katekat1010

I'm having these intense urges just to dig in stubbornly and do nothing.  It's my reaction to having too much to do, and not having enough time to do it.   And I'm conquering the urges, mostly, so it's not like it's the end of the world.

( however, my to do list )

Now that it's all out there I think I'm going to be ok.  I really do.  But wow.  It's all a matter of seeing what's on the list and getting it all done one by one.

And I don't think I mentioned it but the best part of going to the conference was that I figured out what texts I'm going to write my master's thesis on.  ( for the curious... like three people )

first things first, elizabuffy and lilianvaldemyer (and any other Willow/Tara shippers on my flist) you should go check out this beautiful and heartrending W/T picspam by mouthfullofdust ... it goes through all of their time together through the whole show.

( second, it was my beloved's birthday!!  )

( third, school, oh you (planning, rants, annoyances) )

based off of secondalto 's post here...

The NY Times article Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

more importantly:

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”  [ emphasis mine ]

and finally,

“The proposed definition of abortion is so broad that it would cover many types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and emergency contraception.” [ emphasis mine ]

Feministing, as usual, has their own unique take on things, and even lovelier graphics, but I also believe they have a point - there seems to be some idea that if it offends somebody those who are offended have to be protected, which isn't quite how I think anit-discrimination laws work.

The full text of the draft memo that's sparked the whole debate [ in PDF form ]

A link to the Department of Health and Human Services' comment form (where you can express your displeasure.)

A link to the Planned Parenthood campaign form to "Stop President Bush's massive sellout of women's healthcare".

And, in my reading on this, I've found this site that has stories of people working in abortion clinics and the anti-choice women they gave abortions to (which makes for really interesting reading).  One of the many stories:

"I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)

And finally, an absolutely amazing rant by naamah_darling .  She is not at all fair minded, but she's passionate, and tired of all the shit (and by shit I mean the government attitude and the common discourse about women's rights to their own bodies), and I respect that, deeply.

Although this is still in the draft stage, and I completely understand that, I'm saddened, disheartened, and frankly terrified that this kind of thing could even get to the draft stage.

Ok, so before I respond to all of your lovely comments on my last post i wanted to kind of work through this movie.

So here's the thing - I'm one of those people who will watch Resident Evil: Extinction all the way through (and then tear my way through it afterwards).  I tend to get caught up in a movie, watch the whole thing, and then come back to it later and I'm able to articulate things that made me... uneasy, uncomfortable, or happy.  So my first impression was actually that... SitC was exactly what it purported to be.  It was a chick-flick.  It was much like a long episode of the series.  It was... possibly more entertaining watching the women in the audience, but on the whole it could have been worse.

Now, though, it's several days later and I'm able to actually articulate some of my unease.  ( Thus I give you, on deeper consideration, what bothered me - SPOILERS BE HERE )

Among other inanities (becasue there were so many in terms of Bush's policy that I just can't even stand to speak about) I was appalled to hear the presedent of the US, folksy guy that he is, say that he wasn't trying to "diss" his staffer for giving him a cold while he was trying to run for election.  This is NOT the vernacular of his people.  I wanted to scream STOP!  STOP THE MADNESS!

Of course, I should've known it was a sign of things to come for the day.

You see, I'd created this fantastic little jeopardy game for the class I TA for.  It was the last day, and instead of doing a wrap up that might leave them teary eyed and even more tired than they already are, I thought, "Hey, let's do something fun!  Wouldn't that be great!?  And then they can get some extra credit to boot."

That was the wrong decision.  They were all so point hungry they turned into raving animals.  Do NOT TRY THIS THING AT HOME kiddies.  Or don't reward the winning team with extra credit, because they will cry foul play on eachother, howl to the rafters when you nix points because you accidentally skiped to the answer slide when they were answering, and complain complain complain that they're being missed, that they're under points, that they're... somehow being cheated of EXTRA CREDIT.  It was a circus of nightmare proportions.

The only good thing was that I still kind of had fun with it.  Honestly.  It's scary but true.

