Quayside.

Decided to spend my Saturday around Canary Wharf yesterday (photos here). Usually, I'm pretty good at finding my way, but somehow I read the map upside down and ended up wandering around quite a bit before ending up at my intended destination, the London Museum in Docklands. I had my camera, so hopefully my wandering looked intentional to passersby.

If you only judged by the photos I've taken in my four trips to London, you'd think all of London lived quay-side, Thames-side or canal-side. I'm not sure how I always end up walking next to the water, or more precisely, how it is that I only have my camera with me when I'm walking next to water.

Anyway, I haven't been to Canary Wharf since 1997, we took a quick look-see at it with my Victorian Society Summer School, to check out the rebuilding after the bomb. It was then that I decided that I wanted to write my dissertation about bombs and buildings--too bad that was vetoed by my then adviser, as I would have been going on the job market some 4-5 years later, just in time.

The Museum in Docklands is quite nice. There's a special exhibit up on Jack the Ripper, which I didn't see. It was super crowded, either because this was the first Saturday of half-term break for school kids, or because it was the last Saturday of same, not sure which. I really only went there to see the London, Sugar & Slavery exhibit, anyway, so I kept my focus on that.

Well done exhibit, not nearly as brutal as I probably would have made it, but I guess that's why I'm not a curator. One thing I really liked about it was that the issue of slavery (and implicitly, empire) was brought into the present day (or at least up to 2007). What I found a little puzzling was the exhibit's starting date of 1700. There was a wall of statistics for the slave trade, listing the ships, number of enslaved Africans carried, destination, etc., but the stats all related to the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Enslaved Africans were used in the American colonies starting from 1650 or so, and I know Jamaica had rapidly growing enslaved populations in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Anyway, that's more of a side issue--the main point is that at least the museum is trying--not too long ago, it seemed as if Madge Dresser was talking into an empty void of indifference.

My favorite part of the exhibit was a bit of technology, actually. They had an interactive map that showed traces of slavery around eighteenth-century London. For instance, it had marked St. Botolph without Aldgate as a church with many African congregants, and a site of many African burials. It would be really brilliant if you could take the museum's map, and lay it over top of the maps from the Sugar Refiners and Sugarbakers database. If you could also overlay maps of trading houses for goods produced on plantations, and add to those maps locating domiciles of slave holders, or those with financial interest in slave ships, or those who produced the goods to trade for sugar, or the places where rum was bottled, you'd have an incredibly dense map, demonstrating fairly conclusively that slavery changed the geography of Thameside London as much as any seventeenth-century fire.

Speaking of fire, the only other galleries I really spent time in were the "docklands at war" rooms. They had a film clip borrowed from the Imperial War Museum, showing the inferno caused by incendiary bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe--I wish it had been longer, because I was riveted by it. I regret not being able to write my dissertation on Canary Wharf. Maybe the "bombs and buildings" wasn't such a great idea, the London Museum in Docklands demonstrates that somewhere in my research, I would have found an interesting, and hopefully worthwile, topic.

That's ridiculous.

So, I just tried to look up the name of an Anupam Kher movie--I know the general theme, but not the title. He has 285 movies listed under name on imdb. That's just outrageous.

ETA: Found it, believe it or not. Anyone who can score me a copy of Daddy wins my eternal gratitude.

Game Over.

What I look like on a Friday night after a week of feeling homesick, two days of being ill, and an afternoon of a sad movie:


Not a lot accomplished these past few days. I held steady through Wednesday, but yesterday just couldn't stay at the library. In the morning, I tried to do some research at the Royal Society, but ended up spending much more time feeling sick in the loo than I did doing actual work. I also spent some time sitting by myself on the platform of the Piccadilly Tube Station, watching trains go by, but feeling too upset in the stomach to get on any of them. When I did finally get on, it was clear I wasn't going to be able spend any quality time working, so I rode back and forth for a bit on the Piccadilly Line, waiting for my temperature to come down a bit.

In the end, I decided to spend the afternoon at a museum. I didn't feel like going all the way back to the house, and anyway, I knew my housemate was trying to get her lesson plan done and she didn't need me to be in the way. Museums have bathrooms, and they have benches, and they often have temperature controlled rooms, so that sounded promising. So, on my second time through the South Kensington station, I got off the tube, and walked over to the V & A. I spent a lot of time in the Sacred Silver collection, as well as in the stained glass collection. If you're feeling like you might vomit, these are good places to be, because the lighting is dim, no one else is around, and you can bolt down the ceramic staircase to the bathroom in an emergency. Also, the lighting is dim in the hallway with Lord Leighton's frescoes, and there is a nice floor-to-ceiling window at one end, so that is also a good, quiet retreat in times of distress.

What is NOT good for distress is to book a ticket for a special exhibition. This might seem obvious to everyone else, but it's difficult to walk out of a ticketed exhibition in search of a bathroom. I was thinking only, "High end exhibition = good temperature control, surely comes with benches." Unfortunately, it also comes with a tightly controlled path of movement--once you're in the exhibition hall, you're stuck until the end. Still, Cold War Modern was worth the nine pounds, even if I rushed the last two rooms a bit (the rooms for "revolution" and "last utopias"). If you're in London, and you're an architecture student, this is a great place to look at some architectural renderings for Soviet building projects--they're amazing, and they're BIG. I also enjoyed the recreation of the 8-minute "light and sound" experience originally plotted by Corbusier. Fall-out shelters, space suits, modular furniture, hammocks---this exhibit has it all. Except an easily accessible bathroom, so keep that in mind if you're not feeling 100%.

For our upcoming trip to the European subcontinent.

Thank god for globalisation.

Otherwise, I would have been forced to spend 20+ quid on a hair cut at a shop in the high street of Cockfosters. Thanks to aggressive capitalist markets, I instead spent only 12GBP for a trim at the Supercuts in Shopping City at Wood Green.

Actually, that's not true. I spent 15GBP--I gave the hairdresser a 25% tip. Part of my generosity was due to the fact that she took on the challenge that is my head 20 minutes before closing time. Most of my generosity, though, was because she was nice to me, and talked to me while she was working. Well, yes, hairdressers often try and chat with me (ask Catherine about the woman who sometimes cuts hair but mostly just talks in the shop out at Whitehall), but I tend not to engage in small talk. It's often the end of the day--or the beginning of the day--and I'm tired, and not really in the mood to chat. I'm polite and all, but not really talkative. Usually. I don't know what happened yesterday, but I had a real, honest to god conversation sitting in that tippy chair.

We went through all the usual questions--do you ever color your hair, why are you in London, do you have any children--and then got onto the topic of Skype, and how it was saving my marriage. She also uses Skype, but said she gave up using it with her mother, because her mother always cried at the end, and because she was a "big wuzzy", she also ended up in tears. It was easier to say goodbye on the phone than on a webcam. Somehow we moved on from there to a discussion about aging parents, and I admitted that was one of the worst parts of being away for a year, the worry that I might not see my parents again.

She told me that her father had died three years ago or so, and talked about how hard that first year was--hard for her, but also hard because she had to step up when her mother fell to pieces. She told me that it was something for which you tried to prepare, but until it happened, you just didn't quite understand what it was like. The father of a friend had died a bit before hers had, and she tried to be supportive, but it wasn't until her own father died that she realized just how much she didn't understand what her friend had been going through. The first year was the hardest, but then she was able to move on--it got easier with time. Still hard, but better.

I don't know, she was remarkably upbeat about the whole thing. Serious, but also looking out for the points where a positive turn could be taken--didn't I have siblings that could help, wasn't it good that my father had a course of treatment that kept him here this long, etc. It was the first real conversation I've had in weeks, and I don't think I'll ever forget her telling me about her parents, and how they loved each other, right up to the end, even after 45 years of marriage. "My father was a good man," she told me. I could tell she meant it, she was telling the truth, and it was really kind of her to share that moment with me.

Documentary fiction.

Amu: I've been watching the old people lately, thinking about how much trauma they must be carrying around inside them. Yesterday specifically, I was watching the old people at the Diwali celebration on Trafalgar Square, wishing I could overhear their thoughts just for a moment. If you're eighty years old, and you were born in the Panjab, you probably directly experienced Partition. Maybe you can remember it clearly, or maybe you've suppressed it, I don't know. You definitely remember the Emergency. If your family moved to Delhi after Partition, you're carrying around memories from the 1984 massacre of the Sikhs. Or if your family moved to Mumbai, you have the 1992-1993 riots in the back of your mind. Even if your family had already emigrated to the UK--thus explaining your presence at the Trafalgar Diwali celebration--you've probably got some family members who were directly affected, even if they weren't living in the metropolitan areas. And of course, if you're living in London, you probably aren't a stranger to anti-immigrant violence that in all likelihood was tuned to the pitch of "anti-Pakistani."

