Dear Work Ethic,

Where did you go? When our relationship took a new direction last Fall, I realize things got hot and heavy really quickly, but I need you in my life. I mean, it doesn't have to be like before. We don't have to call each other three times a day "just to check in" and stay on the phone for hours talking about our feelings. But maybe we could still hang out? 

I know things got a little stifling. We could have handled things better. Fine, I could have handled things better. But it had been a while since I'd done this while in school. We've taken a break now, and lied to ourselves that we weren't the whole time. But I'm in a better place now, and I think I can make this happen in a sustainable way.

Miss you ...

-Sam

I'm reading an article for my Ethnographic Discourse Analysis class called "Language ideology and racial inequality: Competing functions of Spanish in an Anglo-owned Mexican restaurant" by Rusty Barrett and it is bringing back all KINDS of uncomfortable memories.

I was 18 when I first worked at La Madeleine, a faux-French restaurant in chic Bethesda. When I started, I was the only U.S. born person and the only White person working there, including the managers, and the non-managers were split evenly between immigrant Africans (Cameroon, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, etc.) and immigrant Latinos (from El Salvador and Mexico). Because the Africans were more bilingual (French and English), and because my French was better than my Spanish, I began as friends with them, particularly a man named Omar from Cameroon who continues to be one of the most genuinely good and kind people I've ever met in my life. Although I'd taken two years of Spanish in high school, I was completely unable to communicate with most of the Latinos whose English was far better than my Spanish but still not enough to have real conversations.

I'm not sure why I was inspired to really get to know my Spanish-speaking colleagues, when (from Barrett's article), it is obvious that many white people would simply prefer to keep to the communities they already understood. Barrett mentions how other white people would come and ask him how to say, "Fuck off" and other words that they could use to "put Hispanics in their place" if they felt they were being insulted (179), and I have to say I fully understand the impulse. I was constantly the butt of some of my coworkers jokes (particularly two middle aged Salvadoran women who constantly brought me up in sexual contexts, even bringing a little wind up penis to work and asking me over and over if I liked it - I brought a great deal of this on myself* by shocking them with the information that I was attracted to women as well as men), and as in order to learn Spanish (getting people to teach me vocabularly constantly and children's songs and desperately trying to have conversations despite the language barrier) I was forced to play the clown, a foolish, sluttish outsider. I'd say that I took the whole thing good naturedly, I recognized how much I had to learn, and being the ONLY White United Statesian, as well as the youngest, newest employee surely shifted my expectations for power and authority. I recognized that I had more upward mobility than anyone else working there, but I was also very very young, emotionally and socially if not physically.

By the second summer, the restaurant was changing; there were more Latinos and fewer Africans and the new managers were all U.S. born and the GM was white. She was pretty awful and her treatment of the Spanish-speaking employees was shameful. I had grown close to some of my coworkers, had written letters to them in broken Spanish during the school year, and once I returned home, spent almost every afternoon hanging out, driving them on errands, and helping out where English was necessary. But I was still the butt of jokes, still the foolish outside, and I was not yet terribly competent at understanding the social expectations of such an environment. I drew constantly during the extended down times and teased back and forth with people, including the Latino bilingual manager. I recall with real deep shame when I drew a picture of a woman with big ears, a flat head, and droopy breasts, labeled it "Your Mom" and gave it to said manager WHILE HE WAS AT A TABLE WITH CUSTOMERS. It would have been over the line in any case - although I didn't fully understand that in part because of the way I was teased by some of my Spanish-speaking coworkers - but it was totally unacceptable the way I did it. His reaction was profound and utter disbelief and a clear reprimand. I was very confused and apologetic, but I really didn't get it.

