Free Education

Among the stranger things I've seen while stationed at the Reception desk of the library - a student protest for free education just passed by the steps. I'm not sure if they are intending to take their protest elsewhere - they're on their way now. There were about 50 of them - hopefully they will collect stronger numbers before appearing in front of the administration.

Free education. I'd be more interested (in a selfish way) if they could work in a grandfather clause so's I could get back my tuition...

But in a universal scheme - yes, free education would be nice. Even dropping tuition fees would be a gesture in the right direction. I don't know which is worse: students who demand grades reflecting the financial investment rather than any intellectual investment in their work, or students who don't care cause it was all free. But I've just had a dreadful two hours trying to get my students to ask questions and discuss the material we've supposedly been learning for 10 weeks... So I'm possibly not in a very positive frame of mind!

Which also makes me too tired to ponder for long.

Excessive laziness

I stole this meme from my friend's Facebook page...yes, that is just how lazy I am today. But I like answering questions about myself - hell, I think that might be a species-wide quality.

1. What is your natural hair colour? Brown

2. Where was your profile picture taken? This one doesn't make sense away from Facebook - What's your favourite picture of yourself? One of Nas and I taken on our wedding day - it's a candid snap and we're both laughing.

3. What's your middle name? Andrea

4. Your current relationship status? Married

5. Honestly, does your crush like you back? Um...unlikely...but I'll hold out hope on the basis that Mr Tennant's filming schedule keeps him pretty busy and we haven't actually met yet...

6. What is your current mood? Lazy

7. What color underwear are you wearing? Y'know, I wonder why all memes have something completely ridiculous in them? Let's change this one: What can you hear right now? The washing machine, the telly, and one of my cats chirping at her toys.

8. What is one thing that makes you happy? My cats.

9. Whats The Last Thing You Bought? Must be important, as all the words get a capital letter...12 tomatoes, 4 bananas, 6 eggs, 2 pints of milk...oh and some chocolate digestives.

10. If you could go back in time, and change something what would it be? Hmm...I'm too lazy to think of anything that might mean I'm not exactly where I am right now...

11. If you MUST be an animal for ONE day- what would you be? A house cat - specifically MY house cat...I don't know what they were in past lives but that is some powerful-good karma.

12. Ever had a near death experience? Likely, but you never hear the one that hits you.

13. Something you do a lot? Talk

14. What's the name of the song stuck in your head right now? honestly...damn; the Kingsmill bread jingle from telly...

15. Who did you copy and paste this from? An old friend from uni in Canada.

16. Name someone with the same birthday as you? Boring. I do know that the Diet of Worms ended with the Edict of Worms on my birthday in 1521; and that John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching evolution 52 years before I was born (1925); the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup for the first time on my birthday in 1989. And just to satisfy the question, I share my birthday with Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Beverley Sills. It's also the holy day of Saint Urban, Saint Bede, and Saint Augustine of Canterbury.

17. When was the last time you cried? I did get a bit choked up in last night's episode of Pushing Daisies.

18. Have you ever sung in front of a large audience? Yes.

19. If you could have one super power what would it be? I always go for flying here...yea - yea I'll stick with flying.

20. What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Depends why I'm looking at them.

21. What do you usually order from Starbucks? I don't.

22. What’s your biggest secret? Idiotic. Who makes up these things? Change it again: How do you feel about secrets? Not a big fan really. They bore me.

23. What's your favorite color? I don't have one - but I like a warm palette

24. When was the last time you lied? Last seminar I taught - I always say that I'm really excited and interested in whatever text we're studying, regardless of my actual loathing... Funny thing though, by the end of the seminar, my students' interest gets to me and I come away actually being pretty into it...

25. Do you still watch kiddy movies or TV shows? ALL THE TIME - repeatedly. I plan to watch Powerpuff Girls later this afternoon.

26. WHAT HAPPENED TO 26? Got married, moved to England, started PhD.

27. What are you eating or drinking at the moment? See above - Tetley's tea and a hobnob.

28. Do you speak any other language? I speak Academic as well as Teacher. I can understand Lancashire and Yorkshire - and depending on who I'm talking to, apparently I do speak another language. And yes, I speak enough Quebecois to order a beer, ask for the bathroom, and get back to my hotel in Montreal.

29. What's your favorite smell? Too many - a sampling: mown grass, the garden, roasting veg, coffee, the house I grew up in, my grandparent's house, fresh sawdust, Algonquin park...

30. If you could describe life in one word what would it be? If I could describe life in one word, I would be very sad indeed.

31. When was the last time you gave/received a hug? I just aggressively cuddled Logan...

32. Have you ever been kissed in the rain? I suppose.

33. What are you thinking about right now? How trivial it is whether or not I've ever been kissed in the rain! And now how long that has occupied my mind...

34. What should you be doing? Re-reading the novel I have to teach this week; working on my conference paper, working on my job applications.

35. What was the last thing that made you upset? 'Upset' like hysterical? I don't get upset - I was mildly annoyed on Saturday night because we had a lovely time out with friends, disrupted only by the presence of one of the rudest and most tactless cocks I've ever met.

37. Do you like working in the yard? Yes and wish the weather would improve so as to spend more time there.

38. If you could have any last name in the world, what would you want? Something Dickensian... or Peakean (from Mervyn Peake).

39. Name 5 things in your closet: No closets in our current place - in my wardrobe: shoes, handbags, clothes, gardening jeans, coats.

40. Do you act different around your crush? I do occasionally get a bit over-excited during Doctor Who...and was willing to forgive his less than stellar performance in Bright Young Things.

exorcising fear

So I saw The Exorcist on the weekend.

Perhaps it was the sheer amount of food - mostly meat - that I consumed before watching; or perhaps the company while watching; or maybe I'm just mature enough to handle it - but it wasn't very scary. Perhaps it would have been more frightening if I had been expecting something less terrifying than more - or something completely different (as when I watched Dogville, expecting a rather silly gangster flick...). Okay, some of the images are disturbing - mostly cause Linda Blair is just so angelic looking in the opening scenes. Maybe its the fairly horrendous 70s fashion Ellen Burnstyn sports - or the questionable 'attractiveness' of the men - or just the truly surreal opening scenes set in Iraq.

It's just that the extreme campiness and over-determined sequences are a bit hard to take - at least from the perspective of this weary and desensitised viewer and critic of Gothic horrors. I only stayed awake and jumping at shadows for ONE night. Ha! Se7en kept me up for weeks. Is it just the sheer novelty of the film for its time that made it so terrifying? It is, after all, one of the most popular and highly-grossing horror movies of all time - its earnings, according to Wikipedia (take as you will), $400 million worldwide. It was up for 10 Academy Awards (take that as you will as well) and won 2 (Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay) and lost the Best Picture award to The Sting. Apparently, Jon Landau of Rolling Stone called it 'nothing more than a religious porn film'.

It does rather feel empty of plot - just a voyeuristic journey into the weirdness of Catholic rituals and rites (which even the learned Father Karras distances from the modern operation of the Catholic Church) - there is no reason why Regan MacNeil is possessed and the devil doesn't really seem to have a plan. The horrific medical tests are more disturbing than the exorcism - though the priests do rather casually burn Regan-as-the-devil with holy water and the like. It's kinda like the final lines of Judas's show-stopping number in Jesus Christ Superstar: 'If you'd [Jesus] have come today, you would have reached a whole nation/Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication'. If it is the DEVIL - why appear in the body of a 12-year old girl? Shock value alone? Darryl Jones suggests that The Exorcist be understood as part of a trilogy of 'Satan' films, appearing between Rosemary's Baby and The Omen. As a question of adaptability, Satan clearly comes to grips quickly with the details of privilege in 1970s America: by The Omen, Damien (the Antichrist) ends up as no less than the president's (surrogate) son. I suppose I'd also agree with his reading of the film as a discussion of the corruption of the flesh discourse in Catholicism - the devil really goes to town for that one soul, threatening to stay until Regan's body rots (which it clearly begins to do throughout her possession) in the ground. And little wonder that the body contested is a young woman. I like the (albeit) overdetermined scene in which Regan writes 'help me' on her own body from the inside. It's tortured but certainly evocative of life in a teenaged body.

Maybe I'm dismissing the things that are actually quite important if I twist them around and look at them awry.

So Regan is 12-going-on-13 - from Chris's (her mother's) perspective, she is a potentially terrifying little bundle of possibility. The picture Regan is looking at in bed is herself with her mother - which her mother dismisses as not a very good picture, saying that Regan looks 'so mature'. The lack of plot? Well, it is the DEVIL - maybe he doesn't really go by this self-justification rationale for showing up. Maybe a 12 year old girl is a really good place to be - perhaps, given the potentials unleashed by the popular uprisings of 1968, a young girl (particularly, notice, without a father) raised by a stong single woman was something to be feared: she might grow up to be a feminist. (gasp!) The ending, with the self-sacrifice of Father Karras, is interesting - Angelheart makes it more explicit, with the flash of green energy in the beautiful baby's eyes - but Regan's innocent unknowing is more interesting. Has she really forgotten? And how then, exactly, did mommydearest explain the abrasions and lacerations on her body (bruises still visible in the last shot as they drive away).

