Short Update

I have One Half of One Essay to complete, and then I'm DONE. Well, except for that one thing I have due Monday...but that's nothing compared to this week. Ugh. I could finish the essay tonight, but having spent seven hours straight working on my proposal, I believe I'm entitled to a break. Also, I'm completely incapable to forming a coherent sentence. It's taken a ridiculous amount of time to put these last few lines together. I'd just have to rewrite it all tomorrow anyways. On that note, I'm keeping this brief. Just letting you all know I haven't quite succumbed to Coma Academe as of yet. Still semi-conscious.

And Yet Again...

This time of the year should be outlawed. Banned from existence. It's stressful and awful and makes everything bigger and worse and harder to handle. I just want it to be next Tuesday, when I'll be done all my work and have nothing to worry about except--oh scratch that, let it be Wednesday. I do have things to worry about for Tuesday, even if it is simultaneously exciting. At least it's not school, but an entirely different sort of grading. And stopping thinking about that now...Better yet, it could be the 13th, when I'll be done all my exams and have nothing to stress over and nothing to do but play games, read for FUN, and think about Christmas.

On the upside, I'm done my take home exam that's due Thursday, I'm 1/3 done the essay that's technically due tomorrow (although I have an extension if need be), and I've at least done some of the research for my essay proposal that's due on Friday. This essay is progressing such that I should have it done tonight, even if I do have a walking shift from 6:30 to 10:30.

Ugh. I'm disappointed in myself here. I promise you all more entertaining blog posts soon.

End of H*ll Week One

It's 12:10 am on what I suppose is technically a very early Thursday morning. My printer is busily spewing out pages and pages of handouts, presentation material, and essays. Perhaps spewing is the wrong word, as that seems to imply some sort of speed and my printer is quite slow - the hazard of having a photo-quality printer. As of right now I am done everything (save actually presenting the presentation) I had to do this week.

Next week, mind, I have another essay, a take home exam, a huge essay proposal, and a meeting that will require some preparation. Still moment hails the end of quite a lot of work. Next week is also the last week of classes, except for Monday the 4th, which is to make up for the day we lost at Thanksgiving. In just two and a half weeks I will be done my exams and finished first term. That is not a lot of time. My brain is doing a little bit of the "It's almost the end of November, which means it's almost exams, which means it's almost Christmas, which means it's almost January and OH NO" at which point I stop and remind myself that there is time and that I need to stop freaking out about things I can't control. Plus, today I spoke with someone who, even though I don't normally care much for them, gave me positive feelings about things that I'm trying not to worry about. End Abstract Tangent.

My printer is almost out of ink. and paper. joy. I foresee a trip to the computer supply store in fairly short order.

And now I'm going to review my presentation one last time, head to bed, and sleep before my anthro exec meeting tomorrow morning, 3 hours of class including presentation, and exciting plans thereafter.

Happy American Thanksgiving to all my American readers!

I'm a What Now?

The Maid of Honor Deliberate Gentle Love Master (DGLMf) Appreciated for your kindness and envied for all your experience, you are The Maid of Honor. Charismatic, affectionate, and terrific in relationships, you are what many guys would call a "perfect catch"--and you probably have many admirers, each wishing to capture your long-term love. You're careful, extra careful, because the last thing you want is to hurt anyone. Especially some poor boy whose only crime was liking you. We've deduced you're fully capable of a dirty fling, but you do feel that post-coital attachment after hooking up. So, conscientious person that you are, you do your best to reserve physical affection for those you respect...so you can respect yourself. Your biggest negative is the byproduct of your careful nature: indecision. You're just as slow rejecting someone as you are accepting them. ALWAYS AVOID: The False Messiah, The 5-Night Stand, The Vapor Trail, The Bachelor CONSIDER: The Gentleman, someone just like you. Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating.

MBA Swinger Students

Today I went in to work. I wasn't supposed to work today, but my manager wrote all the servers a frantic email asking for more staff because they had some sort of large function. "Heck," I said to myself, "it's not like I could really be any more busy, why not?!?" I took the shift, and went in to work today for 2pm. The function turned out to be more of a hostile taking-over by somewhere in the order of 70-80 MBA students who proceeded to move all the tables in the restaurant around, yet not actually sit anywhere for longer than 5 minutes at a stretch, and still expect to receive their meals and bills in a timely and organized manner.

I eventually got one group of 10 of them to sit down at a table and stay there, and they ordered pitcher after pitcher of beer, while the other half of the table ran up and down to the bar ordering more beer and more cocktails. Using this table as my anchor, I did rounds in the restaurant alternately clearing dishes and telling people that "No, I can NOT let you order from me unless you SIT DOWN AT A TABLE!!!" I eventually just cashed out that one table and hid in the back doing expo and dish pit, since the management team had (for some strange reason) brought on 5 extra servers but no hostess, no expediter, and no dish washer. Priorities? Logic? Bah!

On one of my runs from the expo line to the tables, I had the following delightful conversation with a man who I would peg at about 36 who I had seen split about 5 pitchers of beer with his three companions in stupidity in just under an hour (read: WASTED)...

