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.

Interesting things from the Wilderness.

Fall has crept up on me this year and I wasn't prepared for the fall beauty this weekend in the Wilderness. The leaves are just turning, the soybeans are drying and the sky is so blue and sunny. Augh. I love love love Wisconsin.

Some quotes from the weekend:

"Never trust anyone who says their favorite Jolly Rancher is peach." ~ Page's partner Andrew (who's last name I still can't remember!)

"I'm so STOOKED about my new Transformer!" ~ Isaac, after purchasing the Star Wars Clone Pilot Starfighter Transformer. "Don't you mean STOKED?" I asked. "Nope, I made it into a new word, and I call it STOOKED."

"I'll be the water wings than save you if you start drowning in an open tab, when your judgment's on the brink." ~ The Postal Service, Give Up, Brand New Colony.

Water wings. Awesome.

Also, I learned both what this thing called "bluetooth" is and I also learned how to do it on my phone.

And I got to take a nap in the soft chair by the sunny window with two wonderful dogs in my lap.

This week is a doozy. Prepare for sporadic postings. Here's a reader poll to entertain you:

What is your favorite Jolly Rancher flavor and why? What is your least favorite JR flavor? Have you ever pulled out a filling while eating a JR? (I have. It's awesome.)

I still have the same haircut!

My high school buddy Ray sent me this picture. L-R: Dewey, Leslie, Ray, your's truly, and Amanda.

I think this was from 10th grade. I remember feeling SO PROUD of how high and poofy my bangs were in this picture!

The Amazing Story of Fabulous Mike's Fabulous Shirt.

My friend Mike is really cool, and I don't think he knows it. That's part of what contributes to his coolness. He is in the Development Studies program with me, has been in the Peace Corps, speaks fluent Spanish, and is generally fun to hang out with. He's very droll.

A few weeks ago I noticed that Mike was wearing an unusual shirt. It was a short sleeved button down number that had these little flags all over it. And the collar was super wide. I remember thinking to myself, "Mike's shirt is rad." About a week after that, Mike came to a party at the Union and he was wearing the shirt. I decided to express my approval of the garment. That's when I heard the Amazing Story of Fabulous Mike's Fabulous Shirt.

It turns out that the shirt belonged to Mike's grandfather, who was actually in the secret service. It gets better. Mike's grandpa was a part of a US delegation to the founding meeting of the Alliance for Progress in 1961 in Punta del Este, Uruguay. He was the only Spanish speaking member of the delegation. Guess who he hung out with at the conference?

Way cool shirt, Mike. Way cool.

Crowd Anxiety

Apparently Badger football is a big deal. Two weekends in a row now, I've been nearly crushed by a crowd of people wearing red shirts near Randall Stadium. All I wanted to do was go to the coffee shop and read my articles.

Why can we mobilize people to watch a stupid game and yet we can't get a crowd that big to care about ending poverty?

Priorities. Sheesh.

Too busy...

...to post. Here are some pictures instead.

Bullet Update

• Isaac participated in a Dog Walk this weekend to raise funds for a no-kill animal shelter. Mom took Che and Shad to get haircuts and worked with them for weeks on a "dance routine". The routine consisted of her playing music and holding small pieces of chicken up high enough so that they had to stand on their hind legs and hop around in order to get it. Unfortunately, the pressure of the spotlight was too much. They basically stood stiff on the stage with their tails between their legs while mom and Isaac danced! But Isaac won for raising the most money in his category! So thanks to DomNem, Hob, and Idadele for their generosity!!!
• While Isaac was gallivanting in the wilderness with my mom, I read about 500 pages of theory, successfully resolved a domestic crisis, attended a birthday party for two friends, did laundry and grocery shopping!!
• This week is jam packed. I've got something going on every single night. Isaac has started to realize what it means that summer is over - he has been sad about not being able to watch more than 2 hours of TV a day. I'm mourning the loss of internet time.
• Speaking of internet time, I'm seriously cutting back on my browsing time each day. It's out of control. Although I can never give up reddit.com.
• The Domestic Nemesis has been having problems with stinky things in her apartment. Read part one and part two.
• Cake has a new CD out and their cover of War Pigs is excellent. If I had any money I'd buy it. Maybe Ding Ding will burn a copy for me. Pretty please?
• Isaac and I are going to take Italian class together. His school PTO offers it, and the classes meet before school starts in the morning. The reason we are learning Italian is because Isaac has a friend who just moved here from Italy and she doesn't speak English yet, so he wants to learn Italian so he can talk to her. Awwww.
  
• I'm way to busy to be blogging. That's all for now.
  

"Poverty", shame and feminism.

First read this. (Bitch Ph.D. complains about only having $1475 in left over money per month.)
And then this. (What Bitch Ph.D. thinks she should be ashamed of.)

Then read this. (WoC Ph.D. eloquently points out what she's ashamed of, and has some great insights about academe, poverty and feminism.)

Here's my shame list. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

What I'm ashamed of:

• That I've ever said (and believed) that "I'm so poor!" even though my husband makes a decent salary, we have our basic needs met, and we're able to spend quite liberally on our wants. (And that I've seen real poverty extremely close up and still throw the word around flippantly.)
  
• That I have the luxury to spend years and years pursuing my education and some people struggle to graduate from high school, and I whine about how hard it is.
• That I don't always confront people when they tell racist/sexist jokes.
• That I'm studying "development", which is a discipline that arose from colonialism and is arguably a tool used by world powers to control the resources of "developing" countries.
• That I am considering going into academe rather than applied work because I want to have the security of a contract, health insurance and retirement benefits even though I know that I'll be sacrificing a little (a lot) of my ability to affect real change in the world.
• That despite my relatively privileged upbringing, I pretend to be qualified to advocate for the rights of the oppressed.
• I still hold subconscious beliefs that are racist, sexist, elitist, and although I try to recognize them and change, sometimes they slip out and hurt people that I love.
  

Graduate school has made me brilliant.

I'm such a good planner. I knew that in the weeks to come, I'll be crazy busy and won't be able to remember things like when to return movies to Blockbuster or the library. So I decided that we'll only rent on Fridays, and that way I'll know that if it's Friday, I probably have something due at one of those places. It's working great.

Except for one thing.

Today I got everyone in the car and we drove over to Blockbuster and I realized that I left the movies sitting on the couch at home.

Again I rock.