Tuesday night class

It's stupid. I literally have to talk myself into going, talk myself into staying, and talk myself into not leaving during the break. It's 3 hours long, filled with students in a major-that-is-not-mine, and, who, furthermore, do not know the basics of their major. All of that would be fine, except for this: there is group work. Lots and lots of group work.

Sometimes one gets lucky with group work. This class is not one of those times. I don't blame the students; I don't really blame the teacher; I'm not sure who I blame. Myself, mostly, because I get irrationally annoyed at everything that goes on in that classroom.

Seriously. I am generally a laid back person. Other than "W" stickers that people have left on their vehicles, "My Humps" by Black Eyed Peas, people biting their fingernails [note: I do this. And I cannot stop.], schools that don't update their faculty lists, people who think they understand the welfare state but really don't, schools that don't update when supporting application materials are received, the mainstream media, The Maury Show, recommenders who don't get stuff in on time, poor causal reasoning, and paying $.10 a page to print, things really don't annoy me all that much. Things that offend most people, I find amusing. I am even excited by people who think that the U.S. opportunity structure is totally open and we're all equal.

But something about this class just irks me and I cannot stand going. I started out this post describing the various problems I had with all of the people in my group. But, I decided that that wasn't exactly fair, as the main problem is me rather than them.

But I seriously, seriously don't want to go back. I frustrates me and makes me want to cry.

In at UC Santa Barbara

Where oh where will I go?

I feel like an idiot now (but you've already accepted me... no take-backs!)

Oh my gosh, Wisconsin sociology! Update your stupid website. At least your faculty listings. Had you done so, the statement of purpose I sent you would list faculty in the department who I am interested in working with rather than two people who are not even in your department anymore.

In fact, had you updated your website, I might have applied to USC this semester (where both of them went).

I am sure that your admissions committee, reading my statement of purpose thought I was a bit of an idiot (though not so much of one as to not admit me).

Well, it's your own fault!

Edit: I realize that, maybe, perhaps, I ought to have done a little more research on my own, but, honestly, they should have it right. If I decide that I like a person's work, I google them, and find out that they are at Wisconsin, according to the website, why should I distrust that?

To the annoying kid who insists that he makes too much money to take out any student loans and therefore the poor are eating up our tax dollars:

Yes you can. "All students, regardless of need, are eligible to apply for the unsubsidized Stafford Loan." The only requirement is that you be enrolled at least half time (which I know you are).

Overheard at Subway

I always hear interesting things while eavesdropping at sandwich shops. Hmm.

"Well, they have quotas for people of color and people of gender, don't they?"

I've always had problems with the term "person of color," because, really, do whites not have color and everyone else does? This thinking is part of the problem when white people think that they don't have race; they're just "normal." But, when you say "people of color," everyone pretty much knows what/who you mean.

But, "people of gender"? Hahaha. Because clearly only women have gender.

As funny as this is, it gets at a bigger problem in that we see sexism as only a problem for women or racism as only a problem for non-whites. If white and male are still the standard of all things, we can try to make them be nicer to women and non-whites, but no broader, systemic, institutional changes can be made and we'll continue to see inequality.

"You mean we're not all equal?"

I just got out of a class where we wandered a little bit off topic, but still, I think, in a good direction. There's something really exciting about people realizing, probably for the first time, that not all is equal in the world. Maybe because, for me, that realization was the spark that led to a change in my entire view on the world and how it works. This individual doesn't necessarily get it yet, but the first questions have been asked. "You don't think there's equal opportunity? In my high school the middle class kids went on to prestigious universities and the working- and lower-class kids didn't." These are seen as different choices rather than systematic differences in opportunities.

I don't mean to sound condescending when I say this, I really, really don't... but I find this so exciting! To see someone on the precipice of radically altering their world view by realizing a basic fact about society... this is why I want to teach sociology! It's kind of like (and not at all like) the feeling you get when someone who has never read Harry Potter (or seen the movies) reads it for the first time. If only you could be there when they find out that it's been Quirrell all along, not Snape! If only you could see their reaction when Professor Moody isn't Professor Moody at all and the Triwizard Cup is a portkey. You only get these perspective-altering experiences once, so it's exciting to see and be a part of it when other people suddenly "get it."