"Hey, my wife thinks you're pretty." (accompanied by giggling from who I can only assume was the wife)
"Oh, um, thank you -er- her?"
"What time do you get off work?" (accompanied by further giggling from the wife and many suggestive facial expressions from the speaker)
"Oh. Wow. Okay. I'm going to walk away now and pretend you didn't just ask that."

Whereupon I walked away and caught my student manager laughing incredulously before kicking out the idiot harasser and his giggly-airhead wife.

Recap: 3 hours of work, $6 in tips, 1 request for swinging. An interesting day...

Slight Freak Out

I have essays due on the: 20(a), 22(b), 23(c), 30(d) and 1st(e). I have started writing: one(a). I have researched: two(a&b). I have a thesis idea for: three(a, b&e). I am: so entirely behind.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Of course, it doesn't help when professors don't hand out the essay assignment until 2 weeks before it's due (c)!

Oh, and did I mention that I have a 2 page research question due on the 22nd and a 20 minute presentation on the 23rd?

*dies*

My Research Assistant

When I don't get this essay done on time, I'm blaming the cats...

Not to worry, it will be done. I have another week anyways. But look, isn't Rumble so studious?

"Don't just have a life, live your life."

Every day when I come home from class and head to my room to work on whatever academic endeavors I have to complete that day, I am followed hard on my heels by Rumble. He then stands at my side, pawing at my hip, arm, and desktop until I finally give in and wheel back far enough that he can jump onto my lap. He then demands, by way of standing in the way of the monitor and pawing at the keyboard, that I pay principle attention to him for an absolute minimum of 5 solid minutes. At this point he will contentedly curl down into a cat ball and purr, allowing me to once again return to whatever it is that I had to be working on. We do this ever day

While I could just be writing this as a cute little anecdote about how truly wonderful my cat is (he is once again pawing at my elbow - apparently I didn't give him enough focused attention today), I'm really writing it in response to something that I read in Roger Lancaster's Life is Hard. Lancaster writes that while working on his dissertation he spent 12 hour days at his desk, and that everything he wrote, did, and experienced during that time was directly related to his studies. He did nothing that did not pertain to his dissertation and by the time it was completed "my social life had become almost nonexistent: I had few friends and little human contact" (1992:204). I combine this with the remarks made by Dr. Resaldo that academics tend to focus exclusively on their studies and their writing, to the detriment of all the other facets of life, and the comment by our acting department chair that "life has to come first". I am led to the conclusion that one of the challenges faced by those passionate about their discipline is the appropriate balance between fueling that passion, and maintaining some sort of real life outside of it.

I think, perhaps, this is why my all time favourite prof made the comment to me that as an anthropologist (and, I would say, as a human, period) that we must carefully pick our battles because to attempt to do everything is to accomplish nothing. Select one thing, he urged me, that truly speaks to you, and pursue it with controlled fervor. Think intelligently, research thoroughly, and interact with it on multiple levels, but remain apart from it, lest you lose all sense of self-identity.

Sometimes when I come home I am tempted to simply throw Rumble off my lap, close my door, and shut myself into some sort of academic coma, but then I remember that although to accomplish great things is certainly something, it is not everything. The lesson that all these people are trying to impart to me, is that no matter how involved you get with life, it is crucially important that you don't forget to live.

----------------------
Lancaster, Roger N.
1992 Life is Hard: machismo, danger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua. USA: University of California Press

Drs. Renato Resaldo & Mary Louise Pratt

On Tuesday I had the great fortune to see a truly wonderful anthropologist lecture. Dr. Renato Resaldo, a professor emeritus of anthropology at Stanford. He is a gifted public speaker and gave an enlightening talk on how to write ethnography, the primary form of anthropological writing.

Wednesday his wife, Dr. Mary Louise Pratt, a professor emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese, gave a lecture on language and contemporary geopolitics. Although Dr. Pratt is not trained as an anthropologist, much of her work in languages has been applicable to anthropology and highly regarded. It was an engaging lecture, and one of my friends was particularly interested because Dr. Pratt has done with with the Zapatistas, with whom my friend is considering doing her MA thesis.

Following the lecture on Wednesday all the senior students were invited to dinner at the chair of the anthropology's home (he's on sabbatical this year), where we had the opportunity to shmooze with professors and the guest lectures. I was incredibly intimidated at the idea of speaking to Dr. Resaldo, because I've heard about his groundbreaking work in anthropology since first year, but I had a question that I was just dying to ask him. When I finally did work up the courage (none too little encouraged by my classmates) it was absolutely fantastic. I approached him, and ended up sitting on the floor next to him, discussing for about 15 phenomenal minutes, the advantages of ethnographic writing and the ability to reach the nonacademic. He urged me to pursue not just academic writing, but to look into local media and to never underestimate the power of public speaking. He was insightful in everything that he said, and by the end of the conversation I was positively tingling. I had to work harder than usual to remain engaged, simply because I was fighting the nearly overwhelming excited thoughts of "I'm actually talking to Renato Resaldo!!!". Without a doubt, it is something that I'll never forget.