Of course, none of this is really about restaurant Spanish language ideologies, except perhaps some of mine. But even though my restaurant experiences were quite different from Barrett's in Chalupatown, there is enough in common that I question some of his conclusions about the use of Spanish and Mock Spanish. Much of it rings true - Mock Spanish was certainly used both to feel good about one's "accomodation" of the inferior/ignorant Spanish-speaker while simultaneously signalling a non-Latino identity. I can't say a White identity, as Barrett does, because my experience of it came from Africans and Black United Statesians. But there were times that it wasn't used that way, that instead what is undeniably Mock Spanish was used as something different. That is, Spanish-speakers AND English-speakers would use some of these words, like "finito" (which referred explicitly to the end of one's shift: "finito?" is your shift done? "finito!" my shift is done). When I tried - over a couple of weeks - to get someone to teach me the RIGHT way of asking this, something like terminado? or te vas?, I was consistently rebuffed and retaught "finito" by my multiple teachers. Although I had initially identified "finito" as something like Mock Spanish, by the end I thought it might actually be a Salvadoran innovation. Perhaps I was being intentionally excluded from proper Spanish (that is, a fluid conversation between two Spanish speakers), but my sense was that there were a number of words and phrases that became a sort of pidgin and were used as powerfully by Spanish-speakers as by English-speakers. I do not suggest that there was not racial tension - there certainly was, though (at least my first summer) in different ways from Barrett's experience - but when communication broke down, there was obvious frustration and disapproval on both sides. It is no surprise that the English speakers had more power in those relationships, but I believe it is a mischaracterization to suggest that the use of these Mock Spanish words were simply indicative of a "can't-be-bothered" attitude on the part of English-speakers that served as an excuse to escape blame for communication breakdowns. Not being in a position to use such commands very frequently myself (as the youngest and newest I took orders, I didn't give any), this observation came from watching such interactions take place every day (and break down every day).

Of course, I was no anthropologist carefully versed in what to be watching, and I obviously missed a great deal (which I intended to illustrate clearly in mentioning my embarrassing well-intentioned racist drawing), but I don't think that necessarily makes what I did get completely useless. Beyond the simple difference of experience, I think it is important to actually bring up the possibility of a restaurant pidgin that worked in conjunction with Mock Spanish, rather than a simple instance of well-intentioned racism. I do not intend to contest the idea that racism was at play and at work in the language use there, but I do contest the idea that Latinos were only resistant in their use of Spanish to exclude English-speakers. Instead, I suggest that the use of Mock Spanish by Spanish-speakers became an act of resistance in itself, and was wielded against incompetent managers and coworkers.




* After a convo with my bud tatterpunk I feel like I should add here that I do not think sharing my sexual identity should have necessarily opened me to such sexual teasing, only that sometimes it does. And the experience helped me to learn what sort of places I need to be more wary. Again, not that queer people should have to be wary, but that sadly we don't live in that world most of the time. Also, this is nothing compared to the badness that could have come, and I am glad I learned the lesson in such a relatively harmless way.
----

I have decided to leave this a public entry for now. I'm a little nervous, as my presentation of myself feels risky, but if I took the risky parts out, you wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the context of these observations and ideas. I have often spoken up in favor of such risky anthropology, and even though this isn't anthropology I'm trying to put my money where my mouth is. That said, if I get too flamed, I'm exercising my privilege and friend-locking this puppy.

Today was my first day of section.

After reading academicsanon  and going through TA training and talking with the veterans here, I was expecting a class full of drooling morons who consistently misspell their own names. As it happens, despite having a class of freshmen, only two students had never written a 10+ page paper (the most they'd written was 6) and people spoke up to contribute to the conversation! Excellent.

Although I wish we could have done more than talk about expectations in the 50 minutes, I was pleased. Compared to high schoolers, they were all remarkably engaged and alert. I was pleased that EVERYONE was making eye contact. In fact, it sort of threw me. In a class of 21, I expected at least a couple to be checked out. I'm sure that will resolve itself as the semester continues. I was happy with my own comportment, too. Mostly, I was just myself. I'm interested in and excited about teaching and anthropology, but I'm serious about teaching, too, and (despite the massively low expectations of some of my peers and professors), I expect a real commitment from the students. I'm sure that all came through in my demeanor and focus, I'll let you know how that works out for me.