All of this is to say that there's a lot of violence to explore in the history of India and Pakistan, just as there's a lot of non-violence to explore in the history of those two nations. So, I understand the intentions behind a film like Amu, particularly when the Indian government does such a good job at denying that such events have happened, and that certain sections of the government in fact enabled them to happen. And it wasn't a bad film, it just wasn't a great film. I felt as if the screenwrite and the director couldn't decide whether they wanted to make a documentary, or a work of fiction, so they flopped back and forth between the two genres. That made for some really stilted dialogue. And the stilted dialogue reminded me that, oh, this is following a script, this isn't real, thoughts that kept me from being swept away into the story. I love Konkona Sen Sharma, but her American accent slipped one too many times. And I'm sorry, but no person of color who grew up in L.A. and is old enough to remember the 1992 uprising is ever going to be puzzled about riots and massacres. Maybe a white teenager might ask earnest (and stupid) questions about the police role in violence, but not someone who is supposed to have the background of Kaju.

This sounds like a negative review, but it's not. It's a worthwhile film, obviously. I think it wasn't meant for people who study the history of India for a career, but for those who have only heard whispers in the background of their lives about earlier troubles. It's a nice entry point into that history, and because it was done as a popular film, perhaps more people will hear about these important events. It's a film the creators can be proud of, and I think I would recommend it to the right people--not to a completely naive audience, but one that knows something about India, but might not have been able to figure out how to learn about this bit of the past.

"This has been my best day ever, Lee Carter."

Yeah, so...sorry. I had a bad week and didn't much feel like talking about it. Barely dragged myself out of bed on Monday to make it to work. Thought I'd shake things up and reinvigorate myself by working at the RIBA Library on Tuesday, but ending up falling on the sidewalk instead. Sore--in both the emotional and physical senses of the word--all week, and just generally angry at London.

Fortunately, I spent some time with friends this weekend, so I'm a little less surly now. Alex and Matt just got a new puppy--SO CUTE--so I went out to Ealing yesterday to check it out. We had great Chinese food for dinner, and watched Son of Rambow while the puppy chewed on its toy. I really liked the movie, but it was nothing like I expected it to be--I think the U.S. trailers for it must have been completely misleading.

About 14 hours after I left Alex and Matt for the night, I met up with Alex again (Matt stayed home to take care of the cuteness that is Chiyo). I think meeting up with Alex should become a trend, as he seems to have good taste in food, and I can use the variety in my diet. A group of his friends were gathering at the Blue Elephant in Fulham Broadway to celebrate a birthday, so I hung out with them for awhile, then headed home for a much-needed nap. On the way home, though, I saw a Diwali poster on a tube station and remembered that today was the Diwali celebration at Trafalgar Square. Couldn't just blow that off, so I stopped by for a while and listened to covers of Bollywood songs. A lot of good Diwali energy, but I was feeling pretty beat, so I came home before the lights came on, etc.

The neighbors have been celebrating Guy Fawkes Day a few weeks early--for the past two weekends, they've been putting on their own light show with fireworks in the garden. I guess I can count that for my Diwali show.

I also spent a good chunk of yesterday just wandering around by myself, trying to learn how to use this new camera (photos available on flickr). I'm not sure I want to spend the time learning everything about it--I'm not in this to become a professional photography. I can see that I'm going to have to invest in a perspective-control lens, though, and learn how to use some of the light-compensation settings. I left everything on AUTO yesterday, and it mostly worked out, but not completely.

Son of Rambow: nice movie. I caught myself laughing out loud a few times, making those weird noises you make when you can't control your hysteria. Some of the accidents the kids had were just too damn funny. Of course, some of the accidents the kids had were just too damn tragic, and at one point, I turned to Alex and said, "Man, that would put me into therapy for ten years. Oh...and there's another ten years added on." Something about the movie felt really familiar, but it wasn't until the second half, when the mother was having a flashback to her childhood that I figured it out. The lifestory of Will is driven by his mother's participation in the Plymouth Brethren. There's a scene in the movie in which the church elders come to have a talk with Will's mother about his behavior, and it put my heart in my throat. Ah...the church elders. I know exactly how this is going to go, how conditional the church's love is, even for a child. I spent most of my teenaged years desperately trying to prevent anyone from sussing out my atheism, because I didn't want to go through one more of those damn meetings. Christian love--at least as I experienced it--is so tenuous. The moment you transgress the church doctrine, you're out of the fold. Even if you repent, they are always watching you, waiting for you to screw up again so they can kick you out for good.

A Fine Day Out.

Yesterday I walked Section 17 of the London Loop. All nine miles of it. What was I thinking? Well, from mile 6 to 9, I was thinking "God, you're a dumbass, just stop!" alternated with "God, don't be such a wuss, keep walking!" I swear, the last three miles took as long as the first six, I'm that out of shape. But it was a warm sunny day, something that's soon to be a scarcity around here, so I really wanted to get out into the country side. Unfortunately, I have no photos to share because while I'm alert enough to pick up the camera before I leave the house, I'm not alert enough to pick up a fresh battery. So, you won't get to see a team a draft horses pulling a wagon through a field, the "most charming part" of Turkey Brook, or the view up the lawn to Forty Hall. Trust me, they're there.

Pissed, and not in the good, drunken sense.

I know it doesn't make any sort of sense, but sometimes I get REALLY ANGRY when people mistake me for a man. Or, I guess it's not the mistaking part of it, it's the "is that a girl or guy?" conversation that happens when I am obviously in earshot. I know I've ranted about this before, but bear with me, because it just ruined my day again.

Yes, as I've noted before, sometimes I think it's funny. Case in point: my first day here in the UK, I went to Carphone Warehouse on the shopping parade and bought mobile phone and a world SIM card. Throughout the entire transaction, the clerk called me "Sir," even after I gave him my credit card (only Johnny Cash knows a boy named Sue, surely). And I thought that was pretty funny, because he just never really clued in, despite the fact that when I walk, I lead with one bodacious bosom.

Tonight, though, it just pissed me off. I was on the train home after a decent afternoon at the movies (How to Lose Friends, if you're interested), and I was in the last car on the train with a small group traveling together. Americans, seemingly from three different families, going out to Cockfosters for god knows what reason. Three CUTE little boys that made me laugh with their stated intentions of having 600 kids. So, I was getting off the train, thinking"that was a nice way to end the day, listening to American accents is so effortless compared to what I do most of the day" (one of the adults actually said "Look at this bad boy!" when showing his mate a picture of the largest catfish in Europe, such an American thing to say), and then they had to ruin it.

When we got off the train, just them and me from the last car, I wasn't even 3 feet away from before the catfish guy turned to his friend and said, "Was that a guy or a girl?" and his friend answered, "Yeah, I know, I had to look twice before I could figure it out." Okay, I'm wearing casual clothes today, apparently women in the UK aren't ever allowed to wear plaid shirts, jeans and tennis shoes, but jesus christ, couldn't you just let me get a little farther away before you start talking about me? I'm just saying. No, I'm just saying thanks for nothing, losers with American accents. I hope they are your dead bodies inside that outsize, European catfish.

Sidewalks.

I wonder if there's a limit to the number of people you can get to know in a lifetime. If there's a limit to the amount of energy a person can expend exchanging and absorbing life stories. Perhaps if you share too much too often as a young person, you run yourself short on possibilities for new friendships later on in life. You can't keep hold of all those people you knew when you were ten or twenty or thirty, even though they represent a major investment of time and energy and intimacy of sorts. But it's difficult to replace them when you're young, and it's even more difficult when you're older. If you only have it in you to really, truly know twenty people in your lifetime, and you've met and parted with eighteen of those people before your fortieth birthday, you've only got two people left to draw newly close to you in the second half of your life. It's too bad you didn't realize until too late that you should have used your choices more carefully when you had the chance ten years ago.

Doing new things.

I finished up at the British Library a bit early today, so I went to see a movie. I know, Catherine must be picking her jaw up off the floor: I willingly went to the cinema, and guess what--I saw a serious film: Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. I knew nothing about it except that it had Kirstin Scott Thomas in it. I generally avoid movies with her in it, even though I think she's stunning. She reminds me of Eileen, who then reminds me of Todd--perhaps because we saw Angels and Insects with them? I'm not sure. Anyway, Scott Thomas should be proud of her work, as should Elsa Zylberstein. I'm not going to say anything about the movie, other than it was beautiful, but painful. The one editorial I would write about it would give away the last scene, so I'll keep my opinions to myself.

This movie also briefly reminded me of Debbie, because in one scene was shown a poster for Les Jeux Dangereux, which reminded me of the poster for Jeux interdits I had on my wall my freshman year of college at WWU. My first French film, and I wouldn't have seen it if Debbie hadn't taken me to the PAC with her.

In other news, I am eating too much pizza, but at least I'm working hard to get it. I can hardly wait to get to India where I can eat with my fingers like a civilized person. God, silverware sucks.

In Living Color.

Photos from my walk on Sunday.

Conspiracy Theory.

