E's Photo of the Week: 12 weeks old

We Are What We Celebrate

... so proclaims Etzioni and I must say that I believe him.

We are working on coming up with our winter holiday tradition. We know E is too small to remember this year but we want to get our tradition off to a good start because it will likely take a few years to work out the kinks. We're celebrating Winter Solstice. Here is the description/invitation I am drafting. What do you think? Too campy? Yeah, I know.

This first annual event is the beginning of family tradition. The approach of the winter solstice is easily marked by dwindling sunlight, deepening cold and darkness. At such times, when the sun shines upon us least, it would behoove us to remember our dependence on its energy, the planet we inhabit, and the others that share this finite space with us.

In our family, the increasing dark of December leads us to look past the comforts offered by home and loved ones and instead to consider the need that exists around us, however inconspicuous. In our home Winter Solstice is to be time for volunteerism, civic participation and philanthropy, a time to act to shed a little light while the sun shines dimly.

Every year our family will select a charitable, philanthropic or activist organization or individual and endeavor to provide assistance to that individual or organization. Our efforts will culminate on the Saturday before the solstice when we invite our friends and family to join us for in supporting our cause. We offer hot soup, hearty bread, lively conversation and ask that you join us!

Stuck at home. Baby sleeping.

You are Julia Kristeva! You were a student of
Roland Barthes, and came up with such important
notions as intertextuality and abjection. You
are a semiotician, psychoanalyst, scholar of
literature, and dozens more things. You are not
dead.


What 20th Century Theorist are you?
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What's your favorite poem?

I pulled my copy of e.e. cumming's complete poems off the shelf to weigh down E.'s blankets (so she doesn't pull them up over her head during the night). It got me thinking about the most wonderful poem of all time (#22 in New Poems from the Collected Poems). The last 2 lines of my favorite lines of all time.


you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young, whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys maynothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress, and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

Dearest blog,

I am writing to let you know that from this point on I may not spend as much time with you as I have in the past. Please don't take it personally. It's just that I finally got my ipod and I feel I need to spend most of my free time with ipod so that we can get our relationship off to a good start. It's not that I don't love you, truly, it's just that I have many, many cds to rip onto my hard drive, I need to create playlists for all my various moods and activities, and maybe even download a few songs to update my music library. They are only $0.99 after all.

Sincerely,

Islander

Coasties!

The great 'Coastie' divide

Ugg boots, private dorms make out-of-state UW students target of teasing

By MEGAN TWOHEY

Posted: Nov. 14, 2005

Madison - Emily Bach, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recognized her friends' Halloween costumes immediately - jackets by The North Face, oversize sunglasses, sheepskin boots known as Uggs.

"They went as Coasties," Bach explained, chuckling over lunch in a cafeteria.

[...]

Frankfurter said it's been difficult for him to integrate with Wisconsin students.

"They look down on us just because our parents have a little bit more money, because we talk about where our fathers work. They want to feel superior to us because they think we think we're superior to them. Then we're forced to."

Frankfurter said he is often ridiculed. "Just the other day, someone in my statistics class asked me where my Uggs were. I was trying to think of a comeback."
[...]
But Bach, a Milwaukee native, said it's not just where Coasties live and what they wear. It's how they act.
"They carry themselves like they're better than everyone," Bach said, as she sat at a cafeteria table dressed in a hooded sweat shirt and jeans. "I swear, it takes them like two hours to get ready in the morning. Most girls in my dorm roll out of bed five minutes before class."

Jason Gertler, a freshman from Olympia Fields, Ill., lives in Statesider but identifies more with Wisconsin students.

"They have a spoiled mannerism," he said of Coasties. "I try to hang out with public dorm kids. They're more
straightforward and quality."

Maybe it's just my predisposition to see it this way or maybe it's the article's slant (coasties target of teasing)... but doesn't it seem like the Wisconsin-Minnesota students are the ones with the chips on their shoulders? Truly, tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this article supports my claim in this apparently offensive post that "coasties" are singled out for scorn - that just being different (or stereotypical in their divergence from Midwesterners) is sufficient reason for them to be disliked.

Interesting... the article points to lots of potential structural reasons for the rift on the Madison campus... difference in class background, fact that out of staters don't have equal access to campus dorms, etc.

E's Photo of the week: 11 weeks old

Fool enough to almost be it and cool enough to not quite see it....

I developed a sudden hankering to listen to yet another casualty of the great car break-in of 1995, The Smashing Pumpkin's Siamese Dream. I borrowed the CD from the library it only skips in about 300 spots. At any rate, I was under the impression that I developed this pumpkins hankering out of the blue but the other day we were watching a sporting event on FOX and I noticed that they were the Smashing Pumpkins during their highlight reel.

