Great News

I received an email from Grinnell College and the search committee wants to have a 20" phone interview with me this Monday. Hooray!

*takes deep breath*

OK now the hard part. I've been on the 8-10 hour interviews where you meet the search committee, other faculty members, administrators and deans, students, and then you give your talk followed by a lengthy Q&A session, followed by another short meeting with remaining faculty, and then dinner (somehow you forget to eat breakfast or lunch so having snack bars was quite handy) with more faculty or the same faculty. At any rate, by the end of the day you're just dead tired and extremely hungry.

But a phone interview? For about 20 minutes? I've never done that before. I know I have to be selective in what I say but in a phone interview I can't see their reactions, body language, or anything. I can't tell if something is not making sense or is making a solid impression. It's strictly an auditory experience. So I've got to read up on phone interview techniques, the kinds of questions asked, and the best answers to give in response. On the plus side, I can prepare answers in advance and lucky for me, my partner has given and been in phone interviews so I have an advantage. It's just a lot of work and even though I'm a bit unnerved at the thought of interviews, I am relieved that I at least got one especially from a pretty strong institution like Grinnell.

OMG A Defense Date!!!!

My Ph.D. just took another step closer to reality as my dissertation chair and the committee confirmed that I am ready to defend. An initial survey from my committee indicates that we may be shooting for the last week in April. I have to email my chair to confirm a date with her, but it looks as though all the pieces of the puzzle are finally falling together. I'm still a chapter behind schedule, but I should be able to shoot that out within two weeks. It's going to be a mad rush.

§

I picked up an article by Prof. Vivien A. Schmidt, Boston University, entitled, "Institutionalism and the State" (2005). It's a review of The State: Theories and Issues edited by Colin Hay, David Marsh, and Michael Lister. For some reason their names are familiar but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. I have to check my bibliography at home for a reference. Anyways, the book is representative of a resurgence of state theories and the latest one is called "new institutionalism" which is an attempt to "bring the state back into" mainstream political science. "New institutionalism" is critical of the dominant agent-centered and behaviouralist approaches" to theories of the state and state power, and attempts to recontextualize politics from the dominance of "input-oriented theories of politics" to " the capacity of the institutions of the state." I'm checking it out because it sounds at first glance something that my dissertation falls properly under where the development of hate crimes legislation is not merely a social issue response or the mobilization of identity politics, but must be analyzed from the perspective of the state and its capacities to regulate issues and problems of identity and difference.

The APA Vote

I'm getting rather annoyed at the way in which Asian American voters have been "MIA" in the news especially when they've always been crucial especially in big states like California. It doesn't help when the hot topic these days is the "black-brown" debate about why the Latino voting block overwhelmingly supported Clinton's campaign than Obama's. Is it because Latinos are "more racist" to blacks? That is just as stupid as saying men who vote against Hillary are misogynist.

Look, the simple fact is this. Hillary is courting and benefiting from very well-established political connections with the Latino electorate from San Antonio to Los Angeles. Of course, Bill had a lot to do with it, but it's clear that Hillary is working the connections, strengthening her network, winning the Latino leadership, getting their votes, and paying her dues. She did the same thing with the Asian American electorate as well. She's also made it a point to reflect diversity in her campaign staff (1-year old by the way. I also think it's funny that Rudy's campaign staff is all white, and McCain had no Asians). Hillary has the highest number of Latinos and Asians in key positions on her staff. All of which translated into a California victory. As a matter of fact, CNN reported that Asians and Latinos carried Hillary outpacing the white-black vote who were in support of Obama. Go figure that out.

A colleague out in Los Angeles notes plainly that Hillary sent her money and ran a strong bilingual ad campaign. Obama did not. Obama made the same mistake that current LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did when he first made a run some years ago. Villaraigosa "assumed" Latinos would vote for him, therefore he didn't run a strong ad campaign which did not translate into sending money to local tv/radio/newsprint media which did not translate into ... *drum roll please* ... VOTES! Obama may have strong Latino support, but they are not the historical leadership that are located in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas in the agricultural industry which I'm hearing he's been slow on the ball with Texas. Check out the analysis by my old friend and colleague Jeff Chang about the different political strategies that enabled Clinton's victory of California and the Asian American-Latino voting block.

It just occurred to me that Obama's "message" of "Yes We Can!" is the English translation of "Si Se Puede!" which I think -- and I have to check this to be sure -- is the old 1960's rallying cry for the United Farm Workers, the labor union founded by Cesar Chavez and Philip Vera Cruz. Did Obama just appropriate that phrase? *ponders*

Anyways, I digress. My original post was to talk about the APA absence in media coverage and our role in the presidential elections. So the moment CNN does cover APA electoral power, we get this nonsense. Bad accents and bad journalism all at once. WTF?!?

Happy Valentine's Day

My favorite quotations from French theorist Roland Barthes ...

“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.”
-- "Inexpressible Love," A Lover's Discourse (1977, trans. 1979)

“To hide a passion totally (or even to hide, more simply, its excess) is inconceivable: not because the human subject is too weak, but because passion is in essence made to be seen: the hiding must be seen: I want you to know that I am hiding something from you, that is the active paradox I must resolve: at one and the same time it must be known and not known: I want you to know that I don't want to show my feelings: that is the message I address to the other.”
-- "Dark Glasses," sect. 2, A Lover's Discourse (1977, trans. 1979)

"What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself."
-- Mythologies, "Le monde où l'on catche," (1957)

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”
-- "Talking," A Lover's Discourse (1977, trans. 1978)

And of course Barry makes everything all right. =D

Sunset or Sunrise?

I finished my third revision to my chapter one and sent it off to my committee last Friday. It's a major overhaul of my general argument and I feel pretty good about this version. I hope my committee feels the same. I'll post my argument later but it is a reworking of hate violence studies through Foucault's governmentality/biopolitical lens.

I sent an email to my committee chair informing her about the incoming chapter, my changes, and my schedule. I asked for clarification about a defense date as well. I got her answer back within a day giving me the greenlight to set up a defense date this semester. She went through the details on what I needed and so forth.

Holy shit.

The end is coming.

The "Hawaii Chair"

By way of my friend and colleague from UCLA who's from Hawai'i.

I've got three words.

"OH MY GOD."

Frozen Grand Central

This is a "performance" piece by ImprovEverywhere where 200 people coordinated with each other to "freeze" at a specified time at Grand Central Station in New York City. Pretty cool stuff.

'Till Next Year

Why is it that Boston teams seem to choke at the very end?

*sighs*

Brady never got into his rhythm. Giants D-line maintained constant pressure. The Pats defense was never a threat to Manning. I wondered about Bill Belichick's decision to go for broke on 4th down instead of a field goal attempt.

Bah, whatever. It was a messy game all around, but hats off to the New York Giants for pulling it off.

I guess that's it for football. I wonder what I'll do on Sundays now?

"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.