It's almost 3:00 pm. That means that I need to leave the house in an hour and a half to pick up Guille from work and go to the gym. I have been ready to work for the last six hours. I have accomplished nothing.

I have a lot to do. ( Here's a short list: )

But the thing is ... there are plenty of small steps and I'm just not taking them because what I REALLY need to be doing - getting the IRB so that I can start collecting data - is overshadowing everything. Like a big spaceship threatening to destroy Earth. Really, do you care about getting to work on time when you see a spaceship? No! Okay, that analogy makes sense in my head. I'm not going to worry if it makes sense to anyone else.

I'll let you know if this posting actually helped in a few days.

This semester I learned that even when a professor tells you its too early to start worrying about writing their paper, it's really really not.

It's not that I'm a procrastinator (although I can be) so much as that I need time for ideas to settle, and for the crap to sift out of them. This is a lengthy process. The longer the paper, the more lengthy it is. A week is not long enough for the crap to fall out of a twenty-page paper.

Didn't get the NSF. Life goes on.

The articles I am reading for medical anthropology this week talk about phenomenology of the body and they challenge the old mind/body dichotomy. They also make the very important point that this (Western) dichotomy may make it hard to write an experience-based ethnography of the body because we aren't so much used to thinking about, say, a bodyful mind.

One example was when the author (Thomas Ots) and his Chinese buddy (in China) ate a bunch of crappy food on the train. Author started to feel nauseous. At this moment, his buddy announced that he was feeling vertigo (or something close enough to that I'm not going to bother explaining), which makes more cultural sense (he explains in the article, but I'm not going to bother here). Author stops, and tries to feel vertigo and sure enough, he realizes that, along with the nausea, his head feels a bit muzzy. Eureka! They go through "identical" experiences, and emphasize different locations for the yucky.

The problem for me is that, when I woke up, I felt a little sick to my stomach (after reading articles like this until I fell asleep last night). Then, I felt hungry. Then I felt hungry and nauseous. Then I felt hungry, nauseous, muzzy headed and headache-y, and my chest feels full of energy. None of this is actually very bad, it's all low-level annoying and could very easily be what the author talks about re: psychosomatization of emotion (ie, I'm pissed that I'm back to 7 days a week of work, there's nothing I can do about it, I swallow my bitterness, I feel like crap). But you know, it could also very easily be that because I'm reading about this stuff, I'm feeling it. I do that a lot. It's part of why I like books. My mommy says I'm sensitive. ;-)

My prof keeps asking us: why the HELL do healers want to be healers? Being around sick people sucks. They're sick! And needy!

More and more I've been thinking about this and about the fact that I really am not so much interested in making my life about sick people. And part of the reason that I like doing stuff with sexuality is that - even though there is DEFINITELY some big bad stuff out there - sexuality is a great thing.

Anyway,  I continue to think medanth is SO KEWL and I want to keep doing it. Even if it does make me feel like crap from time to time.



*Ots, Thomas. (1991) Phenomenology of the Body: The Subject-Object Problem in Psychosomatic Medicine and the Role of Traditional Medical Systems Herein. Curare: Anthropologies of Medicine, special issue 7(91): 43-58.

Ots, Thomas. (1990) The Angry Liver, the Anxious Heart and the Melancholy Spleen: The Phenomenology of Perceptions in Chinese Culture. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 14: 21-58.

Spring Break - which was, despite my being fairly consistent about doing work, super fun and relaxing - is over. Dad and Trish are here (actually, at the moment they are at the Desert Museum) and I am attempting to write essays. I'm struggling. Derrida is not my friend. But Derrida is not the problem. The problem is that Spring Break is over.

Commiseration welcome in lieu of flowers.

It's already 11:00 am on my last day to finish two (okay, three, but that last one isn't going to happen) final assignments for my least favorite class. One of said assignments is mostly done, and the finishing touches are being put on by my partner. The other assignment is simple. A mere five pages of reflection on the course.

And I absolutely cannot motivate myself to write it.

I've been trying for three days now with zero success. I've tried to set up rewards for myself upon finishing certain amounts (last night's reward, hookah with a buddy who will be leaving the department, was actually effective, eliciting about 2 hours of work), I've tried taking time for rejuvenation (recognizing that I pushed extremely hard this semester and am exhausted), I've tried just slapping myself around and not letting myself to get up and use the restroom until something of quality is on the page. These have very little effect. Next on the list is meditation and exercise (which I should have done two days ago instead of, say, the no-pee strategy).

But I'll get it done.

After that's done, I will start on my final exam and then my final Sociolinguistics paper. That last one is the most exciting as it is POSSIBLE that it could be submitted somewhere for something. Maybe. But only if I finish by making it amazing. Fingers crossed!

[edit: it's done! it sucks! but it's done!]

