I'm overwhelmed.

Here's a link to tide you over until I can type out the profound theses that are floating around in my head. Floating theses. Sounds like feces. Anyway...

Listen to the sound this frog makes.

Were you aware that it's Domestic Violence Awareness Month?

Me neither. Until I heard the story of Nadine.

This is unacceptable. Why are human beings so violent towards one another? This has to stop before we destroy ourselves.

• Learn about V-Day.
• Read about domestic violence. (I'm reading this book right now and if anyone wants to borrow it when I'm done, please let me know.)
  
• If you are on Facebook, join the group "Justice for Nadine".
• Read why thousands have joined in support of Nadine.

We must stop ignoring this problem.

Graffiti from campus.

This was a really awesome piece but the campus maintenance people scrubbed it off with acid. There have been several "Harold and the Purple Crayon" drawings near Bascom. My favorite was just a long squiggly line with a boat on it and "Harold understands." In purple spray paint, of course.

More graffiti from campus.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

I like this slogan but it was suspiciously close to a "Ron Paul '08" stencil,
which made me like it much less.

From my cell phone.

Coolest Sisters Ever.

Ben, 408's not the same, dude.

Isaac and Isabel, even their names sound good together.

If you look carefully, you can find rad stickers and stencils all over the UWM campus. I've started taking pictures with my cell phone.

Some pictures of cute things.

Che sleeping on Shadow's back. Abby laughing. Tobias Belfield Metcalf.

Internet Pet Peeves

Two things just happened that really annoyed me. I am filling out an online application for a fellowship and I ended up having to fill out the "personal information" section twice because I put my SSN in with HYPHENS and the form wouldn't accept it. An error message popped up informing me of the invalid entry, but then the stupid form erased all my other information!

• Pet Peeve #1: fields for numbers that usually have punctuation (like phone numbers, SSNs, etc.) should be flexible enough to handle them WITH OR WITHOUT PUNCTUATION!
• Pet Peeve #2: if there is a mistake in the form, do NOT erase the entire form. Cuz that's just dumb.

Then, another annoying thing happened. As I was requesting transcripts online (at the nominal feel of $300,000 each), I put in my credit card info, and only after it was accepted was I informed that there would be an additional $2.50 service charge for ordering over the internet. OK, fine. But then another screen popped up with this stupid consent form that I have to print, sign and send in before they will send my transcript. Where is the convenience in that? It would have been easier for me to just send a signed note to the registrar's office requesting the transcript, and I would have avoided the stupid $2.50 fee.

• Pet Peeve #3: stupid fees and stupid forms.
  

That is all.

KT Zaman, Rock Star

I don't know how it got started, but somehow I created the notion in my son's head that I used to be a kick ass rock star. He believes the tale and thinks it's cool. Over the past few years, the myth has grown as more and more specifics are added to the story. Tonight we watched "School of Rock" and Isaac decided that he wants to learn to play guitar (oh yes!) and he wants me to teach him how to be a rock star. He also wants to learn one of my "songs" and he wanted to know if I have any friends who are famous rock stars.

Have I gone too far? Is this beyond the benign lies of childhood like Santa Clause? Because I don't wanna crush his belief that his mom was an awesome rocker. When he finally realizes that it was all a lie, will he hate me?

I must see this as soon as possible.

Excuses for not posting.

1. Nothing too interesting has happened this week.
2. The leaves are changing colors, it's cooling down, and this is my favorite time of year.
3. I suddenly have so much reading to do that I think my eyeballs might shrivel up and fall out of my head.
4. Masud is visiting for the week and he stole my computer desk.
5. I got a C on my first stats exam and the shame has made me crawl under a rock.
6. I attended the Conference on South Asia and spent three days listening to presentations with titles like, "Disjuncture and Difference in Feminist Transnational Practices: Imagining Women through Law, Documentary Cinema and the State". Brain might explode.
7. Also at said conference, I bought five books: Unraveling the Garment Industry, Juki Girls - Good Girls, Explaining Growth in South Asia, Doing Development Research, and Urban Women in Contemporary India. I'm a book whore. I love them, I spend lots of money on them, and then have no time to read them.
8. I've been cooking. I made some really gross chocolate chip cookies (something went wrong). I think I'll return to frozen prepared foods for this week.


So I hope that I'll be able to return to regular posting soon, but don't hold your breath. Until then, here's a question for you to discuss in the comments: If academic writers presumably were forced to read thousands (and thousands) of pages of boring academic writing during their training, why do they make their own writing so boring? Is it part of the rite of passage of graduate school? If you plan to write a book, wouldn't you want to make it non-boring for your readers? Take this book I'm reading on transnational conflicts. Exciting title, right? But here's an actual sentence: "The intervention of agency at the level of the global system in the form of transnational functionaries from the US state and the IFIs liaised with agency at the local level in the form of ascendant transnational fractions." I had to read it four times just to understand it, and then I wanted to poke out my own eyes.

Hello from Packer Land.

I'm visiting my sister in Packer Land for the weekend. I have not seen a Packer yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Masud is visiting (yeah!) and he and Isaac went to the Wilderness for the weekend. I'm enjoying veggie tacos and content silences with my sister, and tomorrow I'm going to attend a baby shower for SunnyD in South Packer Land. I'm not sure how much I'll get done of my weekly ream of readings, but my soul is refreshed.

I have no business posting.

But I just had to tell you that I got yelled at this morning by the 3rd grader who was a crossing guard by the school. I was on my bike and didn't stop for the stop sign. He yelled, "Please STOP at the STOP SIGN. It's the LAW!!!!"

I am a horrible adult.