The Official "If I had time, I would read this" Booklist

Every time someone recommends an interesting book for me to read, I always say that I will read it when I have the time. Since I'm still pushing through graduate school, there really is no time. Well, now that I will be a dissertator in the near (or not so near) future, I've decided to squeeze these books in during short periods of "free" time (like riding the bus, sitting in the bathroom, going to bed at night, proctoring exams, waiting for people at the airport, etc). So far, I've managed to knock down a few (Frankenstein and Lolita).

Here are the rest (in no particular order):

• The God of Small Things (I honestly never finished (sorry, Tomas!), but I'm currently working on it)
• Ulysses (was working on it as bedtime fodder)
• The Buru Quartet
• The Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde
• His Dark Materials trilogy
• The Dark Tower Series (which I've been dying to read for about a decade)
• Harry Potter (2 down, how many to go?
• À la recherche du temps perdu
  
• For the Time Being
• Pattern Recognition
• Cloud 9
• Persuasion
• War and Peace
• Lemony Snicket
• The Dubliners
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• The Faerie Queene
• Anti-Pamela
  

2008 New Year's Resolutions

Like every blogger in this time zone that isn't at a party, I'm providing a list of my 2008 New Year's Resolutions. In a year, I vow to check back here and see what I've actually accomplished.

Well, here goes:

• I resolve to exercise on a more frequent basis to become healthy, strong, and fast...That way, if I get chased by zombies, aliens, pirates, ninjas, etc., I will be prepared to run like hell.
• I resolve to have my dissertation prospectus of absolute brilliance (*cough, cough*) completed. I also hope to have at least 1 chapter written, revisions and all.
• I resolve to read 5 non-school books that are on my "If I had time, I would read this" booklist.
  
• I resolve to post on my personal blog at least once a week and on my academic blog 5 days a week.
• I resolve to take at least 1 Writing Center course on Style. According to HW, my life depends upon it!
• I resolve to become more serious about my academic career and less serious about everything else.
• I resolve to stick with a cooking and cleaning schedule. My illustrious partner deserves as much.
• I resolve to learn how to cook at least 5 different main dishes well.
• I resolve to curb my eating, shopping, internet browsing, email addictions. Maybe I should pick up smoking and heavy drinking instead??? J/k.
• I resolve to stop gossiping. I consider it truth proliferation, but we all know I'm a monster and I need to stop.
  
• Finally, I resolve to complain/whine less and appreciate everyone and everything more for their quirky and lackadaisical selves. Objects have feelings too...And so do students (grad and under) and boyfriends (current and ex).
  

The Historical Lunatic Test

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are Ludwig II, the Swan King of Bavaria!

Born with the name of Otto, you became Ludwig at the request of your grandfather, King Ludwig I, because you were born on his birthday. You became Crown Prince at the tender age of 3, and soon after stole a purse from a shop on the basis that everything in Bavaria belonged to you. Tragedy struck when your pet tortoise was taken away; relatives thought the six-year-old prince was too attached to it. Your childhood was lonely and formal. Once, you were prevented from beheading your younger brother by the timeous arrival of a court official. From the age of 14 you suffered from hallucinations.

Despite striking an imposing figure with your great height and good looks, your speeches were pompous to the point of incomprehensibility. You became even more of a recluse, often spending hours reading poetry in a seashell-shaped boat in your electrically-illuminated underground grotto.

You are most famous for building three fairytale castles - Linderhof, Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee - at tremendous public expense. Declared insane and confined to your bedroom by concerned (and embarrassed) subjects, you escaped on 13 June 1886, but were later found drowned with your physician in Lake Stamberg in mysterious circumstances.

Super Mario Galaxy is REALLY good

Yes, I played Super Mario Galaxy. I couldn't stop playing for 4 hours....

Now, I think that Super Mario Galaxy is an appropriate incentive to finish my very last seminar paper. If not, then a super sexy/expensive haircut is in order!

The goal is December 31st. I must. I shall.