[untitled]

did you ever have one of those weeks when you send out a million emails, leave phone messages for folks and even directly solicit advice on your blog, and you receive nary a response?

one of those weeks in which you wonder if you don't truly exist? one of those weeks in which you feel undeniably invisible?

a matter of policy...

I've got this cardinal rule:

Never advise someone to do precise what you did not and never advise someone not to do what you did.

I mean, you can only honestly discuss the repercussions of doing or not doing what you did or didn't do, right?

So, this is the rule I employ when my siblings call me to discuss the merits of plans like the following: dropping out of grad school after less than one semester to return to [college town that is home of undergraduate institution where sibling lived until August] and get a job "waiting tables or something" so as to volunteer in an urban ecology center and eventually parlay that volunteering into a career writing alternative school science curricula focusing on place identity and conservation.

What do I do when I learn of schemes like this?
Step 1: Validate the emotion behind the idea (e.g. "I recognize that it's really hard to move to a new region - to suddenly have to drive everywhere, to live in a ranch, etc. It's particularly difficult to try to adjust to a new department and program when your unhappy with your location and you've left your friends behind.").
Step 2: Introduce an alternative and use insider knowledge to support it (e.g. But don't you think you should stick it out for the year? You're not going to live in [terrible place] forever and it really does take time to adjust - at least 9 months. Don't you remember how you hated [college] and [college town] at first? When you came home for winter break, you were thinking about not going back. Don't worry about the Ph.D. Instead think about how you can use the resources and your position there (fellowship, free tuition, etc) to start you on your path to curriculum development. How about taking some extra classes in education?).
Step 3: Denigrate oneself to avoid sounding bossy, provide more validation and refer to one's own mistakes to get around the cardinal rule (e.g. You certainly know better than I do what the right decision is and I agree completely that a Ph.D. is a waste of time if you don't like where it will take you but I still think you should give it a little more time so you won't be able to worry later that you jumped ship too soon. Instead, you could make use of your position as a funded student in the sciences at a flagship institution to develop a smart next move. I had a terrible time when I quit the peace corps after only a few months and moved back to Chicago...).

What to do?

So, I've got this fellowship-type-thing this year. It provides me an office closer to my home than the Soc Dept. I pursued the fellowship mostly because I thought it would be great to have an office walking distance from home. So, the things is, I got the fellowship but I've been housed outside of the institute that gave it to me. I am situated in a shared cubicle in a policy-oriented research center. So, my cube isn't private (even a shared phone line which defeats the purpose of using my office number when I set up interviews) and I'm surrounded by strangers. Nor have I located any private spaces in the building. Since I live so close, they didn't give me parking - I agreed to this because I did not foresee my troubles. Thus, I have absolutely nowhere to pump and you are supposed to pump about every 3 hours to keep up your milk supply (especially since I only go in 2 days a week). Not to mention the fact that it gets a bit uncomfortable if I hold off for too long. The upshot of this is that I never go to my office for more than 2 hours or so (not including the 30 minutes spent walking round trip) and rarely do I go at all since the startup costs of walking there and getting set-up are not worth the limited time I have to work. I won't be able to make use of it even next semester when it is much easier to leave the tyke.

I sent an email to someone in the institute apologetically asking if there was a private space that I could make use of for pumping. That was 3 weeks ago and I never received a response. We have a meeting coming up in which we are supposed to talk about how it is going in our offices and I don't know what to do. Should I lie and say it's going fine or should I explain my troubles in front of several nearly complete strangers? On top of it, I don't want to sound ungrateful because this fellowship is usually used to support minority researchers so I know they did extra work to be able to offer me one and part of the work they did was finding someone to house me. I also don't want to come off like someone who isn't really making use of the fellowship - like I'm not a serious student, etc.

You don't realize how the world is not at all accommodating to people with infants (sure I can breastfeed in public but I can't bring my baby to work, can I?) until you're in the thick of it.

On Board Games

Remember Risk, the game of world domination? Remember that, back in the old days, the armies were represented by roman numerals (I for one army X for ten, etc.)? Did you know that now the armies are represented by little figures (a foot soldier = 1 cavalry = 5, etc.)? What kind of baloney(bologna?) is that?

We played board and card games all the time when I was growing up. I still enjoy them. In fact, I have been meaning to put together a "Board Game (and cribbage) Olympics" for several years now. Alas, I never live in the same place long enough to have sufficient friends to make such an event worthwhile. It seems to me that in a board game (and cribbage) olympics you've got to be able to have members of your team specialize - have someone who can compete in the scrabble competition, someone else in Settlers of Cattan...

