Basically, I believe in peace. (original) (raw)
22 September 2011 @ 02:36 pm
This post appeared this morning in a slightly modified form on Shakesville.
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[Trigger warning for racism, violence, murder, state-sanctioned execution.]
Like many of you, last night I was glued to Democracy Now!'s live coverage of Troy Davis' execution for nearly six hours—from 6pm, an hour before he was scheduled to die, to a few minutes from midnight, as they closed with a slideshow of pictures from Troy's life and Billie Holliday's haunting voice singing "Strange Fruit".
While I was watching, another news story surfaced briefly: at the same time as Troy Davis was scheduled to die, another man, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed in Texas. Brewer, a white supremacist, was killed for his role in the 1998 murder of James Byrd, Jr., a black man, in Jasper, Texas. Brewer and two other men abducted Byrd as he walked along a Jasper road, beat him, urinated on him, and then chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him for nearly two miles until Byrd's head and right arm were torn off.
The day before he was executed, Brewer is reported to have said: "As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. No, I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth."
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The official scientific consensus 'round these parts is that it's way too fucking hot. Stephen Caturin chimes in at this point to offer his decided agreement. Recommended course of action is to drink lots of water, lie around in one's shorts going "ugh" a lot, and use the excuse to eat ice cream for dinner.
In related news, my summer job started last week, and it really sucks having to wear grown-up clothes in this kind of weather. I have definite envy of my students, who show up to class in sandals, breezy t-shirts, shorts, and other vacationy wear. On the other hand, "I need work clothes" is a great excuse to go shopping, and I do kind of enjoy the challenge of putting together "biz cas" outfits (I think of it as grownup drag).
The students are 14-17, mostly European. My current class makeup is 12 French, 2 Russian. Fun fact: In Taiwan, I taught elementary and junior high students, and at NYU I've TAed a couple of undergrad classes. Now I'm teaching high-schoolers--filling in the gap in my CV, as it were. I was definitely somewhat worried about teaching surly teens at first, but after a week I think I've found my feet, and (maybe I just got lucky but) the kids in my class are all pretty good, attitude-wise, as long as I keep them interested. The great thing about teens at an intermediate level is that they have definite interests and opinions, and the vocabulary to talk about them, so it's not hard to find topics to build lessons around--topics that won't put me to sleep, either. The other day I bonded with a student over anime (and a preference for subtitles), and yesterday the entire lesson was about clothing. These are things I can talk about.
( Cut for blather about teaching in generalCollapse )
After weeks of my normal summer routine of sleeping in way too much and being completely unmotivated to do anything, it was a bit of a shock to have to wake up in time to get ready for work by 9am, every day, Monday through Friday. Suddenly, I have a schedule (I teach from 9-12, then afterwards I run errands or take a nap or go to appointments or work a little on my Big Paper). It's actually really good for me, even though it's painful sometimes (6:30am? I didn't even remember there was a 6:30am). I sleep better, I feel better, and, paradoxically, I get more done when I have less time to do it. Last week in therapy we talked a lot about routine and small, achievable goals (like daily teaching) versus open-endedness and large, nebulous goals (like my PhD work)--how they each make me feel, the advantages and disadvantages of both, and finding the balance that's best for me. Even though it's nothing I haven't thought/said/realized before--that I do better with some routine and structure with my life, and that large, nebulous goals can cause me a lot of anxiety--it felt like something happened, like I made some progress. Maybe it was a realization that what I need is to find the right balance of the two, and that perhaps that balance is more weighted toward the former than I previously considered? That balance is good is sort of obvious, but I think maybe that second part is what's been holding me back. I didn't/don't want to admit how much routine I might need, because...routine is for boring people? ...because if I were brilliant and self-motivated enough I wouldn't get so anxious about self-directed research? ...because basically I have a lot of messed up ideas that make me unhappy and that's why I pay someone to help me untangle them?
Yeah, maybe that.
Anyway, blah blah blah, my days are full and tiring now, but it feels a lot better than sitting around waiting for anxiety and negative thoughts to rise to the surface. Also: meditation. I'm trying to do this. This is like, duh, of course try meditation, but actually taking it seriously is kind of a new thing for me, and (surprise) I have some Thoughts--but that's another post.
I'm also trying to think less sometimes. Obviously, journal time is not one of those times, ha.
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Dear zucchini (and other summer squash),
How did I forget how incredibly easy you are to prepare in a way that's really tasty? I promise never to go so long without eating you ever again.
Love,
me
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Hey friends! Wanna help me not fail school?
If you are 18+ and a native speaker of American English, you can do that by taking my Voice and Attitude Survey. You'll hear some people speaking, and you'll be asked to answer some questions about them. It takes about 20 minutes, and it's completely anonymous.
Here's the link: http://nyu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7WMrlcxbv7KCpTe.
I need at least 100 responses, so whether or not you take the survey, I would also really, really appreciate it if you could pass the link on to your friends/followers/etc., or link people to this post. Again, this is for the noble cause of helping me not fail school.
I also welcome any feedback on the survey itself. Because of the limitations of the research format, I struggled a lot with how to phrase certain questions, and I'm sure I did not succeed in every way. I can't promise to change anything in this survey, since it's already online, but I will definitely take any comments into account in future research.