However, the sexy yummy tasty day didn't end there - oh no - today we got a presentation in our grad seminar from a woman who is so literal I actually compared her in my head to Bush this morning.  She's about that analytical too.  And we were reading this fantastically weird and wonderful story by a Japanese author named Edogawa Ranpo (it's a made up name based on the japanese pronounciation of Edgar Allan Poe).  First we got beat up by this guy who wants to be a professional translator (always fun having someone from outside your class just pick you apart) and then we had to listen to the most boring woman in the world present on the history of mystery writing in Japanese literature.

Now here's the thing: Edogawa is known as the king of Japanese mystery, it's true.  BUT, he was also a member of this awesome group in the 20's & 30's that wrote erotic-grotesque-nonsense (ero-guro-nansensu in the Japanese).  And THAT'S what this story was - a fantastic dream piece about changing bodies and frenetic dances and wandering in the woods of one's unconscious.  It had NOTHING to do with mystery writing at all.  So what does this woman's presentation focus on?  MYSTERY WRITING. 

It was frightening because I had to actually quell the impulse to bang my head on the conference room table.

However, the day is done.  I did manage in the last 15 minutes to slip in jouissance for the hell of it, so it wasn't a total loss.

Then I forgot where my car was parked and ended up walking around the entire school to get back to it because I'd walked to one parking lot on one side of the school, realized my mistake, then walked back to the other.  Inane, I tell you.

I think I've learned my lesson - no more presidential speaches in the morning.  It's just wrong.

I've done it.  I know I've done it.  I've complained about certain aspects of fic writing, of certain things I see happening over and over, or things that people do that drive me nuts in fic.  And where else is most appropriate to put that than in my own journal (my supposed posterboard to the world that really ends up being my own little corner that only half the people read)?

At the same time, every time I read a new entry by an author about what really drives them nuts in the fic world, I'm wondering - man, why should I write when someone's going to take a look at my fic and say those very same things about me?  And the defensive side of me dredges up the old 'let ye without sin cast the first stone' (note the caveat here - i'm not religious most of the time, except to acknowledge that I'm going to hell.  really).  Because as far as casting stones go, we're all implicated.  We all have our little self indulgences.  That's what fic is about, to me, indulging one's "what if" fantasies (be they porny or gen) and finding out what happens. 

But when someone criticizes a whole genre of fic because most writers don't do what that individual wants them to?  I keep going back to the maxim:  there is NO perfect fic out there.  There is nothing that will satisfy everyone.  One person's peeve is another person's joy - be it linguistic joy, characterization joy, plot device joy.  It's all someone's joy.

Sometimes I think it's the tone these kinds of entries take that make me feel defensive - even if that tone is unintentionally in there.  The tone that says "I don't do this in my writing, and my writing is the perfect example of what I'd like everyone else to do" while they're complaining about some aspect of others.  Gotta say, people, NO ONE IS PERFECT.  Everyone has their handicaps. Even if you're making sure you don't include any of your own pet peeves, you're going to tread on someone elses'. So when these rants of "oh my god everyone else does this and it's wrong and I'm at least right in this one way" entries... it drives me FRIGGING NUTS.

I'll admit that I'm being harsh. I'll face up to the fact that I'm basically pointing fingers and whining. It happens. I don't expect anyone to stop doing what they're doing because of me. In the same way that people have the right to grumble about fic they think is less than perfect, I feel like I've got the right to grumble about the commentary, right?

so, in good news, i got another in-state tuition deferral!  yay!  This time it was through my department, and for about $400.  But every penny counts right now, you know?

( the shorter, but still dissapointing, journey through the uni finan aid system )

Onto other things...

I have a test on Monday that I will be studying for all weekend, and meeting with my tutor on Friday about! (the tutor part is good). I called the plumber (our back toilet has not been working... hopefully it will soon).

One of my favorite college friends EVER is coming to visit next week, and taking us out to dinner on the company dime to boot!

I have nominated somewhere around 20 people who do buffy art for SFA awards!  Which means that I can feel less guilty if I self-nom.  lol.  And Dishes, I'm coming for you!  Finally, we actually have plans for a super bowl party!  I seriously do not watch the superbowl, but ... the commercials.  Who doesn't love the commercials?  And the friends are ALWAYS great to see.

So it wasn't the best Friday ever, I'll say that.

First, I got pulled over and ticketed because my car inspection is two years old - even though I ordered my registration last night and technically I think I have till the end of the month to get the thing reinspected.