There are, however, two problems:

1) I am teaching in a 1980's classroom. It has a projector, but one that needs transparencies. I mean, really! I ASK you, people. I couldn't even show my funny video from Savage Minds: http://savageminds.org/2008/12/22/what-are-those-subtitles/ This is very depressing and I MAY need to ask for a room transfer ...

2) Half of my section has class during my Office Hours. That just won't do. But I'm pretty sure I can resolve it.

So! All in all, a success!

You know, rewriting stuff doesn't suck as much as it appears to. The best thing about rewriting stuff, of course, is an improved grade, but that is not nearly as personally satisfying as actually getting closer to saying 1) what I intended and 2) something reasonably coherent and interesting. Relevant critiques make the rewriting process way better, too.

I wrote five essays this week (although four of those were rewrites). Now that I'm done, I have to switch my attention to ... oh. More essays. One of these already has a very thorough first draft and has been peer reviewed, so that will make it better. The other one, unfortunately, is about a topic I care only marginally about but is being cowritten with someone I like a lot. It doesn't have anything about sex and very little about gender (two things which I realize are pretty friggin' central to my intellectual interests tho not so much my politically active interests) even though it's got lots of stuff on undocumented students. Still ... not my favorite assignment thus far.


NEWS: I have a job. My first day is tomorrow. I make $9.50 an hour and work 19 hours a week. I secretly want to take four crazy hard classes instead, but that's impossible if I've got a job. But since my job adds almost nothing to my professional development ... well. We shall see. I suspect a lot of my reticence is just the fact that I really love my full-time student life right now.

BIGGER NEWS: Guille got a job offer today. His job offer is for a real job with benefits. This has a potential impact on above secret plan, but no decisions will be made immediately. Once we can afford to water the plants again that may change.

(anthropology) I am sooooo tired. This week was overwhelming, but I finally managed to get out my National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposal, my midterm, and my professional poster with the quantitative analysis of word variance in sex ed curricula. I feel good about the essays for the NSF (though I screwed up some of the other requirements - let's not talk about it), I am a little apathetic about my midterm (but am glad it got done), and I'm quite proud of the poster (my prof suggested we submit it to medical anthropological conferences). Next up is another book review paper, a current events presentation, and a paper that will form the bulk of our literature review for a research project on guidance counseling for undocumented students that I hope to continue with a colleague next year, and a qualitative research paper on discourse analysis. I am feeling good. That's four professional development thingies related to publication and presentation in conferences. I will polish them up over Winter break and begin submitting them in the spring.

(Bordieu) I look good. That is, I'm wearing professional clothes, shoes, and hair still and I like it. Like many people in D.C., I think a somewhat conservative business attire is the way to go. It makes me feel professional, which in turn keeps my behavior professional (I have yet to miss a deadline or a class or a meeting or anything - quite a change from my undergrad experience), and helps maintain clear boundaries between work and personal. I think, like at Identity, this is an important boundary to maintain, especially because there is already so much necessary overlap (I work mostly at home, my social network is made up of colleagues, etc).

(culture) I had a job interview today for an Office Asst. position in the learning disabilities program. It's really pretty ideal for me, only 3-4 hours a day during hours I can totally handle. It's on campus, walking distance from all my classes, and it seems possible that there is some form of tuition remission. I'll find out next week if I get the job. My fingers are crossed.

(Derrida) Did I mention I'm tired? I've been sleeping plenty (a minimum of eight hours), but my brain is begging for more time off. I'm sure meditation would help (as always), but I can't seem to be totally consistent with it. At least I haven't totally abandoned it. Exercise might help, too, but I rarely accompany Guille to the gym like I ought to.

(Foucault) My best friend is currently in a plane on her way to Taiwan (by way of Korea). I am super excited for her and proud that she is claiming her own path and making a career in unexpected and awesome ways. She is brilliant and therefore it would be easy to allow herself to fall into many little boxes set up for smart people, but she is also brave, and so she is making her own way. Go tatterpunk !