The Incentive

At the end of every semester, I provide myself with some kind of material or tangible incentive for getting my work done. Of course, there are the benefits to finishing that can only be expressed through a sigh of relief or a beam of pride... but these don't really work when I'm in the throngs of paper writing.

Usually, I offer myself a sushi dinner... I am more than willing to go to a sushi restaurant, by myself, and gorge myself on a variety of sashimi pieces. I love to take in and savor my favorite, yellowtail tuna, which melts in your mouth with a slightly sweet aftertaste.

This year, however, there is no sushi. This year, I'm abstaining from playing Super Mario Galaxy. This is supposed to be the greatest game made this year. Of all gaming systems. Moreover, this is the greatest game made on the Wii.

Furthermore, this isn't really helping my motivation. Now, all I think about is this game and not my paper. Why is food such a better motivator than a video game?

I think I shall play a little bit of the game, just to see how great it is... Yeah... That's the ticket!

I can't believe it

Y'know, I've always reluctantly shopped at Walmart. Everyone knows that they're bad, right? Well, I'm beginning to change my mind.

Yesterday, we decided to check out the new Super Walmart in Monona. It's the first green Walmart, and let me just say that this is the best freakin' Walmart I've ever seen. Ever. Aside from the fact that it's pro-environmental, it also has pleasant florescent lighting, attractive color schemes that incorporate black (which really does make you feel like you're shopping somewhere classy), and a pleasant quietness. Moreover, the cooler/freezer sections light up only when you walk by them, and there were no messes on the floors or in the parking lot. It's simply beautiful.

We realized after running around the store that no one was using the PA system to shout about random specials, and there are no lcd screens at the checkout stands that attack you with commercials. Everything about shopping at this Walmart was pleasant. They even have an underground, indoor parking garage. I even giggled as I pushed my cart onto a cart escalator... Yes, a cart escalator... just like the one in IKEA.

Keith beamed over the same low prices that he misses since he's left Colorado. I was pleased with the overall atmosphere and friendly service. Finally, they also have a Subway near the underground parking garage. I don't honestly know how this place could get any better.


We've either become crazy or Walmart has realized its potential. Probably a little of both. Wow.

Is it the weather?

I've been quite tired lately. And it's not the kind of tiredness one would experience from doing a lot of physical activity. I think my brain is tired, and I'm a little depressed. I've seriously let myself down into terms of all my classes, my work, and my proposal.

For whatever reason, my film classes have sucked the life out of me. I no longer enjoy film studies as much as I used to in Greeley. It may be due to their more historical and stylistic approaches, which disagree with my more cultural studies approach. All the same, anytime someone wants to see an art house film at the local cinematheque, my face gets this rather disgusted expression on it.

I also didn't give myself as much time as I should writing these damn film papers. I had to take an incomplete in one class, but the guilt of taking this incomplete has been plaguing me. I feel like my professors (yes, 2 for the one course) really dislike me and can't possibly understand why I am in their course. Frankly, I can't either.

As for my students, I have noticeably shortchanged them. They know this. I know this. I'm going to have to give them grades soon. But, I'm not sure how well I can assess their performance given how much of a slacker I've been. Can I blame them for procrastinating? Isn't that what I've been doing to them?

I also didn't get a chance to do hardly any research for my proposal. I now have a very vague, nebulous idea, but that's about it. My professors will be gone for a long time after this spring, and the inevitable push to get this thing done by April is looming over me. I'm not even thinking about this much since I've been working on my papers. But, it is just another thing that's just out there, waiting for me.

Finally, my personal life. I can't say that I've been very fair to Keith this past semester. He has been plodding faithfully along with all of the housework and other chores while I've been tearing my hair out about prelims, my courses, my students, and my proposal. He's already beyond fed up, and I can't blame him. Yet, I'm totally stuck in a rut of unproductiveness, and I can't seem to shake it off. What the hell???

Maybe I should take more vitamins. Or quit grad school. Or go on a run in the icy, unplowed streets. Blah. Sleep doesn't help. Staying awake doesn't either. And, right now, I'm currently procrastinating from commenting on a few of my students' papers. Not even all of them... just a few. I suck.