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The joy of cramps: I spent yesterday almost entirely in bed, waking up only to take more painkillers or force a few bites of food before the nausea set in. FUN. Then, all that oversleeping gave me a headache, which this morning turned into the worst headache I've ever experienced. The irony being that every time I fell asleep, I woke up to more pain, but my head hurt too much to do anything but sleep. Mostly I just lay in bed groaning and imagining sticking my head in an olive press. Is it possible for eyeballs to just- explode? I came closer to answering that question than ever before.
I'm better now. But the last two days have not been very fun. And I'm afraid to go to sleep.
thorne_scratch pointed out that I haven't made any wardrobe posts in a while. I guess I got pretty distracted last semester and stopped taking pictures of anything, and now that it's summer I've been slumming around in tanks/shorts a lot and not looking very cute. I did wear an awesome dress the other day, though, and in honor of today's color theme (for USians), here it is:
The dress is vintage, from the 70s. The belt (which, if you can't see it, is white with blue polka dots) was an Etsy find, also vintage.
Ah, fireworks. Just what I needed.
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1. I made a silly video of Stephen running in his sleep:
[Soundtrack: Apocalyptica, "Hall of the Mountain King"]
2. You should definitely read this ( spoilerCollapse ) awesome comic about a prince and a mermaid!
3. Jim Hines, whose Princess series I enjoy a lot, has a blog on Goodreads. In the short time I've been following it, he's made at least three posts about rape, usually prompted by some case in the media. Here's the most recent. I am always deeply impressed by the absolutely unequivocal stance he takes against rape, against victim-blaming, and for consent. Too many other so-called allies equivocate.
In my review of The Stepsister Scheme, I wrote:
( SpoilersCollapse )
I can't even say how awesome it is to have that positive assessment affirmed by out-of-verse comments from the author himself. I can't vouch for his feminist cred in other respects, but his stance on consent is unassailable. It is really, really great to, for once, be able to like an author better after reading Things They Say On The Internet than the other way around.
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So, I went to the NYC Pride Parade this past Sunday. The mood was ecstatic. Perhaps the most moving part was seeing all the signs about marriage that had to be hastily created/amended after Friday's vote, or those that had such a different meaning before and after. For instance, one couple marched carrying a sign that said, "Engaged for 30 years. Let's get married!" Before Friday, it could've been a prod to action. After Friday, it was a joyful celebration.
There were also a number of groups/signs pointing out that the fight for equality is far from over, and that marriage is not the be all and end all of rights--or of society. Although they were outnumbered, I wholeheartedly agree with them.
I took over 500(!) pictures, and would have kept going, had my battery not died. Here's one of my favorite pics from the whole event:
[Image: Two people march holding hands. On the left is a white, apparently male-bodied person, and on the right is a black, apparently female-bodied person. Both are wearing lacy white bridal gowns. The person on the left is blowing bubbles into the air, and the person on the right is wearing a Lady Gaga-esque crown.]
You can see more pictures from the event in the various Facebook photo albums I created:
NYC Pride 2011 [Highlights Reel] (68 photos)
NYC Pride 2011 [Part 1] (200 photos)
NYC Pride 2011 [Part 2] (200 photos)
NYC Pride 2011 [Part 3] (69 photos)
(Those links should be accessible to anyone. Please let me know if they're not working for some reason.)
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Barring any disasters (which I am never at a loss to imagine), I got the job. It's only for a few weeks in July and August and won't make me rich, but it's something, at least. And the company, as represented by the woman I spoke to, seems reasonably fun and unpretentious and gave me a much better feeling than the company I interviewed with last summer, who I ended up not working for.
[ETA: Ohhhh wait, on second (obsessive, insomniac) look, the offer was for fully twice as many weeks as I thought at first. I can't count at all. The good news is: twice as much money. The other good news: it's not an accounting job.]
I should also have some webmastery to do for the department, so all told it's shaping up to be a fairly active and not completely impoverished summer.
Anyway, I can't say often enough how much I hate job interviews. Even a successful one leaves me feeling foolish, self-critical, and ungenuine. I hate them and if ruled the world I would abolish them.
Now I'm exhausted and overcaffeinated but I said I would volunteer for a thing so I have to go to the thing. Whoooops.
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Oh, speaking of responsibility, I also meant to say that I've somehow been elected president of my department's graduate student organization for the next academic year. And by "elected", I mean "cajoled into volunteering for".
Whoooops, chronic responsibility-taking-on strikes again. It's okay, though, I'll just procrastinate and freak out about everything to compensate!
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This is what happens to me during the summer, if I don't devise some occupation for myself: I forget to do things. I lose whole days.
Case in point: I got an e-mail the other day (it could have been two days ago, it could have been a week ago--did I mention I also lose my grasp on the passage of time?) saying "go to this place and fill out this form". I meant to do it right away. I just checked my e-mail; it was four days ago. I'd forgotten about it up until now. I can't even tell you what I was doing in the intervening four days. This happens way too often.
I can't handle only a little responsibility. I have to be in the habit of doing things generally, or I won't do anything.
All this is to say, I have an interview tomorrow for a summer ESL teaching job. Wish me luck (and a casual dress code).
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Current Mood: anxious