I'm packing.

This is good because the doing keeps me from feeling anxious. I have little doubt that the coming two month stint in Ecuador is going to be incredible, I just have no idea what specifically is going to be amazing about it. I am very slightly worried about altitude sickness since a good friend of the family died of it this year (he was otherwise very healthy), but there's not really anything I can do about it and the likelihood of real problems is low. Driving to Tucson isn't nearly so intimidating now that I've copied so many books on CD from the public library over. I'm still hoping tatterpunk will drive with me and Dad and Trish have also offered to keep me company, but if it doesn't work out, it's no big deal. Of course, like the Ecuador trip, once we arrive I've got no idea what to expect.

I left TPR on Friday, and it was a relief to have the drudgery end. Even though I'm still doing drudge work, it's MY drudge work and that makes all the difference.

I have no emotions about leaving, except my stomach and chest suggest that I am anxious.  I have had moments where I have felt absolutely brokenhearted, and a couple of times when moving on to the next step includes the elation of being a little closer to my heart's goals: especially becoming a professor and having babies (never mind that those two things may not work easily together). Mostly, though, I just feel focused on getting done what needs to be done.

I REALLY don't want to go to work. I want to stay at home and read read read so that I can then go and update Goodreads and find MORE books and read MORE!!! Mwahahaha.

Instead, I need to go out into the rain and wait for the bus.

Bleh.

I'm making ThePioneerWomanCooks' favorite salad ever for dinner tonight. A dinner that may involve the presence of wonderful friend Yoli who gave me the coolest Arizona-appropriate gift ever: cacti. Here's a photo from above including the names I decided on. In case it isn't obvious, the two twin cacti have two versions of nicknames from the same name. (Chuy and Chucho are from Jesus, Pancho and Paco are from Francisco, Teto is from Hector, Lalo is from Eduardo, and Nacho is from Ignacio.

Also, I am going to start working part time fo' real this time. Starting tomorrow. Doing office work. It ain't much, but it'll help with getting stuff ready for Arizona. And it's a five minute walk from Guille's job!

I'm gonna have to reschedule the Spanish tutoring I've been doing (volunteering) for this middle school kid, but her schedule seems pretty open, so I'm not worried.

And we are going to meet with a financial planner FOR FREE!! Exciting, right? Shut up, I'm totally excited.

Oh yeah, and I heard back from NYU and I didn't get in, but it doesn't matter because I'M GOING TO ARIZONA, BABY!!!

In about an hour I will put on some nice clothes, make-up, and galoshes (poop on rainy days!) and take the Metro to Dupont Circle where I will complete the New Hire Orientation at the Princeton Review. However, my current plan is: I'm not giving them ANY paperwork until I've got a friggin' pay offer. This is ridiculous. I've been in for an audition, a three day training, I've been emailing and calling back and forth for weeks, and I've still had NO RESPONSE on the money. So, I'm not leaving their office today without a really clear offer.

After I finish there, I'll head back home and begin getting ready for my babysitting gig. Part of me is like, "it's Friday night! I don't want to be babysitting!" Then I remind myself that Guille's going out with a girlfriend to the movies, and I don't have anything to do except read. And I can take the books with me for after little girl (Talli) goes to bed.

Slowly but surely I am pushing back the tide of uselessness that has been washing over my life since I finished my applications. After today, I'll be able to take steps to get a volunteer position as well (assuming, perhaps over-optimistically, that I'll have some idea of my work schedule after today's orientation).

Also, I know that Guille truly loves me because he rinsed out the tub after his shower just in case I wanted to take a bath. Who knew that true love was so mundane?

