This is a great question: Who has been your teacher this year... Officially, and Unofficially I will come back to it. Seriously. Just not today... Today I need to watch Teen Mom.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Takin' it easy, don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
I need a break from my email account. Too many emails, too many phone calls, blah! The next two weeks I will take it easy. As you can tell my approach to this blog has just been a slightly upgraded Twitter feed.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Blog Favorites
2012 blog post of the year?
1.hyperboleandahalf - I love all her posts in a big way. I'm sad that she hasn't been writing in a long time but her last one, Adventures in Depression was ... I don't know how to describe it. It's painful and funny and really wonderful. I hope she is ok.
2. What it feels like being a teen girl was a post found because I spend too much time on Facebook. That being said, I wish every kid I went to school with had read this. I think that we need to stop using the umbrella term 'bullying' and start naming the particular harassment that happens.
1.hyperboleandahalf - I love all her posts in a big way. I'm sad that she hasn't been writing in a long time but her last one, Adventures in Depression was ... I don't know how to describe it. It's painful and funny and really wonderful. I hope she is ok.
2. What it feels like being a teen girl was a post found because I spend too much time on Facebook. That being said, I wish every kid I went to school with had read this. I think that we need to stop using the umbrella term 'bullying' and start naming the particular harassment that happens.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Money money money
Remember that time I went to Europe and spent all my money on food! I sure have nothing to show for that. If my stomach didn't process the cash, my car, public transportation, and the University of Concordia sure did suck the rest of my money up.
I do have two hand-made wooden spoons from Rio and a new bookshelf... Big Spender!
I'm such a liar - I have really expensive black boots that I AM LOVIN'. Thank you student loans. Thank you very much.
I do have two hand-made wooden spoons from Rio and a new bookshelf... Big Spender!
I'm such a liar - I have really expensive black boots that I AM LOVIN'. Thank you student loans. Thank you very much.
Astonished
I don't think I want to play the blog prompt game. I'm already two days behind...
MUST NOT FAIL. MUST REFLECT ON THE YEAR. MUST BE THOUGHTFUL.
Astonishment is a big word - I don't think remember being astonished this year. I probably was, a couple of times, but today, my mind is not working.
MUST WRITE SECOND POST TO CATCH UP. CANNOT BE AS BAD AS THIS ONE. FAIL!
Friday, December 7, 2012
Celebrate
I think the 30 days o'bloggin' will turn into the 30 days o'excuses.
Yesterday, there wasn't a second to blog because I spent the morning errand running then our cohort had a three hour public speaking session. I realized that I am a terrible public speaker and self defensive when it comes to friendly criticism. We celebrated with potluck salads and pita and what not... By what not I mean two kinds of cupcakes, squares, cookies, a cheesecake and bottles of red wine.
This, like any good potluck, was followed with mulled wine, chips and french braiding hair. Thursday evening was off the hook - and I fell off the blogging wagon.
Will try again later today.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Fave Song - Long Day
This morning started with a early morning tire change... That made the day incredibly unproductive.
So I will quickly buzz market Chilly Gonzalles' two albums Piano Solo I and Piano Solo II. They are amazing.
To BED!
So I will quickly buzz market Chilly Gonzalles' two albums Piano Solo I and Piano Solo II. They are amazing.
To BED!
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Butler for the WIN!
When I was leaving Berlin I was a bit of a mess. I worked until the last possible day before leaving and couldn't fit anything into my bags. I had to say goodbye to stacks of clothing that just wouldn't be able to make the trip. I also had to say good bye to some of the closest friends I have ever made and a community of people that I had belonged to for three years. It was not easy. I was not looking forward to the move. It was at this point that I decided it was incredible important that I read Precarious Life by Judith Butler.
For those of you who have never read Butler's work - I highly recommend it. It is amazing, mind blowing stuff. It is however also incredibly convoluted and hard to get though. Precarious Life was introduced to me in my undergraduate political science courses, though I had never read the entire thing until this summer. It's 5 essays in which she describes the 'powers of mourning and violence' in regards to the experience of living in post-9/11 America. Exactly the kind of book one should read in the emotionally unstable process of moving.
There is one section, in Violence, Mourning and Politics - which I have read to anyone who will listen and emailed to countless people. I have tried a thousand times to incorporate it into every paper I've written (though it never successfully makes the cut, because I never write papers about this). I don't want to unpack it, or analyse it, or do anything but make you all read it. (The three of you reading this blog).