The Burning Bush

Is it sad that I just saw a google sponsored link on my search page called "The Burning Bush Devotional" and I clicked on it 'cause I figured it was a lefty Christian devotional talking about the Bible vs. Bush's policies rather than Moses' burning bush?

Overheard at Quiznos

Because my room is unbearably messy, I decided that if I was going to get any work done, I would have to go out to do it. Starbucks, given my current attempt to stop both caffeine and excess calories, was out. I've been going to Subway too much, recently, as I discovered that the guy who's there every day knows exactly what I want (six-inch veggie on italian herb and cheese, american cheese, toasted, lettuce, spinach, tomato, onions, bananna peppers [the most vital ingredient], oregano, and a little ranch dressing). So, Quiznos it was.

As I was sitting there reading for Social Stratification, I couldn't help but overhear random conversations.

"When you're a vegetarian, you have to make sure to get enough protein. And your poop is different."

"Jennifer must be pissed. Like, how many years were she and Brad married? Angelina is a whore. And she adopted all those babies."

"I had the worst week ever. My grandmother had a stroke, my dog ran away, and a woman I looked up to my whole life called me and told me she was a lesbian. I mean, I can never trust her again, at least not in big things, things that have to do with the Lord."

Best. sarcastic. ovation. ever.

Check out the video. Beautiful.

"Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save social security."

[applause, standing ovation--by the Dems... booing by Republicans... is this the U.K. parlaiment?]

After, you can see him trying not to smile.

Then, he creates, get this, a commission. Problem solved.

Calendar forecasting

Just to introduce you to one of my heretofore private neuroses, I am going to make public the little ritual I perform in my head at the beginning of each month.

I have lots of calendars. Well, more of them than is strictly necessary, at least. Each month, I look at the new pictures to determine what they indicate in terms of particular events or general moods/themes of a month.

Calendar-changing day is always very exciting for me, but I forgot until now (3:45am, 2/2). So here goes.

Big Harry Potter calendar:
Harry, with wand out, has a determined look on his face. There are pictures of the Dark Mark in the sky and of Fake-o Professor Moody looking vaguely sinister. Written in large font is "Dark Arts." This seems rather gloomy for February (more suited to October, actually), so I'm not taking it as a good sign. Will something bad happen? Will I get rejected from all of my schools? Will I be depressed all month?

Small Harry Potter calendar:
Hermione, with a pensive look on her face, is situated in front of Hogwarts castle. In the bottom right corner of the actual calendar, there is a little Gryffindor seal. So, Hermione, the super-brilliant one, is staring out contempatively... does this mean I will have to think about some school choices? Maybe other kinds of choices... hmm...

Big Trees poster:
Costal California redwoods stand tall and majestic. I would say that this indicates something about UCSB, but half of the pictures in there are Californian trees. Maybe the entire calendar is predicting something about my future. Either way, this calendar stands in contrast to the big HP one, projecting a decidedly hopeful picture for this month.

Jane Austen quotes calendar:
“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere...”
I need alternative plans!?!? Should I be finding a safety school to apply to? A job? What can one do with BAs in Sociology and Gender Studies? This is depressing. Hopefully I will not be subject to "little rubs and disappointments everywhere" this month. Really, what's up with the depressing Feb.?

Scottish castle calendar:
Stirling Castle. It's a pretty picture. But, from my obsession-with-Mary-Queen-of-Scots days, I remember that castle. She was born and crowned (as an infant) there. And, poor Mary, imprisoned and murdered by Elizabeth of England (her COUSIN, no less!) did not have a happy life. Can this be good?

According to a website for the castle:

During a long and bloody history Stirling Castle has been attacked or besieged at least 16 times. Three battles have been fought in its immediate vicinity, two of which were turning points in Scottish history: and a fourth equally important battle took place just a few miles to the north.

A number of Scottish Kings and Queens have been baptised, or crowned, or died within or near Stirling Castle. At least one King was murdered nearby: while another committed murder within its walls.

I'm not taking this as a good sign.

Bushisms calendar:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004. Yeah, not a clue. But, dude, we elected this guy. Doesn't say much about us, does it?

Overall February isn't looking good.

Oh, incidentally

Absolutley everything is in for all of my applications.

