I found out about this advertisement for the EU arts subsidy program through a particularly funny Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this past weekend.
Proven Winners Plants Postulations
13 years ago
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Lone walker on the lake
A shot from the lake shortly before I left Michigan.
I had thought all these shots got lost from my card; I was so delighted to find it was hiding out somewhere in the recesses.
Laura and I took Mancho out to Point Isabel today. It wasn't quite as stunning as usual given the overcast weather and the narrow path flanked by a chain-link fence protecting the newly seeded grass on one side and the caution tape preventing access to the polluted water on the other, due to the recent oil spill. It was the regular dog-fest, though, and we were particularly struck by a trio of incredibly massive dogs that probably came up to our bustlines, or perhaps just our waists. But anyway, they were the kind of dogs that sort of take your breath away. Two were silver-gray, one was brown. I don't know my breeds well enough to say what they were.
We talked about going dancing at Cocomo tonight, and I was planning on joining Brian in The City first and meeting his girlfriend Alison and joining them for a learning with the Mission Minion, but I think I'm in for the night. I picked up a bit of a cold in the chaos of the end of the semester and the travel and debauchery here, and now I just need to rest to get over my sore throat.
Family readers, I have posted new Christmas photos on Flickr. If you don't have an account, it's free and easy to create one so you can view them. Just write me a note so I know who you are :)
Monday, December 24, 2007
Home at last . . .
Merry Christmas, everybody.
It's a relief to be among friends and family and in the warmth of California. I slept for close to twelve hours today, and overate extraordinarily. A nice change from typical Michigan routine. I have a feeling this week is just what the doctor ordered. I've downloaded an offline blog editor that I'm experimenting with by the fireside in my mother's living room. I should be helping clean up some more, but instead I'm just sitting here, having finished a couple little glasses of Bailey's. From here I can hardly even see that the Christmas lights are decorating only the lower half of the tree. :) Dinner was scrumptious, roast beef and lots of vegetables rich from roasting in juices. Wishing you all joy and peace.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The eternally surprising discovery that is friendship.
All these years, I'd been misremembering a quote by Jean-Paul Sartre. I'd thought it was "Nous ne sommes riens qu'aux yeux des autres." But no.
« Nous ne sommes nous qu’aux yeux des autres, et c’est à partir du regard des autres que nous nous assumons comme nous » (see?)
(which is, approximately. . .) "We are not ourselves except in the eyes of others, and it's from the gaze of others that we assume the status of ourselves" (I'm a little unsure about this translation; "s'assumer comme quelquechose" is a turn of phrase that is so particular, I did some searching to see if anyone else had translated it, and ended up surfing to an academic article, not too surprisingly, about Simone de Beauvoir. And I found the wonderful passage:
"Now, what specifically defines the situation of woman is that she-a free and autonomous being like all human creatures-nevertheless discovers and chooses herself in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other.3 They propose to turn her into an object and to doom her to immanence since her transcendence is for ever to be transcended by another consciousness which is essential and sovereign. The drama of woman lies in this conflict between the fundamental aspirations of every subject-which always posits itself as essential-and the demands of a situation which constitutes her as inessential." (SS, 29; DSa, 31; TA)
Following this characteristically beautiful writing by Beauvoir, Toril Moi offers the following interpretation:
"This is perhaps the single most important passage in The Second Sex, above all because Beauvoir here poses a radically new theory of sexual difference. While we are all split and ambiguous, she argues, women are more split and ambiguous than men. For Simone de Beauvoir, then, women are fundamentally characterized by ambiguity and conflict. The
specific contradiction of women's situation is caused by the conflict between their status as free and autonomous human beings and the fact that they are socialized in a world in which men consistently cast them as Other to their One, as objects to their subjects. The effect is to produce women as subjects painfully torn between freedom and alienation, transcendence and
immanence, subject-being and object-being. This fundamental contradiction, or split, in which the general ontological ambiguity of human beings is repeated and reinforced by the social pressures brought to bear on women, is specific to women underpatriarchy. For Beauvoir, at least initially, there is nothing ahistorical about this: when oppressive power relations cease to
exist, women will be no more split and contradictory than men."