Ancient Greek virgins. Sounds crusty. It was my topic for my five minute audition at the Princeton Review this evening. I arrived almost ten minutes late, even though I left my house over half an hour early, but I don't think it mattered too much. I also ended up paying $7 for 37 minutes of parking. My presentation followed one on defensive patterns in soccer. He faced the board the whole time and lectured. I got three of the four people present up to participate as visual aids. I also had pictures of Athena, Artemis and Hestia - the three goddesses I was using to demonstrate my point. I actually wrote a little something on my website's blog when I got home, more or less explaining the points I tried to make in my audition. I had fun. I am pretty darn sure they'll hire me. I think they'd be foolish not to, with my teaching experience and my scores on the tests (if not their practice test).

I got a call earlier today from one of my Identity kids in tears. She asked me to come over, and I almost dropped everything (including the interview) to do it. Instead, I went after. Thank goodness. The girl's been through a lot of crazy junk in her life - it doesn't help that her dad was recently being held in a border prison in Texas, or that he was deported to a country where he had testified against military men currently holding power - but when I arrived and asked what was going on, her answer was that she wasn't allowed to borrow the car and her older brother was. Sure, she's overstressed and tired because she works seven nights a week and goes to school during the day, and her mom is having trouble coping and finding work because she's too honest to lie about her legal status. Plus, the real issue is a breakdown in communication, not the car. But part of it is just being a teenager. Which is somewhat reassuring.

I want to start looking for volunteer work in anthropology. I've looked at a couple of museums in the Smithsonian (like the National Museum of the American Indian - super cool cuz it's working with living cultures), but I can't really come up with much beyond that. Any ideas, buddies?

So I have officially applied to The Princeton Review. [Edit: And been asked to come to a group audition! Yay!]

In other matters, what the heck is going on with politics this year? You should comment on this and tell me what YOU'RE thinking, because I've only got old people to talk to about this and I want to hear what other relatively spry people think (everyone on my flist counts). I've been following things relatively closely. I haven't watched all of the debates, but I've done a bunch of them. I have taken all kinds of quizzes to see which candidates I like best (my favorites are On the Issues and the one through the Washington Post). And, in the end, I still don't know who I want to vote for. Here's the breakdown:

I like Hillary. I think that she will compromise and play well with others to get something better actually accomplished. She got spanked when she pushed for health care reform as the First Lady, and since then everyone seems to agree that she will be a political animal to get the job done, rather than sticking with her ideals. I am generally in favor of actually accomplishing things rather than just putting them off for another year. Something is better than nothing. And I feel like I know what I get with her, which is definitely a plus. And I just like her - she kinda reminds me of my mama.

I like Barack. I'm not totally sure why, I just like him. This is the sort of reasoning that makes me want to punch people in the face when they do it, but it keeps me coming back to him. The downside is, I don't feel like I know what he will do. It's not that he's unqualified (experience-wise) thing again, it's more that I haven't seen enough of his record to feel confident predicting his actions. And articles I've read about him portray him as a guy who doesn't really pay a lot of attention to people he disagrees with (granted, this is mostly based on people nay-saying his bids for office, but still!). This all kinda makes me want to go with Hillary more.

Edwards? He may have a bunch of good ideas and whatnot. He might bring parts of the South. And he will certainly be easier to vote for by racists and misogynists (hey I'm a realist and they make up part of the electorate). But honestly, the only reason I pay much attention to him very much is 'cuz his wife is a badass. Also, I like his deal on education. Yay Edwards.

Richardson. Oh Richardson. First problem, of course, is that no one is voting for him. He doesn't even get Obama's hype about being a Person of Color. HELLO PEOPLE!!! He's Latino!!! That does not make me want to vote for him, however. What makes me want to vote for him is that I appear to agree with him on a bunch of hot button issues, especially the environment. However, I'm not so much thrilled with his stand on the death penalty, 3 strikes sentencing, gun control, or a couple of other social issues. The bottom line is, I like what he's SAID about stuff, but there's a couple of things in his record that make me concerned.

