the cooking show is back

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12565_beatbox-fame-game

Epistemological aphasia

Yesterday I had a writing sprint where I sat down in front of the computer for longer than I'm willing to admit. But the chapter is reaching closure. You may wonder how come it has taken me so long? Well, epistemological aphasia of course.

I made a comic out of it:

I'm wondering if I should share this with my supervisor?

Lying in bed can be motivating

I lay in bed this morning trying to figure out why I wasn't doing some of the things on my "to do" list. Beds in the morning can be great places to do this kind of thinking because there's no pressure and no distractions. There is the possibility of falling asleep in mid thought, but when that happens I figure it's just because I really needed some more sleep.

Usually, I won't fall asleep because I'm actually interested in finding the answer to my question. I find that in bed I'm able to think very clearly and to ask myself questions that really help me learn something new or at least point me in the right direction. So this morning, I thought of the "to do" list in my last post and I wondered why I did everything except finish the focus-group analysis. Why didn't I do that, the one work-related thing on the list?

Some time in the summer, after I had been working for a month or two, I tried to identify what my motivation was for doing this work. Pay was one of the more obvious things that came to mind. But I also thought of the idea of professionalism. I wanted to be able to match my own identity with some idea I had about what a young professional ought to be. Maybe I wanted to prove that after having been a student for so long I could make the adjustment to the working world or I wanted to show to my new colleagues (and myself) that I was successful.

So if being a successful young professional was so important why wasn't I doing this focus-group analysis work? Perhaps I thought that not doing this work right away wouldn't affect my professional image. Or maybe being professional wasn't sufficient motivation. Maybe my idea of professionalism was based on images of successful young hot shots on TV--an image that deep down inside I didn't really care about anyway. I decided that the most rewarding feelings of fulfilment should come from accomplishing goals that I set for myself, not TV images.

I got dressed, moved to the couch, and got out my notepad. Funny how there are different levels of comfort: the bed, the couch, and now I'm at my desk. I don't mean the comfort level of the physical place (e.g. the bed or the desk chair) I mean more the feeling of safety. It was only in bed that I felt safe enough to ask questions about my motivation (or lack thereof). Once I had a few thoughts I was interested in moving out to the living room.

I started thinking about the focus-group work and reminding myself that I liked the process: interacting with people to evaluate a project, transcribing the interactions to then analyze the emerging themes, and finally writing a report that sheds light on why people liked or disliked the project and what new directions might be worth pursuing. So there was something about the process of the work that I valued.

I'm going to leave it there for now. I guess what I'm getting out of this morning's thoughts is that I still have to define my objective and my motivation more clearly. But I think lying in bed can be a good place to feel comfortable asking these kinds of questions.

Nail Maintenance

I've been clipping my nails, as opposed to filing them, mostly cause it's faster and seems easier. But I've noticed that my nails look a bit thin and stunted, instead of thick, healthy, and strong. Should I switch to filing? What kind of file is best? How often do you file (I tend to bite my nails if they get long)? At this moment I'm soaking my feet in a basin of warm water with lots of salt. I recommend doing this once a week for about 45mins. I don't know if it's good for nails but it's good for cleaning your toes.

But back to my "to do" list: laundry, return library books, write focus-group analysis, and make whole white fish (it's a monster size, please come over for dinner to help!!)

Howdy! So I was looking at the blog today and I got a bit jealous. The jealousy was just enough to push me out of my laziness and post. I'm at home right now. I'm supposed to be playing basketball but I hurt my back last weekend luging (if you know what I mean...) and I have to stay home. Of course, I started surfing the ole net, instead of doing something useful, like darning socks.
Today's been a bit of a waste. I was supposed to meet my two roommates from last year in little India. But I couldn't find the restaurant and I hadn't written the name down anywhere. Eventually I gave up and went for Indian food on my own. I'm sad I couldn't meet up with my roommates, but at least I had some good Indian food.
Well, this about ends my first post. Please tell me what you think. Questions? Comments?

Valentines day take and more

1. I received a bear claw danish and a cookie with "I got you babe" written in icing. And I gave big chocolate lips to all the girls in the office.

2. On the other hand, I locked myself out of my apartment building twice today. Twice! The first time was in the morning and I had to call the landlord to come and let me in. And they I went and did it again this evening. What an idiot!

3. My boss is having 8 of his buddies over on Friday night to play poker, apparently with serious money, catering. etc. He wanted to hire me to wear a tux and be the dealer, for $10 an hour. First, I'm going to Vancouver this weekend so I can't. Second, anyone who has played cards with me knows I am pretty much the worst person, I can't remember anything and I would probably screw up the dealing. Third, I don't get out of bed for $10 an hour. So he ended up hiring a receptionist at another firm who is blond and has big boobs for $30 an hour!