The idea here is deeply suggestive to me about the existential situation of any group facing structural alienation, not only women on the basis of sex in a patriarchy, but also, for instance, the oppressed group in a colonial context. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's leave aside Beauvoir and Moi for the moment. And back to Sartre, which is what I meant to talk about in the first place. And to my life, which was really the starting point for all of this talk in the first place.
Last night was a magical dance of three active minds in the playground of my little cottage in the country, that lasted until past five o'clock in the morning. Katie and John came over sometime around nine or ten, on their way back from Jackson. When I heard they were coming, I pulled myself together a little after feeling rather funky all day long, and put a chocolate sour milk cake in the oven and mulled wine on the stove, with green cardamom, white pepper, cloves, cinnamon, a bay leaf, turbinado sugar, Grand Marnier, and some thinly sliced, succulently ripe Valencia orange. And together, we talked, laughed, ate, drank, read poetry aloud, listened our way through any and every kind of music you could think of, played music on the accordion and the guitar, unearthed old travel photographs hidden away in the vintage suitcase behind my sewing machine, told stories, opened books of anthropologists, womens studies scholars, biographers, and journalists, and ate a 3 am snack of cream of tomato soup with spinach and rye bread with stinky brie. I introduced them to palinka and slivovic, we finished off the fig brandy from Croatia in the plastic bottle I carried back from someone's garage on the southern part of the island of Krk, and we found recesses of the mind and life that, well, at least in my case, hadn't been dusted off or looked at in years.
And so, this morning, seeing their little note of thanks and the neatly folded blankets on my big red couch in the living room, and the thin photographic evidence of this whole experience that we accumulated, I couldn't help but think of Sartre. Because no matter what you imagine yourself to be, whatever layers of experience you accumulate in a lifetime, it never seems to have any meaning until you are yourself with others, and they see you, and you become yourself. So it isn't just hell that is other people. It's also heaven.
For more on this:
Ambiguity and Alienation in The Second Sex by Toril Moi. boundary 2, Vol. 19, No. 2, Feminism and Postmodernism (Summer, 1992), pp. 96-112. doi:10.2307/303535 Link through jstor if you have institutional access.
« Nous ne sommes nous qu’aux yeux des autres, et c’est à partir du regard des autres que nous nous assumons comme nous » (see?)
(which is, approximately. . .) "We are not ourselves except in the eyes of others, and it's from the gaze of others that we assume the status of ourselves" (I'm a little unsure about this translation; "s'assumer comme quelquechose" is a turn of phrase that is so particular, I did some searching to see if anyone else had translated it, and ended up surfing to an academic article, not too surprisingly, about Simone de Beauvoir. And I found the wonderful passage:
"Now, what specifically defines the situation of woman is that she-a free and autonomous being like all human creatures-nevertheless discovers and chooses herself in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other.3 They propose to turn her into an object and to doom her to immanence since her transcendence is for ever to be transcended by another consciousness which is essential and sovereign. The drama of woman lies in this conflict between the fundamental aspirations of every subject-which always posits itself as essential-and the demands of a situation which constitutes her as inessential." (SS, 29; DSa, 31; TA)
Following this characteristically beautiful writing by Beauvoir, Toril Moi offers the following interpretation:
"This is perhaps the single most important passage in The Second Sex, above all because Beauvoir here poses a radically new theory of sexual difference. While we are all split and ambiguous, she argues, women are more split and ambiguous than men. For Simone de Beauvoir, then, women are fundamentally characterized by ambiguity and conflict. The
specific contradiction of women's situation is caused by the conflict between their status as free and autonomous human beings and the fact that they are socialized in a world in which men consistently cast them as Other to their One, as objects to their subjects. The effect is to produce women as subjects painfully torn between freedom and alienation, transcendence and
immanence, subject-being and object-being. This fundamental contradiction, or split, in which the general ontological ambiguity of human beings is repeated and reinforced by the social pressures brought to bear on women, is specific to women underpatriarchy. For Beauvoir, at least initially, there is nothing ahistorical about this: when oppressive power relations cease to
exist, women will be no more split and contradictory than men."
