woe

So I haven't felt the impulse to update recently, mostly because my main sources of preoccupation/concern (my cohort and the graduate visit) were resolved in an excellent fashion. The last few days have basically consisted of me avoiding my thesis work (two and a half chapters behind, and it's due in two weeks! woe!), watching Coffee Prince (so addictive! click here for episodes if you dare!), and attending some events at the queer conference on campus this week (most notably, I got to hear Gayatri Gopinath and Heather K. Love speak and also saw a really moving performance by Miriam Yalini Thambynayagam and Varuni Tiruchelvam).

Goals for the coming weeks:
1) Finish thesis (what will happen when I'm the only person in the history of the world to get into a Ph.D. program and still not manage to graduate college?)

2) Find a place to live next year (must decide how to maximize stipend and still be able to walk around my future neighborhood at night. while at it, must also figure out how to minimize the amount of walking involved in general -oh laziness!-. must not contribute to gentrification. must figure out if roommates are desirable. and so on.)

Impediments:
1) Bad tv (I am so weak! I have no self control! Why must Top Model, Girlicious, and Make Me a Supermodel tempt me so?!)

2) Senioritis (like woah. It is a deadly disease)

In any case, we'll see how everything goes. I will undoubtedly be posting more soon, if only to avoid actually working. As for tonight, there will be the huge (and somewhat infamous) party that caps off the queer conference every year, so I plan to fully participate (and by participate, I mean amusedly watch in my safe and sheltered position as bartender) the drunken and debauched revelry that will undoubtedly be involved.

admissions visit OVER

So after worrying myself for weeks about my cohort (too old! too boring! too much love for dead white men!), I am back from my admissions visit, refreshed (ok, not really; there wasn't nearly enough sleep involved) and incredibly excited about the coming fall. To start out with, my cohort = fabulous and not at all what I was expecting/dreading. While there are a good number of people who took time off, got their masters, etc., there are also two others besides me who are still undergrads, and it really wasn't noticeable who was older and/or who had more experience. Best of all, I really bonded with three people (one has my research interests, only flipped -postcolonial with a hint of Asian/American-, one is a totally fabulous qpoc with interests in Asian diasporic writing, one loves shopping and clubbing and is going to be my golddigging buddy -totally kidding, totally kidding-) and even had tentative roommate conversations with two of these lovely ladies.

With regards to the current grad students: again, FABULOUS. A lot of people have diverse interests and are also into theory, but regardless, they're all a really friendly and supportive bunch of people. (Also, apparently the third years are the "queer year," with 9 out of 11 grads self-identifying as queer. While my cohort cannot match these amazing statistics -I think there are only three of us who identify?-, we already have the most skewed gender ratio -at the visit, around 12 women to 2 men-. Dubious distinction, I know.)

As for the faculty...oh the faculty. Let me count the ways to love! They are so incredibly friendly (I know I keep repeating this adjective, but it's so true!) and collegial and it's seriously mindblowing considering the insane academic reputations that are involved. We had a dinner party at Professor L's house the first night, and I think I knew then that I was destined for the program. The crowning moment was when I was outside chainsmoking with Professors L* and E (both, incidentally, the reasons why I applied for the program) and talking about Project Runway, Big Brother, and a myriad of other bad programs (I mean really, who knew that academics were so into trashy reality shows? It was seriously amazing).

I think, more than anything, I was really reassured that my program is where I'm supposed to be. I kept worrying that I was an admissions mistake (I was the ONLY person there who wasn't an English/Literature major in college and seriously glazed over when people were telling me about their interests in Renaissance drama or modernist blah blah blah or whatever), but in the end, it was really good to connect with the professors on a really substantive level and (ego moment!) to be told by Professor S -who was on the admissions committee- that my application was one of the few that really stood out to her.

In any case, I've already turned in my deposit and official acceptance for the program, and at this point, am counting down the days til I get to go back and start my grad school career for real.

*L who, incidentally, "quit smoking" fourteen years ago. Apparently she survives by bumming cigarettes off of her students after seminars. LOVE

worrywart, me? hop hop!

So the date of my admissions visit is drawing near (I'm supposed to do the whole wine&dine this coming Monday and Tuesday), and I'm starting to get really worried about meeting my cohort. Now normally, I wouldn't really care so much about this sort of thing, but given the fact that there are only ten other people in my class and I'm going to be with them for the next six years, I think it's pretty fair for me to freak out. In no particular order, my fears are:

1) I'm going to be the youngest person in my cohort (and not youngest like oh hey, we're separated by half a year; more like oh hey, you took three years off after your undergrad, got a masters, and now you're six years older than me and we can't relate to each other at all)

2) They're going to be standard, boring English people (aka those interested in dead white men and little else. I can't help it, my academic background -soc/anth and women's studies- makes me really, really wary of these sorts of people!) and my head will fall off when I try to talk to them (alright, maybe I'm more concerned about the first half of this sentence than the second...)