4. Has anyone noticed that Dean Wareham formerly of Luna has been featured in Men's Vogue and Esquire this month wearing expensive suits? Apparently he's a style icon now. In one of the pictures he is making out with Britta Phillips.

Nothing sacred

Yesterday I posted a list of grad student disorders, but I have since discovered that there are many more syndromes affecting grads. Furthermore, my faculty seems to be particularly fertile ground for new disorders to pop up. Let see if we can communally figure out the disease that affects this girl whom I have to consider a colleague.

Here is the latest Brita ad. Pretty aggressive, huh? Well, this girl in my faculty found it appalling. So much so, that she decided to email the entire listserv to communicate us her despair. That’s normal. Lots of people do that in this faculty. It makes you look concerned. She also suggested that we boycott Brita from now on. Again, that’s acceptable, it makes you feel like you are holier than thou.

(Aside: See, my faculty has an unwritten rule about militancy; I refer to it as the "monthly activist quota". Basically, you must continuously identify sources of oppression (real or otherwise), display contempt for all forms of lucrative opportunities, sign petitions to save fuzzy charismatic mega-fauna, and the like).

But the girl writes us all half an hour later to share with us the letter that she personally sent to Brita. Preach it sister! And it's so sad, she tells Brita that we are “entering unprecedented times” and signs off with "Shame on you". Yeah, I can see the director of marketing at Brita being real ashamed. More like, s/he is wondering why are 5-year olds boycotting their product. And again, if you must boycott someone, why not boycott the municipal utility that's obviously wasting resources in providing potable water to flush a toilet?

So that was amusing, but then 10 minutes later, another person joined her to tell us that she doesn’t “support paranoia-and-stereotype-provoking and extraneous consumer industries” either. I had to read this sentence three times before I sorted out the combination of adjectives and adverbs. But I finally got it. Except that I was unaware that there was a stereotype created around “Brita filter haves” and “Brita filter have-nots”. Live and learn.

So the good news is that you can safely drink your toilet water, although house dogs had figured that much eons ago. The bad news is that you may need to through away your $20 Brita filter if you want to fulfill your activist quota for this month.

Is there nothing sacred anymore?

Grad student humour

I have kept this joke in my email account for at least two or three years, and I laugh with it every time... Also, I use it for self-diagnosis.

By LAWRENCE DOUGLAS and ALEXANDER GEORGE:

It is hardly news that graduate students are often not the happiest of campers. Only recently, however, have scientists, psychologists, and discourse pathologists come to appreciate and diagnose the full range of maladies afflicting the graduate-student population. Now the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Graduate Students (DSMGS-1), the first book ever dedicated specifically to disorders of those pursuing advanced degrees, promises relief to this long-suffering population. An excerpt follows:

Global Irony Syndrome (GIS)

Indications: GIS is an affective disorder most commonly characterized by the following symptoms: an erosion of belief in Enlightenment values; snide ness toward the concepts of truth, objectivity, and universal ethical codes; cynicism about the two-party system and the wealth-levelling effects of global capitalism; an ironic stance toward all physical laws and reality itself. The onset of GIS is often signalled in the sufferer by the replacement of easy going laughter with sarcastic smirks, and by the refusal to debate any issue except through indirection, punning, and sneering banter.

Prevalence: GIS has been largely concentrated in humanities departments, with occasional outbreaks in the "softer" social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, government, and politics.

Treatment: Intensive viewing of It's a Wonderful Life has proved salutary. Failing that, a semester's leave spent in a hard-labour camp of a despotic regime is effective in more than 75 percent of reported cases.

Hyper-Theory Disorder (HTD)

Indications: HTD is a cognitive disorder distinguished by an increasingly abstract frame of mind. Sufferers gradually lose the ability to speak in a manner unmediated by poststructuralist theory. In extreme cases, sufferers come to view all aspects of popular culture (e.g., Sponge Bob reruns, Oprah, the National Football League) through the filter of Heideggerian metaphysics or Lacanian psychoanalysis. HTD is often misdiagnosed as Tunnel Visionitis (TV), a similar, though etiologically distinct, malady marked by a gradually escalating inability to communicate with anyone -- including friends, family, spouses, and domestic pets -- who does not share all of one's theoretical presuppositions.

Prevalence: HTD is endemic to literature departments. TV, by contrast, is rampant throughout all disciplines, often hitting the natural sciences hardest.

Treatment: Complete abstinence from all French and German texts remains a controversial treatment for HTD. Until further therapeutic remedies have been discovered, a travel advisory for Continental Europe has been issued to all humanities students.

Sycophancy-Authority Malady (SAM)

Indications: SAM is considered a speech pathology increasingly common among advanced graduate students. It is marked by a tendency to speak in flattering, fawning, ingratiating, and even idolatrous terms to persons in positions of authority such as full professors, conference organizers, and powerful department secretaries. Oddly, sufferers of SAM, when conversing privately, tend to speak of these authorities in only the most derisive, disdainful, and even violent terms. (This syndrome is not to be confused with Manic Mentor Mimesis; see below.)