I also do have to wonder how Burnstyn's character managed to stay in the house with Regan-as-the-devil... I mean, wow, ovaries of steel, that one has!

The long and short of it, it isn't scary - its actually pretty funny. But I can see how it is such an iconic film. And I'm glad I saw it.

Next, The Car. With steaks. Really rare steaks.

Migration

Maybe it's the flocks of birds returning with the spring but immigration has been in the news (read: The Guardian) quite a bit these days. I thought this was an interesting article - in that kind of snapshot way of reporting that purports to make no judgements on the information. But nonetheless, it is intriguing. I guess I am an immigrant right now. Huh. But I've never been referred to - or had cause to refer to myself as - an immigrant in this country. And I noticed that the people interviewed mostly fit the traditional, narrow construction of immigrant - though I'm interested in the comments from the Irish and Australian women. Whenever I think of immigration or even the university's apparent understanding of 'international' I remember a strange fellow I encountered while working at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. He was American, but without identification of any sort, so we directed him to Canadian immigration. Outraged, he pointed at the substantial queue outside the immigration office - made up that particular day of an extended family immigrating from India and another from Mexico - and insisted that he wasn't from 'another country'. Upon our patient explanation that the United States was, in fact, 'another country', he became more hysterical (wearing I should add a powder-blue leisure suit) and with the air of speaking to a very young child, said that 'well, he wasn't from another country like they (pointing at the queue) were from another country'.

Huh.

The sunshine has returned - albeit only in brief moments that ensure I am perpetually grateful for it. Running has returned as a firm part of my schedule. Teaching is nearly back for the final three weeks of term. May is very nearly upon us and I will then have cause to reflect on another year. Things keep moving and shifting and changing and I don't feel that I'm 'on top' of everything - nor to I feel dragged under; I just feel like going with the flow.

new things

We've had a 'new' week - new shoes, new flat, new bed-linens ... it's nice on the soul, if a bit painful on the paycheque! But at least I can say that nothing was an impulse buy and everything was needed - and kinda overdue. I still have buyer's remorse though - which is ridiculous. It's clearly the result of conflict between my excessively practical side and my fluttery spending side.

But I did need new shoes - my good old black boots haven't quite given up the ghost but they can't be my daily wear anymore. The seam broke on the leather so I've taken them to be restitched - again. The woman at the counter recognized me and my poor old boots. But they are comfy and otherwise okay, so I'll give them one more life: resoled, re-stitched, and cleaned up. And I bought a pair of shoes; I usually (always) wear boots but it's summer (well, will be someday) and they have rainbow stitching so I was hooked.

AND we found a new flat for July - which is so exciting that neither of us really want to stay in this place anymore... we always do that though: when we moved from our old place to here it was the same. But this new place is far far nicer. It's a lovely 2 bedroom flat with no carpets and closets - no stupid, space-wasting wardrobes - closets. And it is on an upper floor, has windows on two sides, has no smell of mold or damp, no spots on the walls... it is perfect. And has the added comedy value of the cats skidding around on the floors when they play!

Just to finish off the week as well we finally bought some new duvet covers - the cheapest we could find (yea...Ikea...which means that our bedroom now looks like everyone else's) but they are bright and colourful. They feel spring-y. And our last sheets were ready for the rubbish bin.

And still a week off of teaching - Easter break is four weeks - which works well in this instance as I still haven't finished marking...

March weekends

I'll withhold judgement on whether March is going out lion- or lamb-like. The 'earliest Easter since 1913' kinda threw me - I always use Easter as a first weekend of spring kind of date. Not so this year. On the Saturday of the long (yea!) weekend, we went up to the allotment to dig and were blown home by snow, sleet, and a bitterly cold wind. It being Yorkshire, of course, by the time we got five minutes from the allotment, the weather had changed to sunshine that was very nearly warm, so we sat outside and had a pint or two instead.

The library is dead these days - Easter break for my students is four weeks long. I've got next week off, which will be so lovely and undoubtedly entirely productive. That's the plan anyway. Plans plans plans - such a spring thing.

erratum

My mistake - the 'article' is actually an excerpt from a book about organized crime worldwide - McMafia, I believe is the trendy title...

heart-breakers and life-takers

At least it isn't the perenially adorable and always vulnerable harp seal pups this time - no Sir this-an-that to wax on about the barbaric disruption to nature by a bunch of barely civilized, provincial hacks - but my homeland 'strong-and-free' is in the Guardian again. And I kinda like how it's still stuck on some time-honoured phraseology of Canada - 'The Dope Rush'; all we need is a modern day Robert Service and a memorable poem or two about 'The Cremation of Dan the Dope-head' or the 'Ballad of the Border Guard' and were right back in those halycon days of yore.

Ah - "nice, peaceful, dull Canada" - excuse me while I get my true north rage on.

On second thought, never mind. I'm tired, at work, and there is too much pap in this article to be particularly bothered about it. In passing, I'm particularly interested in the depiction of British Columbia as populated entirely by loggers - I'm assuming that, for this reporter, these are the 'ordinary folk of western Canada'. Apparently, they talk little, are good with their hands, and fall naturally from felling trees to organized crime.

I've got to find another daily...

Sci-Fi Chic(k)

Is there a badge or possibly t-shirt out there with the text 'Original Nerd' on it? Cause I want one - just to establish my cred in this new world of 'geek is the new black' [on a side note, I'm intrigued by the seeming interchangeability of 'nerd', 'geek', 'dork' - given their original denotative functions - I don't really see that many Babylon 5 fans biting the heads off of chickens for example...]. I remember when John Wyndham's The Chrysalids was standard reading for the grade 10 curriculum (is it still?) - not to mention short stories by Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury - and they weren't taught as 'genre fiction', but in the same breath as 'quality' writing by Margaret Atwood, Sinclair Ross, and Hugh MacLennan. So it seemed natural to me to follow my interests and, being the inquisitive mind I am, I went ahead and read not only Fahrenheit 451 but also Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine; 'The Electric Ant' was followed quite naturally in my world with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and 'Through a Scanner Darkly'. I liked Greek myths, and Ojibway Nanabush stories, and watched The Last Unicorn until I knew every line - and that didn't go away with adolescence or even adulthood. Maybe my preference for playing alone and fairly uncontrolled imagination (which still leaves me often at the mercy of electric light and sound in the wee dark hours after watching, say, The X-Files or Watcher in the Woods...) made me comfortable with looking awry at the world and quite sure that it was looking awry at me in return.

Of course, sci-fi isn't only the new black, it's the new green: we just saw the premiere of the new Bionic Woman - which is hot on the heels of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Heroes. Star Trek and its increasingly nauseating spin-offs have always been there; Battlestar Gallactica, Buck Rogers, Knight Rider, Quantum Leap, The Six-Million Dollar Man, Lost in Space, Stargate, Life on Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, The Hulk, Lois and Clark, Smallville, Roswell, Kyle XY, Jericho, Xena, Hercules, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The X-Files... However critics cut it, dissect it, rip it to pieces for being 'escapist', 'ephemeral', 'popular' - it appeals and it sells and it' s just damn slick and cool while doing so. It is reductive and, indeed, escapist in itself to maintain the critical perspective that genre writing (and I know I'm discussing television pretty much exclusively here) somehow doesn't matter - that it is junk, cultural trash; pointless at best, actually harmful at worst. It's popularity and disposability (though DVD culture has interferred significantly with television as an ephemeral experience) do not impact on its truthiness (I've always wanted to use that word) - to paraphrase Foucault, just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not true; I would trust a genre that calls attention to its illusion and disjunction more than one which pretends to 'realism' without ever admitting to a fascistic agenda. Which is not to say that sci-fi or fantasy cannot be put to nefarious use - it's still (and perhaps poetry is ahead of it in this sense - though I use ahead cautiously) written by us and we are still nefarious critters - or at least, unknown and unknowable in a way that I sometimes think is glossed over by transparent cinema and writing.

['Nefarious', in passing, is a beautiful word for a negative (?) quality - like malevolent - I always liked Mellificent just on her name alone.]

I'm also currently fascinated by the gender debates in which shows like (at the moment, tho there are older examples) The Bionic Woman and The Sarah Connor Chronicles are participating. Nas pointed out that the 'evolution' of the terminator for example seems to be from the Mr. Universe-buff Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator to the apparently diminutive, slight, but leathally capable Summer Glau in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I still have to read Donna Haraway, I confess, but I'm intrigued by the invigorated femininity of the cyborg in current media - in a world of either machines or magic, strength, to paraphrase Morpheus, has nothing to do with size - do we still think that's air we're breathing?