She writes,
Perhaps, rather, one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly forever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps on should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance. There is a losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. One can try to choose it, but it may be that this experience of transformation deconstitutes choice at some level. I do not think, for instance, that one can invoke the Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. One cannot say, “Oh, I’ll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I’ll apply myself to the task, and I’ll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me.” I think one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and finds oneself foiled. One finds oneself fallen. One is exhausted but does not know why. Something is larger than one’s own deliberate plan, one’s own project, one’s own knowing and choosing... When we lose certain people, or when we are dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an “I” exists independently over here and then simply loses a “you” over there, especially if the attachment to “you” is part of what composes who “I” am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who “am” I, without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we do not know who we are or what to do. On one level, I think I have lost “you” only to discover that “I” have gone missing as well. At another level, perhaps what I have lost "in" you, that for which I have no ready vocabulary, is a relationality that is composed neither exclusively of myself nor you, but is to be conceived as the tie by which those terms are differentiated and related. …What grief displays is the thrall in which our relations with others holds us, in ways that we cannot always recount or explain, in ways that often interrupt the self-conscious account of ourselves we might try to provide, in ways that challenge the very notion of ourselves as autonomous and in control. I might try to tell a story here, about what I am feeling, but it would have to be a story in which the very “I” who seeks to tell the story is stopped in the midst of the telling; the very “I” is called into question by its relation to the Other, a relation that does not precisely reduce me to speechlessness, but does nevertheless clutter my speech with signs of its undoing. I tell a story about the relations I choose, only to expose, somewhere along the way, the way I am gripped and undone by these very relations. My narrative falters, as it must. Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. This seems so clearly the case with grief, but it can be so only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. One may want to, or manage to for a while, but despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel... (Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Verso: 2004, 20-24)
Butler, continues her essay, speaking to issues of sexuality, of the body, violence, war, the middle east, journalistic coverage of such atrocities, mourning, and the list goes on. But when one is sitting on a bus preparing for a major shift from one moment of life to another this is something that sticks with you.
I don't want to write a thesis about grief and I don't necessarily want to write a thesis about identity, however, there is something here... What? I am not sure. But, even though she is hard to read - I wish that all of the French social theorists of the 20th Century I had to read in the last three months would have been this coherent.
She writes,
Perhaps, rather, one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly forever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps on should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance. There is a losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. One can try to choose it, but it may be that this experience of transformation deconstitutes choice at some level. I do not think, for instance, that one can invoke the Protestant ethic when it comes to loss. One cannot say, “Oh, I’ll go through loss this way, and that will be the result, and I’ll apply myself to the task, and I’ll endeavor to achieve the resolution of grief that is before me.” I think one is hit by waves, and that one starts out the day with an aim, a project, a plan, and finds oneself foiled. One finds oneself fallen. One is exhausted but does not know why. Something is larger than one’s own deliberate plan, one’s own project, one’s own knowing and choosing... When we lose certain people, or when we are dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an “I” exists independently over here and then simply loses a “you” over there, especially if the attachment to “you” is part of what composes who “I” am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who “am” I, without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we do not know who we are or what to do. On one level, I think I have lost “you” only to discover that “I” have gone missing as well. At another level, perhaps what I have lost "in" you, that for which I have no ready vocabulary, is a relationality that is composed neither exclusively of myself nor you, but is to be conceived as the tie by which those terms are differentiated and related. …What grief displays is the thrall in which our relations with others holds us, in ways that we cannot always recount or explain, in ways that often interrupt the self-conscious account of ourselves we might try to provide, in ways that challenge the very notion of ourselves as autonomous and in control. I might try to tell a story here, about what I am feeling, but it would have to be a story in which the very “I” who seeks to tell the story is stopped in the midst of the telling; the very “I” is called into question by its relation to the Other, a relation that does not precisely reduce me to speechlessness, but does nevertheless clutter my speech with signs of its undoing. I tell a story about the relations I choose, only to expose, somewhere along the way, the way I am gripped and undone by these very relations. My narrative falters, as it must. Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. This seems so clearly the case with grief, but it can be so only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. One may want to, or manage to for a while, but despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel... (Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Verso: 2004, 20-24)
Butler, continues her essay, speaking to issues of sexuality, of the body, violence, war, the middle east, journalistic coverage of such atrocities, mourning, and the list goes on. But when one is sitting on a bus preparing for a major shift from one moment of life to another this is something that sticks with you.
I don't want to write a thesis about grief and I don't necessarily want to write a thesis about identity, however, there is something here... What? I am not sure. But, even though she is hard to read - I wish that all of the French social theorists of the 20th Century I had to read in the last three months would have been this coherent.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Staying put
Where did I visit this past year?
I I I, me me me, brag brag brag.
Something tells me 2013 won't look like this year.
- I left Edmonton and had coffee in Budapest.
- I went to a lot of German government offices to get a visa, which wasn't so successful at first.
- I visited my first attorney's office to straighten that out.
- I spent some time in Bratislava and went to a wedding in the UK.