Prevalence: Cases of SAM have been reported in most graduate centers, though serious outbreaks tend to be concentrated in the lobbies, conference rooms, and bars of hotels hosting annual meetings of professional associations at which job interviewing is taking place.

Treatment: Tenure-track appointments were once considered effective in curing SAM, but recent studies challenge that conclusion. Those studies also suggest that tenure itself provides less relief than previously assumed. Researchers now believe that retirement constitutes the only fully effective treatment for this complex and poorly understood malady.

Manic Mentor Mimesis (MMM)

Indications: The disease, difficult to diagnose in its earliest stages, first manifests itself in the sufferer's subtle mimicry of an adviser's hand gestures. Gradually, the mimetic tendencies deepen and spread to include head movements and distinctive eye rolls of the adviser, as well as slouches, gaits, and even, if opportunity presents itself, dancing styles. As MMM becomes more systemic, tones of voice, sighs, vocal tics, and even idiosyncratic expectorations come to be included within the ambit of imitation. In its final and most humiliating stages, sufferers find themselves mimicking the dress of their advisers and adopting their hair styles. Typically, Acute Adornment Ataxia then sets in as the sufferer finds movement restricted by all the laser pens, cell phones, soda cans, backpacks, and assorted pedagogical props used by the adviser.

Prevalence: MMM is especially prevalent in departments, such as philosophy and mathematics, with high concentrations of eccentric faculty members.

Treatment: Extreme ridicule from peers outside academe, such as siblings and attractive baristas, has been known to abate the condition.

Terminal Graduate Paralysis (TGP)

Indications: This chronic, debilitating, and sometimes fatal condition represents the most serious and widespread of the many behavioural disorders facing the graduate-student population. Symptoms often appear in the fourth year of graduate study, though this can vary from discipline to discipline. Early signs are typically mild and therefore easily overlooked or ignored. These often include a subtle shift in media-consumption habits, from National Public Radio to South Park, and from professional journals to extreme-makeover television. More serious symptoms include compulsive retiling of the dissertation; a pathological overinvestment of time in TA-ing; a tendency to misplace routinely or otherwise lose or obliterate thousands of hours of work as a result of alleged computer failures (clinicians investigating these mishaps frequently find suspiciously mutilated hard drives). Advanced symptoms include substantially impaired performance on all cognitive tasks; hyperanxiety and night sweats; bibliophobia; comma-shifting mania; and a marked adviser-avoidance response. At its most extreme, sufferers display a deer-in-the-headlights appearance; epistemological aphasia (the conviction that one no longer knows anything); morbid feelings of lack of self-worth often accompanied by paranoiac delusions of victimization; a deepening of syntactic torpidity (the loss of the ability to write clearly, simply, and, ultimately, at all); a resurgence of teenage acne; even renewed thumb-sucking and bed-wetting. Failure to File (F2F) represents a particularly heartbreaking, and dimly understood, form of TGP, in which the sufferer mysteriously disappears on the eve of filing the completed dissertation, or otherwise inexplicably decides to "tighten" the argument.

Prevalence: Cases of TGP have been reported in every state and in every graduate department. The Morningside Heights district of Manhattan has produced rates suggesting a veritable epidemic that is matched only by certain areas in Berkeley, Calif.

Treatment: In its advanced stages, TGP is considered untreatable. For early-stage sufferers, long walks in open farmland accompanied by a complete termination of parental financial support has proved effective. Application to law school has also been known to offer relief.

Lawrence Douglas is an associate professor of law, jurisprudence, and social thought, and Alexander George a professor of philosophy, at Amherst College. A book of their humorous essays, Sense and Nonsensibility: Lampoons of Learning and Literature, was recently published by Simon &Schuster.

Ricky Gervais ad for prostate cancer

Hockey slump

I think we lost 5-3. The last goal was an empty-netter. No goals for me. No assists even. That's like 5 games in a row with no points. Good defensive play, but who wants a defensive forward?

Playing shinny or just practicing by myself with a puck might help get my hands back. For now my new nickname will be "force of mediocrity," number "00". Maybe the lake will be frozen at the cottage this weekend. I'll practice handling the puck.

The Leafs are playing great, no doubt setting up for a playoff run. They'll get through round one and then lose 4 straight.

I bought Camera Obscura's latest today and listened to it three times, it sounds really good so far! Maybe that will help break this slump.

Writing...

I phone my family everyday to let them know how I’m doing and the recurring theme is that I’m always writing. They must be wondering how much can one person, even a grad student, write? Truth is that I only have 5-6 pages towards my thesis and I’ve been writing for three weeks. Let that be a warning to anybody who is considering grad school. But those are some damn good 5-6 pages. And I rewrote every single paragraph twice (at least).