So this is my badge: this ain't no bandwagon I'm jumping on here - I've got the cherry seat by the window in the back. I am the one you have to pass to use the loo, I know more than you do, and I've been here longer. So entertain me - don't make the mistake of underestimating me.

weather maps

I'm not sure where Leeds is in a whole mystical cartography - but it must be blessed somehow with being just beyond the reach of earthquakes, storms, floods, high winds ... perhaps that is why it never shows up on the BBC telly weather maps, which always seem to take perverse pleasure in showing York, Sheffield, Wakefield, Huddersfield but not Leeds, forcing us Leodeans to approximate the weather (not difficult - it'll likely be wet, best take a cardy and carry a brolly). We don't have any stone circles near us - that I'm aware of - indeed, if there is a candidate for a more prosaic, earth-bound spot in the whole of the UK, I'd like to see it.

lockdown

So Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, claims that the great benefit of ID cards is that people's identities would be 'locked to them'. Is that the ideal? People 'locked' into their identity? And it does beg the question - in my mind at least - what exactly is the identity that Smith feels people are so vulnerable in that need - nay, desire - to be 'locked' into? It is an interesting formulatio nof idenity as as bounded, limited space; something that can be locked: a closet, a box, a room - something, first and foremost, that can belong to one person and must be guarded from invasive fraudsters that would steal it (the 'lock' metaphor does connote the idea of value and thus the desireability of the thing to theives - the curious crime referred to glibbly as 'identity theft').

I've been discussing the concept of the sublime with two of my seminar groups this morning - and I, at least, have a ponderous headache (that is, caused by pondering). They tackled Shelley's Mont Blanc very well and I hope that I didn't add chaos to confusion. I was let down in my pedagogy today by the perverse machines - my friend who studies J.G. Ballard complimented me on the phrase - in the PG common room which refused to open the lovely and genius handout I had made for my seminars summarising the key points and terms of Longinus, Burke, Kant and Wordsworth. They were generous enough to look sincerely hopeful and interested when I promised to email it to them instead - bless ... I'm the doddering old prof already.

Completely lateral references today in seminar: BtVS (1), Star Trek (1), Minority Report (1) - to be fair, the last one came from a student first, I just ran with it...

Calling

I get it - or at least, I get it right now and I'll try to hang on to it for awhile - or I'll re-read this post occasionally: I get why I like teaching. I wrote a reference for a student back in January applying to law school. He was a very good student - quick to respond, willing to engage, and a nice cynicism and critical edge. How true is it that teachers respond best to students that remind them of themselves? Or at least, students that remind them of how they wished they could remember themselves. The point being, he just came up to me at work and told me he got two place offers!

I know I have little to nothing to do with his success - my reference certainly didn't make or break his application - but I'm so strangely proud! Not 'strangely' because I think I shouldn't be proud - but 'strangely' because I usually don't see my students after the last seminar. The way that teaching tends to work here I get them for one semester and might see them in the library thereafter. But I rarely notice when they graduate, and don't know them much beyond the faces they present in my classroom/consultation hour. This was the first reference I've written - the first student who has really sought my assistance after leaving my seminar behind. Maybe it's also cause the sun is shining and it was just a nice thing to hear - a bonus on an already alright day.

And I suppose it makes me aware - fleetingly - of how generous students can be - which is really a positive spin on how draining they can also be. It should be a privilege to teach and it is discouraging and depressing how rarely that is seen as the case. Equally, of course, it should be a privilege to learn - but that's not often in evidence either.

In short, I am really proud of my student who got into law school and I definitely plan on saying, when he is a famous lawyer (human rights or environmental preferably!), that I used to teach him back in the day ...

Lions and lambs

So I can't access my Facebook account right now - site maintenance - and ... um ... it's actually making me kinda anxious -- which in turn is making me kinda anxious about my mental stability. I'm mostly joking - mostly. It reminds me of being back at Queen's and using that ancient email system - I think it was run from the DOS shell - it regularly crashed and I couldn't check my emails which were rapidly becoming the only way to communicate - it was free and most everything else, as my tender young self was beginning to realise, was not.

I've just had a kind of memory flash: I am walking beside the Stauffer library towards the entrance (Stauffer's tomb), and the JDUC is on my left. It must be early spring - later than now - because the sun is shining and I can smell lunch from the Skylight cafeteria. I can picture perfectly the entrance foyer at Stauffer - granite and rich, red wood and steel - there are six email PCs to the right and always a queue for them. It's funny but I've never considered that there was no 'PC suite' in the library - and only about 6 catalogue/email PCs per floor. I loved spring in Kingston.

As I do here - English springs come early - there is an apple tree on the grounds of the mosque next to us already in bloom; crocuses and daffodils are up in Hyde Park. I can't tell if March came in like a lion or a lamb though - last night was a most terrific storm with lashing rain and gusts so strong that walking was like swimming against the current of a river in full spate. The sound of the wind in the trees in Hyde Park was almost deafening - I love that sound. This morning, however, the sun was shining, the air is mild - and I'm waiting for the change. This is Yorkshire; if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes - if you do like the weather, don't get comfy - and always pack yer brolly.

Luckily we spent the evening listening to the rain and wind while snug and warm, discussing garden plans with our fellow allotment-holders - nothing better for waiting out a storm.

work in progress

I know - another Guardian-inspired blog ... but I just couldn't help it! This is one of the greatest headlines I've ever seen:
The world is still organised to meet the wishes of men.

Um ... really? This does fit up there with 'binge drinking causes hangovers' and 'London not centre of universe as previously imagined'. No - seriously - REALLY? Huh. Gee, Guardian, just because you don't have a page 3 girl, did you think that balanced the scales?

I remain, world, as ever, your bewildered and adoring child.

how not to get in shape

1. Live in Leeds in February.

2. Look out window every morning and see: a) rain b) frozen fog c) regular fog d) have your eyes frozen shut and be frozen into the bed.

Okay, I can only come up with two things that don't point immediately to just being a lazy cow. But we did get back out there this morning and I already feel morally and physically superior to everyone who didn't. Especially the students we passed while running still clearly wearing their tribal gear from the night before - and/or clutching that last beer smuggled - ever the very crust of class - from the pub at closing time. Is this how Conservatives start? Is running a gate-way drug to right-leaning sanctimoniousness?

Hmm...well, possible feelings of moral and ethical superiority aside, it's more about not being the fat one at the wedding this summer! Ah it all comes down to fashion ... how shallow. Hey, the unexamined life isn't worth living, but the over-examined life -- well, that's just not living. It's all in the balance. And balance, as I just remarked this morning, is not my forte.

Tottenham is in the Carling Cup tomorrow. We're playing Chelsea but hey, "any given Sunday", right?

the white stuff

Woke up this morning to a snow-covered, rather urban idyll outside. It's mostly gone now but when I left for campus, the ground and the air were the same white. I like mornings like that - it's like pathetic fallacy: I feel like the whole outside world is coforming to the sticky, gauzy inside world of me before noon. Maybe it's the other way round - but it's Tuesday so I'll go with monomania. It's less stressful early in the week to believe I am the centre of everything. Doubt can seep in by Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday evening I'm awash with anxiety. But Tuesdays I shall keep holy for feeling on top of things - if only my little mole-hill.

It was another weekend of foodie-heaven: two meals, both unbelievably delicious and bringing together food, philosophy, laughter and the very best company. We had always heard longing, whispered tales of our friend's fried chicken - they didn't half do it justice. The trouble (or screaming bonus) with good food - good from living to killing to dressing to eating - is that it makes me keenly aware of the complete and utter scam played on diners by 95% of the food service industry. And, btw, that goes for vegetarian options as well - indeed, vegetarian 'alternatives' are generally the worst value-for-money on a menu. Luckily, Nas and I are surrounded by friends who are just as interested in (slightly manic about?) good food as we are - and, even better, are wonderful hosts of particularly discerning tables. I think often of Joseph Johnson's table in the 1790s, presided over by Fuseli's 'The Nightmare' hanging over the fire, and attended by the likes of John Thelwall, William Godwin, and Mary Wolstonecraft. We're that kind of smart. And pretty.


Does the world need my thoughts on eating meat? Not likely. I'm intrigued by the general discussions on the topic that I see and hear around me. Mostly I'm annoyed at the general assumption that someone who eats meat has done so without thought. I get stuck round this one - I agree in principle that the unexamined life is not worth living but gosh, what a pompous statement that is in some respects. And I'm justly (I think) irritated when anyone assumes that a choice that I make is not a choice but a habit. This is not to suggest that discussion cannot follow - I should be willing to defend my choices and to change my mind. That is, live a life constantly under examination.

That got away from me.

I've just bumped into a friend passing through the library who told me the most interesting thing of my day: the 'snow' this morning was not, indeed, the white stuff, but frozen fog. How bloody cool is that??

putting things in order

I have just finished clearing out old paperwork. There is nothing so depressing a old forms, notices, slips, receipts, letters, cards ... they create such a lot of MESS. Last year I had the bright idea of buying a hanging file-folder - as with most objects we buy to put what we already own in, it rapidly filled up and, by hiding what we already had, allowed us to accumulate more. Dastardly. It is those moments when - to paraphrase a childhood heroine - I am convinced of the depravity of inanimate objects. Our bank here insists on sending us a veritable novel each month - not just one, but one for each bloody account. Regardless of the fact that usually there is absolutely minimal movement from the accounts, each is detailed over a minimum of three pages. Over a year, that amounts to -- well, a whole bag of paper that has to be dragged to the office to go into the incinerator cause they've thoughtfully put my account number, sort code, and name on each piece. Then I remind myself that this is the same bank that sends out activated debit and credit cards - as our good friend discovered to her disadvantage. Honestly.