( cut for other assorted rumbling )

Now though?  Now I'm deliciously blissed out from coming home, having Neil be ready to go out to dinner, and hitting one of our new favorite restaurants that does authentic Italian (i mean truly authentic - their carbonarra is to die for and it comes served with an actual egg yoke on the top to mix into the cream sauce - and their cesar salad is actually served with anchovies if you want it).  Yummy unpronounceable dry italian wine, sumptuous food, delightful service, and the best of all, the best company in the world.

how's that for ending on a good note?  *grin*

Is she-vamp  really a word?  And if it is, who do we petition to get rid of it?  Cuz, seriously, I didn't realize that the word vampire was inherently gendered male, but if someone feels the need to qualify that the female vampire is a she-vamp ...

someone should cold cock me, smack me in the face and call me kitty, while they're at it.

...look at a fucking map.

Or, better yet, let's NOT bomb anyone at all!!  Hey, there's an idea.  I think we shouldn't be allowed to bomb anywhere if 95% of Americans can't find it on a map.

Check out the news clip that started this mini rant here. (note, not for the tiny of bandwith, but it's not too big a file)

The good: I didn't nail my Spivak presentation, I didn't bomb it either.  Something about actually presenting complex theory makes me talk too fast.  And gods, the woman references deconstruction, semiotics, Lacanian self & other, and half a dozen other things all in a sentence.  There's NO easy way to talk about it, except in the way she did (which wasn't easy, but was at least precise).  And I know I had the professor frowning at certian points.  But I loved the article, regardless.  Even if I'd never encountered subaltern studies before, I feel like I should've read Spivak anyway.

The hilarious thing is the way the Prof talks about her.  His description:  She's a rather imposing woman at over 6 feet, who wears elegant and quite expensive saris, and is quite striking.  She's hugely invested in the community and goes back to India and Bangladesh at least once a year to teach people reading -- so it's not like she's an ivory tower intellectual who has no connection to the people she talks about.  However, she's also very much interesting in weightlifting, and she's brillant, so she makes a rather imposing figure.  And she's quick.  But she's very gentle and very passionate.

How's that for an introduction?  I mean, she's no Foucault who used to come to class in bondage, but hey, we can't all be crazy French philosophers.

Other stuff?  I got new shoes today.  I finally bought a lock for my locker, so I don't have to drag my swim stuff with me every single day.  Rock. I joined facebook and have 2 friends (yes, count them, 2) so if anyone else is on there come over and friend me... so i don't look totally pathetic.

( the bad and the whiny )

does it bother anyone else that most of the time, when Bush gives press conferences, he sounds like he's being heckled to death and barely restraining the need to whine?  As if he wishes the reporters would just shut up because he doesn't have all the answers and as if he's the one being put upon?   I listened to some questions posed to him from a snippet of an NPR news conference, and it's something that's always bothered me about him.  The moment he gets a tough question he sounds like he's stuck between an whine and a temper tantrum.

For more in interesting Bushy crap, read what Amy's Robot said about his neo-New Deal.  And gods are they right.  We're about to get a whole new domestic agenda shoved down our collective throats, funded with NOTHING (or promises of more budget cuts in other areas -- what other areas can be cut exactly?  Oh, maybe the war?  I don't know of any other domestic program that *can* be cut, since they've all been screwed for the last four years on Bush's time anyway).  Oh, no, PRIVATE INDUSTRY will swoop in and save the day.  Because that's worked *so* well before.

From Amy's Robot:
Up to now, neo-conservatism has been defined by its foreign policy agenda. Its domestic agenda -- to the extent that it even exists -- has been the subject of much less attention. However, just as 9/11 gave the neo-conservatives the chance to apply their ideas to the real world, I believe that Katrina will offer them a similar opportunity to shape and apply their domestic agenda.  [read the rest here]

1.  It started at 9, because that's what time I had to get out of bed.  So that I could pet the kitty and kiss the boy and check the email and print out the homework and leave the house to get to school.