"Everyone knew that Kathleen was pregnant and that she died of the child. You'd have to be an idiot not to have figured that out, what with the girl's hasty home-coming and incarceration in the house. But the thing you do in a case like that is to go along with the idea that the child is the offspring of the grandparents. Everyone agrees to this fiction, and the only people who'd breathe a word of the actual facts to the illegitimate child are those who are so malicious to begin with that they are easily dismissed as liars. As in truth they are. For the beneficent lie tells the truth about the child, which is "you belong in this community", whereas the malicious truth-tellers use fact to convey a lie, which is "you don't belong". This is an imperfect system but it's the prevailing one. As as the years go by the facts get eroded and scattered by time, until there are more people who don't know than people who do."

Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall On Your Knees (London: Vintage Books, 1997): 165-6.

Freak.

Sometimes the intensity of my anxiety surprises even me. For instance, did you know that for the past ten years, I have been worried that something was going to happen to the Standard of Ur and its companion pieces, The Ram in a Thicket and the Queen's (Golden) Lyre of Ur? I know this fear is crazy--what possible difference could it make in my life if the Standard of Ur somehow was destroyed? But I ran over the to British Museum today just to make sure they were there. At first I was completely disoriented by the renovations made since the removal of the British Library to its own site (the British Museum now seems more like an over-sized gift shop than a museum, I think). Once oriented, however, I went straight to the Mesopotamia rooms to make sure the Standard and friends were okay. Even as I got closer, my anxiety grew more acute. At two galleries away, I was panicked that they were gone. At one gallery away, I had sweated completely through my shirt and jacket. At ten paces, I had to fight back tears of relief that everything was in place and as it should be.

For anyone else suffering from this particular anxiety, there is a small women's restroom just outside the north lift where you can recover from yourself in privacy.

Even a monkey can do it.

Anyone who has the (dis)pleasure of dining with me knows I am completely incapable of using cutlery. My wife teases me about the way I hold my fork, and my parents used to argue about the same when I was a kid (whose responsibility was it to teach me to hold a knife and fork properly, anyway?). So, here I am in, in a land where everyone eats pizza with utensils instead of fingers, suffering and sweating every lunch hour. As I slowly work my way through the menu at Pizza Express, I am being forced to eat my entire lunch, day after day, with fork and knife.

This week I discovered that the angle at which you hold your knife when cutting actually makes a difference. It's much more effective to saw a pizza crust at a 23-degree rather than a 45-degree angle. Who knew? Well, probably everyone who knows how to use silverware knew this. However, until recently, that group did not include me. I'm sure whatever gains I make will be lost after nine months of eating with my right hand only in India, but in the meantime, I'm making progress with my tools.

Gaming.

This is what I look like when I'm playing Intergalatic Battle Checkers on Facebook w/Catherine.

Little Head, Big Brain

Just got in from a 3-hour walk along the London Loop. I only went halfway along the section between Cockfosters and Enfield Lock before turning around, so I guess I only walked about 7-8 miles total. A nice stretch of the legs, but not really a very brisk pace. Much of the time I was in or around Trent Park, a rather large bit of land that was once part of Henry IV's hunting grounds. It has a lofty obelisk that fans of Dr. Who might recognize. A large step off the main path will lead to Camlet Moat, an earthworks that dates to the 1300s or so. Most of the stuff on the web is about the moat as a haunted site (although I suspect all those burned-out spots and trees with fabric draped on them were created by teenagers earnestly exploring the occult, perhaps with a lager or two, not by haunting spirits), but I did find an interesting write-up about Camlet/Camelot, Geoffrey de Mandeville and myth to read.

Anyway, I saw much today, including four fighter jets flying in formation, a landscape produced by Repton and Brown, an ancient moat, a rather large obelisk, children playing cricket, plowed fields, baled hay, and dozens of dogs off leads, but I'll tell you what I'll remember the most. I'll remember the high-pitched voice of the little girl behind me informing her parents as loudly as she possibly could, "That lady has a little head! That big lady has a little head!" You'd think a child walking behind someone with a expansive, colorful tattoo on her calf would notice that, but no, she notices my weight and my pin head. Lovely.

Well, that's true.

I finally saw 30 St. Mary Axe in person--from a distance, mind you--but that was probably worth the long bus ride into the city. Actually, I saw it while looking across the Thames from the south bank near the Millennium Bridge, so that's two Norman Fosters in one glance.

Also, for you bollykids, I was briefly in Waterloo Station today. Catherine, you will recognize the guy standing next to Mr. Bachchan in that video clip. And while I'm posting Jhoom Barabar Jhoom links, this one is kind of sweet.

ETA: Sorry, fixed the links.

Surprisingly Quiet

I think it's a rather sad commentary on my creativity that I have been in the U.K. for over a week now, and I can't think of anything interesting to write in my blog. Or my journal. Journaling lasted exactly one day, and that day consisted of bullet points.

In part, I think this is what happens when you travel to work rather than play. I spent a day or two clearing up communications issues--bought a new cell phone w/world SIM card, got my computer set up on the wireless network at the house, got my British Library reader's pass, bought an Oyster/Travel Card so I could use the tube to go into the city every day. After those exciting problems were easily and swiftly resolved, I just slipped into a regular work schedule: up in the a.m., eat an apple on the way to the station, sit on the train for 30 minutes, get off the train, sort my stuff into a locker at the British library, work for several hours, eat lunch, work more hours, take a break for a cup of coffee and a quick phone call to Catherine, work another hour, pick my stuff up out of my locker, sit on the train for 20 minutes, walk home from the station. In the few evenings I've been here, I've spent them: talking to Catherine via webcam, watching television, walking to the supermarket, and eating dinner.

There is very little excitement in the daily schedule of the working life.

I think it's just possible that I've now spent enough time in London that what once might have seem notable or odd is neither any more. Well, what is notable and odd is that there are dustbins everywhere these days, even on the train platform at Cockfosters. Obviously the days of "bomb in trash" worries are over (supplanted by the days of "bomb in train" worries), and now it is easy to eat my breakfast on the way to the train, because I have somewhere to throw the core when I'm done. Also, the British Library is a much friendlier place these days. It is no longer like working in a prison, with the warden standing just there, behind your shoulder. It's a much better environment. I only wish the reading rooms had longer opening hours--trying to get everything done between 9:30 and 5:00 is difficult.

And, yes, I've turned into Randy. I know.

I spent the day on the bus from Cockfosters to London Bridge (don't do that again). I intended to spend a full afternoon at the Tate Modern, but once I got there, I realized I was bored. The building didn't grab me the way I thought it would, and the art on display wasn't...wasn't...I don't know. Nothing drew me in. I hate it when I can walk into a gallery and tick off the artist of every piece on the wall without trying. It's true enough that I could have spent more time in Surrealism gallery, but de Chirico and partners make me queasy even in small doses. The only piece that really held my attention was Cornelia Parker's Thirty Pieces of Silver, and even that viewing was somewhat marred by the poor design of the exhibition space. People, if you are going to put up a long text about a piece in a room that has only one entrance/exit, MOVE IT AWAY FROM THE DOOR. Huddled masses, trying to read, tripping over the barrier.

Anyway, I think I should have enjoyed the art, the building, and the experience more, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't.

Today was the last sunny day EVER for London. At least, that must have been written on the memo that was sent out to all of Europe this a.m. The south bank Thames Path was packed, shoulder to shoulder, everyone trying to absorb one last bit of Vitamin D before the winter grey sets in. It made for slow service in the cafe, but for cheerful people on the pavements, so that's a fair trade, I suppose.

Parting Gifts.

The best going-away gift I received last week was handed to me quite casually by my therapist. As we were wrapping up my final session, she looked down at her notes and agreed with me that I would be just fine this coming year. "You're meeting your potential, and you are going to do well." As you might remember, living up to my "potential" has always been a big burden for me. I never seem to be able to do it, I always seem to be chasing my potential and just falling short. But, finally, someone has decided that I'm doing enough, I'm maxing out my capabilities, and I should feel good about that.

The worst going-away present I received last week was a parking ticket. I was on my way back to my car with 20 minutes to spare on my meter when a faculty member stopped me to talk to me about her research plans. I kept trying to edge toward the door, but I couldn't bring myself to say, "Hey, my parking meter is about to run out of money, I gotta go!" My meter was 5 minutes expired when I got back to my car, and I had a $20 ticket because of it. It's just annoying, because I am so uptight about putting money in my meter, parking legally, and being responsible, and then, look what happens on my very last day on campus.

You're not from around here, are you?

This year, I promise I will learn the names of the trees in my neighborhood(s) in India. I swear.

Itinerary and Ire

So, my airline tickets to London and Delhi are finally in hand. T-11 days and counting. Every other sentence out of my mouth is "I don't want to go," but it seems that I have to, whether I want to or not. We have the webcams all set up so we can Skype, and Catherine has promised to visit, but I can't seem to stop feeling like this is all one big mistake. I spend all my free time reading cake decorating websites, contemplating a second (third? fourth?) career at the local bake shop. I'm pretty sure I'd be a good cake decorator.