But the point is - it's all gone. Or at least displaced. Or deferred. Anyway, the box feels like a sanctified, organized space. Why on earth does clearing rubbish and achieving some small measure of order provide such psychological balm?

We're going for dinner at our good friends' place tonight - it occurs to me that I tend to refer to everyone I blog about as a 'good' friend. It's either a redundant phrase or a pleonasm. Anyone I think of as a friend is 'good' by definition. I mean, I can't really see my self describing someone a a 'so-so' friend. But then describing someone as an acquaintance sounds odd and 'colleague' sounds ridiculous outside of a professional context. But then, I don't consider the people I work with at the library 'colleagues' - likely, cause it's not my profession. And qualifying friends as 'work friends' just fragments my life too much. Then I have to start keeping columns and worrying about boundaries. I remember a friend back home saying jokingly, the first or second time I called to arrange to have a drink, that we were now 'phone buddies'. But were I to go out to the pub with the whole gang, there would be acquaintances and friends there - but I would relate the evening as a night out with friends, and include people I didn't know as well in that. I suppose because of shared space in both a physical and psychological/emotional space. I've just been reading about Judith Butler on kinship/family and remembering my own research into 18th century constructions of the term (via Naomi Tadmor and Ruth Perry and Jane Spencer) - and considering all that in terms of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, sorry for the digression....!

Dinner yes - to celebrate strange vegetables and our shared passion for cookbooks and food. I have a lovely collection of veg: squash, beetroot, rocket - and damn, just realised I'm out of cornmeal for the polenta I had invisaged. Back to shop.

Oh yes, and I have the OFFICIAL LETTER - I'm officially now Dr Kaley Kramer (PhD - Leeds). Damn ham. That sounds nice.

food blogging ...

I nearly forgot that last weekend was so great - and it's already this weekend. It makes me reflect, y'know, on the passing of time and, like, how it's so ... um ... fast ... Yea. That's it. Or something like.

The weeks are a bit packed - and I meant to post about last weekend but Monday got eaten up by Tuesday and so forth. So I find myself at Friday again, on the cusp of another weekend, having passed unreflectingly through five whole days.

Last weekend I finally had lunch at Anthony's - a gustatory ambition from a-way back. And it really did live up - for the most part. It was a celebratory lunch: the end of a promise between a good friend and I to treat ourselves if we ever finished the PhD. I had pork belly - it's my new thing - I had it in London at Bistroteque as well. For starters, we both had cauliflower veloute with Wensleydale and hazelnut oil. To be completely honest, it was caulifrower cheese redux. But hey, my usual dictum when dining out is to eat things that I wouldn't/couldn't make at home. Pretty much anything on Anthony's menus fulfill that! The pork belly was lean and the crackling crackling. To be honest, the crackling could have been improved - I'm not sure how - but then surely that is why I pay them the largish amounts of money for: to figure these things out. Wonderful stuff, crackling - but difficult, particularly in a formal setting, to eat without getting down-home about it all and using fingers and teeth. And I could have done with more than a smear of the lovely pureed sweet potato - though on a side-note pureeing is a bit naff in general. I mean, I have teeth. But hey, they are (as mentioned) clearly doing something right as I was willing to part with my (very very very) hard earned moneys ... Dessert: raspberry and basil sorbet - amazing. And, properly, left me wanting more but very pleasantly full. Ooh and we did splash on the wine: a deeeelightful and deeeeelucious chablis ...

But food bereft of company is a cold meal indeed - and the company was exactly the sort such a meal needed to keep it from being overly-formal and uncomfortably stuffy.

Then, that very night, we went over to our good friends' for food and cards (oh, and more wine!) ... And Sunday, with the help of new allotment mates, we got started on the garden - pictures will follow!

I'm pretty sure I had more to say. And it all sounded much more exciting in my head than written out like this ... Huh.

Sexy things

I am hungry and tired; not good things to be when dealing with THE PUBLIC.


I worked on my (very first!) lecture for two hours this morning. I'm not sure about it - I've never used PowerPoint and I can see how the temptation to but too much information up is there. I think I may already have seccumbed actually ... But it's all so fascinating. I need a snappier title; right now, I've just got: Revolution and Reaction: Treason and Plot in the 1790s - which is to-the-point but not very sexy at all. Perhaps I should replace some of the text with pictures? Maybe some maps. Maps are pretty and sexy - with all there 'ooh come and explore me' manner. It's a thought.


And Torchwood to look forward to tonight - it's like a massive train-wreck of a show: I just cannot look away regardless of how cringe-worthy it becomes. What will become of Cap'n Jack and his band of wandering supernatural vigilantes? Well, thankfully (or specifically, thanks to The Guardian's 'What to watch' section - nanny state! Ha!), I don't have to leave you in suspense, even if you live far far away and have to wait to watch:


Torchwood 9pm, BBC2

"Amid the snarling, shouting and awful, contrived sexual tension between Captain Pratt and the team, there's an interesting idea here - the consequences of leading a double life. Gwen, the moral centre of the show, considers said issue when her nice-but-dim boyfriend, Rhys, apparently one of the few Cardiff residents unaware of Torchwood's existence, discovers she's a member of the world's least secret top-secret organisation. That a giant telepathic alien manatee is involved should by no means discourage viewing."


I, for one, am not discouraged. I welcome such diversion after the intellectually draining day of trying to divine what library patrons actually want from out their garbled expressions of desire - or, even more fun, their sullen silence. If you aren't sure where you sit with the crazy Torchwood team and their time-hopping, alien-seducing behaviour - this review of a season 2 episode made me want to keep watching ...

Sundays are for rest

You would never think that Logan is covered, as most cats are, in fur: as soon as it gets the teeniest bit cold in the house, he parks his fur-covered self under the radiator in the bathroom and stays there the entire day. Nas put a bathmat there a couple days ago - Logan, as far as I can tell, will soon be demanding his meals upstairs. Laila, on the other hand, clearly has some residual memories of living outside and is much more properly gracious to her humans for her timely delivery from the elements. Thus, she prefers to be no fewer than three feet from one of us (preferably both) at any given time. Except her naps - though she does tend to wake up and come running down the stairs to check that someone is still around.

I'm baking bread this afternoon and putting off the last of my first batch of marking. For the record, I'm also currently procrastinating on finishing my 'supporting statement' for job applications, researching for an article due in April, turning my thesis into articles, reading for tomorrow's seminar on Romanticism, the laundry, and ... um ... dinner. In the success column for today, however, we have: slept in with minimal guilt resulting, ate cake for breakfast without increasing guilt, washed dishes including pots and cutlery, thought seriously about attack-strategy for CV while washing dishes, and caught up with news (okay, on FB ... but still ...). Oh I also looked outside and got so annoyed with the greyness that I spent about half an hour searching the interwebs for a cheap flight out of here. For the record, I need to update my understanding of 'cheap' when considering 'international travel'.

There is a massive difference, I've discovered, between teaching 8 students and teaching 30. I can see how that observation ranks up there with finally understanding the difference between swimming in a pool and swimming in a lake - and I mean a black water kind of lake. I guess my seminars at Queen's were nearing 30 students, but the best ones only had about 13-17. Or do I only remember 17 people? How horrible. I'm sure the very best seminar ever only had about 12-13 of us. Every seminar I teach is an attempt to recapture Dr Pat Rae's 1997/8 Modernism seminar at Queen's University. Runner up is Dr Asha Varadharajan's post-modern North America seminar (must have been 1997/8 as well) - but less for the overall experience than her teaching, which I loved. And, of course, I was spoiled (and ignorant of the privilege at the time) in taking American lit from Prof. Jed Rasula. But I think it is a good thing that I haven't managed to come near those experiences of superior pedagogues: I've only been teaching for three years. Surely it would be a very bad sign to hit my apex three years into my career! Anyway, I've been assured that I'll never have all 30 show up again - which is a strange consolation.

But I've put off everything long enough for today ... and I'm hungry.

man is, in fact, an island

Apparently, every year at King William's College on the Isle of Man, students sit a general knowledge test. For the delectation of trivia-lovers (nay, ophiophiles) out there - but mostly for me and my dad, here is the 2007 quiz.

We've discovered - through trial and error (and checking our answers...) that there is a method to this madness, a pattern in the chaos: the answers are all themed in the sections. The first two sections are titled, thereafter, you have to find the link yourself ... for example, section 11 is 'hearts'.

In the first 20 questions Nas and I answered 2 correctly.

When general knowledge creates a general headache ... bang here for relief.

rousing seneca

This + this = ?

I don't understand why, in times of anxiety and national 'stress' (can a nation be stressed out?), the police and judicial powers are allowed - nay, encouraged - to be LESS rigorous in their own internal methods - LESS accountable and transparent. How exactly is that supposed to make me, concerned citizen, feel MORE secure?

Why are we still living in a Foucauldian world of knowledge economy where we, the public, find ourselves in permanent debt?

