I have become remarkably good at zoning out, at least when I am in dire need of a good head space. Thanksgiving is such a gong show. I love my sister's voice and her high-pitched laugh. Driving in the dark and the sheen of your hair in the lamp lights. My cold fingers burnt on a mug of lemon tea. The pattern of puddles on a country road.
I am reading Ulysses which is wonderful. My life is extremely busy. I have started by PhD work and it is so fun and fulfilling but overwhelming all at the same time. I work a lot during the day and the last few minutes before I fall asleep I read a few pages of Joyce, and the world clears up a little bit. Is it strange that I use Ulysses to clear my head? I will keep track of my favourite quotes and put them in a wallet so that on rainy days I can look at them and feel a little more peaceful.
Happy thanksgiving.
8.10.12
16.8.12
On my disillusionment with graduate school.
Things I have learned over my past two years in graduate school.
1. Many people in supposedly more "radical" academic circles (radical = haha) think of themselves as extra special and unique butterflies, but they are also very defensive about appearing as such, and will use little self-deprecating "asides" to off-set the utter pretentiousness of 90% of what comes out of their mouths and/or what they shit on their screens.
2. "Difference" is a theoretical buzzword rather than something actually appreciated in the very real goings-on of everyday life. This is a really interesting one. Because I can't count the amount of times I've witnessed 10 people in a graduate seminar lamenting the oppression of this or that marginalized group, who talk about Jean-Luc Nancy's "Experience of Freedom" or Derrida's democracy-to-come but then they will go out of their way to ostracize people who come from different theoretical, educational, or ideological backgrounds because they are not "smart enough." Oh, and they are usually too busy whining about shit and constructing delicate existential crises to actually engage in local politics of any kind.
3. Academics are only interested in hanging out with/discoursing with those who either a) affirm what they already think is a correct [ideological or theoretical] position or b) challenge them in such a way that only superficially (i.e. theoretically rather than practically) "performs" difference without actually challenging the existing intellectual paradigm within which everyone comfortably floats. In other words, they'll theorize about the oppression of the working class but will turn up their noses at the very thought of listening or engaging with the working class, and if they do have a working class friend or a meaningful discussion with a construction worker in a bar, they'll fetishize and romanticize that discussion/individual all starry-eyed like they just did something good for the world.
Of course not all academics/people are like this. I find this is mostly true of young-ish graduate students. I have been guilty of some of this behaviour myself, but am grateful to have a thoroughly unpretentious and down-to-earth and thoughtful partner and a small group of friends who keep me accountable. But all I have to say is: Barf. Hopefully the next stage of my academic career is less depressing.
1. Many people in supposedly more "radical" academic circles (radical = haha) think of themselves as extra special and unique butterflies, but they are also very defensive about appearing as such, and will use little self-deprecating "asides" to off-set the utter pretentiousness of 90% of what comes out of their mouths and/or what they shit on their screens.
2. "Difference" is a theoretical buzzword rather than something actually appreciated in the very real goings-on of everyday life. This is a really interesting one. Because I can't count the amount of times I've witnessed 10 people in a graduate seminar lamenting the oppression of this or that marginalized group, who talk about Jean-Luc Nancy's "Experience of Freedom" or Derrida's democracy-to-come but then they will go out of their way to ostracize people who come from different theoretical, educational, or ideological backgrounds because they are not "smart enough." Oh, and they are usually too busy whining about shit and constructing delicate existential crises to actually engage in local politics of any kind.
3. Academics are only interested in hanging out with/discoursing with those who either a) affirm what they already think is a correct [ideological or theoretical] position or b) challenge them in such a way that only superficially (i.e. theoretically rather than practically) "performs" difference without actually challenging the existing intellectual paradigm within which everyone comfortably floats. In other words, they'll theorize about the oppression of the working class but will turn up their noses at the very thought of listening or engaging with the working class, and if they do have a working class friend or a meaningful discussion with a construction worker in a bar, they'll fetishize and romanticize that discussion/individual all starry-eyed like they just did something good for the world.
Of course not all academics/people are like this. I find this is mostly true of young-ish graduate students. I have been guilty of some of this behaviour myself, but am grateful to have a thoroughly unpretentious and down-to-earth and thoughtful partner and a small group of friends who keep me accountable. But all I have to say is: Barf. Hopefully the next stage of my academic career is less depressing.
2.8.12
Thesis is finally done. In an attempt to ease back into blogging, I'm going to be doing posts like this every once and a while, where I can share things that have been occupying my imaginative and creative headspace. These are things that have inspired me in the last few days.
“Our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-dominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence."
- Bell Hooks from The Will to Change (really digging this lady recently)
“So yes
I will gladly take on your ocean
just to swim beneath you
so I can kiss the bends of your knees
in appreciation for the work they do
keeping your head above water”
- Mike McGee
Cocoa Island Hotel.
Iain Macarthur.
Ideal writing/living/creating/sexing spot.
Kikyz1313
Dazed and Confused Oct.11 Photographed by Matt Stone.
Does Feminism Have a Glass Ceiling?
Interesting, problematic.
The Gender Trap pt. 2.
(Gotta love the CBC. Its become a kind of tradition for myself and my partner when we're driving. We're basically like old people.)
Zoe Smith being a badass lady fighter.
I care not for the Olympics but think this lady is awesome.
The Thinking Housewife tries to tarnish the legacy of Sally Ride with a surrealy homophobic eulogy.