We figured it out, and it wasn't pretty

Keith finally figured out what was causing our braincells to die. One afternoon, while I was out doing something else, Keith managed to use his shopvac to blow out all of the vents in the apartment. He found the following toxic materials:

• many melted crayons
• plastic hair barrettes
• pieces of miscellaneous garbage
• human hair

And finally...

• One used condom. Black. Ribbed for someone else's pleasure.

Every time we turned the heater on, all of these things would melt, and fumes would rise into our air. Once he cleaned out everything, we are slowly returning to sanity. And the sanitary.

This, my friends, is a lesson to be learned about apartments. You can never tell who lived here before you, but you definitely want to get someone to clean up after them.

Happy Anti-Turkey Day

Keith and I realized that we aren't too fond of turkey... So, we decided to have an anti-Thanksgiving dinner. We don't say what we're thankful for (because we're pretty thankful we're alive every day), and we don't eat turkey. This is what's on our dinner menu:

• Steak. Lots of steak.
• Bacon-wrapped crab
• broccoli and cheese casserole
• beer
• ice cream
• chocolate covered caramels
  

As my brain slowly weeps...

You would think this post is about my weekend of grading, but it's surprisingly not. Instead, Keith and I found that there is something about our apartment that is making us stupid. I kid you not. We both woke up this morning in a mental haze. Once we determined that there was "something not quite right" with our recent mental burps (my stupidity in front of friends, colleagues, and superiors and his silly mistakes at work), Keith devised a plan to determine what the cause of this haze really is.

He opened all the windows, propped fans in our hallways, and shut the bathroom door closed. Within half an hour, we found that we were a bit more clear in thought and verbal ability. Finally! We've determined that something in our apartment is making us stupid.

We suspect that it is either a lack of oxygen in our air supply or sewage gas coming from our bathroom sink and tub. We will conduct more experiments until we've determined a conclusive result.

In any case, Keith's temporary brain deadness has been reduced. However, since I've been exposed to this weird, winter phenomenon in this current apartment and my former apartment (in the same complex), I'm still experiencing the lasting results of my brain-deadness. This explains why I keep feeling dumber and dumber as the years pass during my PhD program. It's not that I've stopped evolving and learning... It's because my brain is dying from staying at home.


Soon I may find myself voting for a republican president in the next election. Or even worse, calling George W the greatest American hero of our time. I'm hoping that my next doctor's visit will determine whether I can reverse the damage that my apartment has caused on my brain...

The Onslaught of Posts

Of course, it's that time of year where I must begin writing all my final papers for the end of the semester... Aargh!

This time I'm not honestly sure what I'm doing. I've had my proposal on my mind constantly, so the information from the film courses I've taken have dripped out of my brain.

I tried to get one of my films "knocked out of the way" this weekend. Yeah, right. I don't have a single page written, but I've at least read most of the sources for the paper. I'm currently considering an all-nighter (or at least a late-nighter) to get something started... Well, with enough caffeine, anything can happen, right?

This year I've delayed by Colorado trip till January. Oh blissful January! I even saved on the ticket price because I'm not going during Xmas. That's a big middle finger to the airlines man! Boo-ya!

Explaining why Madison sucks

Aside from the issues of weather and overall climate (which we all know are absolutely horrible here), here are some reasons why Madison can occasionally suck:

1. Madison is conservative: This is all relative. At one point, let's say in the 1960s, Madison was an island of liberal thought. Now, not so much. However, the local Sconnies have always boasted about Madison's liberal tendencies. Many places in the Midwest, including Chicago, call us the Red City for our Marxist vein... But, this is truly not the case here. Perhaps, if we are only looking in the five mile area known as the UW. Outside of that, Madison is just as conservative as one would expect a Midwestern farming state to be.
2. Madison is racist: You wouldn't think it, would you... unless you finally notice that most of the caucasians live in the wealthy areas while the groups of minorities are stuck on the periphery of the city... Oh yes, the university promotes diversity in every way and shape possible... That's because there hardly isn't any.
3. Madison is xenophobic: They don't like outsiders here. That's why there's the Sconnies vs. Coasties battle. And, the Sconnies do label us folks from Colorado as Coasties. Hello?? We're from a landlocked state. Not the coast. As if people from LA and NYC are going to be the same anyway. Sigh.
4. Madison is overpriced: This again is all relative. Sure, we aren't anywhere near Chicago or New York prices, but we can't really boast the kind of view and activities they can... All I know is that I pay more to live here, where I freeze and have nothing to do, than in Denver, where I don't freeze and have stuff to do. Although you can find some juicy morsels of yummy food goodness at low prices, your taxes, rent, and/or entertainment will cost you a pretty penny. There are free of charge/low charge things to do, but they kind of suck because they don't charge and use the money to improve.
   