So. The issues. The problem great thing is that the Democrats don't vary too much on too much. I like Edwards for education best, and Hillary for health care best (I think - it can be a little hard to decipher their declarations), and Richardson best for the environment and the Iraq war, and they're all dumb on immigration, but I like Edwards for that, too. If we're going purely on personality, it's all Barack. My economic perspective doesn't line up too well with very many Democrats ('cuz I'm not a big fan of protectionism even though I don't believe in any way that the hand of the market represents our values), so that's not really playing a part in my decision. Except to say that I'm not voting for Kucinich even though I'm closest to him socially because I think he would destroy our economy.

And that leaves me with?




Damn. Maybe I should just wait until November.

There's a rumor going around Borders that I have won the costume contest. I don't have any pictures of myself because Guille didn't come to see me (he has a camera), but I comfort myself with the knowledge that enough people took pictures with me that I must be memorialized in someone's photo album.

When I went in to the office, no one recognized me. I had a lot of fun.

I'm so excited!! On July 21 Borders is having a staff costume contest for the Harry Potter release party. I am torn between three characters, and would value everyone's thoughts on the matter. Below are the pros and cons of each as I see them. The reward is a $200 gift card which I really want. Although no one has announced what the judging guidelines are, I suspect it is a combination of what is, quite simply, the most overwhelming costume. I could probably get Ginny Weasley pretty easily (hehe, ginny weasley pretty easily - that rhymes - hehe), but I doubt it would win me any contests. So. Here's my ideas:


1) Professor Minerva McGonagall
+ She's a woman (so am I!)
+ Who else could ailiathena be than minerva?
+ I have a witch hat and a "fall" as my mother calls it (fake hair and a fake bun)
+ I have a time period brown dress that my mother used to use to dress up as Susan B. Anthony. It's somewhat frumpy, but it is also clearly a costume.
+ I have a green cape from my mother. I also just impulse bid $10 on a green velvet opera cloak on Ebay because McGonagall wears a green robe. Don't tell Guille.
+ I like witches
+ I have shoes
+ I wear glasses and could smush them on my nose like her
- I'm not sure it's terribly impressive. She is one of those characters that is most distinguishable simply by being Maggie Smith, not by what she wears.
- I don't think I look a whole lot like Maggie Smith, although I would certainly pluck my eyebrows and gray my hair a little and give myself wrinkles and make my lips smaller.
+ I think she is hands down the coolest character (personally), though I doubt others think that


2) Professor Severus Snape
+ I can pull him off physically (even my mom thinks I would easily look like him)
+ I get to dye my hair
+ I get to crossdress
+ I can do lightening makeup on my skin and darken my eyebrows and make jowls
+ I bet I could hunt down a black robe pretty easily
- He wears a very specific Victorian style black button down waistcoat with white cuffs that I almost certainly will not be able to find.
+ I might be able to find simple tapered black pants for something really cheap at a thrift store
- I will almost certainly have trouble finding shoes like his
- I know for a fact that at least one of my co-workers, who also really wants to win, will be going as Snape (and he will have someone be sure to draw the Dark Mark on him)
- I don't have any part of the costume now.


3) Rubeus Hagrid
+ Immediately identifiable
+ I could hide physical dissimilarities with a fake beard and hair
- I will have to hunt down a fake beard and hair
+ I could probably assemble everything except his coats (seen in the above photo) by visiting a couple of thrift stores
+ I could get into some real detail with him since he has all those things in his pockets in the books and I could carry them around (if only I could find a pink umbrella ... oh! Look at that one!)
+ I have boots
+ If I had to choose one character that I think I like most and would most like to play in a movie, it would have to be Hagrid. I mean, who doesn't love Hagrid? (Except snotty kids like Draco.)
- I am not nearly fat enough or tall enough.
- I don't have anything for the costume now.

Poll #1016212 Which Harry Potter character should I be to win $200?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Who do you think I should be?

Anyone else?

A new discovery! Michigan (my top choice right now) actually has an interdisciplinary PhD in "Anthropology and History" that very well might fit me perfectly. They even mentioned "classics" in their description of what they do. And there's lots of religion thrown in, too!

I don't know enough yet to know if this is the right way to go, but I'm getting pretty darn close to needing to actually visit the school.