I have to write a response to this book. I read it in two days and spent five hours talking about it with a friend so that I could write about it. And yet, the thing that most closely relates is the following comic I found, thanks to fallingfae .





Do you think I could just hand in the comic?

I admit it. It was dumb for me to have just come on into the library and hoped to check out or watch their a VHS marked "in library." What I should have done is filled out a recall form - even though it's not checked out - a few days before I wanted to watch it. Now that I am here, it has been explained to me, even though the VHS is IN the library, even though I watched the librarian put my request in for it, I cannot check it out or watch it here.

This is dumb. And I feel dumb for waiting until this point to try and watch a video ("Girls Like Us") that I suspected would have major relevance to my paper which is now due tomorrow.

Two days ago, as I was heading out to meet the people in my department for drinks, I realized that my bank card was missing. I knew I'd seen it since the last time I used it in a store, but that was pretty much it. I searched my car, my room, my clothes, my trashcans, my purse, my backpack and all to no effect. I was, as you might imagine, made anxious by this as it added to the general feelings of being "out of control." However, what I needed to do was quite straightforward: call the bank, cancel the old card and get a new one. Simple. Straightforward. Totally manageable. A couple of deep breaths later I was back on track.

Then, today, as I took a break from reading and grant proposal writing, I went out with Guille to grab a slice of pizza so that he could get out of the house (the stir-crazy appears to be setting in). It was there, at the restaurant, that I discovered that since yesterday, my two forms of photo I.D. (my Maryland driver's license and my UA student ID) were missing. Just, gone , from the plastic covered pocket in my wallet they normally inhabit. Again, I searched everywhere, and even managed to cut my thumb open on some glass left over from the accident last year hiding under the passenger's side seat in my car. I can manage the CAT card, but the driver's license means that I have to actually go take a driving test at the DMV here.

What is going on here? I'm about to cry. This is incomprehensible since I clearly remember when I last USED both the I.D. and the bank card. The only possible explanation is gremlins. Either that, or the coyotes here are playing tricks on me. I was just under the point of overwhelmed, but Tyche is determined to test my mettle.

EDIT: I found the latter offending I.D.s after hours of searching hiding in an obscure part of my purse. The bank card remains in the gremlin hideout.

This is not new. This is not a surprise. But I hate how the media is hyping the the sniping between the Democratic candidates. I have no doubt that there is tension, and sure, there are a couple of examples of stuff getting heated, but WHY oh WHY is that the headline of the majority of articles I see on these guys???

And if it isn't in the headlines, its insinuated or plastered in every quotation cited! E.g. the latest AP article I read on Obama taking the SC  primary in which his call for people to value "candor, judgement and the ability to rally Americans" over "longevity in Washington" as deciding factors in "real leadership" is labeled a "thinly veiled swipe at Clinton." Can it possibly be read as a criticism of Hillary's comfort inside the system or her inferior candor or some other such failing? Sure. Can it be better read as addressing the fact that "INEXPERIENCE" is the number one response to Obama's name? OF COURSE. Is the latter mentioned in the article in any way at all? No! Because improving on your weaknesses, addressing voters' concerns, and presenting your position on the issues is just not interesting to readers without the spice of nastiness.

I admit, we DO like a bit of nastiness. That's why there's so much incestuous/inappropriate/ill-advised sex in Tuesday and Wednesday soap operas (apparently the big plot moments happen Mondays and Fridays, but nasty sex makes great filler - that's what I learned in my MCAT training today). That's also why scandals are such big news. But it's not ALL that's important. We DO read other news. And there ARE other ways to make politics emotionally relevant than suggesting spats between the candidates.

Honestly, I have no problem with infighting between candidates. No real problem with snipy snarky comments, either. Gravel and Kucinich made no bones about using that strategy to get a little bit of attention thrown their way. And the top three candidates (generally) have little problem with it either. They keep repeating lines about how they generally agree with each other, like each other, support each other (okay, not those words, but more or less, their Democrat-love trumps all). They like to tease each other. It shows the world United States, that the Dems don't all have forks up their asses just because they care about Real Life Issues and some level of political correctness. What I hate is when the tension, teasing, and even the occasional too-mean remark or ad are transformed by the media we rely on from actual engagement with the question of who has the most of offer into a simplistic titillation/abhorrence of a purely emotional contest for our hearts.

You know what I mean?





EDIT: I like the Post and Courier article on Obama's win!

Now I'm not an academic yet, but I'm already being warned off my research. (Mostly by professors who share my interests and have had to fight tooth and nail to be able to study them.)

Anthropology, for all its desire to profoundly understand what the hell is really going on with us humans, has caused some pretty serious damage along the way. This is not unique, of course, early archaeologists pretty much destroyed incredibly important sites for all time with their "lack of foresight". Doctors have been accidentally killing people for millenia - and often those with the least power. So, it's not new. But anthropology has been determined to Take Responsibility for its history. One of the ways it has done this is in the implementation of Institutional Review Boards. These boards are their to ensure the safety of the subjects. This is still the background, nothing wrong yet. Of course this is a good thing, right?