I hate rhetorical questions.

wrotten language

I'm all for destabilizing meaning in language - upsetting the assumptions that underwrite our most treasured (and hence, buried) cultural narratives - hey, most of my research is in service of that project. I thoroughly enjoy watching such attempts in practice as well - kind of an artistic culture-jamming at the foundations of 'culture': language. But I admit that I do believe that intentionality has to be part of it: ignorant errors or profit-scrounging don't count.

Vegetables that are 'trans-fat free!'; low-fat fried chicken; 'lite' sugar ...

And today, on Facebook, ad advert for 'accurate and ethical [psychic] readings'.

What exactly makes them 'ethical'?

no movie for the masses?

I saw the new Coen Bros. film last night with some friends at the local rep cinema - I had my doubts about seeing it, stemming mostly from my own squeamishness - I just don't do realistic violence well. It's not the blood and guts of it all - I can sit happily through candy-violence like Tarantino's questionably 'good' films - it's the representation of cruelty. In Se7en for example, the depiction that kept me awake for weeks (literally, ask Nas) was Sloth - I was horrified to the point of insomnia that someone, regardless of how deranged, could do that to someone - something - else. In passing, I hate Se7en so I'm not going to provide a link to it.

Hey, I'm a softie from way back. I've learned to live with it. RSPCA and NSPCC ads on the telly make me cry.

But this film didn't - and I believe it purposely set out to minimise direct emotional impact. I disagree entirely with this review - the suggestion that this film - or any film - is 'not for the masses' is incredibly insulting. What masses? Me? That guy over there? What the reviewer implicitly means is people who 'won't get it' - in other words, people who are not them... People who lack the singular mental capacities and experiences that allow the critic to 'get' the 'real meaning' of a film, book, piece of art ... I thought this film was remarkable in its applicability. No one is spectacularly good in this film, but then, no one is spectacularly bad. Yes, I include the enigmatic Anton Chigurh - played to a growly, menacing perfection by Javier Bardem. I'm not going to offer any totalising reads of this film cause I don't have one. I don't think that it is depressing in that nihilistic cop-out that is so often applied to McCarthy and his depictions of the collapse of 'codes of honour'. I do think that the tension in the film is masterfully handled at every level. The use of mirrors and doubling extends through every layer of the narrative - and the usual Coen Bros. densely layered homages to their own celluloid history and to American pop-culture broadly thrilled my inner-nerd (not so inner, you say?). I particularly liked the shot of Tommy Lee Jones busting through that motel door, fully expecting to meet Chigurh and his own end, and facing only his shadow, doubled in the light from the parking lot, recalling the gunslinnger pose of so many westerns and Andy Warhol's iconic Elvis-as-cowboy print.

Mostly, I loved the use of landscape and - damn - I love those accents.

I grew up with the stereotypical northern (Canadian) disparagement for (American) southern accents. They belonged to country music and questionable morals: gunslingers, cowboys, and a wildness that didn't belong (or no longer belonged) in metropolitan, progressive, liberal (central - I now know) Canada. It signified conservatism and the 'establishment', ignorance, and simplicity in men; promiscuity, lax morals, and dullness in women. Generally, in mainstream television and popular representation when I was growing up, the comic relief and the really bad baddies had those southern twangs. The 'good' example might be Uncle Remus who I only met in Disney's Song of the South - or, more recently, Firefly, in which the old South-based planets are more human, familiar, and sympathetic than the industrial-techno-complex 'modern' planets. And like most stereotypes, mine was developed in complete isolation from any real-life example. In the film, however, they are a perfect counterpoint to the acrid harshness of the landscape; even Chigurh's voice is like molasses, dark and dripping, slow and certain. I suppose that that is just as stereotypical. And really, I just love the sound the way some people like a northern English accent, or southern Scottish, or northern Irish, or German, or Quebecois, or Sydney ... or Cape Town, or Cairo ... you get the picture.

local wide web

what follows is the review of my local neighbourhood, entirely cut and pasted from the interesting and somewhat scary website: http://www.upmystreet.com/

you can try it with your postcode (in the UK, at least - i didn't try any Canadian/international ones). i especially like the last line.

* * *

Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be singles and sharers living in multi-ethnic areas. These are known as type 21 in the ACORN classification and 1.68% of the UK’s population live in this type.

Neighbourhoods fitting this profile are mainly found in Inner London and Outer Metropolitan areas such as Croydon, Harrow, Southall and Ilford. Here is an overview of the likely preferences and features of your neighbourhood:

Family income Medium
Interest in current affairs High
Housing - with mortgage Medium
Educated - to degree High
Couples with children Medium
Have satellite TV Low

These are metropolitan white-collar populations with high concentrations of ethnic minorities.

People are generally younger, typically under 40. There are some single parents, but most households comprise single people renting and sharing flats or terraced houses. The accommodation is small, often only one or two bedrooms. Around 35% of the population is black or Asian. Both minorities occur in broadly equal proportion across this type.

The level of education is above average, and jobs tend to be managerial or clerical. Levels of students, people working in the Public Sector and unemployment are all somewhat above the national average.

These people do not need cars given their urban lifestyles. Instead, they will get about by walking and using public transport. They tend to go to coffee shops, and lunch in pubs or restaurants on a regular basis. They may also spend time in an art gallery or going to the theatre.

Relatively high numbers have cable TV and DVD players. Reading, and sometimes religious activity also play a part in their leisure activities. They have some interest in current affairs and might be readers of The Guardian, Observer or Independent.

Increasingly they will use new technology such as telephone, PC and mobile phone for banking purposes. Many would like to upgrade to gold and platinum credit cards. More realistically, others are planning to pay off their debt.

This is a description of the type of neighbourhood to which this postcode has been matched, it is not a description of the postcode. The overview describes characteristics frequently found in these neighbourhoods. Since most postcodes include a mix of people we don’t expect everyone there will fit the description perfectly. Learn more.

shipping news

I knew this was possible!

Going by freight.

leaving Bro-town and other departures

This is my last weekend library shift. I'm really going to miss working here; of course, I will keep working here in other capacities for as long as I can cling (legitimately or otherwise) to a library card - it's just too good a library to give up ... But I will miss the backroom privileges ... and the quiet weekend mornings ... and the afternoon sun slanting into the reading room:



The issues and returns/enquiries office that I work in is all rich wood and bespoke shelving and I love it. Especially compared to the concrete and carpet of the Edward Boyle Library - which, I'm sure has its own charm to which I am not partial. In the sunshine, the reading room is glorious: sounds are sharp on the wood floors and desk but the air is rich and dusty. It is exactly the kind of space I thought I would have as a post-graduate student. And I'll miss my weekend team cause it was all so very casual and lovely. And I'll miss all the chocolate biscuits ...


In other news, I've done my first online shopping - for clothes (I'm an old hand at online bookshops!). I'm very excited. My friend recommended a UK company, Howies, which was having a sale, after I was complaining about the lack of options in the city centre: H&M (yuk and the shop is a tip), M&S (disappointing in that department store way), Primark (no, nay, never), Principles (Hah!) ... There is a Arkadash shop in Headingley, which is fantastic. I'm trying out another resolution - buying fewer clothes but of better quality (and therefore, I appreciate, more expensive). I was inspired by a woman I heard on CBC radio while I was home over Christmas who resolved for a year to buy nothing 'made in China'. I have problems with this seemingly arbitrary restriction, it is true that in Canada (or at least the Golden Horseshoe bit of it) it is increasingly difficult to find anything NOT 'made in China'.


It's strange because as much as I object to the gung-ho push to globalisation, particularly in the soft-sell, sentimental rhetoric that cloaks the deepest, darkest, most horrifying economic bottom line, I also would not advocate isolationism in any sense really. It's a thinker. But that being said I do find it easier simply to stick to clothing, food, and other products that I can at least stand behind in terms of my own ethics - which as I pointed out in an earlier blog are alright really.

the law is an ass

In December 2006, 5 women were killed around Ipswich in the run-up to Christmas. The case is just coming to trial now - and being reported on now, in (you guessed it!) The Guardian. So I read with interest the highlights from the prosecution's opening address (which will continue for another couple days). Then this:

'The prosecutor, [Peter Wright QC] who told the court that he would probably spend today and part of tomorrow outlining the case against Wright, went on to say that all five victims had resorted to prostitution to fund their drug addiction.

He added: "In each of their cases, this decision was ultimately to prove fatal."'

Um... what decision? Their decision to become drug addicts? (I thought that 'no one said "I want to be a junkie when I grow up"'?) The decision to turn to prostitution to fund their habits? While possibly showing poor judgement in both cases, neither of those decisions was 'fatal'. Does Peter Wright QC actually mean to suggest that these women somehow had a hand in 'deciding' their deaths? Last time I checked, murder kinda took that decision out of the victims' hands ...

So I'm confused. I think it is enough that 5 women had to die in order for one death to be taken seriously (how many in Vancouver again?). I think these remarks are callous and reveal a continued unwillingness to consider these women as victims of a crime; they insist implicitly that these women were inviting such atrocities through their lifestyles. None of these women decided to die. To suggest anything otherwise is disgusting.

India

I still don't want an ID card and I continue to ponder my responsibility as a citizen of this big, wide world. But I have a new thing: India. Nas and I have decided to go to India - not now, or even soon, maybe next September? maybe if we don't find permanent posts right away, we could move there...?? Or at least, move somewhere new and slightly warmer than Britain. Without ID cards.