- Visited the coast of Italy twice and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
- I tried to prove that Rome was, in fact, built in a day.
- I took over the board gaming scene of Berlin and discovered that Bremen smells like fresh beer.
- I swam in the Baltic sea and then crossed the German/Danish border without a passport for another wedding.
- I moved to Quebec, drove to Toronto and wore a sari for a wedding in Edmonton.
- Soon I will be in Valleyview, the star location of the bunch, for Christmas.
I I I, me me me, brag brag brag.
Something tells me 2013 won't look like this year.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Epic Meal
I had hoped to use this month to start writing about potential questions relavent towards the thesis I have to write next year. But these prompt questions are just not inspiring me in that way.
Best meal I had last year?
Pisa, Italy. Following a very long meeting and A LOT of vegetarian food.
Steak tartare appetizer with lots of Italian olive oil. A fresh pasta course (why we don't have one at every meal, I do not know) of sausage, roasted almonds, and mushrooms. Followed by a giant grilled steak topped with parmesan and arugula. Creme Brule and probably coffee to conclude.
Copious amounts of red wine was also enjoyed with truly wonderful (though also incredibly sleepy) company.
Best meal I had last year?
Pisa, Italy. Following a very long meeting and A LOT of vegetarian food.
Steak tartare appetizer with lots of Italian olive oil. A fresh pasta course (why we don't have one at every meal, I do not know) of sausage, roasted almonds, and mushrooms. Followed by a giant grilled steak topped with parmesan and arugula. Creme Brule and probably coffee to conclude.
Copious amounts of red wine was also enjoyed with truly wonderful (though also incredibly sleepy) company.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
I'm so grateful this is over
Playing the blog prompt game once again... I have a huge assignment to avoid until Monday afternoon so I will cheat to begin the month.
Here is an excerpt from the 'field notes' from my first experience recording an interview with a professor. Can you hear the interview anywhere? No, absolutely not (like, so, like, mmm, like, yup, ok, mmhmm, like, uhhh are there any more sounds I can can make while you speak?).
My nerves generally played the biggest role in today’s interview. After talking to doctors, speaking to professors takes second place on my list of fears. I went into the interview with my nails freshly bitten and a new pair of glasses that I did not feel comfortable in quite yet. I was afraid that there would be bits of the granola bar stuck in my teeth and that my sweater was noticeable dirty. I checked my appearance in the washroom. Teeth? Clean. Sweater? Not so much. Perhaps this would be seen as a positive, you know, set a casual tone for the situation.
We met in his office and in order not to be disturbed by anyone we agreed to go to the student lounge. He gave me the keys to open the lounge and went to run an errand; I went into the wrong room and recorded room tone (not because I really understood what I would do with it but because it seemed to be an important thing to have). After an embarrassing “you are in the wrong room moment” we moved to the student lounge and I could not get the words out that I would hang back afterwards to record the room’s ‘tone’. I was scared to say something that I didn’t understand out loud and I thought maybe the other room’s tone would suffice.
After the interview we said goodbye in the hallway, I went to the elevator and immediately changed my mind. I waited silently holding the door open until I heard him go into his office to speak to a student and then ran back to the lounge. It was locked. Room tone fail.
Upon settling into the new room I had hoped that we would be far enough away from the loud hallway talkers; we were not. I resisted the urge to stand up, walk outside and boss the student out of the hallway over the course of the entire 50-minute interview. I was equally distracted my fear that the light on the recorder was faking its role and was not, in fact, recording. I let myself check the recorder only twice to make sure that the numbers were running. Instead of paying attention to him talking I pretty much just ran back-up plans through my head trouble-shooting the “recorder didn’t record” situation.
I had all the questions I wanted to ask him written down and we both reviewed them before we started. As he answered, I realized that his remarks were not leading into the next question I had prepared but I was so afraid that the questions that were popping up in my head would scare him or would sound stupid so I generally stuck to my script. Towards the end I was a bit more brave and did my best to segue into other questions like this gleaming moment: “You said the word genuine which leads me onto a very big tangent…” brilliant. Thankfully he managed to deal with my ad-lib ramblings and frame them into answerable questions.
I was so afraid to listen back on the recording, as I could not deal with the fact that I would have to listen to myself stumble around looking for the word to describe the way in which we vote. IT IS CALLED AN ELECTORIAL SYSTEM, YOU FOOL!
It was such a relief to have it done! It was a thousand times easier than I had made it out to be in my head and maybe this experience has the potential to help calm my nerves about approaching professors to talk about thesis or other work. I still fear the power dynamic, I will still probably be incapable of putting together coherent thoughts (ELECTORAL SYTEM), and they will most likely continue to frame ideas I can only wish I could do. The first thing I wrote down after finishing the interview was, “I hope he doesn’t think I’m an idiot? What if he runs around spouting about how stupid I am? I wonder if all the professors do this?”