Wisconsin (accepted, but not nom. for fellowship)
UC-Santa Barbara (review "in progress," but sources say notification in Feb. with rejections going out earlier)
UT-Austin (application "under review")
UMass-Amherst (deadline was today, 2/1)
Indiana ("everything got here just before the committee meeting" according to the grad. secretary--there had been a mixup with another school)
Arizona ("your file is complete" and I should hear something by mid- to late-Feb.)
Northwestern (not a clue, but I sent everything)

I'm not going to last the semester

what with all the obsessive mail/email/online application checking.

Should I be worried?

So, I thought I'd email the sociology dept at UT to make sure they had everything, and, sure enough, five minutes later, I get an email back saying that "Yes, we have received everything, and your file is under review." That's great, I think to myself. Everything is set. I can relax.

Then I thought, "I should've asked him about when I might expect to hear back." Surely there's a way I can check the status of my application without being annoying? Sure enough, after a quick search through my email (I love Gmail), I found that I had a UT EID with which I could go online and check the status. I get on and it says that everything is there, but that they need another UTD transcript through Spring 2005. I sent them two. That's how many they wanted.

Right now I'm about to go mail them another. But, if the dude said everything was in and that my app is under review, is everything okay? Or should I be concerned? Is it worth emailing this guy back and saying, "well, the status check thingy says I need this..."

Word Cloud

This is kind of cool. You can make a "word cloud" that reflects the most commonly used words on your blog, with words used more often larger, etc etc. It's kind of cool.

I just had two very scary moments.

First, I wanted to check the status of my UCSB application (incidentally, no change, review is still "in progress"), so I went to the department website, where I happened to see an application to be a TA. Which I had never seen before and had never filled out. The website said that many students were supported by TAships, and I had been counting on that, but I had entirely neglected to fill out this application. Clearly, it was the end of the world. I clicked on the link, prepared to print and send it with deepest apologies, abject begging, and overnight mail, where, to my relief, I saw that the application was only for people outside of the department applying to TA sociology courses.

Then, I had just gotten an email from the grad secretary at Indiana (there had been a mix-up on my part with several of my supporting documents) confirming that all of my materials were in, and I thought I would check to see if their online application had a place for status updates (can't hurt to check). I searched through my email to find the link, but a search for "indiana application" turned up nothing. I became paranoid that I had not actually submitted an application for Indiana, just my supplementary materials, that in all the filling out of online forms and paying exorbitent application fees, I had actually completley forgotten to do Indiana's. Rationality took over; I reasoned with myself that it was impossible that I had not actually applied. Didn't the secretary just say that my file was complete and given to the committee?

Turns out, Indiana was one of the first schools I had decided to apply to, and this was before I had my gmail acccount. I had done it through my old yahoo account.

All was well with the world.

I still hate waiting, though.

Academic freedom

If you get a chance, you should check out Michael Berube's post on academic freedom. I don't have time to go too in-depth about it right now, but he talks about the idea of "bias" in the classroom. He says, for example, that the whole language of "bias," brought in by movement conservatives who criticize the media for being "liberal" is really a misnomer.

But the language of “bias” is not very well suited to the work of, say, a researcher who has spent decades investigating American drug policy or conflicts in the Middle East and who has come to conclusions that amount to more or less “liberal” critiques of current policies. Such conclusions are not “bias”; rather, they are legitimate, well-founded beliefs, and of course they should be presented—ideally, along with legitimate competing beliefs—in college classrooms.

He argues that the whole idea that there are "two sides" to every issue (I have a problem with this... sometimes "sides" are really non-scientific ideological positions, and quite often there are more than two sides) has really infiltrated our culture.

The course, which dealt with bioethics, had recently dealt with the vile history of experiments on unwitting and/or unwilling human subjects, from the Holocaust to Tuskegee, and the student wanted to know whether the “other side” would be presented as well. I hope you’re asking yourselves, what other side?—because, of course, to all reasonable and responsible researchers in the field, there is no “other side”; there is no pro-human experimentation position that needs to be introduced into classroom discussion to counteract possible liberal “bias.” We are not in the business of inviting pro-Nazi spokesmen for Joseph Mengele to our classrooms. But this is the language with which some of our students enter the classroom; it is the language of cable news and mass-media simulacra of “debate.” There is one side, and then there is the other side. That constitutes balance, and anything else is bias.