5. There are a lot of crazy people here: These aren't your run-of-the-mill crazy people that you see hanging out. We do have those. We have drunks and druggies and generally rowdy people. But, we also have people that want to stock and harm other people. We also have folks that like to pretend they're door-to-door gynecologists. We also have people that have sex with dead deer carcasses on the side of the road. Of course, there are also the people who happen to stay up all night with 3 TVs blaring and decide to put up a flag for Veteran's Day at 5am on Sunday, and who also happen to be your downstairs neighbors. Need I say more?
6. Nothing is open after 10pm: Except for bars. And Woodman's. But if I want to go to Walgreen's to pick up some cold medication, I'm out of luck. I'm also out of luck if I want to buy a 6-pack of beer after 9pm.
   
7. If you don't like sports, you'll never fit in: I mean it. Never. It's not just football either. Everyone here plays a sport of some kind. They know people because of the sports they play. If you don't play or enjoy sports, they look at you as if you're some kind of alien. You might as well be painted in green... Oh, right... if you were painted in green, you'd probably be a sports fan. Duh.
   

I can't say that there are moments when I love Madison. But, sometimes I just need to vent about things that drive me crazy about this place. Blech.

Rearranging a little

I'm now going to post all my "academic" discussions to 18cAsian.blogspot.com

So, if you're bored and want to know how my proposal and dissertatin' are working out, check out that blog.

If you just want to read about my weird observations and crazy rants, then they're all gonna be here, baby!

Meh, so what's new?

Things that I learned about myself these past two weeks that appall me:

1. I really like the new Britney Spears album *shudder*
2. I find CSI boring In fact, I find most TV boring
   
3. I can play Guitar Hero better than I can play my violin
4. I've only wanted to wear three pairs of shoes in the past year.
5. All three pairs are comfort shoes: 1 birkenstock sandal, 1 mary jane by Dansk, and 1 snow boot by Sorel
6. I'd rather eat snacks than a full meal
7. I'm getting old people problems: I squint at people, I'm terrified of those rascally teenagers on their skateboards and scooters, I can't hear very well, my joints hurt when it's cold outside, I hate most new music, and I'm cranky
8. I spend more time reading perez hilton than the new yorker
9. I call my students "my kids"
10. I would rather sit at home and do nothing than go to a party
    

Professors don't giggle

At what point during a person's development is giggling no longer permitted? I must confess that I still giggle... I giggle a lot! There are many moments nearly every day when I giggle at something I find amusing or slightly ridiculous. Yet, for many others the straight faced smirk or the open guffaw are really the only acceptable responses of amusement. Since when did these extremes take over as the binary opposition of humor?

I propose that we reinstate the giggle and take ourselves less seriously. I'm tired of getting the eye-roll or the straight stare when I giggle away. I think that's rude. I also find that giggling is one way for me to let out some of that stress that gets cramped up in my brain.

Perhaps, if I theorize the giggle... if I chose to describe the giggle as touch of the real, or as the theoretical glance, the pause of humor... the flirtation with the text... maybe then giggles would become as serious as guffaws and smirks. May be then Mona Lisa's "original" smile wouldn't seem as outlandish as critics might assume.

Sorry, but giggling stays. That's that. Even when I'm a crusty, old professor, I hope to giggle at the absurdity of my students' papers... or even at the absurdity of my own work.

What blogs can do...