GRE study is also going swimmingly. Hooray for jobs that you don't take home with you! (Sometimes I get bored or annoyed that I am doing nothing and getting paid less than that, but then I remember: this is exactly what I wanted in a job! Then I get back to punching in coupons for the customers. And since this is already too long for parentheses, I just going to take a brief moment to rant about co-workers. It bugs the hell out of me when my co-workers talk shit about the customers on the floor. Even the managers do it! Today, one guy said, with such deep sarcasm that I thought he was completely genuine until he corrected me, "I am just totally inspired by our client base." He was surrounded by customers and right by the information desk. In fact, I AM inspired by our customers. We have tons of kids who are reading, tons of immigrants who barely speak English who are reading, tons of minorities in general who are reading, and if they read a little African-American fiction or romance than they do John Steinbeck, who the hell am I to judge. I've never even read Of Mice and Men and I've certainly never read The Grapes of Wrath, and you know what, neither have most of my coworkers. There are plenty of things to bitch about, but I will do that here, or if it is really REALLY bad, in the break room. But since 90% of the customers are just as nice or nicer than I am on any given day, I don't feel right bitching about the 10% as if they represent the whole. For my dear friends who also make their living serving people, this is NOT meant to be taken as a criticism of you or of anything you have written here, since I tend to agree with everything you have said. End of parentheses. What was I talking about?)

Well, that's it. If only I could go to sleep now ...

This seems strange to me, but of all of the classes I took in college, the one that makes me sound smartest in conversations is Roman Religion. Now, I know the professor of that class happens to read this lj, but I'm not actually saying it for her benefit (it's too late to suck up - unless you can somehow manage to change those grades now, can you, could you?). Today in the breakroom at Borders someone started asking about what would have happened to Christianity if, in fact, Jesus had not died on the crossed for our sins [his phrasing]. He was genuinely interested, not using the question as a starting block for his own opinions. While I don't know that his question can ever actually be answered, there were a number of places to begin discussing it, but I was excited that I, at least, knew enough to be conversant on some of the early cultural context. I mean, I was steeped in Christian history in our bizarre "confirmation" training (oh, Apes ... you haven't blocked that retreat from your memory yet, have you? Do you know I still have a picture of all of us outside? If I could scan that puppy, you better believe it would be posted here for the shock and awe of all), but that had a lot more to do with (not surprisingly) what is important to us as Seekers and even us as Christians within a wider Christian context, than it did anything actually relevant to the people responsible for it's nascency and "nurturing".

The point is, this topic, and many others that also are relevant to the cultural context of very early Christianity, comes up way more often than any other. Classical Greece is the second, and current (particularly indigenous) almost never, but although I don't want to make it the center of my own study, it's a field I was raised to delve into and question and research and for all the texts I have on the Historical Jesus, this class was and is incredibly useful. I suspect that this may be the one class (followed VERY closely by Ancient Greek and Roman Sexuality, and then by the Iliad) that I take with me from college and never lose. Cool.

In more depressing news, I scored a 350 (!!!!!!!!!!!) on my Diagnostic test for the quantitative section of the GREs (that's 350 out of 800, just like the SATs). Yes, I am now beginning the studying, but the fact that I have forgotten how to get the area of a circle does not bode well. (My thought at the time was, "I think it has something to do with pi.") Hopefully it will all come rushing back to me. Everyone cross your fingers please.

Yesterday was my last day at Identity. I had a lot to do and the computer was being a bitch, so I didn't leave the office until after midnight. I still have to go back and drop off some materials I didn't take out of my car (cuz it was late and I didn't want to be lugging around big boxes right next to the Wheaton metro - not terribly safe), but I'm trying to think of a time when I can go and do that without anyone seeing me. I said my goodbyes and I finished what I could, and now I just want to be done.

Guille wants me to get seriously to work today on all the school responsibilities that I have been putting off, but I really want to put them off just one more day ... just one day of vacation. I'll be at Borders over the weekend and will come home and start working then, so it's not SO bad that I take this one day to be a lazy bum, right?