As my departure draws nearer, I find myself growing more and more bitter about the Defense of Marriage Act. It's standing directly in between me and my partner, keeping us apart for twelve months simply because we're both female.

Here's the exact language from the DDRA booklet:

"Dependents
A dependent is any of the following individuals who accompany the fellow to his or her research site(s) for the entire fellowship period if the individual receives more than 50 percent of his or her support from the fellow during the fellowship period: 1) the fellow’s spouse; 2) the fellow’s or spouse’s children who are unmarried and under age 21.

Dependents for whom the fellow is requesting a dependent’s allowance must accompany the fellow to the research site for the entire fellowship period. Should a fellow’s dependent return to the U.S. during the tenure of the fellowship, the fellow will be required to return the full dependent's allowance.

The word "marriage" means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word "spouse" refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife. These definitions are found in 1 USC Section 7, commonly known as the “Defense of Marriage Act” and apply to all federal programs."

So, the fact that Catherine and I have been together for sixteen years means nothing--she doesn't count as a dependent, and doesn't qualify for a dependent's allowance. She could easily get a leave of absence from her job, and the living + dependent's stipend from the DDRA would easily support us both in London and India. But, no. Not straight, not possible. When my friends try to tell me I should be happy for "domestic partnerships" or "civil unions," I offer this as a clear and specific example of why these supposed "separate but equal" institutions are in fact still discriminatory.

A friend of mine who is in the process of applying for the Fulbright-Hays told me just today that she and her boyfriend have decided to get married so he will be considered a dependent. Well, I'm sure they would probably stay together, and even get married in the future, anyway; but the truth is, they can decide to get married because it's practical to keep them together in the next twelve months, reaping benefits denied to me.

Well, life isn't fair, and that's a lesson learned a long time ago, so I can't waste too much more energy on this. But when I'm sitting in front of the television, listening to a presidential candidate who believes civil unions are good enough, and that the federal government doesn't need to do anything to secure my marriage rights, I get angry all over again. It's probably a good thing I'll be spending the two months immediately before the presidential election away from American television and radio.

#41

• Driving into the mysterious black box.
• Epoxy: no gloves!
• Best factory job ever: Corvette assembly plant.
• A cricket as big as your head.
• Bats and more bats.
• Illusions in the dark.
• Fat man's misery: conquered.
• Fire tower: conquered.
• Zen through sleeping.
• Rooster in the cave.
• Mock pit crew competition.
• The smell of lantern smoke.
• Deer, pigs, wild turkeys, mouse, crickets, bats, snake.
• Pig at Pig.
• Tuberculosis and saltpeter.

Multilingual

Flashcard Exchange must be the best site on earth. It must be.

By Popular Demand

Or, at least by request of my wife. Noting that this blog is only good for helping us answer questions like, "How long ago did we visit that lava tube in Oregon?" or "Have we ever taken an underground boat before?" Catherine asked me to type up a list of everything vaguely amusing we've done this year.

January: Trip to Nashville for Catherine's 50th birthday. Saw the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman, went to the Bluebird Cafe, Belle Meade Plantation, saw a Nashville Predators' hockey game, visited the Country Music Hall of Fame, several honky-tonks, Studio B, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, and the Parthenon. Had a super good time, and a super good dinner at Ellendale's.

February: Went to a taping of Prairie Home Companion at the IU Auditorium, which was nice, but overloaded with classical music. Much better: the Reba and Kelly Clarkson "2 Worlds 2 Voices" concert at the Conseco Fieldhouse. More amazing than amazing can be.

April: Passed my exams, spent the next week in Cincinnati for the Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians. Had a death in the family that week, so I pretty much stayed in the hotel room when I wasn't in a session, but we did have a brilliant evening out at the Cincinnati Observatory.

May: Catherine visits her parents, Susan goes racing. I went up to the Speedway for Pole Day. We both went up for Carb Day, but it was mostly rained out, so not much racing was observed. Memorial Day was spent in front of the TV, watching the race.

June: A week in Washington State, visiting my parents. Highlights previously noted. Really ramped up our goofing off this month. Spent a couple of days at the Write Inn in Oak Park so we could take in the Chicago stop of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors tour. Catherine finally got to tour the Frank's Oak Park studio. I think that makes our third FLW house tour together (she didn't get to go on the more in-depth tour I took my first semester back in grad school). Even though that jaunt to Chicago wore us out, we managed to road trip to Bloomington, Illinois, for another amazing Reba McEntire concert. Lady Antebellum opened for her, and it was great to hear Hillary Scott sing the Linda Davis role in "Does He Love You." If Reba needed a kidney, I'd totally be there for her.

July: Oh, yeah, an immensely long road trip to Shiloh. Another weekend in Columbus, Ohio. That's notable because while we were at the Columbus zoo, we discovered that not only am I afraid of kangaroos, I'm afraid of lorikeets. Five trips between Bloomington and Rantoul--I finally checked the odometer: 4000+ miles of driving in July. Good thing I like our car A LOT.

August: Finally, the State Fair arrives! I was happy enough just to get to see the chickens, but it was an extra great day because we got to see Carrie Underwood on the grandstand. She is much more awesome than I expected, and although she isn't Reba, I would definitely spend more money to see her. I think that might have been our best grandstand concert to date (and that's no small feat, since we also saw Reba on the grandstand once). That day at the fair was wedged in between three days spent volunteering for the Drum Corps International championships.

Today we FINALLY went to Bluespring Caverns and took the boat tour down the Mystery River (prompting this post: have we, or have we not, ever been on an underground boat ride?). Nice day; it included a side trip to Popcorn, Indiana, that demonstrated you should never believe marketing campaigns. This weekend was a warm-up for next, when we head to Mammoth Caves and the National Corvette Museum for a four-day weekend.

For such a miserable year, filled with anxiety, drama, death and preliminary exams, we sure had a lot of fun.

je ne parle pas français....

...but I still managed to find a hotel just two blocks from the archive I will be using in Vanves in November. I'm just saying.

Actually, I'm just saying because I've always wanted to go to Paris, but last time I had the opportunity, I was too tired to make the trip and I spent the long weekend in Brighton instead. Catherine has promised multiple times that she will visit me while I'm in France, and we've been planning to go to Versailles, since Vanves is only about 18km away, on the western side of Paris. One of the brilliant things about being an architectural historian: as long as you take time to look at a few buildings when you're out and about, it counts as research.

Anyway, I've reserved a studio with kitchenette in an apparthôtel, and couldn't be happier right now, really.

Why Cyberspace Isn't Empty (But Should Be)

According to the editing screen for this blog, I have a minimum of five posts in draft state, waiting quietly in the background for me to finish them off and release them in their final form into my blog. I can't seem to make myself bring any of them to completion, though. I get 3/4 of the way through, and then think, "Wtf is this? Who *cares*?" and abandon them.

A partial list of my partial thoughts this week:

1. Musings on American Idol, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson;
2. A plea for packing advice (I might finish this one--how do you pack for 12 mos. in two different countries?);
3. My opinion on various guidebooks for India (and a scathing review of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?);
4. Confessions of panic attacks and depression (multiple variations on a theme);
5. A plea for cell phone advice (short form, can I live in London for three months without a phone? I don't think so);
6. Summaries of our vacations that bored even me (the summaries, not the vacations);
7. Reviews of the two dozen graphic novels I've read this summer;
8. Even more boring things

This is perhaps a sign that the blog needs to be put out of its misery. The archives are really useful for me in those moments I need to know what I did on my 34th birthday, or when I was last in New York, that sort of thing. And I'm sure I'll want to write something or another down this coming year, but in the meantime, wow, how did my life get so incredibly dull?

Stuff I want to do after work

Kielder Observatory
Serpentine Pavilion
Design Museum--Exhibitions
What's On--Building Design
Architecture Foundation
London Architecture Diary
Royal Observatory
Tate Modern
Museum in Docklands

Good Job, A.I.I.S. Chicago

I need to give the people from A.I.I.S. some props, that's for sure. They handled all the arrangements for my last two trips to India. I did have to do some last minute running around the first time--mostly because I applied to the program a month or two after the deadline has passed--and I was a little stressed out about GOING TO INDIA that first year. If I remember correctly, though, last year I was so relaxed about the whole thing that I almost forgot to send in my visa, and I didn't get around to packing until a couple of days before my departure. I could be that relaxed precisely because I wasn't responsible for obtaining the supporting paperwork for the visa, making housing arrangements, affiliating myself with a university, etc. About all I did last year was buy the plane ticket (the first year, CLS/AIIS took care of even that detail).