I attended a guest lecture by R** T******... She is amazing. Unfortunately, I missed a lunch talk that she provided on blogs. She is using blogs as a new way to write theoretical essays. It's quite impressive, and it puts my blog (as well as many others) to shame:
Her Blog
(you'll know who she is after you click on the link and scroll around)

The use of the blog is not new to me, but I often lose sight of it as a scholarly tool. I mainly use it to vent my frustrations and fears or to poke fun at random things. But, to think about the blog as a site for intellectual development and fostering new ideas... well... I suppose that would be its ideal purpose.

But I don't think I could keep an entirely intellectual blog. The temptations of using the blog for its other, more common purposes would slowly creep in. True, that is what other blogs are for, but how often would I update this new, more scholarly blog? Would it naturally take a superior position over my personal blog, the one I barely update at this point? Am I deconstructing my use of blogs (gah!)? ....Well, I suppose that theoretical traces have now slowly creeped into the personal...

Of course, we still have the old question about blogs and blog spaces: they are public spaces that people use to reveal their private thoughts. Are we aware of how public our thoughts are as we write on blogs? Even if blogs are left in "private" or "for your eyes only" modes, there is still the possibility of a site administrator somewhere out there reading our every entry. So, what do we make of this public, yet private form of writing?

Sarcasm vs. Nature

I hate you, hiccups

I hate that you show up unannounced, especially when I'm wearing tight jeans, trying to make a nice impression, or watching a silent film with famous professors.

I hate the fact that you stay with me for at least a day, if not a few days.

Why won't you leave me alone???

When people try to scare you away, it doesn't work. When I've tried drinking a glass of water upside down and backwards, I get giggled at. When I've taken deep breaths, you've misled me into thinking that you've left...but, oh no... you're just hiding. You really like that, dontcha?!

Well...let me just say that you're really walking a fine line... my patience is wearing thin with you.

I'm heading to bed. If I see that you're still here in the morning, I'm going to have a few words with you...

Woo-hoo!!

I PASSED!!!! WOO-HOOO!!!

I'm finished with prelims!

It's been so long since I last blogged here.

I've finished taking my exams. And I am absolutely terrified of learning the results.

Graduate school is quite an odd set of circumstances. We are frequently compared to other students throughout our coursework, yet we really don' t quite know what the standards are for the comparison. What I mean is, that we never really know what other students are producing. The measuring stick is hidden, and few people are willing to share. This is both good and bad. Personally, I wouldn't want folks to know if I was doing well or not. But, at the same time, I don't have any way to judge my own performance.

Of course, I have an inkling of ideas that determine what a strong piece of writing is. But, I'm not sure how to improve other areas, especially in class participation and discussion. I don't know how to ask good questions. I don't know what makes a provocative argument.

This really is the point of my rant, and the paranoia of my prelim grade... What if my arguments were terrible? What if they are lame and not at the level the graders expect for a prelim? What am I going to do about that? Well, absolutely nothing... but I still have my fears, and they surface every once and a while to sheer panic.

I've been watching tv, cleaning, chatting with friends, and playing video games in order to get my mind off of being judged.

If I pass, fantastic. If I fail, I'm heading home. If I barely pass, I don't know what to do with myself.

That's another bit of my paranoia for you. "If I barely pass..." If those words come out of my advisor's mouth, how can I deal with working with this person for the next 2-3 years with a "barely" response. Does this imply that they don't want to work with me?

Graduate school has taken a serious toll on my personality and confidence. Before I entered my MA program, I was a confident adult. I was capable of managing a helpdesk. I knew many people and could socialize with ease. But now... I can barely speak with anyone without feeling like a total jackass. I still have several friends, but there are many of them that I don't trust. I have no sense of my own personal value. I have lost almost all my confidence. And I feel like I've regressed into a child because I have to always be cautious and aware of who is around me because everyone (students and profs alike) judges everyone.

Although I've enjoyed much of the material I've read, I really need to find a way to recover the person I once was. I seriously wanted to rock that prelim, but I came home hours later, days later, and have dwelled over my possible mistakes. Damnit, I'm quite sick of myself!