"Word Association"

A SNL classic with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase. Written by the preeminent comedian Paul Mooney, it's about a job interview and a word association test that really gets out of hand.

Chapter 1 Revision ...

... is done. Well at least the major overhaul. I have some grammatical stuff to take care of, but I think it lays out my general argument well enough. I have to have my partner's thumbs up before I send it to my committee. But at least I met my first goal. Now onto chapter 2 ...

By the way, I've been searching for a decent photoblog than the one I currently have, and I think I've found it in Aminus3. It's a fairly easy photo hosting and management site, very supportive community, lots of great photos, and it's FREE! I'll be discontinuing the current photoblog and replacing it when I get a chance. In the meantime, enjoy my photography at: http://disoriented.aminus3.com/.

Still At 75

The first day of the semester went without a hitch. It is after all the first day so there's no real work to be done other than take care of some administrative items. About 12 students initially didn't show up, but it was quickly filled up with 6 and about 4 more came in late. Two emailed me later to say they were having trouble scheduling around their work, but they will attend. So I think I'm back at 75.

It seems to be a good group of students. Lots of freshmen and a good number of seniors and juniors. I also have a few more military students, and for the first time, a student who was in the Air Force. Now to see if folks from the Air Force are really that smart. =D I also have a dozen students who are older and work full-time. They always add a really great dynamic to classroom discussions. I have one ex-pat from California, a former police officer now working at a policy thinktank in Alexandria and a surfer which totally rocks! Most of the students are local with one coming from Alaska. Mostly white, two or three Asians, a few Latinos and Arabs, I think two African Americans, and it's gender balanced.

During what could be called introductions, I had a student ask me how the women were in California. That caught me off guard, but the best answer I could come up with was "Intelligent." *shrugs* When I continued my discussion about the dangers of mob rule and democracy, the same guy brought up the example of ... the "Japs" ... and the internment camps during World War II. I know he's well-meaning and I don't think it's done out of malice. I was caught off guard again, but it was so absurd that I just had to laugh. Besides, it's just too damn early in the semester to be pissy about anything.

So ends my first day.

3.5 Hours to Go

... before I begin the spring semester with my class. I'm very annoyed at this moment. I have 75 students registered and about 10 more on the waiting list. I can reasonably expect another half-dozen or so who will wander in looking for a spot.

75 students and I'm still getting the same paycheck of a little less than $2500 for the semester. At a pretty good junior college some years ago, I taught a section with over 100 students and I got an extra thousand added to my base which came close to $4000 for that one class.

This is bullshit. And this gives me another reason not to care about this school.

A Page From NFL History

... or "Why I will never root for the New York Giants."

I thought I elaborate on my response to Rich's comment as a post. He originally said:

"What a game on Sunday, huh? Who would have thought, GIANTS and PATS in the Super Bowl?.....oh yeah, me and Rich.

I know you meant to say that you were rooting for the G-Men, so I'll forgive you on that one, but don't let it happen again!"

There is no doubt that this year's Superbowl will be historic as the Pats come within reach of the elusive "perfect season," one that was only accomplished by the Miami Dolphins in 1972. But that day is historic for another reason. Rich, you forget I'm still a die hard 49er fan, and let me remind you what this means ...

In the 1990-91 season, the 49ers were poised again for a Superbowl run, making it their third straight appearance. The "three-peat" was in the air. But in the NFC Championship, our glory was stolen by the scene stealing NY Giants. It was mainly a defensive game with the 49ers scoring the only touchdown when Hall of Famer Joe Montana connected with John Taylor. But "your team" of Neanderthals brutally knocked Joe Montana out of the game, and a relatively untested Steve Young took the reins as quarterback. We were minutes away from securing our place in NFL history to return to the Superbowl for a third straight time only to have "your team" pull a fake field goal for a first down. The Giants barbarians then cheated their way to a victory with Matt Bahr's 42-yard field goal ending the game with a score of 15-13.

The game also marked the departures of Ronnie Lott, Roger Craig, Eric Wright, Keena Turner, John Taylor, and sadly Joe Montana, among many others, in the following seasons. These stalwart warriors constituted the empire of the victorious 49ers of the 1980s.

I cursed at Bill Parcells. I raised my fists and swore a blood oath on that day. The NY Giants will suffer the indignity and humiliation of utter defeat. That day will come on February 3rd as the New England Patriots will decimate the New York Giants.

At last! I shall have my vengeance!!!

Yes, I Had to Go ...

