Today in Dissertation Writing, Politics, and Jewelry

PDK got back from his loooong trip to India yesterday -- woohoo! Brought me some lovely presents of the gold and silver kind, too :)  I love the pretty silver earrings he and his sister picked out -- they make the loveliest chiming sound if I shake my head and I've never seen anything like them. I did find some very similar ones on etsy so you guys can see what they look like (since I am too lazy/busy to take pics). Apparently they are called jhumka in North India and jimiki or jitniki in South India, and they are shaped like bells, or you could see them as inverted lotuses.

image via jhumkas on etsy

Instead of hooks, though, mine have posts like these. So beautiful!

image via jhumkas on etsy

So after his three weeks off, he's back at work today, and I am home, planning on doing PhD work.... I am revising and adding to a chapter (well... the chapter, since it's the only one I have written), and I have a plan of how to do it, finally, after rereading and editing and changing the organization of the forty pages I have already written.  I've been thinking about it all day, but have yet to put pen to paper (well, keystrokes to Microsoft Word).

I am also excited about my plan for the evening, which might sound boring to most people: I am going to a meeting with Santa Barbara's representative in California's Assembly, Das Williams, to hear him talk about California's budget, which is in a constant state of crisis. I long wanted to be a lawyer and follow in my civil-rights-defending father's footsteps... until I came to the realization that I was not sure I could emotionally or mentally handle the weight of deciding others' lives with my actions, since any mistakes I made could mean a loss of freedom or loss of life for my clients. Still, I have remained pretty politically engaged, especially with my pet issues: prisoners' rights, women's rights, the environment, and higher education.

I am looking forward to hearing an update on the budget, not least because it directly affects my employment at the University of California. Grad student, undergrads, and faculty at the UC have been fighting and protesting budget cuts, and Jerry Brown, who I voted for, is still proposing an additional $1 billion in cuts to the UCs on top of what has been cut in the last two years, even with his proposals with increased taxes. A sad day for a public university system.

The constant undermining of public support for higher education is one reason that I am thinking strongly of leaving academia when I (finally) finish my PhD. There is no reason to stick around in a system that is making it impossible for me to actually engage with and directly educate students, not just lecture and evaluate them, and yet is still giving them a degree at the end.

If you are interested in reading more about the way that college students are losing out while paying more for a college education in California, you might want to check out the links below. I am just going to put my blinkers on for the next four hours and focus on poetry, and then return to caring deeply about these problems at the town hall meeting this evening.

Links

• Remaking Higher Education -- a great on-the-ground blog by a UCSB Prof who is involved in the UC administration;
• "A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education," Parts 1 and 2 in the Chronicle of Higher Education;
• This activity is a fun and interactive way to try to fix California's budget problems.

The Anatomy of a Soup

OK, so this blog post was supposed to go up over a week ago, and I had all these lovely pics arranged perfectly, but then I started to mess with the html to make everything line up nicely, screwed up my tables, and then accidentally erased everything. A sad emoticon cannot even begin to communicate my frustration and mounting inner rage.

But... I am determined!  I will not let html and blogger combine to defeat me. I will deliver a post with lots of lovely pictures, despite the fact that taking pics is kind of a challenge with my li'l point and shoot and the other fact that writing comes a lot more easily to me than visual aesthetics. To the post!  

<< biking home with fronds of fennel from the SB farmer's market >>

(Warning: very non-vegetarian material ahead)

Recommendations-- funny, fierce, and friendly.

I want to share with you some of the things that have made me happy today, both of which came from friends I don't see a lot of, but who I stay in touch with on facebook -- people might be skeptical about facebook, but for me, it has allowed me to maintain relationships that I most likely would have lost otherwise.

My old friend Mia Antonelli, who I met in high school when we were in Drama together, has become a gorgeous, talented, professional actress. She has an amazingly funny youtube series called "The Glide." Each episode is just a few minutes long and features Mia as Rebecca and Kamen Edwards as Barrett, and they are two DJs in the Delilah tradition. It's super hilarious and they just put a new episode up!  Highly recommended viewing. A link to their first episode is below, and you really should watch several, as their relationship builds in hilarious ways:

This second recommendation comes via my friend Sean...

Grading, Grading Everywhere and not a Space to Think.

I am working three jobs right now: one of them is as a  "reader" working for the University of California at the wage a barista would make, grading the papers of the best and brightest in an upper division English class, which means I spend hours and hours pointing out all their missing commas, explaining terms they misuse, and occasionally getting excited about a new argument or a clever turn of phrase.