The idea here is deeply suggestive to me about the existential situation of any group facing structural alienation, not only women on the basis of sex in a patriarchy, but also, for instance, the oppressed group in a colonial context. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's leave aside Beauvoir and Moi for the moment. And back to Sartre, which is what I meant to talk about in the first place. And to my life, which was really the starting point for all of this talk in the first place.
Last night was a magical dance of three active minds in the playground of my little cottage in the country, that lasted until past five o'clock in the morning. Katie and John came over sometime around nine or ten, on their way back from Jackson. When I heard they were coming, I pulled myself together a little after feeling rather funky all day long, and put a chocolate sour milk cake in the oven and mulled wine on the stove, with green cardamom, white pepper, cloves, cinnamon, a bay leaf, turbinado sugar, Grand Marnier, and some thinly sliced, succulently ripe Valencia orange. And together, we talked, laughed, ate, drank, read poetry aloud, listened our way through any and every kind of music you could think of, played music on the accordion and the guitar, unearthed old travel photographs hidden away in the vintage suitcase behind my sewing machine, told stories, opened books of anthropologists, womens studies scholars, biographers, and journalists, and ate a 3 am snack of cream of tomato soup with spinach and rye bread with stinky brie. I introduced them to palinka and slivovic, we finished off the fig brandy from Croatia in the plastic bottle I carried back from someone's garage on the southern part of the island of Krk, and we found recesses of the mind and life that, well, at least in my case, hadn't been dusted off or looked at in years.
And so, this morning, seeing their little note of thanks and the neatly folded blankets on my big red couch in the living room, and the thin photographic evidence of this whole experience that we accumulated, I couldn't help but think of Sartre. Because no matter what you imagine yourself to be, whatever layers of experience you accumulate in a lifetime, it never seems to have any meaning until you are yourself with others, and they see you, and you become yourself. So it isn't just hell that is other people. It's also heaven.
For more on this:
Ambiguity and Alienation in The Second Sex by Toril Moi. boundary 2, Vol. 19, No. 2, Feminism and Postmodernism (Summer, 1992), pp. 96-112. doi:10.2307/303535 Link through jstor if you have institutional access.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
I laughed with joy when I saw the photo of my dear friend Gul's beautiful little girl Ayla in the holiday greeting card she sent, complete with scribbles and the greeting that she misses me and wants to paint with me again. (Her little pink barrettes, and her long slender arms -- she's grown so much, she's not a baby anymore.) And then, I had the sudden and unexpected reaction of breaking down crying, hard. I want a little girl . . .
And I also want to hear from my sweetie.
And I think I've been pushing myself pretty close to the edge the past couple of weeks. And today was. . . a hard day.
I'll be good to be at home, methinks.
I got a card from Debs, too. Oh, I love the photos. You all look so nice. Mal looks so pretty in her dress with that beautiful necklace. And I can't get over what a sweet young man Michael is.
Even my neighbor sent me a Christmas card. And I still have the card sitting here I wrote and addressed to Sandy when she was in the hospital. I just can't keep up with correspondence anymore. It's so depressing, how life passes you by. I look in the mirror and wonder how another year has passed. At least my hair is growing back.
And I also want to hear from my sweetie.
And I think I've been pushing myself pretty close to the edge the past couple of weeks. And today was. . . a hard day.
I'll be good to be at home, methinks.
I got a card from Debs, too. Oh, I love the photos. You all look so nice. Mal looks so pretty in her dress with that beautiful necklace. And I can't get over what a sweet young man Michael is.
