flying.... time
Oct. 3rd, 2009 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katekatIt was just last week and I kept meaning to post something then, and now it's already the next week and here I am on Saturday again thinking .... oh, i'll just post later.
This is not conductive to actually filling a livejournal with content.
So here, a couple of the highlights of the last two weeks:
As I pulled out my computer in my Intro to Asian Studies class, my adviser (who is also the prof for the class) looked up and said, in that funny half intellectually charged half ditzy way she has, and said "Oh"
That Oh was proceeded by a lengthy diatribe on how computers create a dual distancing technique, on the one hand separating me from the materiality of reading textual materials, and the quality of engagement between myself and the printed sheet (HEY, THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS HERE), and on the other separating me from the rest of class, creating a literal wall and separating me from the group discourse.
Yes, these were her objections.
I had some back (even though I knew this was an argument I wasn't going to win, and low and behold, I didn't): we should be provided a reader if the 'materiality' of texts is so important... not have to download them from the internet and print them out on our own printer. Because mine sucks. (at that point she told me to get a better printer). Besides (as those of you on the filter might have seen) I take a hell of a lot more notes now that I'm typing them up than scrawling in the margins (this point was conceded). Finally, ok, for some a computer might be a separation from the class, an admittedly even I have been known to check my email when someone is rattling on, but that is so NOT a bar to my participation. I'll talk even when I don't know what's being said.
Sadly, that means I'm back to killing trees.
it was our friend Maija's birthday on Sat.
And she had her get together at a Tiki Bar - it was absolutely *fantastic*! Super cute tiki stuff, lethal mixed drinks, lively and lovely people, and a darling birthday girl. Could not have been a better night.
Apparently the federal government doesn't like people like me
I smoke clove cigarettes. Have for years. It's been increasingly hard to find them (especially in Cali where they don't like you if you smoke). So last month when the 7-11 guy warned me they weren't going to carry cloves anymore I just assumed it was a 7-11 thing.
Not so. Apparently a new law got passed at the first of the year that went into effect in September that outlaws the sale of all flavored tobacco. Because it's a gateway to smoking for kids.
This is how I found myself calling around to half a dozen different specialty smoke shops just to find the last 10 packs of clove cigarettes in my area. I bought them. And I'm smoking them slowly. Very slowly. Because after this... I'm either forced to move to regular cigarettes or quit.
And I hate the taste of regular cigarettes.
Now I have a little dwindling stash that I hope will last me through my birthday, and then I will be a very cranky girl trying to manage an addiction that I can't satisfy. I'm not looking forward to it at all. Luckily Maija is an acupuncturist and is willing to help me with acupuncture to get over some of the worst of it, but it wasn't something I was particularly planning on soon, and now... yep. Enforced quitting.
I just read 200 pages of Chinese Art History and I'm not any more enlightened than when i started.
Too technical to be revealing, unfortunately. Or too technical to be revealing in the way that allows me to write a paper on it. I know these things are very important to art historians, but my unfamiliarity with the work itself makes the disciplinary style seem almost abusive (so many footnotes, total namedropping, absolutely impossible to dispute unless I was also in the field). I somehow have to write a response paper to all of this and the only thing I can come up with is to complain about the impenetrable format. Schoolwork seems particularly banal this week, but there's always tomorrow's readings to give me a hopeful boost, right? At least I managed to get a B on my last Japanese test, so there's hope for me there. Next week we're doing oral mid terms and the week after we're doing two days of written mid terms, so i expect that will be exciting. Considering, especially, that my birthday falls into the middle. Yesh.
Tonight's another b-day celebration for my first USC school friend, and D & I are heading out to that. Hopefully we'll last for a while - not used to things that start going at 11 pm anymore. I've been really looking forward to it, and I hope it's going to be fun.
Happy Saturday night lovely ones. I hope everyone else is having a beautiful weekend of some sort or another!
This is not conductive to actually filling a livejournal with content.
So here, a couple of the highlights of the last two weeks:
As I pulled out my computer in my Intro to Asian Studies class, my adviser (who is also the prof for the class) looked up and said, in that funny half intellectually charged half ditzy way she has, and said "Oh"
That Oh was proceeded by a lengthy diatribe on how computers create a dual distancing technique, on the one hand separating me from the materiality of reading textual materials, and the quality of engagement between myself and the printed sheet (HEY, THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS HERE), and on the other separating me from the rest of class, creating a literal wall and separating me from the group discourse.
Yes, these were her objections.
I had some back (even though I knew this was an argument I wasn't going to win, and low and behold, I didn't): we should be provided a reader if the 'materiality' of texts is so important... not have to download them from the internet and print them out on our own printer. Because mine sucks. (at that point she told me to get a better printer). Besides (as those of you on the filter might have seen) I take a hell of a lot more notes now that I'm typing them up than scrawling in the margins (this point was conceded). Finally, ok, for some a computer might be a separation from the class, an admittedly even I have been known to check my email when someone is rattling on, but that is so NOT a bar to my participation. I'll talk even when I don't know what's being said.
Sadly, that means I'm back to killing trees.
it was our friend Maija's birthday on Sat.
And she had her get together at a Tiki Bar - it was absolutely *fantastic*! Super cute tiki stuff, lethal mixed drinks, lively and lovely people, and a darling birthday girl. Could not have been a better night.
Apparently the federal government doesn't like people like me
I smoke clove cigarettes. Have for years. It's been increasingly hard to find them (especially in Cali where they don't like you if you smoke). So last month when the 7-11 guy warned me they weren't going to carry cloves anymore I just assumed it was a 7-11 thing.
Not so. Apparently a new law got passed at the first of the year that went into effect in September that outlaws the sale of all flavored tobacco. Because it's a gateway to smoking for kids.
This is how I found myself calling around to half a dozen different specialty smoke shops just to find the last 10 packs of clove cigarettes in my area. I bought them. And I'm smoking them slowly. Very slowly. Because after this... I'm either forced to move to regular cigarettes or quit.
And I hate the taste of regular cigarettes.
Now I have a little dwindling stash that I hope will last me through my birthday, and then I will be a very cranky girl trying to manage an addiction that I can't satisfy. I'm not looking forward to it at all. Luckily Maija is an acupuncturist and is willing to help me with acupuncture to get over some of the worst of it, but it wasn't something I was particularly planning on soon, and now... yep. Enforced quitting.
I just read 200 pages of Chinese Art History and I'm not any more enlightened than when i started.
Too technical to be revealing, unfortunately. Or too technical to be revealing in the way that allows me to write a paper on it. I know these things are very important to art historians, but my unfamiliarity with the work itself makes the disciplinary style seem almost abusive (so many footnotes, total namedropping, absolutely impossible to dispute unless I was also in the field). I somehow have to write a response paper to all of this and the only thing I can come up with is to complain about the impenetrable format. Schoolwork seems particularly banal this week, but there's always tomorrow's readings to give me a hopeful boost, right? At least I managed to get a B on my last Japanese test, so there's hope for me there. Next week we're doing oral mid terms and the week after we're doing two days of written mid terms, so i expect that will be exciting. Considering, especially, that my birthday falls into the middle. Yesh.
Tonight's another b-day celebration for my first USC school friend, and D & I are heading out to that. Hopefully we'll last for a while - not used to things that start going at 11 pm anymore. I've been really looking forward to it, and I hope it's going to be fun.
Happy Saturday night lovely ones. I hope everyone else is having a beautiful weekend of some sort or another!