... I went to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday, and paid tribute to Stephen Colbert's portrait, hanging on the second floor in front of the restroom, above two drinking fountains. Of course, I checked out all the other exhibits including some new installations in the contemporary art gallery, but really, it was Comedy Central's mock pundit that appealed to me the most. Imagine that, a political science/cultural studies professor going to see an entertainer's likeness in triple at a national arts institution in Washington, DC.

You got to love it.

I had to ask the people at the information desk on where it was, and to be honest, I was somewhat embarrassed. But an elderly man glanced up at me, and in what I could only describe as a face of exasperation, took a deep breath and bellowed, "Oh yes! The Stephen Colbert portrait. Everyone wants to see that ... He's more important than Abraham Lincoln ..."


"Oh shit," I thought to myself. He's had a pretty long day. I smiled, politely thanked him, and walked briskly across the museum's courtyard. He was not rude, but it was clear that he was tired. And I don't blame him because there were dozens and dozens of teenagers. I was getting somewhat irritated with their unintelligible prattle, and their rapid-fire texting. I don't remember that many kids the last time I was there, but I'm thinking it had something to do with Stephen Colbert. And sure enough, the kids were lined up, on the second floor from the entryway to the bathroom, about 20-30 bodies, all the way past a massive portrait of President Andrew Jackson. I stood in line, and witnessed a horrifying spectacle of kids being kids.

"Fuck me," I thought. And I wasn't the only one either because an elderly woman also muttered under her breath, "Oh my god." I turned around nodding in approval, and she spoke to me, "This is the value of intelligence in our country." At that moment, I didn't feel embarrassed anymore. I became indignant and righteous all of a sudden. I think it's because I've watched Stephen Colbert and I know how politically insightful he is as a comedian, entertainer, and a critic. I also know that his social, cultural, and political influence is enormous from Wikipedia to the National Portrait Gallery, and I think it's been really positive.

But I just don't know about these kids, at least, the ones I saw at the Gallery. They were little fucking monsters, like cockroaches scattering at camera flashes, and scurrying about the entrance to the bathroom. Like vermin coming out to play.

Egads!

The spring semester starts next week.

I haven't updated my syllabus.

I have students emailing me ... Nay! ... Begging me to add them to the course.

I am only 50% done with my revised chapter 1. Chapter 2 is momentarily suspended, and chapter 3 might be nightmarish.

And worst of all, football season is almost at an end!!!

Go Pats. To hell with Green Bay.

Photowalking

On Sunday, I took my new Nikon S51 camera out for a run to see what it can do. I decided on the National Air & Space Museum because ... well ... I haven't been there for about several years now. I tested as many features and settings as possible from macro zoom, panoramic shots, white balance, ISO, battery life, ease of handle, shutter speed, shots in a museum with poor lighting, outside on a cloudy day, evening shots, objects in motion ... in short, EVERYTHING. I even got the chance to use the video camera function. You can check out my photos here.

The verdict? Overall, a really great "point-and-shoot" camera; absolutely no fussing about the controls or settings. Most of the shots were done automatically. At first it was awkward to handle the camera; it's the smallest thing I've ever handled, but after some negotiating it was no problem at all. I was very impressed with the anti-vibration technology which made shooting extremely easy. Check out the video below because I know I was bumped by a kid and it never registered on the camera. The evening shots were impressive though there was a distinct bluish-hue even though it was quite dark. I'm wondering if that's due to the ISO setting or the lens itself or whatever it is that captures the colors of the image. Not a big problem. But the one annoyance is the battery life. I took over 100 shots and believe me I could've went for more considering how this camera made photography so easy. But after relatively average use, my battery conked out a little before 2.5 hours. That's not enough time considering I wanted to do some evening/night shots and I have a 2 gig memory card. 100 photos is a mere dent so I'll definitely need to get an extra battery. Other than that, it's a great camera; very flexible, easy-to-use, and extremely compact which is a relief from my old Sony DSLR and my now ancient Nikon EM SLR from my childhood. I am definitely loving it!

On a side note, as I was shooting the Lunar Lander, I overheard what sounded like a Filipino docent leading a tour group. I turned to confirm my suspicions and there he was. An elderly Pinoy comparing NASA and the European Space Agency. For one, I don't see that many minorities leading a tour group, but what really caught my eyes and ears was that he was hilarious!!! I decided to check out the video mode on my camera and record a part of his talk. I just used the lowest resolution because I was unsure of the capacity and impact of video mode on the battery life. But I wish I could've recorded more because he really did add flair to the tour.