Reflecting on my own ‘performance’, I should have kept my mouth shut and spoke up. I did not believe the advice that we should sit quietly and react non-verbally. It felt so unnatural at the time. It was as if I was playing a bad sketch show character with my unnatural nodding and fake “I’m listening” facial expressions. You can hear in the interview when I ditch that persona and, in my opinion, totally spoil the quality of the recording.
If you ever decide to record an interview one word of advice: Listen with your ears and not your mouth.
Here is an excerpt from the 'field notes' from my first experience recording an interview with a professor. Can you hear the interview anywhere? No, absolutely not (like, so, like, mmm, like, yup, ok, mmhmm, like, uhhh are there any more sounds I can can make while you speak?).
A Ball of Nerves
My nerves generally played the biggest role in today’s interview. After talking to doctors, speaking to professors takes second place on my list of fears. I went into the interview with my nails freshly bitten and a new pair of glasses that I did not feel comfortable in quite yet. I was afraid that there would be bits of the granola bar stuck in my teeth and that my sweater was noticeable dirty. I checked my appearance in the washroom. Teeth? Clean. Sweater? Not so much. Perhaps this would be seen as a positive, you know, set a casual tone for the situation.
We met in his office and in order not to be disturbed by anyone we agreed to go to the student lounge. He gave me the keys to open the lounge and went to run an errand; I went into the wrong room and recorded room tone (not because I really understood what I would do with it but because it seemed to be an important thing to have). After an embarrassing “you are in the wrong room moment” we moved to the student lounge and I could not get the words out that I would hang back afterwards to record the room’s ‘tone’. I was scared to say something that I didn’t understand out loud and I thought maybe the other room’s tone would suffice.
After the interview we said goodbye in the hallway, I went to the elevator and immediately changed my mind. I waited silently holding the door open until I heard him go into his office to speak to a student and then ran back to the lounge. It was locked. Room tone fail.
Upon settling into the new room I had hoped that we would be far enough away from the loud hallway talkers; we were not. I resisted the urge to stand up, walk outside and boss the student out of the hallway over the course of the entire 50-minute interview. I was equally distracted my fear that the light on the recorder was faking its role and was not, in fact, recording. I let myself check the recorder only twice to make sure that the numbers were running. Instead of paying attention to him talking I pretty much just ran back-up plans through my head trouble-shooting the “recorder didn’t record” situation.
I had all the questions I wanted to ask him written down and we both reviewed them before we started. As he answered, I realized that his remarks were not leading into the next question I had prepared but I was so afraid that the questions that were popping up in my head would scare him or would sound stupid so I generally stuck to my script. Towards the end I was a bit more brave and did my best to segue into other questions like this gleaming moment: “You said the word genuine which leads me onto a very big tangent…” brilliant. Thankfully he managed to deal with my ad-lib ramblings and frame them into answerable questions.
I was so afraid to listen back on the recording, as I could not deal with the fact that I would have to listen to myself stumble around looking for the word to describe the way in which we vote. IT IS CALLED AN ELECTORIAL SYSTEM, YOU FOOL!
It was such a relief to have it done! It was a thousand times easier than I had made it out to be in my head and maybe this experience has the potential to help calm my nerves about approaching professors to talk about thesis or other work. I still fear the power dynamic, I will still probably be incapable of putting together coherent thoughts (ELECTORAL SYTEM), and they will most likely continue to frame ideas I can only wish I could do. The first thing I wrote down after finishing the interview was, “I hope he doesn’t think I’m an idiot? What if he runs around spouting about how stupid I am? I wonder if all the professors do this?”
Listening Back
The second thing I wrote down was, “I started by insulting him in an attempt to make it more casual; I don’t think he got the joke.” Listening back on the interview I think this is the correct analysis of that situation. It doesn’t give me much hope in my future of interviewing (or general social interactions). I sat down to transcribe and listen to the interview and I feel that I should have tried to make the conversation flow more naturally and the questions could have been better researched. I wish I would have asked clarifying questions but then I think the interview would have just been about Viacom and Comedy Central as corporate entities so it is probably for the best.Reflecting on my own ‘performance’, I should have kept my mouth shut and spoke up. I did not believe the advice that we should sit quietly and react non-verbally. It felt so unnatural at the time. It was as if I was playing a bad sketch show character with my unnatural nodding and fake “I’m listening” facial expressions. You can hear in the interview when I ditch that persona and, in my opinion, totally spoil the quality of the recording.
If you ever decide to record an interview one word of advice: Listen with your ears and not your mouth.
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