3) They will be super legit and scarily intellectual and find me totally frivolous/trivial for loving fashion and buying pretty clothes and having an insatiable appetite for things like PerezHilton and ANTM and so on and so forth (the list of the trashy celebrity blogs and reality shows that I keep up with is both utterly phenomenal and utterly embarrassing)

4) They will be old, boring, and engaged/married, and I will be forced to troll around the campus, desperately looking for people who will be my friends and go out to clubs and bars with me (WOE)

Granted some of my worries are admittedly ridiculous, but I can't help it! I'm seriously so nervous to meet everyone, and I just hope that I can find one person (alright, maybe I'm really aiming for three or four. High standards!) who I can really get along/engage with. We'll see how it goes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I will definitely keep you all updated.

bell hooks and yummy food

I went and saw bell hooks give a talk at my future university today, and I have to say that while I loved her when she was being conversational and sharing personal anecdotes, I wasn't particularly impressed by the more "academic" portion of her talk. While she is undoubtedly brilliant and I love reading her work, I am not too fond of the way that she speaks or relates to an audience when she is reading her lectures. It's somewhat jarring to hear her moving from an "academic voice" to a funny and personally engaging one; I'm not sure if it's because I want to (perhaps problematically) essentialize her as either one or the other (academic vs. empowered, engaging woman), or if I find something unsettling or inauthentic about the abrupt transitions between the voices (and whatever is driving her to speak differently based on what material is being related).

In any case, it made me feel better to know that even someone as legit and amazing as bell hooks can be not the most inspiring lecturer ever (which gives me hope for future me!)

Afterwards, I went and got Ethiopian food (my first time!) at a little restaurant near the campus with AK, Tatiana, Erika, and Susannah. It's definitely very good, and best of all, I think very close to where I'll possibly be living next year...

panic mode ON

So granted this is totally my fault for not being better informed when I applied to grad school in the first place (silly me, I just looked to see where my academic idols were congregated and basically applied on this alone), but now that I've actually read some requirements for my particular program, I am totally freaking out and wondering how I'm going to manage.

1) Apparently while I'm fully funded with stipend for five years, the actual program is supposed to last six or seven. This provokes two reactions:
a) WHERE THE HELL AM I GOING TO GET FUNDING??? MOMMYBANK????
b) SIX OR SEVEN YEARS? AHHHHH!!! I'm going to be an old, withered hag by the time I graduate! (Ok, maybe not really, BUT STILL)

2) By my fourth year, I'm supposed to pass translation exams for two different languages relevant to scholarly study
a) I want to focus on Asian/AMERICAN literature (does English count as a relevant language? hah...hah...hah? DEAD)
b) I currently read NO languages besides English. How am I going to manage to pick up two in four years??? (Man, I better get on that youtube Spanish!)

3) I have a huge oral exam at the end of my first year that's supposed to cover fifty texts
a) I
b) am
c) such
d) an
e) admissions
f) mistake
g) CAPSLOCKPANIC

i love this woman

She says everything better than I ever could



Thanks to Tatiana for the link

porn porn porn (and a lesbian flick)

If you know me well at all, then you know that I have an absolute and unapologetic love for pornography. From my first exposure to the genre my freshmen year of college (yes, I was corrupted quite late. It happened during fall break, when a friend and I were terribly bored and had nothing else to do but take my “porn virginity”), I was entranced, horrified, and ultimately incredibly amused. I don’t tend to think of pornography as being titillating or sexy in the slightest, but I am almost always entertained by the absurd scenarios, campy dialogue, and ridiculous posturing involved.

That said, I have to admit that I’m not such a huge fan of the gonzo/amateur videos that tend to dominate the porn landscape these days. While I can appreciate the types of clips that run rampant on sites like youporn or redtube (and there are gems tucked in these places), I’m much more into the sorts of videos that came out during the “Golden Age” of pornography (approximately late sixties to mid-seventies). Films like Debbie Does Dallas make me smile in the best way possible…they’re funny, cute, and strangely heartwarming, adjectives that I definitely cannot give to contemporary series like "bangbus" or "I am a good daughter" (yes. seriously.)

Yesterday, on the recommendation of my friend Emerald, I downloaded and watched The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1975). I think this might be a new favorite of mine. Without spoiling it too much, I will say that I really appreciated the moments of empowerment that the lead actress had (especially near the end) and that the plot was compelling enough that I tended to view the sex scenes as somewhat annoying distractions from the storyline (this is something that I cannot say about Pirates, the 2005 blockbuster known for being the most expensive porn ever made. While it tries to have a plot, the acting is so atrocious 99% of the time that I was infinitely more entertained by the sex scenes. Though I guess the stilted delivery was good for a few laughs…).

In any case, I would strongly recommend The Opening of Misty Beethoven to any porn fans out there (or at least fans of porn with plotlines. If you’re just trying to get off, I don’t think this is the right movie for you. For one thing, the fact that it was made in the 70s means that contemporary standards of pornographic aesthetics aren’t always followed…in particular, none of the women are shaved, which could be jarring if you expect women to look like pre-pubescent girls).

Afterwards, I had dinner with my friends Evan and Anna, and we ended up watching Go Fish, an artsy-ish lesbian film from the early 90s. It is undeniably low budget (apparently it was filmed in black and white solely to save money) and showcases some pretty bad acting and dialogue. But all in all, it has some really stellar moments (in particular, the main character’s journal entries and a powerful scene questioning what it means to identify as a lesbian). I can’t wholeheartedly endorse the movie given some of its flaws, but if you’re like me and have a soft spot for queer films (and thus tend to be more forgiving in your judgment of them), then I would say that it’s definitely worth checking out.

Today involved attempting to get some work done on my thesis research chapter. Unfortunately, the attempt utterly failed, and I spent my time perfecting my freecell and hearts skills instead (WOE).