Even my neighbor sent me a Christmas card. And I still have the card sitting here I wrote and addressed to Sandy when she was in the hospital. I just can't keep up with correspondence anymore. It's so depressing, how life passes you by. I look in the mirror and wonder how another year has passed. At least my hair is growing back.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Loose ends
Well, just one more big messy hurdle to get through.
Or . . . one big messy day, three big messy hurdles. Return the student papers, finish out my time at AFG, and submit my field paperwork for my MSW.
It'll be nice to be back at AFG; just sad, since it'll mark the end of an era there. But I'll be back in January to do some more work on the evaluation. So the only difference will be no more clock ticking, no more surveillance of the same variety. I don't like to be surveilled.
I have submitted the student grades, submitted all my work for the time being, and am now sorting through the detritus of the end of the semester. I got to the bottom of the laundry hamper and realized two interesting, if slightly disturbing things: (1) I had clothes in there from Thanksgiving, which means I probably haven't done laundry since then, unless I did it and just left the handwashables at the bottom (which is possible, but in any case, I can't remember, and that in and of itself is kind of telling) and (2) my laundry was so cold, there is no doubt that it helps to insulate the wall the hamper sits against in my office. Hmm.
Well, now I have both the washing machine and the dishwasher running, and I'm debating what to do next. Something about having an intense stress-induced adrenaline rush for several days makes it a bit anticlimactic just to go to bed, though it probably would be wise. I feel a bit too pumped up for that, anyway, though. If I drive to the supermarket to buy O'Douls and get gas, though, I'll probably be done for the night. Well, at least I wouldn't have to stop for gas in the morning on the way to Detroit.
One option would be to work on my field paperwork now, but my arms are tingling from all the typing for days. So I probably shouldn't be blogging, either, I know.
I did buy a ticket to California, FINALLY. Hooray. And I've left enough time for me to clean up the house thoroughly before I go, so everything will be pristine and fresh and tidy and all my personal crap will be a little less overwhelming. So I pulled out a suitcase, and can finally start thinking about being a person who is something other than a teacher and a student and a social worker, for at least a few days.
Oh, just to give myself a sense of accomplishment, I just tallied up my writing I've done since Thanksgiving: 1 28-page paper, 7 pages of short response papers on readings, 1 23-page paper, 1 35-page paper, 1 8-page paper, and 1 page of prelim questions. That's 102 pages, and just shy of a hundred if you knock out title pages and bibliographic material. Nutty. And that doesn't even include comments on student papers, or emails, or blog writing. I guess it's been a productive few weeks. I'm not saying all of it is good. Heck, plenty of it isn't. But a little of it, I think, actually is.
Between that and the very exciting meetings with a few faculty members I love, I think I'm going to head off to California pretty blissed out despite all the last-minute stress of grading and running around for field placement.
Or . . . one big messy day, three big messy hurdles. Return the student papers, finish out my time at AFG, and submit my field paperwork for my MSW.
It'll be nice to be back at AFG; just sad, since it'll mark the end of an era there. But I'll be back in January to do some more work on the evaluation. So the only difference will be no more clock ticking, no more surveillance of the same variety. I don't like to be surveilled.
I have submitted the student grades, submitted all my work for the time being, and am now sorting through the detritus of the end of the semester. I got to the bottom of the laundry hamper and realized two interesting, if slightly disturbing things: (1) I had clothes in there from Thanksgiving, which means I probably haven't done laundry since then, unless I did it and just left the handwashables at the bottom (which is possible, but in any case, I can't remember, and that in and of itself is kind of telling) and (2) my laundry was so cold, there is no doubt that it helps to insulate the wall the hamper sits against in my office. Hmm.
Well, now I have both the washing machine and the dishwasher running, and I'm debating what to do next. Something about having an intense stress-induced adrenaline rush for several days makes it a bit anticlimactic just to go to bed, though it probably would be wise. I feel a bit too pumped up for that, anyway, though. If I drive to the supermarket to buy O'Douls and get gas, though, I'll probably be done for the night. Well, at least I wouldn't have to stop for gas in the morning on the way to Detroit.