Except that the very nature of the thing seems to tend towards conservatism and even close-mindedness. Now before I begin ranting I feel I should make a number of disclaimers.

1) I DO think that there needs to be oversight to ensure that no subjects are being taken advantage of, or hurt in any way by our "observation".
2) I understand that sexuality, especially, IS something that is strongly connected for many people with trauma, and that retraumatizing people would fall under the category of hurting people.
3) I understand that children, adolescents, youth, whatever, are even more vulnerable than regular old people in terms of being influenced and taken advantage of.

But here's the thing: the way I see it, adolescence is in many way the cauldron where the stew that is Who You Are is simmered and salted to taste. Of course our personalities continue to change and grow to fit our new environments, cultures, relationships, etc. Lord, if I haven't seen that in my own family ... my mother was famous for her stubborn and aggressive commitment to righteousness - in a way that blended all aspects of her life: political, professional, and personal. And while she is still a righteous lady, she also enjoys gardening and buying tons of toys for her grandkids. Those of us who knew her when will be able to tease her about these things for the rest of her life. My dad has similarly chilled out from the fiercely arrogant person I've grown up hearing him call his younger self into a creature of habit who is perfectly happy with his routine of recreational senior sports, gardening, and MLB tv on the computer. Can I really argue that adolescence is so crucial? That it simply CANNOT be avoided as a critical site for identity formation?

I think I can. Perhaps not cogently enough that it would be successful against the all-powerful IRB, but enough to feel indignant and frustrated regardless.

Youth are experiencing shocking levels of emotional violence in our culture. I suspect that it is not just this culture and not just now, but I haven't read anything that I can quote on it. The violence, as I have seen it, often goes beyond emotional into physical - both directly from partners, and indirectly self-enforced violence resulting from performing to one's own expectations as developed by one's community and culture. I hope I'm not throwing the word "violence" around too loosely here, but I can't think of another word with quite the same range. The point is, youth culture - a valid phenomenon all by itself - cannot help but change the larger culture. National culture. Global culture. Tiny community culture, like the one I grew up with in my church, too. (Too much "culture"? I'm using it to the point of meaninglessness, but, it IS all about the study of culture in the end.) And knowing that. Knowing that what those adolescents are experiencing is completely inseparable from which television shows become popular and what the next generation will value and who we are as a country, how the hell can we afford NOT to look at what adolescents are experiencing?

Adolescence seems as foreign a place to adults (even me, and I'm only 24) as any indigenous tribe in "Darkest Peru", as Paddington Bear used to call it. Anthropologists have been looking at "coming of age" ceremonies forever, and while I can appreciate that it "feels different" to say you want to go and talk with sub/urban 15 year old girls about their experiences of sexuality I don't think, in the end, it really is.

The end.

( My cat is total brat. )

Well, I hadn't planned on writing that, but now my lunch time is over so that's it for now.

I love myths. I love mythology. I love scholarship that bridges the academic and "real" world. And I really really don't like Joseph Campbell. In fact, I never have. Even as a kid in 10th grade, reading _The Hero With a Thousand Faces_ and discussing the Hero's Journey in class, I found myself feeling deeply unsatisfied. At that time I could not put a name to it. Now I can.

( If you feel like reading my thoughts on Joseph Campbell, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Piers Anthony go ahead and click. Otherwise, move on cowboy. )

First of all, I took today off. Why? Because I am frustrated by the idea of going to work, accomplishing nothing and not even be able to set things up to begin work again shortly because I have another long weekend coming up. Basically, I'm frustrated at having so much out of office time.

( Grad school musings - do not read unless you want to help me )

So, in a minute I'm going to be getting in touch with David's (that is, my stepdad's) anthropology contacts to see if they can help with this whole hellish finding-the-school-for-you process. And then I'm going home and cleaning the toilet and vacuuming and possibly doing crunches and pushups on my living room floor. What? you may be saying, she's exercising? Since when? Since never. I haven't gotten home yet. But I'd like to, because now that my best pal isn't around, I find that every moment that I'm not engaged with something vital, I just feel like my existance on the planet is worthless. Hopefully this might be changed by me being just a tad more physically balanced and maybe means getting back into BJJ.

Here's the BJJ bitching, though. I really enjoy rolling around with people. But I really hate being the only one who's only there because she "enjoys rolling around" and not because I have some deepseated aggression, desire to become the number one women's grappler, or inherent wrestling ability that I'm determined to take to the next level. And don't get me wrong, I love the school. They're hella smart, but ... well you get it.