All of this is to say is that it is kind of stressful putting together your own research application for India. In the end, USEFI came through for me and got me an affiliation with JNU in Delhi--good for them, I say, because although I managed to get a department to agree to support my affiliation, and although said department send the letter of approval to the foreign students registrar, I was never able to figure out how to get that letter sent on to me for inclusion with my visa. I spent a lot of time trying to work through the JNU switchboard (in Hindi!), but never had any luck. So, without USEFI, I'd be out of luck right now.

So, that was one huge step taken care of for me. The rest has just been non-stop drama, though. I had to include seven copies of the proforma (essentially a data sheet) with my visa application. That's seven photos, plus two for my visa, plus two for my passport. That's a total of eleven photos. You know how much that's going to cost you at the local CVS, the US Post Office, or the photo store downtown? 59.94 plus tax. And if you're me, after you pay for all those photos, and use only two on your passport application, you're going to lose the rest when you're moving. After a lot more drama, I managed to use the scanner and the local "U-print" facility to produce replacement 2" x 2" photos, but it was a huge hassle and required two trips across town. And then you have to fill everything out, glue on the photos, and send it all off via overnight mail because you needed the visa, like, yesterday.

Anyway, that sounds like a bunch of whining, but the point really is this: it's easy to take the Chicago office of A.I.I.S. for granted, and wonder, "Hey, where is my paperwork?!?" But when you have to sit down and do it all yourself, you suddenly realize how incredibly together they have it--they know what they're doing, and if there is some small delay, just be glad you're not standing in Kinko's pasting on photos with a glue stick while listening to the creepy kid next to you make a drug deal on his cell phone. Because that is a really sucky way to spend the afternoon.

Just Add Ice

I'm rapidly approaching hockey camp levels of physical exhaustion. I've been wondering: am I sick? Am I old? Am I just a wuss? But last night I was looking at the calendar, and I realized that in month of July, I have driven from Bloomington (IN) to Rantoul (IL) and back five times, plus driven to Columbus (OH) and back, as well as to Corinth (MS) and back. For those of you keeping track, that's a minimum of 3190 miles in 31 days.

Those drives were interrupted by some heavy-duty moving chores. Thank god for strong men, as at least we had help loading and unloading the moving truck. I packed every box in our two-bedroom townhouse, though, and unpacked them at the other end (must get rid of some books before relocating again). Catherine was able to take a Saturday to help with the move-out cleaning. She did most of the kitchen, so that was nice.

Also in my month was a full day at the zoo, and a day of wandering Civil War battlefields. Plus, our house in Bloomington was full of strange men much of this month--the contractors finally got around to finishing the screen porch and painting the dining room. Oh, and putting up a desperately-needed 140' fence between us and the neighbors. Thank god I didn't have to dig the post holes for that! But it's super stressful to me to have strangers in my house, particularly when they are men. Men are loud and take up a lot of room.

I was supposed to wash down the furniture so we could put it back on the newly finished porch this afternoon, but I couldn't summon the energy. I'm going to finish this post, make some popcorn, and then hit the couch to watch the Brickyard for the rest of the afternoon. That's all I can do, and believe me, I'm really doing the best that I can do right now.

Jackaroo

Jack Arute, telling it like it is.

btw, water is bad for your cell phone.

For a smart person, I can sure be dumb.

Without telling anyone EXACTLY how dumb I am, I'll just say that I am responsible for killing my own cell phone. Permanently. I have a replacement for the phone, but unfortunately, not for the three-year's worth of contact information stored on it. So, if you think it might be important that I'm able to call you some day, you might want to e-mail me your phone number.

Because I Said So

So, in keeping with my Facebook declaration a few days ago, ("Susan decides to be happier"), I decided to make a list of reasons why I might look forward to a year abroad. Without going into details, I'm always astonished at my therapist's flexibility. Yesterday, that character/professional trait manifested itself in her willingness to serve as a rather amiable and encouraging sounding board for the beginnings of my list. What I've got so far:

Why I Want to Spend a Year in London and India:

• I've never spent time in the U.K. during the fall to winter transition, only spring to summer, high summer, summer to fall; something new to experience;
• The house I'll be living in is in Cockfosters, outside London, an area I've never visited, so a new place to see;
• Cockfosters is on the London Loop, and I've been wanting to do some more walking;
• This year's Serpentine Pavilion will still be in place when I arrive in London;
  
• This will be a chance to introduce more structure into my day, going to the archives at a regular time every day (at least in London)--I can use this as a chance to regulate my sleep/eat/work schedule and stabilize my life a little;
• Three months in one place! Followed by another three months of one place, and then another, and then another. Three months in one place sounds impossibly grand to me right now;
• An opportunity to see more of India: live in the Thar Desert for three months, finally visit Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, take a long weekend to Chennai, Mumbai or Goa;
• Reconnect with favorite Indian places and people: go back to Jaipur for a weekend or two, back to Ujjain, Varanasi, spend more time in Delhi;
• An opportunity to change my diet; although I've been living far away from vending machines for the past few months, it will be nice to be living some where with few processed foods to seduce me;
• Doing this puts me closer to the completion of the dissertation, and closer to my goal of leaving academia;
• This will give me a chance to regain the confidence and independence I discovered last summer in India;
• Networking. This seems like a good opportunity to meet other Americans working in my field; the more people I talk to now, the more likely it is that I will find a job--in or out of academia--in the future;
• A year without a car! Writing as someone who has put 14,232 on her vehicle since January 15, I can say I am very much looking forward to 368 days of Shank's mare and public transportation. I can't promise that I won't ever purchase bottled water when I'm in India, but even so, my carbon/resource footprint should drastically shrink over the next several months;
• I'm much more likely to bump into Preity Zinta on the street if I'm in India than if I'm in Bloomington, Indiana or Rantoul, Illinois [that one's for you, Beth].
• Both of my major fellowship awards come with a book-buying budget. I can finally buy all those books I need for my dissertation instead of relying on the library's copies.
  

Why I Do Not Want to Spend a Year in London and India:

• A year away from home, are you fucking kidding me?
• I miss the cats already, will they even remember who I am when I return home? What if something happens to Jackie while I'm gone?
• What is something happens to Catherine, and I've wasted what could have been good times together on archival research about which I don't really care?
  
• Living apart for 368 days is definitely going to put stress on my relationship;
• Reuniting after living apart for 368 days is definitely going to put stress on my relationship;
• My father's health--what if I don't see him again before it's too late?
• I don't even want a Ph.D. It feels like I'm doing this for some reason other than "I want to," and I'm pretty sure that's the wrong reason;
• I hate all people, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to talk to some of them in the next year;
• I'm really not a big fan of Indian food, unless it's dal makhani or veg jalfreezi. It's going to be a long year of no tomato soup or popcorn;
  
• What if I get sick, and there I am, out in the great Thar Desert, all by myself, unable to communicate? What if something really, really bad happens?
• A year of lack. While this is good in terms of my gas consumption, it will be difficult in terms of a lack of: privacy, access to clean water, friends, my native language, familiar objects, etc.
  

No fucking kidding.

You know what's disgusting about this story? It's been this way in South Central L. A. since the Watts Riots in 1965. *1965*. That's how long corporations have been refusing to invest in the area, refusing to rebuild/add grocery stores after the property destruction of the Watts Riots. It was still an obvious problem when I lived there in 1991-1992 (try buying groceries in South Central without getting in a car and driving for an hour first), and it apparently hasn't gotten any better. Styling this as a "fast food" problem hardly addresses the 43 years of deliberate neglect by grocery chains, etc. I've had people tell me that the 1992 uprising demonstrated that these corporations had a smart policy, refusing to put property in an area that might see further damage and violence. I don't buy that. I just don't believe that a rebellion *32 years* later proves anything, unless it's that white people can be incredibly, incredibly stupid.

This Should Make You Feel Better

My Life is in Storage

Well, it's almost moving day. I've been sorting and stacking for awhile now, but the boxes have finally been broken out of storage--it's time for the real deal. Emotionally, this is a lot harder than I expected it be. Every time I wrap something up and put it in a box, I think, "Oh, I remember hanging this up in my first apartment here. It was really fun setting up that apartment." I'm not sure exactly what went wrong between then and now, but nowhere in me can I find that person who actually wanted to try out this whole Ph.D. thing.

[I'm back. You can't tell by reading, but I had to go take a crying break.]

Anyway, packing things up here means I really am going to leave the country for a year, I really am going to do research in India, and I really am going to go forward with this thing. I'm trying not to treat it like a death sentence, but it definitely feels like I'm being sent into exile against my will.

The Western Theater

Continuing, or returning to, our tradition of visiting Civil War battlefields in the hottest days of summer, we spent the holiday weekend at Shiloh. Actually, we saw four battlefields all together--Parker's Crossroads, Shiloh, Corinth and Spring Hill. Parker's Crossroads was just a lucky find for us, as we'd changed our minds about the route we would take to Shiloh at the last possible moment. Luckily for us, Ron Jr. and Sue Jordan of the Parker's Crossroads Battlefield Association were on duty at the visitors center. They walked us through the battle and the PCBA's preservation plan, and were just generally nice to us. In fact, everyone we met last weekend was nice, and almost made me not hate all of humanity. That engagement started off our weekend of battlefields in the right way, I think.