Right?

I'm feeling okay right now. Not sad, not hurting, just avoiding.

Fuck, the building's fire alarm just went off. Gotta go.

I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn't want my job if it paid a million dollars instead of in the mid-30s, but that doesn't bother me or make me think less of them. I think that we all need to connect with the world in some real life-changing way. Some of us do that through direct-service-providing work. Others by volunteering as mentors, tutors, construction workers, etc. Some people have enough need in their family that they can satisfy that balance there. I hope some day to meet the majority of my needs that way in a job as a professor, helping people who have already helped themselves a great deal. There are, of course, some people who don't recognize that need, but I think the lack of it makes them feel incomplete and unbalanced and I hope that they do recognize it someday - but even then, I can only feel sympathy, not frustration, at their lack of involvement.

But yesterday I had dinner with a friend who has 200% burned out. And she can't leave her job because they are sponsoring her to get her green card. And she has gotten to a point where when ANYONE comes up to her looking for a little support, her face goes blank and in her head she starts screaming "I DON'T CARE!!! GO AWAY!!! GO HOME! I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR LIFE!" And it's eating her up because she wants that connection, too, but she is spending all of her emotional capital just showing up to work everyday.

No real conclusions here, other than my pride in myself for being as successful as I was in setting up boundaries (something my friend hasn't been as able to do because of her situation) and real sadness for what I suspect is a large number of people who begin to believe that they really truly don't care when they do, they just care too much for their own good and eventually have to completely withdraw just to survive emotionally.

Peace.

I got the Borders gig "pending references" - now I just have to remember who I put down as references ... :/

I'm really excited about the Borders thing. The GM is a kindred spirit, I can tell, and management style is usually top-down.

So life is all hunky-dory and I'll probably start working there a couple weeks before I leave Identity. Which will take up a huge chunk of my time, but there you go.

I just applied to work at the Borders that is walking distance from my house. It would be really sweet if I got it.

I wonder, if I waxed political more often, do you think anyone would read my lj? I mean, I'm not really looking for readership, but I'm curious, what IS it that brings people to one's blog/lj/etc. To be honest, I don't really know what it was that got my site its readership, or why I continue to be number one on google when you put in "greek goddess" - lord knows there are enough other sites out there. Hell, I would rather go to theoi.com than my own site!

And if I were to wax political, what would I talk about? Should I talk about Latino youth? What's to talk about, other than the incredibly fucked-up world that we live in that causes families to abandon their children. And as if it weren't bad enough to have to abandon their children, after finally sacrificing everything to get their kids with them, they find their children don't know them. That, although they have held their children in their hearts, they have grown up alone and the love they so desperately want has been destroyed by their actions. What is left? What can we do? What can bitching in a journal do?

Should I do it anyway with a political bent in mind, telling the world about the importance of one particular foreign policy or another. Crying out about the obvious need for some border solution that involves more than another inhumane wall to remind ourselves that the underclass of our culture are making their beds.

Should I talk about a comprehensive sexual health policy or better sexual education curriculums and plans for schools? Cultural competency to involve parents and do SOMETHING to help keep Latina's teen pregnancy rates down.

To be honest, the idea of writing like that beyond the above abstracts begins to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Even if someone did choose to read those writings, even if I do manage to educate someone a little more, the overwhelming reality of determined ignorance drowning out voices like mine and those of the kids I work with seriously depresses me. I'm not cynical, I'm not pessimistic, I just love the people that apathy hurts too much to think about it. Does that make me a coward? Probably, but I guess we all have to put our own limits that let us keep fighting the good fight in our own ways. And my own way? It's working on weekends with teens, showing them how to use condoms, talking to girls about getting on the Pill, staying up late with kids getting kicked out of their houses because they don't get along with abusive stepparents.

I want to go back to school to get my PhD in cultural anthropology so that I can be a college professor and teach about mythology - but, Goddess, how will I leave these kids I have come to love so much?