One option would be to work on my field paperwork now, but my arms are tingling from all the typing for days. So I probably shouldn't be blogging, either, I know.
I did buy a ticket to California, FINALLY. Hooray. And I've left enough time for me to clean up the house thoroughly before I go, so everything will be pristine and fresh and tidy and all my personal crap will be a little less overwhelming. So I pulled out a suitcase, and can finally start thinking about being a person who is something other than a teacher and a student and a social worker, for at least a few days.
Oh, just to give myself a sense of accomplishment, I just tallied up my writing I've done since Thanksgiving: 1 28-page paper, 7 pages of short response papers on readings, 1 23-page paper, 1 35-page paper, 1 8-page paper, and 1 page of prelim questions. That's 102 pages, and just shy of a hundred if you knock out title pages and bibliographic material. Nutty. And that doesn't even include comments on student papers, or emails, or blog writing. I guess it's been a productive few weeks. I'm not saying all of it is good. Heck, plenty of it isn't. But a little of it, I think, actually is.
Between that and the very exciting meetings with a few faculty members I love, I think I'm going to head off to California pretty blissed out despite all the last-minute stress of grading and running around for field placement.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Little victories
Well, having eaten enough to sustain a small village for a night or two (bacon and pierogie fried with onion right in the bacon grease, covered with sour cream, and washed down with a bottle of nonalcoholic beer, perfect food after working for two days straight with hardly a crumb in my stomach, and then trudging home in the snow), I'm going to bathe and go to bed for a few hours. I pulled my second all-nighter last night (okay, okay, I slept from 8 am til 1 pm on Monday and 5:40 to 8 am this morning, but that doesn't really count) to get the portfolio finished for my democracy course, but it is FINALLY in. I'm accepting incompletes in my independent studies, and have worked out the arrangements with the professors. Now, on to finish my undergraduate grading, and to magically make an ungodly number of field work hours and my final field work paperwork happen between now and Friday, and I'll be finished with this semester of craziness. Thank God I never have to be a first-time Anthropology 101 GSI ever again. Next time, it'll be the second. And that makes all the difference in the world!
By the way, my final paper for Democracy ended up being 35 pages. And you know, I feel pretty good about it. I hope she likes it too.
The other good news: I have a prelim committee forming, and prelim ideas being generated, for Social Work. And the whole team is people I think are amazing and fabulous and whom I love working with, and am excited to spend time getting to think with. And they seem enthusiastic too. About the ideas and about each other. Score. Like, major score. I just need to talk to the last of the four (four is the upper limit; three is typical and I've already got three on board), but assuming she has time, I'm pretty sure she'll be game, because I know she's positive about working with me although I haven't approached her specifically about prelims. She gave me an A+ in her class. So yeah, I think I can hope for her support. :) So, life is looking nice from here. Although it's a little blurry, since I need to rest my eyes. Now, on to the bath. Hello and good tidings to you, world.
By the way, my final paper for Democracy ended up being 35 pages. And you know, I feel pretty good about it. I hope she likes it too.
The other good news: I have a prelim committee forming, and prelim ideas being generated, for Social Work. And the whole team is people I think are amazing and fabulous and whom I love working with, and am excited to spend time getting to think with. And they seem enthusiastic too. About the ideas and about each other. Score. Like, major score. I just need to talk to the last of the four (four is the upper limit; three is typical and I've already got three on board), but assuming she has time, I'm pretty sure she'll be game, because I know she's positive about working with me although I haven't approached her specifically about prelims. She gave me an A+ in her class. So yeah, I think I can hope for her support. :) So, life is looking nice from here. Although it's a little blurry, since I need to rest my eyes. Now, on to the bath. Hello and good tidings to you, world.
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