I can see why Shiloh is Rick's favorite battlefield--although Cold Harbor is still my favorite (after Gettysburg, of course). It was a nice mix of driving and walking, good interpretive markings, and not too crowded once we were away from the visitor's center. The main interpretive center is really in Corinth, MS, at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, although there is a small center at the battlefield itself. This is a new building, sweetly designed with good lighting and layout. I'm not sure who the exhibit designer was, but the signage was clearly done by a professional group. Staffed by friendly people who feel lucky to have the jobs that they have. Two good movies, one about the battle of Corinth, one about Shiloh. If you want a movie experience, best to do it here, the movie out at the battlefield must have been made in the 1970s. It wasn't bad content-wise, but the sound quality wasn't good, and all those fake beards glued to soldier faces were distracting.

We stayed in Corinth on Friday night (July 4), then did the battlefield on Saturday. It was an all-day endeavor, and we could have stayed out longer, but I think we got a pretty good feel for the battle as it was. Stopped at Shiloh church to talk to some men who were fixing a water leak, listened to the warning about copperheads in the pine trees, stood dutifully at the edges of the bloody pond and thought about it all. The battlefield has a nice picnic spot set up away from the auto tour route, so we had a nice lunch in the trees (before we were cautioned about snakes). Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit the Indian mounds because the trail was under construction and heavily guarded by caution tape.

Sunday was a long drive home. It's supposed to be an eight-hour drive, but we lost some time going to see the railroad crossing at Corinth, and also when we turned around to go to a rest area on the opposite side of the freeway so I could look at the Saturn IB rocket on display. Then we took up a lot more time with the Spring Hill battlefield. It's smaller than Parker's Crossing, but uphill from the parking lot. Ate lunch next to the creek near the battlefield pull-off, then headed north. The drive up I-65 was endless. I don't know what it was--everyone was tired and trying to get home asap after a holiday weekend? A lot of aggressive driving by people in over-sized vehicles. We have a couple of more road trips planned before I leave for London in September, but I'm starting to think I'm too old for this kind of weekend.

Doesn't Play Well With Others

I seem to be having trouble dealing with real, live people as of late. I mean, it's surely no surprise to anyone that I'm not the most personable (warm, comforting, nurturing, friendly, outgoing, [insert more desired personality characteristics here]), but in the past few weeks, I seem to be doing a particularly poor job of managing interpersonal relationships. And, yes, I know it is has something to do with therapy, I'm exhausting myself with this process. But I really can't start out every personal--or any professional--conversation with "You know, I spent yesterday evening telling my therapist how it felt be sexually abused when I was young, so do you think you could make an extra effort to be kind to me today?" I mean...really. It's expecting a bit much for people to magically ascertain my mental and emotional fragility before speaking to me (although...the fact that I flinch every time someone speaks to me makes me think that deduction shouldn't require great magical powers).

On the other hand, I sometimes think that I should demand people to be more gentle with me on an every day basis--is there a reason I have to be able to stand there and listen to whatever someone else wants to say to me, no matter how insensitive it is? Is there a clause in the code of collegiality and friendship that I neglected to read? I guess in the end, I find it surprising that I have to provide a *reason* for someone to be gentle with me ("I'm fragile because of therapy, so be nice!"). Shouldn't I be able to expect that, anyway? I'm not sure, and I guess that uncertainty is a sign that I really just don't get people and the way people relate to other people. And I suspect I'm not going to learn this in therapy, which is is just too bad.

Hetero-Homo Bhai Bhai

http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20080630/1074/tod-hetero-homo-bhai-bhai-is-the-rainbow.html

Back to Work

Apparently the airlines know all about me. Our reservation reference number for our flight to Washington state last week was LEZKWR. That's some sort of coincidence.

Today is my last day of vacation. I've been working off and on all month, in five-minute to five-hour spurts, but beginning tomorrow, I will start following my 32.5 hour work schedule (3 hours of writing in the morning, 3.5 hours of "miscellaneous academic tasks" in the afternoon. I've got to stop this practice of sitting down for five minutes to do a task, only to discover eight hours later that I've lost the entire day to research. That kind of behavior makes me angry and resentful, and quickly reminds me why I hate my chosen career path. If I want to make it through the long haul, I need to start forcing myself to work within pre-set limits. I've downloaded an electronic timer, and as soon as I finish this post, I'm going to install it. Write for three hours in 50-minute blocks and then STOP. Research/academic tasks for three hours in 50-minutes, with an additional 30 minutes of wrap up time, NO MORE.

Anyway, as I said, today is my last day of vacation. We've just returned from eight days with my parents. We tarred the garage roof, painted the wheelchair ramp, mowed the front lawn, helped my brother build a new dog fence, ran a billion errands, went over to the Methow to explore Pipestone Canyon and drive up Eight Mile (ran into snow before the end of the road), went up the Sinlahekin, had dinner with my best friend from my hometown, visited with three aunts and two uncles, and watched too much TV. We flew into Spokane on the clearly omniscient Frontier Airlines via Denver, and I have to say, for an airline experience (of which I have WAY TOO MANY), it was pretty nice. Avis Rentals, however, will be hearing from me soon--what kind of car rental agency sends you off in a 4-wheel drive with transmission fluid in it? Did they think I wanted to get stranded out in the middle of the forest with frozen gears?

So, back to the grind. A list of tasks to be completed tomorrow afternoon:

Writing Session

1. Literature review notes
2. Adapt fellowship to intro
   

Afternoon Work Session

1. E-mail M.D.
2. SSRC-IDRF bio/abstract
   
3. Article revisions
4. Make copies of dissertation writing workshop forms
5. Find JS book!
6. Overdue library book
   

After Work

1. E-mail L.S.
2. Call tree surgeon
3. Trim photos
4. Pick up paint chips
5. Mail insurance papers
6. Check medivac insurance policies
7. E-mail Ayse re: bills
   

Gays Marry; World Does Not End

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/367465_henryonline19.html

Web Sucks

You'd think someone who has written html code since 1992 would have at least one freaking idea as to why a blogger template isn't working. $&*@(!!!

ETA: Okay, I've done what you're supposed to do when something doesn't work: go out and buy a replacement. Well, less "buy" than "use free of charge." I think this officially means that I can no longer consider myself a geek. If you can't code your own template, you are no longer entitled to wear t-shirts with hip and ironic code jokes. Also, you are no longer permitted to read slashdot. Or fark. Or any of the internets.

JM

More Joe Morello awesomeness:

The Where We Were

Since my wife is out of town, and the novel I'm reading isn't holding my attention, I think this would be a good time to take stock of where I'm at, what I'm doing, where I'm going these days. I had lunch earlier this week with the principal architect of the firm at which I was working before going back to school, and I feel like that closed some sort of cognitive loop for me. So, let's see...

Three years of coursework, complete. I have learned an incredible amount of *stuff* over the past three years. Let's face it--when I started the program, I could barely find India on a map. I couldn't tell you the first thing about even the Taj Mahal. In three years, I've managed to learn a foreign language, start on two others, spend two summers in India, demonstrate competency in two unrelated exam fields, present at three conferences and one graduate symposium (four different papers), win two paper prizes, have an article accepted for publication, and successfully defend a dissertation proposal.

I've traveled to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Madison, WI, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Savannah, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati to look at/learn more/talk more about architecture. I've managed to win a Critical Languages Scholarship, a summer FLAS, an academic year FLAS, a Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship, an SSRC-IDRF fellowship, two Graduate College Conference Travel Grants, a National Science Foundation Travel Grant, one Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant, and several fellowships/grants within the School of Architecture. I've put in the hours to complete the campus Graduate Teaching Certificate. I've worked as a Teaching Assistant for the introductory course in architectural history, and I've planned an upper-division course on Indian Architecture to hopefully be taught before I leave this place.

I've talked back to a senior scholar in front of a room full of my colleagues. I've gotten into an emotional argument with a full professor during a doctoral colloquium. I have alienated graduate students in multiple departments on campus because of my unwillingness to listen to stupidity during seminars. I have earned the respect of one or two professors for the same reason. I have managed to hold on to just one friend among all the graduate students in my own department, and made a spectacular friend from the faculty in another department.

I have lost my flash drive twice, and recovered it twice. I have fallen asleep in my library carrel and failed to wake up before my afternoon class. I have received some of the highest praise I have ever heard about my work, and I have received the worst grade I've ever earned in a graduate course. I have fallen asleep behind the wheel of my car while commuting between home and campus, and I have run over a small animal making the same commute after dark. I have gotten lost driving from the apartment to campus in a blizzard. I have been frightened beyond belief by the sound of a snowplow passing over my head while in an underground room of the library. I've arrived home at the end of the week and burst into tears by way of greeting.