2.  Even though class starts at 11, I try to get there by 10 so I can lay in wait for some departing student and steal my parking place from the desperate clutches of other frantic parkers.  Every day is a new attempt, every time I pull in it's a new victory, wrenched from the grip of other drivers.  My strategy is complete though - I give rides to parking spaces, and steal them before anyone knows the student's gone.  Evil?  Not really.  Calculating?  Definitely.

3. There's nothing introspective about Japanese.  It's not critical, it's repetition.  And practice.  But I oh-so-politely asked the girls who chatter through the professor's grammar explanations to try to whisper.  Their conversations are not quite mumbled, mostly spoken, although occasinally they dip into that kind of under the breath vocalization that grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.  I will try to sit further away from them tomorrow.  They gave me the confused stare of "huh?" when I voiced my request.  I didn't wait for a reply.

4.  Ren fair!  They have Ren Fairs in Texas, and there's one going on right now ... somewhere ... about 2 hours from here.  Neil keeps telling me not to expect the same things as our Ren Fairs, but I think they're pretty much all the same.  Maybe this one will have pony rides or something, though.  We're going to try to find out where it is, and maybe go next weekend. 

5.  We laughed a lot in Suicide in Japanese Lit today.  Not nervous laughter, but the kind of thing where someone actually says something downright funny.  Oh, and Kalinda actually told the boy who sat next to me to move over, because he was sitting in her seat.  Possessive?  Perhaps.  Did I find it adorable?  Yes. 

6.  I want to say profound and interesting things in the History of French Film.  It's the kind of class that demands it right?  Quasi-pretentious, light on the theory, but heavy on the superiority of the French Cinema, taught by a woman who says "we" about the French and "you" about the Americans.  She's delightful, and utterly unapproachable.  I love it.

7.  An hour an a half for Pepe le Moko.  A movie about French gangster caught in Algiers, in the Casbah.  What's not to love?

8.  My hands cramp in the Western Art History class.  I can't help it.  It's three hours.  I despise history, and I'm not a huge fan of American art, especially American/European art that's ostensibly "defining" the West.  But it's leaking in and perverting my brain anyhow.  Notice that I capped the West?  Yeah.  There's not a ton of analysis there, just history, history and this weird nebulous enjoyment on the part of the professor about the beginnings of the American Dream.  Like anyone can realize the american dream anyway.

9.  The miles and miles and miles (or 20 minutes) it takes to get to my car are hot and humid, like the night picked me up in it's arms and wants me to float directly on the air.  Instead I have to chug my way down steps and back up other steps, moving to the beat of the shuffle I caved and bought myself because I developed technology envy when Neil got his ipod for his birthday.  It's probably the best invention I've ever bought - I might actually like music this way.  So I end up walking, huffing and puffing my little chunky way across the campus in the dark, when it's deserted and left to those who decide they can't stand the air conditioned dorms, but basically quiet and empty compared to the landscape of day.  The present I give myself is the car ride home, when I put the shuffle down and turn the radio up, and leave the windows open and try to make all the lights on the drive back.

10.  Now I sit in front of the computer, burned and a bit breathless, after making my way through 100 or so posts (damn you LJ people post a lot!) and realize I've got more homework due for tomorrow that I don't want to touch.  It's coming up on midnight here.  Time for a smoke.  Time for a break.  Then ... the deluge.

From gray_ghost if you haven't seen this, you need to (or at least read it):

Keith Olbermann from MSNBC just ripped the political leaders of our country, particularly the President, a big huge new one.

Exerpt:
...And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror
government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against
all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Click for the video (totally worth it).

( full text of the editorial here )
E-mail: KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Dear Mister Idiot:

Please stop posting on cyberpunk .  I'm really really tired of your horrible wanking.  Especially since you like to dress yourself up in the postmodernist cloak and pretend you know what the fuck you're talking about.  You don't.  You really really don't.  I wish you'd shut up and die somewhere.  Preferably not on-list, so I wouldn't have to read your trite, badly phrased, idiotic soliloquy. 

You're the kind of nutso that gives postmodernism it's bad name.  We have enough trouble getting people to read the theory and understand the terms without your additional confusion.  Get a dictionary, learn to say what you mean and mean what you say, and come back in 10 or 15 years.