The Torture of Dissertating

I had set a goal of finishing my chapter 2 before the spring semester began because I thought it was the easiest one to do, but I ran into trouble. The obvious difficulty was revisiting something that I had written 3 years ago only to find that I don't agree with what I wrote. Of course, a newly revised and stronger argument that ties my research together changes everything that preceded it, but it's a chore, and somewhat embarrassing, to reread and revise old chapters and old thoughts. I am not throwing out everything, but I am trying to save as much as I can while incorporating my new argument. And that's where my problem lies. I was so excited to write my new section that when I came to my old chapter, I suddenly became myopic.

I tried to write.

And rewrite.

I tried to weave my new argument through the sections I wanted to save.

But it didn't look right.

My original chapter was 42 pages. 13 pages were discarded and a total of 8 new pages were written. It wasn't flowing as I thought it would and I was getting frustrated. The feeling was like jamming a square peg into a round hole. So I did what any good writer would do, and that is to ask another pair of eyes to take a look. I asked my partner to generally read over what I have thus far.

And that added another level of complexity. She does film studies. I'm in political science. She's properly trained in the humanities. Me? In the social sciences. She talks about the "state" in the abstract; I was specifically referring to the federal government. She points out that sexual orientation is already regulated as heteronormative, while I was talking about sexual orientation as an actionable classification (i.e., protected status). We were talking past each other before we finally figured out what was the problem. We are definitely products of our training even though we may use some of the same terms and objects of analysis, but we do talk about them in fairly distinct and different ways. So our remaining time was spent clarifying our terms and talking about what I wanted to do and how to go about it. We laughed in the end because even though both of us have a vested interest in cultural studies research, we are still very much situated in a mode of analysis that is central to our respective projects. I can imagine how a discussion like this could spiral out of control; it does raise an interesting question about interdisciplinarity that I was thinking about for some time now, but that's another post.

Despite the miscues, I decided to stop working on Chapter 2 and start from the very beginning with Chapter 1. In hindsight, I should've done that first since the introductory chapter will not only define the current state of the research (literature review), but also define my terms, the parameters of my research, and my argument so that all the subsequent chapters will fall into place. I thought I could knock out my chapter quickly since I had a fresh argument, but maybe as a productive mental exercise, and an act of prudence, I need to lay out the map of my dissertation first.

Back to the beginning I go then.

Vacation Highlights (Cont)

I'm just finishing up my previous post on some remaining vacation highlights that I now remember. Some of them I had conveniently forgotten for obvious reasons. =P

• Lunch at Wow Bao (Hot Asian Buns) in Chicago.
• Took a morning walk outside the hotel for the day's first snowfall.

• Slipped and fell forward down a small hill of fresh snow in the park. No pictures provided.
  
• My hotel played host to a Christian youth conference. Hundreds of teenagers and their bibles. Can you say, "Be afraid. Be very afraid"?
• Still amazed at Chicago's skyline (From the Shedd Aquarium entrance).

• Dinner at Oysy, a Japanese restaurant, Izagaya style. Think of it as tapas or dim sum.
  
• The maps exhibit at the Field Museum was awesome. I came across maps of Hull-House district (ca 1890) in Chicago that identified individuals/families by race/nationality and wage. There was also a map of England measuring literacy rates by color codes, as well as ones identifying health, income, etc. Biopolitics anyone? Governmentality?
  

Some Procrastination

Fiddling with my blog again before I actually do any serious work. I already removed the "Continue Reading ..." footer since not every post is long enough to be expandable. I thought it was annoying anyways. I'm also entertaining the idea of going back to a two-column format to give my posts some extra room, and a new color scheme from the black background.

By the way, I'll get to everyone's emails. I think I'm still in vacation mode.

*YAWNS*

Bah! After Chicago, and spending a week with my partner's family in Wichita, KS, I arrived back in Arlington Washington, D.C., Monday night. Some quick highlights:

• HOMECOOKED MEALS!!!
• finished and sent off my article proposal to editors of a new anthology.
• rewatched the first season of Heroes.
• started watching the first season of Family Guy.
• was bedridden with a touch of the flu.
• continued editing my next chapter - about 80% done.
• read three-quarters of David Simon's book, Homicide.
• saddened to see Hawai'i lose to UGA.
• thrilled that USC won.
• laughed as Ohio lost another championship bowl.
• developed my pictures from my Baltimore-Chicago trip (will post soon).
• scratched my head as Huckabee won the Iowa primary.
• surprised at Obama's victory at the Iowa primary.
• scratched my head again at Clinton's and McCain's victory in New Hampshire.
• bought a new ultracompact digital camera as a Christmas present.
• woke up today with a ton of crap to do before the end of the week.

... more highlights to come. I got a bad headache.