bookish dreamer

katekat @ 2012-03-02T09:55:00

2012-03-02T18:13:03Z

driving me a little insane - I have a sticky key... it's the d key. anyone ever fix a laptop sticky key? i've pulled they key itself off and cleaned under it, which seems to have helped a little, but not entirely. it still registers though, if i press down really hard on the key, so i don't know if it's entirely broken. It's weird because I'm a touch typist and now I keep pausing on the 'd' button so that i can make sure it typed it out.

i spent four hours yesterday in back to back talks, which, while interesting, were not exactly the most upbeat things in the world. The first was a bit of a scattered 'this project is just coming on line' kind of talk about Tokyo as an Imperial city, and the ways in which the flows to and from colonial spaces into and out of Tokyo made it function as such, ultimately creating something the presenter called 'Imperial Modernity' which was a sort of precursor for 'Global Modernity'. I'm not sure if I'm entirely convinced that the way to go about studying Tokyo this way is only through it's colonial flows (tours, export of architecture, and inhabitants) but at the same time I think the professor was also trying to carve out his own niche in a field of modern Tokyo studies that is perhaps fairly complex already. In the end it gave me quite a bit to think about in terms of how we retroactively construct modernity only with those things that have remained as markers (not the failed structures, like a kind of exported Shinto, etc).

the second talk, though, was the truly compelling and entirely depressing one. The presenter does environmental history, which is a fascinating kind of field that appears to almost merge the scientific and the historical. He made a compelling case for the idea that we cannot ever escape the fact that, for good or ill, the world is inescapably marked and influenced by the humans that live in it. The grim reality (at least as far as he was arguing, but I was definitely convinced) is that that public policy does not simply affect constructions of our notion of community, but it is, in fact, pain etched on the bones of the people. Lyrical and terrifying thought, though it does tie in with everything I've been watching/reading/being terrified by in terms of women's rights in the US. And of course this presenter was talking about two different traumatic illness events in Japan (and he of course gestured a little to Fukushima, since it's pretty inescapable, but that wasn't the main point of his talk at all) and how if we are going to narrate a story of 'root causes' of these things, we must talk not just about the chemical and the landscape and the weather, but also the social conditions, religious practices, public policy, because they have just as much if not more impact on these things.

sadly he wasn't willing to say if this is hopeful or not, since, well, historians - they look back, not necessarily forward.

so that was fun. now onto grading mid terms!

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Home stretch!!

2011-05-13T22:15:50Z

Finished:
32 page Epistolary paper - finalized, edited, sent to prof wed
27 page Kotani transcription - done done done
12 pages of Translation paper
24 pages Kotani translation
20 sentence diagrams

Left to do:
5 pages Translation paper (thought it will probably be around 10 more)

I know my updates have been so very very boring - my whole life has revolved around being able to get work done and walking the dog. I'd never evern translated anything other than a couple of pages, so attempting roughly 30 pages of theoretical Japanese seemed practically impossible.

Yet, it got done. So for those who might be curious about what I was translating, here are some choice quotes:

( Hermaphrodites under patriarchy ―To read Ursula K LeGuin's )

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Words of probable truth

2010-10-20T04:15:26Z

My horoscope for this week:

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the weeks ahead, Libra, you're going to be
tested on your follow-through. People will want you to work harder on
what has previously come fairly easily. You will be pressured to make
good on your promises; you'll be asked to refine the details that are
central to the success of the good new ideas that are floating around. As
much as you might be tempted to slip away and fly off in pursuit of
things that are more fun, I encourage you to stick with the program. You
can't imagine how important it is for you to learn how to be a more
committed builder.

Couldn't be more germane if it tried!!

Ok, so first off, the conference went GREAT!! But oh my god my brain hurt from the information overload! You try sitting in on 4 panels a day, 4 people each panel, each presentation going for at least 20 minutes, sometimes on things you know a little about but sometimes not, mostly read in slightly monotone voices .... it was painful in all the best ways!

( The Good, the YAY, and the OOOOO )

( So, if all that was so great, why the horoscope... )

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