Although I enjoy games, I've lost an interest in many of them, Risk and Settlers of Cattan included. I don't really enjoy games in which all your moves involve a calculated risk and your probable success or failure is evident from the start or very early in the game. In such instances, I don't really see the point of playing because if the outcome is different from the probable one then it's just a matter of luck and there's no fun in that. Of course, the probability of winning in Settlers of Cattan is a bit more difficult to determine because the dice are supplemented by the ports and because the board changes every time. My siblings (and partner) accuse me of being a poor sport because I often want to throw in the towel very early on. I guess I probably do this more when I know I'm going to lose than when I know I'm going to win. It sucks to keep playing a game you know your going to lose after all.

Mastermind is another one. If you make your first moves correctly, it is likely that you will finish in 4 of 5 attempts at code-breaking per trial. As long as your opponent sticks to the rules, there is nothing s/he can do to stump you. Furthermore, there is no particular skill involved if you managed to break the code more quickly - you were just lucky in your color choices. So, if your opponent also knows the most efficient method of breaking the code and you're both placing the code pegs randomly, only random chance will determine who wins. If, however, your opponent doesn't know what method to employ, you'll almost surely beat them. Sure, it's fun the first couple of times but it gets old.

E's Photo of the Week: 10 weeks old

It seems that I often feel I have little to write about beside my experiences as a new mother. After all, how much time do I really get to spend reading for pleasure, keeping up with the New York Times, or even thinking and writing about "diversity" as a cultural imperative? Right now I am pretty much a one-trick pony. Thus, lacking anything else to say, I am continuously tempted to share photos, but I really would rather this blog didn't become a space completely devoted to E because it would be nice if I was not consumed completely. So, from this point forward I will share one and ONLY ONE photo per week. I am drawing my line in the sand!

it's like the true story of a swordboat that is caught in the convergence of the Nor-easter that swallowed a hurricane....

That's right. This past week will go down in family history as the week of the perfect storm. Fortunately, we appear to have pulled through.

It started like this. E. was having some gastro-intestinal thing going on remarkably similar to constipation. We took her to Chicago last Saturday and completely destroyed her sleep routine. She slept very little that day - just catnaps in the carseat or in people's arms. We got home at 11 at night. I have never seen her cry out of sheer exhaustion like that. Then we changed the clocks the next day so I tried to keep her up until 7 p.m. so she wouldn't wake me up at 4 or 5 a.m. Throw into the mix the fact that she was subsisting on highly caffeinated milk as a result of my Halloween chocolate binge Thus, by Monday night/Tuesday morning, E. was incapable of sleep. She literally slept for no more than 40 minutes at a time Monday and Tuesday night. Thus slept I.

Then on Wednesday we took her for her first round of immunizations. That afternoon she had a terrible reaction to the immunizations and screamed for a couple of hours. I finally got her to sleep and she slept just as fitfully that night as she had the 2 previous nights. Thus slept I.

By Thursday she was so sick and so exhausted she refused to be anywhere but in my arms and she cried most of the time she was there as well. I explained to her that babies are supposed to become less fussy in the second month but she was not moved. I actually did get her to sleep pretty well on Thursday night but I was so tired by that point I couldn't sleep at all. She relapsed Friday and did OK last night.

It was also a big week for development. She rolled over (front to back) 5 times, began to open her hands which had heretofore been clenched into fists much of the time, and actually picked up a toy and brought it to her mouth.

So, there it is, folks. The skies appear to be clearing so it appears I've managed to weather this one.

I regret to inform you...

that a grave misfortune has befallen us. I have only recently learned of this disaster. While some of you are lamenting the fact that "USDA organic" is an increasingly meaningless term and others of you are shaking your heads in misery as you read about riots in suburban Paris, you remain blissfully unaware that times are far, far more desperate than even presidents who use fear to rule dare claim.

Yes, it is my solemn duty to announce, somewhat belatedly as I had to go into hiding for a time once I became privy to this dire news, that Lemony Snicket, escape artist and chronicler of nefarious schemes, has managed to deliver another account of the misadventures of the ill-fated Baudelaire orphans. The Penultimate Peril provides an account of another in the series of unfortunate events the Baudelaire orphans were forced to endure subsequent to their parents' suspicious demise, which here means before their parents were murdered as a result of the schism of the VFD and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny first fell into the clutches of the evil Count Olaf.

Beware! It is possible that, on an innocent trip to your local bookstore or library, you too will become ensnared in the treachery and heartbreak that Violet, Klaus, Sunny and all who know of their miserable lives are forced to bear day in and day out (which here means that there is barely a moment when we are not thinking about the trouble caused in the past Count Olaf and his associates and all the troubles we expect to encounter in the future).