Anything else? Oh, well, the whole marriage thing is really working out for me. Guille and I are as solid, and maybe even a little more solid, than we were before officially tying the noose, and life is good. I have officially taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars of his debt (thank you Oberlin), but that's a small price to pay (really, is it?) for having a husband who will follow me to graduate school and work to support me while I do it.

( And finally, I miss my testarossa. )

I just wrote an incredibly long entry bitching about Eundria, and it was lost. And now I am incredibly bitter.

Bleh.
It's raining.

I'm disliking my roommate.

I miss Guille.

I wanna go home to Oberlin.



Also: I miss Greek.

It's almost 7:00 pm and I realize that I am never going to be as ready as I'd like to be for my stupid Spanish exam tomorrow morning.
This frustration is bleeding into other areas of my life, but this is also due to jealousy/frustration. By this I mean Guille. Poop on him. I admit, I only started working around 3:00 pm today, meanwhile Guille was presenting his economics thingy, something I know he worked long and hard on. And I understand wanting a break, I really do. But yesterday, making dinner, was a long ass break, and I kept working through it. I did, however, stop and watch "Swordfish" with Carly and Yolie and Sydney and the boys, but that was relatively brief, and I worked hard to finish my paper after. Today Guille went and played Smash Bros after his presentation. He did this instead of going to the library, like he said he would, and saying hi and going out to eat with me, so I went to eat by myself. An hour and some later he calls me, annoyed that I didn't wait more than an hour for him, and tells me he's going out to dinner with Carly. I love Carly (I love you, glove), but I am frustrated. I wanted to eat with Guille. I also wanted to eat dinner with him yesterday, that's why I suggested making dinner. That's why I cooked so much (even tho he told everyone that he did all the cooking). That's why I paid for it all. And it was more than $50! And without even asking me if I minded first, he called and invited Yoli and Carly. As I said, I love the kids, but considering it was my money, my idea, my work, and I was in the middle of studying really hard, it would have been nice if he weren't QUITE so self-centered. I also am frustrated because he played Smash Bros right after he got an academic incomplete! I mean, come on! If you don't have the time to fucking finish your work, stop playing fucking SMASH BROTHERS! And I'm frustrated because I am doing my work, and I HATE doing my work, and when I want things to go my way, they don't, but everything's going gravy for him. GRRRR! And I am also frustrated at myself because I really hate being jealous, especially of people I love. But they are inevitably the only people I am envious of. And really, I don't mean much that I'm saying, but I am tired, and cranky, and have a lot of work to do, and I wish ... I wish I didn't.
Bleh.
And I hate Spanish.

I am very sad.

I worked extra extra hard on my composition for Spanish. I told Eurynome's creation story. I used grammar from the chapters we'd recently covered. And I was sick - but I worked extra hard, and honestly thought it was pretty good when I turned it in. I got a 72%. Other people, who wrote it in the hour before class that morning, recieved Bs. I am sad. I'm not ever gonna learn enough Spanish to go to a university and study mythology in Mexico. Especially not by next fall.

Guille says I should dance or something and pack for my trip home (in 2.6 hours), but I don't really feel like dancing. Or listening to music. I feel like having my work done, and understanding Spanish.

My stepsister, Erica, just had a baby. His name is Jackson. They call him Jack. He will be having Thanksgiving with us, but I doubt they will let me even hold him, as sniffly as I am.

I am not happy. I feel physically better after spending yesterday in bed, but my soul is heavy and full of mucus.

I feel like death on a cracker. I'm unclear who I contracted my illness from, all I know is that as I lay down to sleep last night I started coughing. When I woke up this morning and lay down next to Carly (sorry Carly if I gave it to you - and if you gave it to me, I forgive you) I couldn't breathe through my nose. I got up and cleaned dishes for the Soul Breakfast in the House until 2:30 or so, and then went back to my room to attempt to write a paper about transnationalizing banda. Apparent that my brain could not handle that, I started writing my myth in Spanish (the Pelasgian creation myth starring Eurynome, the Wide-Stretching-Over-Everything-One - I know, I should get an award for my translation). I enjoy doing it, but it soon became obvious that my brain and body couldn't even do that.
I never get sick. Never. Or at least I tend to believe this to be so whether or not the facts concur. So it takes me a little while to realize when I have been stricken, because usually I just complain about anything little, and it really is nothing. This time ... bleh. Thanks to Guille I managed a phone call to Jim, who brought me Comtrex. (Comtrex=Life) And after sleeping from 7-10, I began to feel a little better.
I finished my composition, yay, but now I have 1) paper on transnationalizing banda 2) greek translation and articles to read for greek tomorrow 3) sexuality paper 4) greek paper. And I have no one to love me and bring me saltines, soup and tea.
But mad love to Elio, who brought me 4th meal food when I discovered that the Comtrex had stimulated my appetite, and to Jim, who brought me the Comtrex.
Blehhhhhhh.