Marking with the bloody red pen

However, even with sixty papers, those moments of joy are few and far between. Lots more frustration tends to weigh down the scales.  Also, we had some friends who got their PhDs a couple years ago come back to visit Santa Barbara this weekend with their adorable blond little toddler, and I spent the weekend ricocheting between hanging out with them and grading. Talk about a lack of motivation to get that pile to shrink.  Finally finished yesterday -- it took me literally all day to grade 20 papers because I had completely reached the end of my rope. I haven't had to grade that many papers in like a year -- last quarter, something about the combination of the class and the time section was scheduled (6 pm on a Thursday!) meant I had only about 28 students total in my sections: less than half the number I am grading this quarter.

Literary Love -- Valentine's Day Cards from Old Books

I made a set of Valentine's Day cards for my sister, complete with envelopes, as a gift for her birthday, which is at the end of January. It turns out that I like making cards, but envelopes are a major hassle. It all requires careful detail, with folding and cutting everything just right in order to make it even, and I am not a "measure twice, cut once" sort of person. I think that's why the crafts I am more drawn to are a bit more forgiving human error, such as yoyo-making or braided rag rugs. Braided rags don't have to be perfect, and yoyos are cute no matter how even their little folds are.

It took me days, literally days, to make 10 cards.  But I was determined to make a bunch. The problem with her birthday is that every year it comes at the end of January, when I am totally broke. I am going to suggest she move it to July next year if she wants presents that actually cost money.

I made these cards from some paper I bought at half-price from the art supple store in town, Art Essentials, and cut out the hearts from a copy of Jhumpa Lahiri's short story collection Unaccustomed Earth.

Icelandic Comedy 'King's Road'

Finally made it to a Film Festival movie last night!

PDK and I were going to see Benevides Born, but decided last minute to switch it up and see King's Road, or Kóngavegur in Icelandic.

Very funny movie! I have never had bad luck with any of the films I've seen at SBIFF, and this continues my run of good luck. I love that I get to see movies through the Film Festival that I'd never get the chance to otherwise. It's very absurd (for example, a grandmother has a dog that's actually a seal, which is actually dead and has a zippered compartment that she keeps precious things in), but I love that kind of thing when it's well done. It's kind of an ensemble comedy, with each person totally distinct and weird in their own way. And I really got a sense of how desolate, cold, and isolated parts of Iceland are.

The only other view I've had of Iceland was equally hilarious: Anthony Bourdain's trip there for No Reservations. Some nice person uploaded the episode to youtube, so if you don't ever get a chance to see King's Road, at least go and watch Bourdain have a miserable, freezing time in Iceland. You won't regret it.

If wishes were horses....

If I could just pull it together and look more put together more often, I'd like to think I could at least try to pull these looks off. Thanks to The Sartorialist for the inspiration.


I love the nipped-in waist, the cloche, the oxfords, and the RED.


and

I blame my mom for my love of slim, high-waisted, '70s looks. When I was little and in high school, her closet still featured lots of the gorgeous stuff she wore when she was in college and grad school. I purloined some of them, but damn it, was her waist tiny. That flat hair is never going to happen, though.



I love a full skirt, '50s style. And that hair looks like something mine would do if left out in a windstorm. Love it.


Ohhh, my leather jacket! This reminds me of a ridiculously awesome leather jacket I inherited/borrowed/stole from my mom in high school. I had it through college and through the second year of grad school. And then I left it in a classroom and someone took it. I have never been able to find a jacket quite as perfect as the one I lost.... but this one might do as a temporary substitute.

...And lastly...



PDK is already quite dapper, but I would love to see him in try out this sharp, man-about-town-70-years-ago look. He would look so good in a fedora!

Beginning at the beginning

I do things with words. This has always been the beginning, for me. My professional life is a word-heavy occupation -- being a hopeful academic and all -- and for me, that is always a good thing. But I learned in my printing and book-making class back in college that words are not just carriers for ideas -- they are either embodied in our mouths or materialized in ink pressed on paper (or, here, in pixels lighting up on your screen). In other words, saying something and making something -- both are vital.

So, I am starting this space as a personal space, not entirely separate from my public academic life, but full of all the other delights (and perhaps sorrows -- fingers crossed they won't be so bad) in my life.

And now, to begin at the end: tonight I came home to find a sniffly, sick boyfriend in bed, taking a well-deserved nap. I then took this opportunity to make him a lovely, Indian-spiced lentil curry full of spice and fragrance, and planned to pull out all the stops with turmeric-scented potatoes and spicy kale on the side.

But, understandably groggy at 8 p.m., PDK was not so hungry, so I happily turned instead to the brown bag of gorgeous chanterelles picked up at only $15/lb at the Santa Barbara farmers' market yesterday! Quickly simmered and browned in butter and served on garlic toast, they were a perfect dinner, accompanied as they were by red wine and good conversation with our dear roommate Ms. E.

Tomorrow is sure to be much spicier, since those lentils will be sitting in their juices, slowly creating even more heat from the chilis. And I'll be back to the dissertation, since I'm already 4 days behind on my chapter draft, promised to writing partner Kevin last Sunday (damn...... here comes all that workaday life hurtling back in again).