typical

So much for the promise to update more regularly. Goodness. Well, I'm still (somewhat) alive, still grinding along...though I have developed two secret fantasies since I last checked in at this blog. Namely:

1) Run away from grad school and become a professional poker player (aka become an internet sloth-loser who spends 14+ hours a day clicking away at a computer whilst chugging Red Bull and stuffing face with crappy, cold pizza).
Obstacles: Have not actually learned how to properly play poker
Solution: Totally planning to buy poker books and practice online this winter break
Cause of delusion: Way too much watching of internet poker (pokertube.com baby)
Reality check: Hey! Lots of professional poker players either have PhDs or else quit right before dissertating...

2) Run away from grad school, go to China, start working at a bakery/accessories shop/does it really matter?, and engage in a horribly cliched and normative romance with an earnest Chinese boy who will think we will have gotten to some kind of base when we hold hands for the first time (with cheesy C-pop swelling in the background, of course. Or fireworks.)
Obstacles: My Chinese skills are, uh, not so stellar (to put it mildly)
Solution: ...I hear immersion is good for that business?
Cause of delusion: Do I really need to say it? Asian soap operas! (mysoju.com, crunchyroll.com, dramacrazy.net, I hope these sites ruin your life as much as they have ruined mine)
Reality check: Ok, this one might be ludicrous enough that I don't need a reality check.

In more serious news, I've determined that grad school life consists of: work, bitching about work, procrastinating on your computer while you should be doing work, and occasionally roaming around the one mile radius of your apartment/library/department and "hanging out" with other graduate students while feeling guilty about not working. I seem to always be doing some variation of one of these things. Horrible. Its gotten to the point where I know I don't see anyone but grad students and it's actually a shocking improvement if I see someone outside of my friend M (whose futon I am constantly studying/crashing on).

On the upside, I have been to several interesting talks in the last month (Fred Moten and Junot Diaz, most notably), and I've also got a feminist pedagogy seminar coming up that I'm totally looking forward to. I've finished with all of my presentations (hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!) and am also starting to really think about final papers (though thinking about does not actually equal having concrete topics, unfortunately).

I've also registered for classes next semester. The list of classes include:
1) 18th century Orientalism and global trade from China to the West Indies, focusing on issues of mercantilism, luxury, and consumption

2) Critical Race Theory (legal texts...very nervous about this, as my super brilliant and intimidating advisor is teaching this class)

3) Course on the history and theory of social stigma (drawing on queer theory, critical race, and disability studies)

4) Auditing another anthropology course (you know me, always gotta do it!) on culture, identity, and power.

Anyways, I really, REALLY will try harder to update from here on out (I know, I know, says the one who promised the same thing over a month ago). But expect an update this coming Friday (or Saturday), because a hugely contentious and controversial meeting amongst the English grad students is slated for that day. And with that juicy tidbit...

one month later

And hopefully this time I'll stick around. I've been busy with life in general: going out to bars and clubs and dance parties (and throwing a few myself), attending amazing performances (such as one last week exploring the relationships between food, personal identity, and power/politics), and getting myself into (and out of, thankfully!) some sticky situations with relationships (lesson of the summer: extreme attractiveness does not surmount personal issues/craziness. Really. It's not a fair tradeoff at all, and one should not be tempted by one's lust/poor decision making abilities/inability to draw boundaries slash say no to justify such a tradeoff. It's bad news, kids).

After a weeklong visit from my friend T and the accompanying flurry of events and meet-ups with other friends in the area, I'm now happy to say that I am settled in my apartment and ready to return to my hermit-y (and academically productive!) ways. On the list: get through my readings for one of my classes (and write summaries for each of the readings, yes I've decided to be ridiculously anal like that) and continue making time for my "just for fun/personal interests" books. I'm currently working my way through The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alteritist Discourse, which explores the ways in which space is transformed (socially produced and reproduced) into place through particular discourses, or more specifically, the ways in which the "East" or "Orient" is constructed through discourses of gender and sexuality. I'm only on the second chapter, but I find the book incredibly interesting and relatively not dense (all things considering) and would definitely recommend it to anyone with the time and/or interest.

In other news, I've been pretty productive (in an unproductive way) today, and so far, I've managed to:
1) Request to be added to the mailing lists of the postcolonial lit and gender/sexuality reading groups of my program

2) Ask for the syllabus of this amaaazing graduate anthropology course that explores agency, temporality, and sovereignty in relation to travel and migration (and which I can't audit because I have another class at the same time, TEARS)

3) Request an audit in another course which is supposed to be a critical examination of contemporary theories in cultural and social anthropology

4) Make a (required) appointment with my department chair during the first two weeks of classes (which start in early September, EEK!)

...

Ok, so maybe all of those things took about 30 minutes to accomplish (minus the researching of graduate anthropology courses, aka me poring over course descriptions and drooling like an extremely dorky kid in an extremely dorky candy store). And possibly came after about 3-4 hours of watching Olympics highlights/reruns online (what can I say, I like gymnastics and diving!)

Alright, no more procrastination from me. Off to the summary writing and reading!

must.not.abandon.blog

Now that I'm home and relaxing, I've been really neglecting this blog (though to my defense, I guess it could be said that I've been neglecting all things academic). While I have definitely not been reading articles every day like I initially planned, I have been going through a good amount of poetry and reading bits and pieces of prose, particularly from Winesburg, Ohio, which is definitely one of my favorite books of all time.

I've also officially signed up for classes for this upcoming semester. My first courses in grad school will be:
-A required seminar for my cohort (which, incidentally, is all women!) which will examine the impact that debates in critical and cultural theory have made on the discipline of English literature

-A course on globalization and the early modern period in England, particularly focusing on the first moments of global contact and the ways in which modern global relations have influenced our understanding of the early modern world and vice versa

-A class on Modernism and Orientalism, with a particular emphasis on the work of American poets and the structure of American Orientalism

-(what I'm probably most excited for) A course on the construction and performance of blackness, with a particular section on queerness. Hurrah!

And because I'm probably the only person excited about these classes, I'll close this entry with my favorite poem right now (definitely something that everyone can enjoy):

Edward's Anecdote
-Donald Hall

Late one night she told me.
We'd come home from a party
where she drank more wine
than usual, from nervousness

I suppose. I was astonished,
which is typical,
and her lover of course
was my friend. My naivete

served their purposes: what
you don't know beats your head in.
After weeping for an hour or so
I tried screaming.

Then I quieted down;
then I broke her grandmother's
teapot against the pantry brickwork,
which helped a bit.

She kept apologizing
as she walked back and forth,
chainsmoking. I hated her,
and thought how beautiful

she looked as she paced,
which started me weeping again.
Old puzzlements began to solve
themselves: the errand

that took all afternoon;
the much-explained excursion
to stay with a college roommate
at a hunting lodge

without a telephone;
and of course the wrong numbers.
then my masochistic mind
printed kodacolors

of my friend and my wife
arranged in bed together.
When I looked out the window,
I saw the sky going

pale with dawn; soon the children
would wake: thinking of them
started me weeping again.
I felt exhausted, and

I wanted to sleep neither
with her nor without her,
which made me remember:
when i was a child we knew

a neighbor named Mr. Jaspers-
an ordinary
gray and agreeable
middle-aged businessman who

joked with the neighborhood
children when he met us on
the street, giving us pennies,
except for once a year

when he got insanely drunk
and the police took him.
One time he beat his year-old
daughter with a broomstick,

breaking a rib bone, and as
she screamed she kept crawling
back to her father: where else
should she look for comfort?