But it’s not just being overzealous that makes me slow. There’s also all these preparations before the actual writing process that take all my time. I made a comic out of them:

OK, now that you have stopped rolling with laughter and regain composure I tell you that today it was different; I had a pretty productive morning. And now I’m taking a break. I’m thinking of cleaning. Writing a thesis also makes you develop a new appreciation for housework.

Oh, Matt is looking for substitutes to chemical cleaners. I have to say that I adopt a very monolithic approach to cleaning: I like bleach. Instead, Matt believes in baking soda and vinegar solutions. By the way, I looked up the Material Safety Data Sheet for baking soda and it’s being investigated as a mutagen. And vinegar is dilute acetic acid. Ha! All those undergraduate years smelling solvents in the Chemistry building are really paying off now when I get into discussions about household cleaners. Yeah, you can tell your life is exciting when you post about bleach.

But I’m willing to entertain the idea of a non-chlorinated cleansing product. So send me your ideas. Make sure though that you don’t make a claim for “natural” products a being less toxic. The origin of a product says nothing about its toxicity. You will sound like a moron if you try to argue the opposite. Or maybe you are in my faculty, in which case you can’t help to throw blanket statements like that one. Oh well.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission

Here is my latest career adventure story, about moving from the world of academia (it's all about me) to the world of collaboration (we're a team!).

Well, I am under a deadline (like, getting on a plane type) and writing up our report of our findings to present to the world.

Writing this is reminding me of writing a final paper, I am alone in this pursuit, because my boss is away and our consultant's budget is used up. When I got to section 5, after painfully reworking sections 2 to 4 of a 25 pager, I have realized that I really don't like the direction section 5 is going in. And, I have sent my boss about 5 emails that he has not responded to, because he's busy at a conference. Should I send one more email to him criticizing section 5? Is it helpful since we can't have a dialogue unless he calls me?

I remember he told me that at one of his old jobs he learned to ask for forgiveness, not permission.

I think I will embark on this mode of work ethic, and send him a completely revised version of the report, and if he doesn't like it? Well, I'll say I'm sorry, and then get on the plane for Cuba.

Let you know how it goes.

Fame

OK, I'll finally post something myself. For those of you, avid followers, that are er, you already posted two comics, well, I drew them but someone else posted them in my name. It's alright, he had permission to do it. It's just that at the time I didn't really care - nor I thought it necessary - to share my thougths with the world. Now, given that I spend the entire day in front of the computer trying to write my final paper, well, I find that blogging rocks and that I want to share my thoughts!

So much so, that I even started my OWN blog. I guess the secret is out: I'm not good at sharing. I'll do some self-promotion and tell you that the other blog is meant to be a way of communicating us students interested in tropical ecology and sustainability who took a field course in Costa Rica with the Costa Ricans that we met. We try to do fundraisers and things like that. See, I'm a good person. Even if I don't share the spotlight well.

The funny part is that I thought that my warholian 15 minutes of fame were up, so I googled "TICA" (the name of my blog) like an hour after having created it. Well, not surprisingly, my blog wasn't there. Worse yet, I found that TICA is an acronym for The International Cat Association which really sucks because not only I'm not a cat person, or a pet person, but having an international association of cats is about the dumbest idea that anybody could have come up with. No matter how badly you wanted to be famous.

So there you have it. Some people would do anything to be on the internet.

Pizza and Basketball

On wednesday, I saw my first basketball game! It was the Toronto Raptors vs. the Washington Wizards. The original idea was for the b-girls to go see Mae Hem and her b-boy crew perform their breakdancing at the game, and Andrea was able to score us tickets for half price. It turned out that the b-boy team could not perform due to an emergency, but once Noel explained to us (a group of majority girls who had no clue about b-ball) that basketball is cool and if the Raptors score 100 points, everyone gets free pizza, we were all in for not scalping our tickets.

I was convinced I was gonna get the pizza.

The game was fun and riveting--the Raports were ahead of the Wizards the whole time and eventually won. The stand out parts:

• basket ball players are cute
• Chris Bosh threw the ball into the net from past the halfway line, and the ball went through exactly when the buzzer went to end the period. The crowd went nuts!
• The Raptors scored over 100 points, so free pizza. I was vindicated, because I held on to the hope while others made fun of me.
  
• The raptors dancers are pretty lame--break dancing would have been cooler.

The only downside is that you can only get your pizza the day after, and I missed the boat--I forgot my ticket at home, and there is a Pizza Pizza around the corner from my house, but it is now past midnight, and I don't want pizza anyways. But, whatever, tickets are so expensive that I just wanted to know that I won the pizza, cause it's likely a tiny percentage of the cost of my ticket anyways, it's not much of a deal.

Overall, I'm gonna be a basketball fan.