same old song about beauty and how to get it while simply putting a new face on it.  This objectification of female beauty shit runs way deeper than that.

And excuse my language, but yes, I am pissed off about this.  I do not buy women's magazines for precisely this reason.  I loathe the things that I "connect" with when I read those magazines...the desire to be thinner, the desire to have less frizzy hair, etc.  And trying to get some inspiration on clothing or hairstyle?  PUH-LEASE!  There is not one woman in those magazines who offers something that would suit my full-figured, five foot frame OR curly hair. 

Most of all, I am angry that these magazines do not take women's lives more seriously and instead choose to put themselves out there with such hoaxes as simply exchanging models for "real women" and finding new ways to objectify women in the process.  I am done...for now.