David Futrelle's usual brand of cutting critique. I love this man.
Oh and my pinterest is here if you have any desire to check it out/follow.
“Our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination. There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-dominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence."
- Bell Hooks from The Will to Change (really digging this lady recently)
“So yes
I will gladly take on your ocean
just to swim beneath you
so I can kiss the bends of your knees
in appreciation for the work they do
keeping your head above water”
- Mike McGee
Does Feminism Have a Glass Ceiling?
Interesting, problematic.
The Gender Trap pt. 2.
(Gotta love the CBC. Its become a kind of tradition for myself and my partner when we're driving. We're basically like old people.)
Zoe Smith being a badass lady fighter.
I care not for the Olympics but think this lady is awesome.
The Thinking Housewife tries to tarnish the legacy of Sally Ride with a surrealy homophobic eulogy.
David Futrelle's usual brand of cutting critique. I love this man.
Oh and my pinterest is here if you have any desire to check it out/follow.
22.7.12
Writing a 120 page thesis takes the wind out of me. And the brain power. But this whole sometimes-tedious experience has also given me something. Mainly, more confidence. A better awareness of what it means (and doesn't mean) to be that fearful something called "AN ACADEMIC." I will never be an academic as much as I will be someone who needs theory and poetry and literature to live. I'll spend my life writing if it means I can do what I love.
But I also love working out, and feeling the muscles in my legs ache after a session. And I love cooking, the saturation of smells, the satisfaction in completing something in less than an hour (there is joy in that, given the tedious hours I spend writing) and fueling my body. I love making things. It is such a cliche, too, the philosopher who retreats into wood-working. I have discovered a new joy in being embodied, in feeling my body move, and in being outside of my mind. And if I am, in fact, an "academic," I am also a myriad of other things.
I have entered one of those spaces, again, of peaceful isolation. Realizing who matters and learning how to be okay with letting those others - those others that don't - go. Of course its melancholic. Of course its nostalgic. But the intensity I used to have and cherish so much, the intensity that, only a year or two ago, I realized was mostly artificial and contrived, has ebbed away so that a different type of intensity remains. I don't want or need to prove myself anymore. Letting that fierce girl go means letting go of the people who loved that, but never me. In the meantime I have discovered new relationships that matter more.
Why not blog? Why blog now? I suppose I am winding down. I hate blogging, even though I subscribe to about 300. After being slapped on the wrist with a little bit of hate-mail I realized the implications of writing about personal things on the internet. Blogging feels very self-indulgent. Guilty as charged, I guess. My creative drive - along with the depression and anxiety that fueled all that "poetic angst" - has been siphoned off into other pursuits. I feel the weight of being in my mid-20s. Not that my awareness is tinged with a fear of getting older, or of "aging" in any sense. Its more or less a startling new awareness of just how fast time goes, how much living matters.
I know sincerity tinged with sentimentalism isn't "cool" or common, especially in the blog world. I'm not sorry about it, though.
xo
But I also love working out, and feeling the muscles in my legs ache after a session. And I love cooking, the saturation of smells, the satisfaction in completing something in less than an hour (there is joy in that, given the tedious hours I spend writing) and fueling my body. I love making things. It is such a cliche, too, the philosopher who retreats into wood-working. I have discovered a new joy in being embodied, in feeling my body move, and in being outside of my mind. And if I am, in fact, an "academic," I am also a myriad of other things.
I have entered one of those spaces, again, of peaceful isolation. Realizing who matters and learning how to be okay with letting those others - those others that don't - go. Of course its melancholic. Of course its nostalgic. But the intensity I used to have and cherish so much, the intensity that, only a year or two ago, I realized was mostly artificial and contrived, has ebbed away so that a different type of intensity remains. I don't want or need to prove myself anymore. Letting that fierce girl go means letting go of the people who loved that, but never me. In the meantime I have discovered new relationships that matter more.
Why not blog? Why blog now? I suppose I am winding down. I hate blogging, even though I subscribe to about 300. After being slapped on the wrist with a little bit of hate-mail I realized the implications of writing about personal things on the internet. Blogging feels very self-indulgent. Guilty as charged, I guess. My creative drive - along with the depression and anxiety that fueled all that "poetic angst" - has been siphoned off into other pursuits. I feel the weight of being in my mid-20s. Not that my awareness is tinged with a fear of getting older, or of "aging" in any sense. Its more or less a startling new awareness of just how fast time goes, how much living matters.
I know sincerity tinged with sentimentalism isn't "cool" or common, especially in the blog world. I'm not sorry about it, though.
xo
15.5.12
When it gets warm this country is so gorgeous. It makes dreary winters falls and springs worth the wait. I am planting tomatoes and cucumbers, tending to herbs, eating popsicles, making jewelry, painting pots, constructing things out of clay, cooking hummus and pesto and cucumber salads, lazing about on the front porch, watching men across the street painting walls, and doing just about everything but writing my thesis. Camping this weekend.
2.5.12
You were driving, like you always do, facing forward with that confident smirk on your face that insecure people take for arrogance. Your hair is curly and the sun hits it in a certain way so that you are illuminated in stretches, this side of your face in relative shadow, in the cool of my glance. I am half embarrassed about last night and half diffident; you turn me into a child, sometimes, and other times, a woman twice my age. I am moving away from one table and towards another. Everyone I have ever met is reflected on the bright side of your face, turned away from me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)