He then talks about studies showing many more liberals in academia than conservatives. He allows that this is totally true:

Many people, it seems, aren’t surprised or outraged by this at all; they expect college faculties to be full of liberals the way they expect country clubs or corporate boardrooms to be full of conservatives; it’s just the way the world is divvied up. They get the money and the power and the finely manicured golf courses, and we get the survey classes on the American novel. Personally, I don’t see why conservatives would be complaining about this arrangement. To put this another way, the day American liberalism is identified primarily with Hollywood stars and college professors is not a good day for the cause of social justice. Surely, movement conservatives know this every bit as well as I do.

The problem is that the stats that are used to support this (by people like Horowitz) tend to exaggerate and cherry pick their statistics. After all, "the data are tastier when the data are cooked." To take a "sample" of college professors, but take none from the engineering, medical, business, or law schools, or from any of the hard sciences, and find that there are substantially more liberals than conservatives is hardly surprising. Of course people in women's studies, anthropology, political science, and sociology are more liberal. But those are hardly reflections of an entire faculty.

Anyway, sorry for the quote-fest, but I thought it was a good post and I'm too lazy/busy to do anything substantive on my own about the topic.

In at Wisconsin

But not nominated for a University Fellowship.

Which means chances for funding=bad.

Wasn't my top choice anyway.

Still feels like a rejection.

Sorry! and rant

Obviously I haven't updated in a while. California was great. The reason I'm posting now, however, is not due to guilt felt over ignoring you for so long. I'm kind of pissed off.

Okay, so Osama bin Laden released a tape the other day, no? This is uncomfortable news for Bush supporters particularly because it highlights the fact that we're, um, more than four years out from September 11, and this guy is still out there, alive, and threatening the U.S.

So, what does the mainstream media do? Avert the issue!

This is not about our failure to catch bin Laden, not about the continual threat that he and his organization pose the world. No, this story is about how, clearly, bin Laden is in league with... wait for it... Democrats!

Not just Chris Matthews, but many others have compared bin Laden to Michael Moore and other Dems.

From the Dauo Report:

"Bin Laden sounds like Clint Eastwood" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Ron Silver" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Rush Limbaugh" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bill O'Reilly"-- "Bin Laden sounds like Mel Gibson" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bruce Willis" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Michelle Malkin"... Imagine the outrage on the right and in the press (but I repeat myself) if a major media figure spat out those words. Well, on Hardball, Chris Matthews just blurted out that Bin Laden sounds like Michael Moore. Simple: Matthews should apologize. On the air. This has NOTHING to do with Michael Moore and everything to do with how far media figures can go slandering the left.

Voila! Suddenly the story is not about the failure of this administration to deal with a powerful threat to our national security. Media Magic!

Going to California!

But not quite yet.

Tomorrow I have (another) meeting with an advisor. Who, inevitably, will not know what to do with the whole double degree thing. *sigh*

I will not be mailing my 1/15 deadline grad application supplementary materials tomorrow, either. There are a few reasons for this. I have not printed everything out because by the time I got around to going to the library, they were closed (I know! It's crazy!). I still kind of need to finish cutting my statement of purpose down for two schools and I need to shorten my writing sample for a third who limits to 20 pages. But, all of these could have been done (I would have found ways to print, etc) were it not for the fact that the letters that recommender #2 said would be left with the department secretary, were, um, not. They needed to be sent in the packet with the other materials. So, I'm going to hold off sending until Friday a week from now (when I get back from CA). That's the 13th. I'll overnight them. Bleh. Like $13 a piece. Rec #3 owes me.

On the good side, my UCSB app is complete. They still hadn't received #2's letter, but I emailed her and she faxed it right over, so all is right in the world. At least in Santa Barbara, CA (where I will be 24 hours from now!), Evanston, IL, and Madison, WI. My applications are complete for those schools.

Tomorrow, before I leave, I have to go buy a hairbrush. I can't forget that. And bring writing samples to try to cut down/find another on the plane/waiting at the airport.

Oh, and I have a job interview tomorrow. Wish me luck! I am totally going to need this CA trip by the time it gets here (approx. 8.14pm).

You can call us Aaron Burr from the way we're droppin' Hamiltons

If you have not seen this video, you have to. Seriously.