Thank you,
Kate

the post:  here

I'm profoundly grateful that many I know or read or snuggle up to on the computer screen are safely reporting in and safely away. Sad that there has to be a check in process, and that it's possible I can't tell if there are people missing. Part of the problem with the virtual world is that I don't recognize country markers like I used to. But I think you're all safe, and my thoughts are with all involved.

( my very bleeding-heart liberal rant - you're warned )

( Well, the good parts: )

( The ... iffy parts ... )

don't want to work, don't want to learn, don't want to. It's the broken record of mantras, isn't it? I'm done before the semester's done. Lost my will to learn one more thing. Can't find it, don't want to find it. Would like to just take a night or two off and be done. Instead I find myself back in front of my computer, procrastinating, clicking 'refresh' on the flist and email, waiting for a decent distraction before I get back to work again.

Of course, distraction came in another form. My hysterical mother frantically, sobbingly, telling me that she can't do the job she just started a week ago, and she's sorry again that she's calling me to tell me so. ( I want to give her some of the strength she seems to have given me. )

No, I'm not my mother. No, I can't be her mother. No, nothing is perfect in the world. Isn't going to be, wasn't supposed to be, can't be.

The only constant is change.

Just wish... I just wish some things would truly change.

They've taken away all of Cookie Monster's cookies (well, except for ONE).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/22/AR2005042201555_pf.html

From the article:

And remember "C Is for Cookie," the Cookie Monster anthem? Well, there's a new song in town, and it's called "A Cookie Is a Sometime Food." And it's sung by Hoots the Owl and a banana, some grapes, a pineapple and an apple. (And, yes, it too is a parody -- this one based on "Porgy and Bess's" "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing").

So Cookie eats his fruit (not the singing ones, of course) enthusiastically. But at the end, he wants his cookies. And gets them.

Well, one.

There is such a thing as going too far. We all watched Cookie Monster eat cookies and didn't end up fat little kids. Childhood obesity is not a problem Sesame Street can take care of.

[from bob]

(lit 101 for postmodernists that can't get a clue)

All outlines require a thesis. A thesis cannot be in the form of a question. A thesis must be an actual statement of some opinion. That you can prove. A thesis should be able to be distilled into one sentence (that sentence may require expansion, which will constitute your paper, but really, for a 10 page paper? One sentence is *plenty*). Remember, this is the concept you are going to prove with the rest of your discussion, so make it something that's worth proving.

( click for more outline bitching )

The main things NOT to do:

Don't try and write two papers to make it long enough. If your thesis is too simple to be 10 pages, simply ask "why" again. Don't add in random "free association" and expect someone to grade it like it makes sense. Also, don't turn in an outline that isn't an outline. We've all got copies of a word processing program, and all the current word processing programs have the ability to create sophisticated outlines. Easily.

Also, if you're infatuated with theory, know it before you try to spout it. Don't have some bullshit idea that you're going to do a postmodern feminist reading of the story but then have no definition of postmodern feminism, include no conclusion about what your reading implies, and for gods sake don't sit there and tell me that you don't want to do a psychological reading and then proceed to talk about the self and other. Hello - self and other? It is a psychological construction, dammit. And if you want to use it differently, go find some other theorist to back you up that it's not. I doubt you'll find one, but sure, try. I'm willing to admit there's a lot of theory out there I haven't read. But, most of all, don't be an annoying prissy girl who tells me she doesn't have "enough time" to re-write her outline so that it's ... intelligible. Because honey, just because you look up to her doesn't mean you're the next Octavia Bulter.

The sad part is that I'm a postmodernist myself. And she made me disgusted with postmodernists. Bleh.

Check it out: Congress wants to extend Daylight Saving Time

I forgot for a second, but then remembered, the US Congress doesn't actually have the power to make the sun stay up longer. Why on earth would they propose this? Instead why don't the abolish the whole system and just let us have our clocks back? We're not on a farm economy anymore, and people who have farms get up when the sun rises whether it's 8 am or 6 am or 4 am regardless.

I absolutely hate daylight saving time (and the switch back). It makes me cringe and whine and moan, because we don't actually control time. We have no say in how fast the earth rotates, and unless we score some major technology or another moon or something, that's not going to change. So why can't we just give it up already?

I'm sitting in the car today and I hear James Atlas say some profoundly stupid things.

( narrative rant, dumb author, etc. )