So yes, India. I have never been particularly interested in the sub-continent - mostly because most of the people I've met who professed a deep and spiritual connection to India were annoying, inarticulate, and smelt slightly of patchouli and sandalwood. I know people, on the other hand, who really do love India and maybe being around them has infected me - or overcome my unfair bias against a country based on fairly limited (and limiting) perspectives. Or I could be completely honest and reveal my own superficiality and admit that it was The Darjeeling Limited ... India was the most sympathetic and stunning character in the film. And yes, part of me really does want to go to that India - you know, the clean, pressed, incredibly polite, but thoroughly modern and sexy India; a fictional construct so appealing that I would watch the film over and over again just to get to know her better. Mostly cause that India is risk-free: no poverty, no strays, no questions - just a pret-a-porter spiritual awakening.

I've never been anywhere that really confronted me with difference - and I cry at NSPCC and RSPCA ads on the telly (especially the latest RSPCA one). I don't want to discover myself - or India - I just want to see it for myself. And everything seems to be pointing that way for me lately - like mentionitis with a whole country... Maybe we'll love it and never come back! Maybe I'll hate it and be a horrible combination of the worst traits of a Canadian and British tourist.

So if anyone has advice, please send it along. Or contacts. Or rupees.

one of these things doesn't belong

I realise that this blog is becoming a running reaction to The Guardian - it being the news source I read most frequently (or at all...). I will find some other source of commentary I promise. But for now, this scared me cause I think, for the first time in my life, I am the object of an article like this.

I am a foreign national.

And I don't want an ID card.

I wouldn't want a Canadian ID card if I lived in Canada and the scheme was reversed (giving ID cards to citizens). I like how they have turned it around here though - suddenly not as much reaction when the target of this nationalistic, jingoistic branding is resident aliens - or 'foreign nationals' since we're being so PC about it.

I've never felt like I didn't belong here. And I've never before felt like I might not want to.

the principles of the thing

A friend of mine says that people always think 3 things about themselves: 1) they are a good friend, 2) they have a good sense of humour, and 3) they are good in bed. Not spectacular in any category but I think most people would have to be really stripped down - psychologically - before they give up on these things. Of course, that is more pithy saying than actual fact - I've never conducted any kind of poll to back this up. But it rings true. To me.

Which is the point of the moment: the other thing that most people would generally 'admit' to is thinking themselves generally all right really. Again, not in a spectacular way - but at heart, all right really. That is, the very best of intentions + the usual time/money/energy equation which leads to can't-be-bothered-at-this-moment but will certainly do something about it on the weekend... Hey, I'm not about to claim that I'm any different. In my heart I am the most ethical of ethical consumers - my home a veritable shrine to sustainable living principles. In reality, I don't make the time nor save the money - body and mind at rest certainly resent the initial push to move in any direction.

It's not that I think that there is a moral absolute that I'm failing miserably to meet. It's just that morality and ethics are impossibly difficult to tease out. Can I be less accountable because my bank balance determines my purchases? Does that excuse buying Fairy washing-up liquid (every bubble a dead fish or destroyed habitat) for 99p rather than the extra 90p for Ecover? What about less directly economic concerns? or at least ones that don't affect me directly? What about the more difficult issue of political and ideological support? And just how far down the rabbit-hole can I go? The question of fair-trade, especially around clothing and household products - formaldehyde in my furniture? - is something I haven't even broached. How long can I claim that it's pointless for me to consider it, as we don't own our house?

In short, can I be a little bit good? And can't I lie-in just a little bit longer?

beyond means

We went to the champagne bar in town at the posh new Electric Press building in Millenium Square last night. It is really really nice. I could get used to that being my regular watering-hole ... someday! As the end of an otherwise kinda crappy day, it was perfect. Actually, it wasn't a crappy day - I just didn't get any sleep the night before as I had an existential breakdown due to exhaustion and decided that there was no point in being worried about anything because the vast majority of people are assholes. Why should I care? I know, really deep and profound revelations do happen at the oddest hours ... I should add another resolution:
* read positive news
The point being, I was exhausted and had to spend the afternoon at an induction meeting for the university I'm working for this semester. I'd been fixated on these woolen trousers I found in the city before Christmas and planned to buy them yesterday afternoon. They weren't there and trying on other trousers made me doubt the advisability of me being publically visible at all. I know - again, I demonstrate such poise ... I have my moments. Had I been alone, I would have crept home and gotten over it eventually. Luckily, Nasser had come with me and rather than laughing at my sudden reversion to the kind of person that I detest, talked sternly to me until returned to sense. Then we returned the world to our own norms by having some sushi.

The reason we were at the champagne bar - Epernay - and living so above our current means was to meet my new work colleagues, one of which is a very dear friend. They are lovely and I am reassured (but still nervous) about being a real university instructor out there in the wide, wierd, and wonderful world of academia. Nasser came with me - he more than deserved a expertly poured martini having finished and submitted his PhD thesis over Christmas - for which I was glad. Silly cocktails taste better in his company (and yes, if you are curious, stars sparkle more brightly and I am wittier and more brilliantly beautiful when he is there too).

Such senitmental admissions remind me of a song Nas played for me the other day - 'Every Day is Christmas'. It's online and I'm too lazy to link it here. It is THE sweetest song I've ever heard - completely without ennui, malaise, or melancholy. I love it.

2008

This will be a great year. I am sure of it. I'll admit that my resolution - not to allow myself to become overly anxious on a daily basis - has already been tested: by the stressed-out students at the library, by the train on the way home from BSECS in Oxford, by going to BSECS in Oxford rather than just coming home after Christmas, by new jobs and old jobs, by the fact that bills in any form make me break out in a cold sweat even before opening the envelope... But in spite of all that, it's going to be a great year.



Cause it was a wonderful Christmas - admittedly, it was a strange Christmas. I haven't been home with just my parents and sister since I was about three years old. The house was so quiet. But it was lovely nonetheless - dad and I found the most perfect tree, which exactly fit the traditional tree-corner (well, as traditional as possible as it was only the third Christmas in my parents' new house!); mum still made the same amount of Christmas food - which meant loads of extras for us! And we got to plan my sister's wedding - well, I got to offer jewels of wisdom that may or may not make it to the final cut... And the completely girly joy of shopping for dresses...! Nothing like a summer wedding to keep me running this year (August = bare arms...).

Classes start in two weeks.

Other resolutions:
* publish thesis as articles
* become model of multitasking, organized academic not unlike supervisor
* become stunning example of fitness and poise
* listen more/talk less
* read A LOT

Realistic. Definitely.

I also didn't get to see nearly enough of people in Canada - I never do really. My big huge impossible resolution will be to sort out how to make Canada and England closer together - geographically I mean. OR rob bank - buy island - forcibly move all friends and family to island where we live happily ever after. Possibly change first part to 'win lottery'? I should start playing...

School's out

It's the last Friday of the regular term and the library is very quiet. The staffroom is full of mince pies, christmas cake (with cheese, which my friend assures me is a delicious northern tradition!), and home-baked cakes and biscuits (fundraising drive). It's less full than it was as my break was last hour...luckily I found a fiver in my wallet and donated to fill my tum.

Yesterday I had my viva (defence) and passed with 'minor corrections' - which means typographical and editing errors. It was the hardest exam I have ever sat. My examiners were brilliant - they were interested and engaged with my work and made me feel totally comfortable while ripping it to shreds. In all honesty, about half way through the viva, I really did believe I would be given a pass with minor deficiencies - or majors (the dreaded referral). I was shocked when my internal recommended that I be awarded the degree pending editorial corrections.

It was exhausting as well - but I really really really enjoyed it. I didn't expect it to be that difficult but I'm glad it was because I can honestly say that I was put through my paces and earned this degree. My supervisor was so lovely as well - and we had a brief chat after the viva in her office about how quickly the four years went by - she said it felt like yesterday that my proposal landed on her desk...! I have been very fortunate in my supervisor: she has been so supportive throughout my degree. This degree has cost me a lot - financially and emotionally (I have been checking for grey hairs and none yet!) - but I can honestly say that it was worth it twice over and I would do it again - just for the friends we have here and the life we've made, if not the agonizing self-doubt and hair-tearing stress of PhD life.

So here I am, at the end of traditional education - and thankfully, it is no 'end' at all.

Skinny latte, with wings

I love it. If I drank skinny anything I would make this my new motto. I might just get a t-shirt with this blazoned across the front - and back. Could I use this at Timmy's next time I'm home? It might be worth a try. I know that there is a lovely lingo associated with diners in North America - I know this because diner culture is a fond topic of conversation in our house. I was unaware until this morning that coffee culture was developing its own...

I wonder, as I ponder, whether moving back to Canada will be anything like what this chap has experienced in moving back to England. Of course, I didn't leave Canada due to frustration with the political/cultural climate - in fact, I'm more frustrated with the politics of Canada since I left. But it's interesting to think about. What would I find different?