I have gained forty pounds. I have lost thirty pounds. I have gained fifty pounds. I have eaten food I don't even like from vending machines in the middle of the night. I have enjoyed eating a great deal of tomato soup. I have retreated from my own hysteria into the comfort of a warm plate of risotto at a local restaurant more than once. I have visited the campus clinic after falling on the sidewalk (twice), for treatment of giardia (twice), and for treatment of whooping cough (countless numbers of times). I have had surgery on my left shoulder, and flexed the collar bone on my right shoulder. I have gone to the student counseling center in crisis (twice), and have spent an obscene amount of money on regularly scheduled therapy sessions.

I have realized (belatedly) that only I will be able to call a halt to this entire process. I have decided that I want to be an academic. I have decided that I would rather put a gun to my head and pull the trigger than be an academic. I have driven as far north as Kankakee and as far south as Effingham while attempting to run away from home and my life. I have lost contact with most of the people I considered friends three years ago. I have lost an aunt, an uncle and a cousin to old age and disease. I have dealt with the extended and terminal illness of my father. I have learned how to grieve in twenty second bouts of tears while riding in the elevator of the main stacks, and during two hour sessions of sobbing while driving on the interstate.

I'm not sure I can really take three more years of this lifestyle. Everything that looks like a success seems to be propped up by a devastating amount of sacrifice. In September, I will leave home and country for twelve months overseas, with no allowance for returning home outside of a death in the family or health crisis. I can easily say that it hasn't been worth it, it hasn't been worth it since about 1/2 way through my first year. But I also don't seem to have the guts to stop myself, and the system doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop my forward progress, either. So, I have three years to finish up the next part of this task, complete my research, write and defend my dissertation. I can't believe that I will ever give myself permission to quit, and at least a small part of me wants to see if I can do it, even if I leave academia immediately after depositing my dissertation with the graduate college. Check back with me in three years, maybe you'll find another "my life in summary" post just like this one.

Something to look forward to, right?

Still, Don't Touch My Ankle, Okay?

Last week I was complaining about therapy (otherwise known as "talking endlessly about myself and my problems in repetitive circles even when my wife is trying to watch TV"), and it occurred to me that instead of just having some therapy for my brain, I should have some therapy for my body. So, I looked around for a reputable massage therapy place in town and made an appointment. As it turns out, massage therapy costs exactly 1/2 the price of psychotherapy on an hourly basis. I'm thinking--I could have have a relaxing two-hour massage by a stranger for the price of a painful one-hour conversation with a different stranger, that seems like a win-win situation to me.

Anyway, it's a good thing I had a massage scheduled for yesterday afternoon because yesterday morning I did a faceplant on the running trail at Thomson Park. I'm still waiting for the X-rays to come back on my ankle, but I'm guessing it's not broken. I'm also guessing that without that massage in the afternoon, I wouldn't have been able to get out of bed this morning. You try skidding along asphalt on your face and see how quickly you jump out of bed the next day... A stupid way to start my summer vacation, that's all I can say.

Well, I'm not officially on vacation. I have some article revisions due with the journal editor this Friday, but I can't do anything more on that until I get back to Illinois on Wednesday. And I have some minor revisions to make on my dissertation proposal before Friday, but again, I can't do anything until I get back to Illinois on Wednesday. So, I'm on vacation until Wednesday, apparently. Then I have to jump back in with both feet--do both sets of revisions, meet with a dissertation committee member, meet with my therapist (or swap that meeting out for a long massage? Tempting.), make myself more smart. Unfortunately, the golf game I had planned for Thursday a.m. is not going to happen for another 4-6 weeks.

You know what?

This has been a really, really tough week. I'm not sure I understand why--I should be happier than happy, and yet I've gone on two good crying jags in the past four days.

Take Tuesday, for instance.

I got out of bed tired and anxious because this was the day I was supposed to present my research in the doctoral colloquium (the day before my oral exams, what's that about?). Transitioned from anxious to irritated after checking my e-mail. Moved from irritated to relieved when I arrived on campus to find out that I had received a dissertation travel grant. Went into the colloquium feeling pretty confident, only to get into a ridiculously stupid argument with a member of the faculty. Spent three hours feeling furious and hurt. Followed that up with an afternoon of crashing through therapy, and in the evening I found myself crying in the kitchen while Catherine tried to make dinner. Pulled myself together, blew my nose, checked my e-mail, only to find out that I had received a major research fellowship. How many ups and downs can one very fragile graduate student take in one day? Not very many, as it turns out.

There is no sleep happening at my house. Tuesday night I slept for a total of two hours, dragged myself to campus for my oral exams Wednesday morning. Everyone will be glad to know that I advanced to candidacy before noon. Exhausted and relieved and glad I never have to go through that again. Had a very nice lunch with a friend, couldn't put two words together to form even teh shortest of sentences, and crashed again afterward. Made the mistake of checking my e-mail only to find out that I received a second research fellowship. Upward swing, crash again, another night of no sleep.

What day is it today? Still Friday, I think. Third night of no sleep. Yes, we felt the earthquake, but no, it didn't wake us up because we were already awake. I had just finished my second major crying fit. Reality hit about 3 a.m. Thursday night/Friday morning--having this research fellowship means 9 months away from home, no return visits allowed. The second fellowship offers me the opportunity to extend that 9 months to 12 or even 15 months. I can't turn that down, can I? Even if it means I won't be able to visit my family unless someone dies?

People do talk about post-exam or post-defense depression, but I'm not sure I'm there yet. I'm just exhausted from too much talking, too much thinking, too much emotion. I'm planning on staying in bed until Tuesday (therapy beckons). Then I'll try to sort through all the possibilities for my life and make some decisions.

After all, if they make a Pocket Diva...

Okay, time for a quick update.

Last night I found out (after a two week delay!) that I passed my major field exam. Add that to the pass on my minor field exam, and that equals...hm...let's see...1 pass + 1 pass = 2 passes. All I need to do now is pass the oral exam next week. Oh, yeah, and go to London for 3 months to do research. Oh, and go to India for 6-8 months. Oh, and there's that dissertation to write afterward, too. But let's keep it in the short term for now, okay? 1 + 1 = 2.

Yes, I'm relieved. There must be something else (happiness?) in the emotional mix, but mostly I'm just glad the writing is done and that I don't have to re-take the exam in August. I think what I'm enjoying most about passing are the reactions of everyone around me. I was pretty sure I failed (and indeed, although it was a pass, my advisor did agree that I kind of dropped the ball at the end of the exam), so the past two weeks have been pretty stressful for me. Not as stressful as for everyone around me, though, if their responses to my news are anything to go by. Catherine has been saying, "Congratulations! I'm so proud of you, honey!" on a non-stop loop. Dana sounded so happy and relieved that I suspect she had already resigned herself to my failure. Beth pretty much exhausted all the exclamations points available for the writers in the year 2008, and told me I was झकास! My therapist had asked me to call her and give her my exam results if they ever arrived, and I dutifully left a message on her office phone this afternoon. She returned the favor, leaving the kindest congratulatory message on my cell phone that you could imagine receiving from a counselor.

And this leads me to another thing I've been thinking about: I must say, "My therapist said..." 1000 times a week. I should start using her real name, instead of talking about her like an object I keep in my pocket. Hmmm...pocket therapist. That would make a *great* action figure. Gotta get me one of them.

I think....sad.

A follow-up to an earlier post: I'm not sure if it's funny or sad that my therapist told me she liked my check design when I paid her today.

But you said!

Mmmm....changing minds, the bane of the graduate student's existence.

I've finished one exam. When I sat back, I thought, "Okay, I think I passed." But just a couple of minutes later, I realized I'd left a big theoretical whole right.....*there*. And then I realized I'd left another one...*over there*. And so on. A friend of mine who is also a faculty member told me that's how all qualifying exams work. She says the point is that I sat in my library carrel and read what I was supposed to read, not that I turned out a perfect exam. There's no second reader for this thing, so I'm going to have to hope the my minor field advisor thinks the same way my friend does.

Anyway.

Looking ahead (definitely not forward to) to the next exam, trying to convince myself it's not just a pointless hazing ritual. Because I really think it is, no matter what anyone else says.

Let's Hope.

Okay. So, I've been completely stressed out about my minor field exam (among other things). I'd talked to my minor field advisor about what to expect generally, and I thought I had a good handle o what the possibilities were for questions. Then, a few weeks ago, she handed me a piece of paper and said, "This is more or less what your exam question will look like." It was nothing like I'd been expecting, and in fact, none of the reading I'd done really addressed the question. That was kind of bad, since I'd JUST THAT DAY finished reading everything from the minor field bibliography.

Anyway, I've been trying not to think about it actively, just let my mind spin with in those hours after 3 a.m. when I can't sleep from anxiety. Today, I finally deliberately let myself think about it, and lo and behold, I think over the past few weeks I've come up with something of an answer when I wasn't really paying attention. Let's just hope she doesn't change her mind in the next 10 days.