December One

24 Days until Christmas. I wish I had an advent calendar. I know Green&Black's does one with lovely chocs. Next year I'll get one. And hang it beside the door. Growing up (which makes it sound - horribly - as though I've grown up), we always had ours in the sunroom. Advent calendars and doors are somehow welded together in my mind.

As it's December, I suppose atheism is as good topic as any. I'm touched that Benedict has agreed to meet Muslim leaders to discuss common ground - he was, it's reported, particularly impressed with the insistence in the letter on the 'twofold commandment to love God and one's neighbour'. Well, it really is time that someone pointed that out to most of us. I'm equally confused, however, by his latest encyclical, in which he turns his vitriol from other religions to atheists.

Not content with even the Guardian's upstanding reportage, I spent some time doing a bit of light research while sitting at the desk waiting patiently for inquisitive minds. I do love the Catholic church for their records - truly, it's amazing what they are willing to commit to print. There is learning there; nothing can exist for that long without some kind of progression, I suppose - progress all the more startling considering that in Humanis Generis (1950), Pius XII thought it necessary to remind his flock that
"if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians" (sec. 20).

But I digress - and return to the latest encyclical, Spe Salvi.

I'm really rather intrigued with Benedict's repeated insistence on the 'performative' nature of the Christian message (secs. 2, 4, 10 for example). But that's another digression. I do find myself nodding in agreement with Benedict's point regarding how the 'political conditions of the kingdom of reason and freedom [are]...ill defined': 'reason and freedom seem to guarantee by themselves, by virtue of their intrinsic goodness, a new and perfect human community' (sec. 18). Dalton Trumbo said it better in Johnny Got His Gun (a new edition of this has been published - go, gentle reader, and read): freedom is just a word. Sure, so is 'reason'. For that matter, so is 'faith' or 'hope'. I want to be convinced by - or willing to believe in - Benedict's discussion of human freedom (secs. 23-25). It is striking and rather eloquent - indeed, it stands out from the rest of the document in eloquence, which some of his prose lacks. I'm not, however, because the Church has forgotten, in spite of Benedict's belief in the performativity of the Gospel, that their own actions - their performances of doctine, instances of praxis - make it clear that the 'freedom' espoused is too narrow, too rigidly defined. Too broad a definition of 'freedom' or 'reason' doesn't actually seem to be a problem for the RC church. By human, read 'white, Christian, heterosexual male'; by freedom, read, 'to live as a white, Christian, heterosexual male'.

I'm curious however about his tacit insistence on the schism between 'science' and 'love'. Indeed, it seems to me that he does not clarify these terms anymore than the professors of 'freedom' and 'reason' explain their terms. Earlier in the document, Benedict's ideas put me in mind of Curtis White's essay in Harper's, 'The Idols of Evironmentalism', which I've already blogged about here. It feels as though this initial separation between 'science' and 'love' marshalls atheists and Christian believers into opposing sides by section 42.

It is one thing to critique pure reason for providing no more, if no less, certainty than faith; it is another to lump together science, reason, and atheism as bulwarks against the felicitous performance of the Christian message of hope.

But let me end with love and Saint Augustine: 'Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good' (In epistulam Ioannis ad Parth). How unbounded a vision does this offer of the potential of human goodness? How opposite from the 'love' that reads this and finds in it justification for cruelty, tyranny, and punishment.

librarian, vent thyself

There are times when I truly hate - with an aspirated 'H' - the general public -- even when that 'general public' is the fairly select demographic of a university student body (though 'fairly select' when, apparently, over 50% of A-level students scored in the highest grade range is dubious). I truly do believe that the university must be an institution open to all - anyone who wants to learn should be welcomed.

But that's the catch - wanting to learn. Not simply filling a chair (and the university's coffers), making use of the 10% discount at some high-street shops, and getting quicker access to a surgery. And I do - call me rather pedantic - believe that wanting to learn does not get compartmentalised - wanting to learn should be all-encompassing, not goal oriented; that lovely, sadly anachronistic, anti-utilitarian desire to learn for learning's sake. If you want to learn, you learn - you learn everything and anything that can be taught. Okay, this sounds like I expect everyone to be an expert in everything - impractical at best. Allow me to try to explain.

Learning - again, this is all from my perspective (um...obviously! it's my blog) - requires interest; I cannot teach an uninterested student. At best, they will recite back to me, with no real learning, what I have said in seminar, or what they've read from some secondary source. I don't particularly care, in the long run. But there are few people more boring to spend time with than those without interest - curiosity - critical engagement - enthusiasm. And that bleeds into all things. If I can teach one thing in any course, it is always just to be interested in something - anything but be interested and take responsibility for that interest: feed it, satisfy it, increase it.

Huh. Well this is going to sound silly. But see there's this alarm that goes off when someone tries to use their student ID more than once within a certain time period at the campus library. Okay - I know - silly. But when you are working at that station for an entire hour and that bloody alarm goes off every 10 minutes...well, by the half-hour you are ready to strangle the next reader who sets it off. And I especially love the ones that go through and turn around to let their friends through - the very reason the time delay was installed. Why unleash this particular rant here? Because it seems to me that someone at university would have the sense to see that there is a reason that EACH student has a unique ID. I also particularly enjoy the student that stands there, zombie-like, repeatedly passing his card over the sensor as it beeps merrily away...

I say nothing of those to whom the entire concept of a 'library' belongs to a brave new world. Nor of those who confuse 'customer service' with 'customer servants'...

I really am going to be the most crotchety old lady one day...

pillow talk

Now I'm not saying that laughter can't be part of great sex. Not just the low-in-the-throat, seductive chuckle - real belly laughter. To laugh like that heralds comfort and security - a recognition of the intimate relationship between the sacred and the profane (bedfellows always).

Writing sex scenes is difficult I'm sure - particularly in print where there is no picture/soundtrack to direct/manipulate the viewer. Bad sex in film would be a topic and competition all its own. Consider the difference between, say, Don't Look Now (one of the best sex scenes on celluloid) and...um... Titanic, or Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet (both contenders for the worst sex scenes of recent film).

Anyway, this is what stimulated this particular ponder - a close contender for my all-time favourite literary mock-competition (which is this one).

Furthermore

As we played mancala last night, we discussed the event in Sudan that I blogged about yesterday. Which gave me more to ponder. I think now I was too harsh on this teacher and perhaps blame should be more fairly apportioned round. I'm not recanting completely but it seems to me, on further reflection, that a good old fashioned sit-down and chat would have been more appropriate than an arrest. And as Nasser points out, it is possible that the reportage, even in such a worthy rag as The Guardian, might not have the whole story.

So there. A lesson in pondering any ponderable at least twice before professing.

My bedside book right now is Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. I'm not sure how to work it into my research profile - but I will find a way. I'm working slowly but surely towards theology and literature - it's not so far from law and literature in many ways (which I'll go into later...). Anyway, my paper in January at BSECS is about hagiography and historiography in Sophia Lee's The Recess and I'm hoping to look at how Mary's Catholicism, which is never overtly referred to in the text, emerges through Lee's strategies of writing...Obviously, I need to think more on this...

My viva is in two weeks.

A bear by any other name

This is a disheartening story in many ways. My initial reaction was one of slightly weary annoyance: honestly, it's a freakin' teddy bear. But then I took myself to task, shook myself from my library-induced lethargy and pondered a while (in between dealing with readers' questions and checking out books).

Now my annoyance is turned onto this teacher. I just cannot believe that she is unaware of the level of sensitivity that situations like this demand. This is not the first time that an issue like this has made the news in the past few years. While my initial reaction remains - I cannot understand that level of devotion to a name (surely there are people bearing the prophet's name whose lives constitute a slur on his memory - in the same way that not everyone named 'Jesus' is likely to be a saint) - it is not my faith and I am not called to understand it. I would like to believe, were I in this teacher's place, that I would be aware of the culture in which I am working and living.

It's a teachable moment badly missed. I think it would have made a lovely lesson to ask, when a child suggested 'Muhammed' as a name for a teddy bear, why they thought it would be a good name. What does the name mean to them? Given it's popularity as a boy's name, perhaps whoever suggested it had a brother called Muhammed or a father or uncle, or was so called himself. I'm wondering if, from there, it might be an interesting way into teaching them a culture/history/religious lesson on the spot. Why couldn't the bear be called Muhammed? What does the name mean? What does it mean to hold something sacred? I appreciate that I'm likely oversimplifying it and I don't teach young children and it's a very complex and large problem. I also think that that is crap. I'm particularly interested in the way that this teacher is implicitly absolved because she tried to teach the children a lesson about democracy instead...

And I will not countenance any whining claims that this is 'PC gone mad'. Few statements - usually accompanied by a liberal toss of the head and stamp of the foot - irritate me more. This has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with sensitivity and tolerance. I know that some reactions to this serious - but innocent - lapse in judgement will cause problems as well - there will be people (apparently there already are) who wait for events like this to excuse or explain violence. And that's a shame too. More than a shame. But I think that it is a separate issue and what I'm interested in now and shall go off and ponder is how big the world has become and how much more is demanded of us when we go out to play.

the C word

for the benefit of more constant readers, i feel it necessary to make it clear that the voice behind this post isn't kaley this time (i realize that i am at best an intermittent contributor to this blog, but perhaps in a few weeks, that too will change). for the purposes of distinction, my posts will be distinguished by a refusal to follow standard rules of capitalization (and a penchant for parenthetical asides) - oh - and an affection for dashes that would make emily dickinson proud.

this morning, kaley arose from sleep (reluctantly as always), and, while i prepared our morning tea, attired herself for the day. but today was not a typical day - this morning, she is going to meet with a person to discuss getting some temporary employment at a nearby university. now, i know better than anyone that she's perfect for the job - the quality of kaley's thought, her commitment to her students, and her unflinching professionalism bear the hallmarks of the best academics that i have had the pleasure of meeting.

(and here's the but)

she came downstairs in an outfit that i disagreed with. the conversation went something like this:

"you can't wear that"

"but i like this"

"you look like the Little Mermaid heading to the gym. you should wear your tweedy skirt and a black top - now THAT says i am an academic. hire me or your students will be lost "

in the end, she went for the more subdued look and kissed me on her way out the door - all is well in the land of nas. but now i am feeling some misgivings. if it's true that she's got everything it takes to fill the post, what should it matter how she looks? and where did i get the idea that appearance makes a difference?

i know, i know - the clothes make the man (see above picture for proof [or disproof]) - but in an information society - and perhaps the university was an information society long before there was ever an internet - how much relevant data is encoded in our clothes?

in other words, why do i err on the side of (and here comes the C-word) Conservative attire in job situations? surely we have passed a point where one's appearance (as long as it remains hygienic) influences one's reception? my fear is that if we haven't transcended this outside = inside economy, then what do we do with those aspects of our appearance that aren't so easily changed? i 'mask' my baldness by shaving my head, but i can't do anything about being brown. and if i am participating in a visual economy (as i have clearly demonstrated through kaley this morning), then what's to stop others from making judgments based on the same, retinal, evidence? is there a difference between racism and sartorial snobbery (when pitched in these terms)?

obviously, i can't propose anything like an answer here - and i don't think there is one. but what ultimately fascinates me is my ability to hold increasingly divergent (and even contradictory) ideas simultaneously. when i finish this post and go out into the world, i am going to sidestep teens in tracksuits, avoid eye contact with anyone dressed in a uniform that connotes religious zeal (be they mormons or muslims); i will assume that the man in unwashed clothes has no money to clean them (or he would) and so give him charity - and i will assume that people who dress like me are my equals, even while aspiring to dress better than i do presently, all the while mouthing the nice liberal pap (while in the company of my peers) that "looks don't matter - it's what you are on the inside that counts".

but what this all amounts to is this: kaley - if ever i ask you to change your clothes again, remind me of this post (or just smack me).

update: kaley got the job. we should all rain congratulations upon her.

ties that bind

It's sad when a great mind veers into narrow-minded prejudice. I'm worried that it is happening more and more - there was Dr James Watson and his comments last month; now it's Martin Amis.

And then there is the 'traditional family' debate - the phrase alone elicits the same response I have to nails on a blackboard or metal scraping metal. I don't know the source of this anxiety that seems to grip defenders of the 'traditional family'; frankly, I have no interest in plumbing the depths of intolerance and ignorance. But here comes another volley from...yes, the RC church, closely followed by perennial bedfellows, the Conservatives. 'Another blow struck against fatherhood'? Are men really that insecure with their role in reproduction? How, exactly, does a lesbian couple, or a gay couple, represent a threat to the 'traditional family'?

There is a link between Amis' comments and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor. Both seem slightly obsessed with being overpowered - a fear of colonization. It's bizarre. I'm typing this surreptitiously at work so I can't really get my thoughts together.

yarrrr...

Pirates clearly either A) had some remarkable physical resistance to hangovers, B) just stayed drunk their entire lives or C) didn't have anywhere near the dissipated lifestyles we ascribe to them now. I know this because I spent Saturday night as a pirate and Sunday on the couch recovering. And I wasn't even drinking rum! I know...some pirate.

Which made today less than the greatest Monday ever. Physically, I'm completely over the hangover. The thing is, the older I get, the more I find hangovers stick around in my mind far longer than I'd like. So everything today has a sheen of frustration: the world is still a bit too sharp for me; deadlines are too pressing, I am stretched too thin. This temporary subdued state of mind was not improved by retrieving the essays I've got to mark for my classes... I take marking and teaching too personally, I think. I'm sure every missed comma or careless spelling error isn't actually personal, but it feels like it. Particularly, when I say repeatedly in class that I'm happy to look at drafts, or answer questions; when I go over again and again the correct style of referencing only to get bibliographies that look intentionally misleading. I think I'll leave them for tonight and mark them in a happier state of mind on Wednesday.

On a more positive note - we saw Persepolis on Saturday at the Leeds Film Festival. It is brilliant. I haven't read the graphic novel but Christmas is coming... (nudge nudge, family!).

There are so many things that I mean to write about on this blog. They are, for the most part, fairly trivial things meant to feel like a conversation with my family far away: walking to work on a very windy morning, the how I made granola last night and how good it was for breakfast, ideas I have for Christmas dinner menus...things that, if I were closer, I'd send in a text, or call.

I did make granola last night - and it was, in fact, really good. Clearly, in spite of giving up those long, flowing India cotton skirts and blouses in my early 20s, I am a barking hippie. But then, I'm also a frugal one. Granola is a complete scam in the shops. I also learned a valuable lesson about baking parchment - it's only good for one go in the oven. After that, it just catches fire like normal paper... And I didn't actually have any ideas for Christmas dinner. Usually, I've had at least five fully-planned and distinct menus by the beginning of November. This year, thesis, teaching, working, and viva have taken over my brain and body almost completely. It was exceptionally windy this morning walking to the library. It's been a very blustery week and now the wind has got that November edge to it. The leaves have been ripped entirely from the trees the past week as well. That always takes me by surprise: one minute they are resisting autumn with all their arboreal might and then next, a grand surrender. I think the tree must feel a wonderful sense of relief letting all those leaves go.

i can has money plz?

I love phishing emails. It gives me a perverse pleasure to know that somewhere in the world, there are two people engaged in what I can only describe as a battle of hope and greed - the Phisher hoping that the person he/she is pumping for bank details actually HAS any money, and the Phishee hoping beyond hope that there actually is 19teen Milion United State dollars in a metallic box somewhere in the Cote d'Ivoire.

Not to mention the fact that someone is somewhere receiving a random email and thinking 'You know what, I'm just going to help this poor sod out of an obviously tight jam simply by handing over my banking details, and if I net ten percent of his fortune (like it's some kind of a tip for services rendered), well then, that's just great! Everybody wins!'

I won't even use this phrase.

I got this one today, and it's a beauty:

"Having known my condition, I decided to Contact you and Reveal to you in person Regarding my Heritage from my Late husband after my late husband brothers
has neglected me and has well sit on my late husband properties and his bank accounts."

Compare the use of third person present tense between the Phisher and the infamous LOLcat.

Perhaps I'm onto something here?

Religious views: Feminism

I shouldn't read the Metro - it's like the Daily Mail but without the wit or depth of thoughtful prose. It's a commuter paper - and it's free... When Nas and I were both bussing to work the first year we lived here we used to compare Metro stories when we got home. But I did while on my break today.

I should stress - there are interesting and provocative slasher films out there. And as offended as I am by this director and his dubious 'political commentary' I will not call for any censorship of his material. Go ahead - watch it; write a credible, intelligent response about the analogy and deeper reading possible from both films. Just don't try, as this fellow does to pass off misogyny as an artistic or philosophical strategy.

Eli Roth, the 'director' of Hostel and Hostel II, was the '60-second interview' today. In his scintillating responses to the clever and provocative questions (I'm not being entirely sarcastic there - they were standard questions and he missed the boat badly on a few) was the following (paraphrased) response to MP Charles Walker's attempt to ban the sale of stills from Hostel II. Walker admitted that he had not personally seen the film - which earned him a sneer from the Roth (who by the way, was named by Men's Health as the most fit director in Hollywood (2006) - clearly the world is sitting up and taking notice of this 'artist'!). Walker reportedly called Hostel II "90 minutes of obscene misogyny". Roth's response?

'That's the greatest endorsement you can get.'

'If you're upsetting MPs, you're doing something right'. Right. Cause it's little ol' Hollywood - that last bastion of individual creativity - beset on all sides by censorious and fascistic governments. With heroes like this, who needs villains? Grow up, Mr. Roth. Hostel and Hostel II are about the 'wrong side of capitalism'? And what side is Mr. Roth representing? Who distributed these films? How much did it cost to film and produce? Did Roth donate any or all of his earnings to some worthy NGO?

And people tell me feminism is outdated...

How is chopping a woman's head off a metaphor for U.S. politics? You won't find the answer there.

by any name

I don't have time to comment on this article now - but I've been meaning to gather my thoughts on this topic on teethbeforewords. Because it is so close to my heart and because it's taken as such a trivial matter by so many people.

Names do matter - childish rhymes aside. In the same issue of The Guardian, I find this article about Nas's (the rapper) apparently 'unspeakable' new album and this article from a woman I would love to meet.