1 almost down, 3+1 to go.

Titles, too?

As everyone with internet access knows, Blogger gives their users the option to label entries so faithful readers can sort and search by category. I thought about assigning labels to my own entries, then I realized that everything I write falls under the "How to tell you've fucked up your life" label. Maybe one day I'll branch out into another category, but for now, I'm sure everyone is happy that they don't have to sort through "Work," "Hobbies," or "Family Life" to get to the minutiae of my life.

So, continuing on this theme, here is a new entry to be filed under "How to tell you've fucked up your life." If you're ordering checks, and you choose a background design based on what you think your therapist is going to think about your checks when you pay her every week, well...obviously, you've fucked up your life.

I'm just saying.

Wow. My office is clean. And it wasn't just me procrastinating, because I'm feeling pretty motivated to study for my exams these days (fear of failure will do that to you). But it was pretty clear that finishing the penultimate draft of my dissertation prospectus would be easier if I could actually find the article I needed to cite, so I finally filed everything away in its proper place. My number one goal for the summer is to catch my bibliographic software up to my file cabinet, cross-reference everything, but in the meantime, I'm just happy to see the floor of my office again.

If only my mind was so uncluttered.

My wife just bought me a $43 bottle of sherry. If that price tag doesn't say "I love you," I don't know what does. Of course, she's deliberately pushing me down the slippery slope of potential alcoholism, too, but I guess we're not supposed to worry about that right now.

Nice things people have done for me lately:

1) loaned me movies so I have something to do during those interminable hours of insomnia
2) bought me sherry
3) arranged to have meals provided for me the week before my first Ph.D. exam
4) bought me picture books as a reward for all my hard work
5) other stuff I'm too tired to remember but really appreciate

Plus, even though no one is answering the phone, I think I should get some sort of karmic credit for trying to make a phone call in Hindi.

It's kind of like a gambling addiction, isn't it? Even though you know the payout will never, ever cover the investment you put in to game, you keep playing. Why do addicts do this? More importantly, why do *I* do it?

Today I had a quite serious conversation with a colleague who shall rename nameless in order to protect her (although, since I only talk to 3 people in Illinois, your odds of guessing the right name are pretty good) about possibly developing a drinking problem. We're both suffering from insomnia, in slightly different forms, and both of us have been looking for ways to cure this problem. In my case, I've even starting seeing a therapist (NEWSFLASH: Therapy *causes* insomnia). At any rate, I said that I'd been thinking about having a drink in the evenings because it might help me sleep, but then I was afraid that if I had one drink today, then surely by tomorrow I would need two, and by the weekend, I'd need three. Well, we can see where that would lead. And my colleague said in all seriousness that she'd been having the same conversation with herself. A drink would help, but we can't take one, because we're both afraid of what seems like an inevitable drinking problem.

Now, I ask you--if you're sitting around in the evening thinking, "God, I need a drink!" and you DON'T EVEN DRINK, shouldn't this be taken as a sign of some sort? Shouldn't you stop doing whatever it is you've been doing to push you to contemplate the benefits of alcoholism in the first place?

This morning? 51 degrees.

Now? 7 degrees.

That's just wrong.

More Joe Morello awesomeness....

Those archikidz....one of them turned up what must be the best use EVER of an outdoor sculpture park.

Fucking-A, Joe Morello rocks.

I'd forgotten. About winter, that is. Not just about having to clear 6" of fresh snow off the car every morning (and the sidewalk, and the steps, and the driveway, and everywhere it gets in your way), but also about having to remember which roads can be driven in the snow (state roads get plowed before county roads, city roads get plowed according to a strange schedule that leaves the main street running through town unplowed until the end of the day), which parking lots have to be avoided (turn left out of Safeway and go around back to the highway, don't try to take the front exit). I had to relearn the process of slipping an SUV into a driveway without hitting the ramparts of month-old snow protecting the house from evil hordes of snow barbarians. Learned to take off my boots at the door so I don't track mud and wet all over the carpets. Learned to wear a stocking cap. And gloves. And even a winter coat.

Luckily, I'm a quick study, because I didn't get much time to re-absorb all these lessons. Landed at the airport in Spokane mid-day Monday, and minutes later, after cleaning the snow off the rental, found myself driving through fog and dark and herds of mule deer that didn't care much about winter driving conditions. Alone, in an unfamiliar vehicle, driving on unfamiliar roads covered with compact snow and ice, this is exactly how all those news stories about people losing limbs to frostbite after a slide-off begin, isn't it?

But, I made it, and here I am, in north central Washington, reminding myself about winter living. Mostly, I think winter is brutal, and I understand why it kills so many people: it's a lot of work, all the time. There are nice winter moments to be had, like when I come down off the highway into town, and I can see all the hills behind town covered in snow, and I can see how complex the winter sky really is--it's never just one color of gray. Sometimes, even if you can't see the sun, you can see the glow of white light at the bottom edge of the clouds to the west of the valley, even when the north valley is socked in with a heavy, icy fog; the clouds over the reservation are rising up to show off the sagebrush on the hills, and the view to the south is heavy and dark and weighted down with more snow. But there's that ribbon of white to the west, reminding you that somewhere, just beyond your field of vision, the sun is still shining. And at dusk, when when I'm up on the highway and can see the lights coming on up and down the valley, but it's still not dark enough to hide the orchards on the hills or the dark curves of the river, it's breathtakingly beautiful. While I was standing out on the porch this evening, watching ice float down the river, knocking icicles off the back gutter with my fists, I saw a coyote hurrying along the bank on the other side of the river. He was trying to hug the water, but the ice is fragile on reservation side because the water is a lot deeper there (some kids have a rope swing on a tree over there so they can drop into the river during the desert months of summer, they really do exist, those dry, hot days), so he kept making delicate detours up the bank and back down again, keeping his head turned north. When I see the coyote, I can also see that winter--depressing, cold, dark, threatening winter--is really just a state of mind. The beauty of white-on-black, snow-on-rock, is there if I want to see it, but right now, all I'm thinking is, "I wish it would stop snowing. I'm so fucking tired of snow." Nothing too pretty in that thought, is there?

So, I made this unexpected trip out here because it seemed like the end was near for my dad. A week or so before Christmas, my mom called me and told me this was it, so I bought a plane ticket out here. But once they got my dad to the hospital, he seemed to rally. He improved enough to go into a rest home, and my mom told me to hold off for a bit, because maybe it wasn't the end after all. So, I waited, and tried (mostly succeeded) in having a bit of a vacation, and my dad got better, and eventually went home. But this weekend, my dad was back in the hospital, and my mom was saying, "Well, this time, you really better come out here." And so I did. But my dad seems to be rallying again, he's at home again, and he does seem a lot better today. Unfortunately, my brother, Carl, now has the flu, and my mom is completely worn out from trying to keep everything, including my dad, in working order. There's been a lot of people in and out of the house, home health nurses, volunteers helping my mom fill out paperwork to get qualified for in-home health care, nutritionists, some person today I don't even know what she was there for...

This is a small town, so everyone knows everything about everybody. The neighbors all watched my dad leave in an ambulance, so they all know what's up, and really, I shouldn't be complaining about the snow, since the neighbor to the north of my parents has been VERY KINDLY using his snowblower to keep my parents' driveway and sidewalk clean, even though I'm here this week to shovel snow. The neighbor to the south was out shoveling snow when I was cleaning off my mom's car this morning, and he asked, "Did you get a new car? You were driving a different SUV last time you were here." Clearly, the man has been paying attention during my annual visits. I called a friend from my hometown (30 miles up the valley) today to tell her what's up, but she already knew, because news travels fast around here, especially when your relatives are all part of the Brethren Church. I'm staying in the hotel up on the highway (next to the casino on the reservation), which is a lot like home, because Carl works nights here when he doesn't have the flu, and my Aunt Fern works the late shift, 3-11, so she's always here to say goodnight before I go to bed. My cousin Wayne made his weekly visit to my parents this morning, and my Aunt Rosie stopped by last night. I'm sure if I stood in one place long enough, other relatives would eventually wander by.

I'm typing like a graphomaniac, but not saying much of anything. Number one on my list to do when I get back to Illinois is schedule an appointment with the counseling center. Last semester was my worst semester ever in terms of grades, and this semester coming up will probably be my most stressful semester ever (Ph.D. exams/proposal defense). A lack of academic confidence isn't going to help me prepare for exams, so I've got to get over my sense of failure. A lot of stuff going on with my family, obviously, and I'm still trying to deal with my own lingering health issues (everyone will be glad to know that my cholesterol levels are excellent, I'm sure). My cats no longer recognize me, and I sometimes worry that my wife doesn't, either. I feel like I've got a lot on my mind, but I can't make my mind process any of it to completion. So, I've got to get that taken care of before I really mess something up.

I hope to god it's not snowing in Indiana. Or Illinois. Or anywhere. I'm tired of snow.