Thoughts from the Post-Scriptum

in my undergrad i often felt like i had make excuses for being smart.

don't get me wrong i don't think i am *that* smart. i mean i failed high school math... TWICE, i misuse commas constantly, and i seriously abuse the grammatical rules of the english language on a regular basis. that being said, i'd like to think i'm a sharp cookie, especially when it comes to current events, some aspects of politics and political situations and of course queer theory/sexuality studies (seeing as it is the foundation of my research, i hope i at least know a few things about it!)

my political economy class is for a large part a reminder of the last two years of my undergraduate degree, five or six of us come prepared to discuss the material and the rest don't do the reading and don't speak up in class. this turns into a very quiet room with only a few voices speaking.

a few times today i contextualized a couple of things we were talking about, or used current affairs to highlight a point. nothing major, and really it was more for my own benefit than anyone elses, working out conceptual problems and using 'real world' examples helps me contextualize theory in my head.

at one point in class one of the women in the room turns to me and says "how do you know so much?" with a definite disparaging tone in her voice. i think i turned bright red, i don't like that sort of attention and while i'm outspoken and definitely participate in discussion a lot i don't think i'm smart so much as vocal.

afterwards michelle (my awesome academic buddy) and i were outside when someone else came up to us and proclaimed (jokingly... sort of...) that he "hated us for being so smart" wtf?

why is it that i feel like i have to apologize for coming to class prepared?

a byron katie moment: you should apologize for being prepared and informed... is that true?

why does my MA feel like my BA? is this all just a bunch of BS?

my productivity has finally started to kick in.

it's as though i picked up queer theory again and realized all the reasons why i came to graduate school.

it's nice not to feel slovenly.

my research lately has been focusing on the politics and economics of representation. i'm working on two papers right now (one, i hope, will turn into a conference paper and publication) and find myself knee deep in a big pile of nerd poo to sift through.

apologies for being away for so long, all my creative energies were directed towards building and managing a website, creating a podcast and dealing with all the headaches that come along with that. you can check it out here.

my research and i have a peculiar relationship, it has many facets to it that sometimes mix and melt into one another

some days we're in an abusive relationship and my research is the trucker in a dirty undershirt.
other times i'm a negligent parent who is ignoring their crying research baby.
then we are the newlywed couple who fuck like rabbits and don't leave the honeymoon suite.

right now i'm feeling an odd confluence between abused housewife and negligent parent. whenever i sit down to write or read my research looks up at me angrily and tells me how insufficient i am. it yells at me and says horrible things. then when i procrastinate by sitting in front of the television with gillian because we are both too hungover to move i can hear my research crying.

what the fuck?

i know.

my first academic publication is out.

you can read it here

it's just a book review but i'm really proud of it, seeing my name in the Canadian Journal of Communication has definitely been one of the highlights of 2006.

i work best when i have someone to best or conquer.

in grad school i hadn't met that person until last friday when she appeared in full force and has motivated me to not only best her but to better myself in the process.

it's nice to have someone to best in a test of geekiness again.

so i'm currently working on a gloryhole/tearoom production/academic project. i feel the more forward slashes i put into the description the cooler my project sounds... it's all about post-modern hybridity these days.

in order to gather some opinions from participants i posted a few ads on craigslist and on squirt just stating what my project was about and if people would be willing to answer some questions.

it's been an interesting couple of days so far.
so if anyone who reads this has sex in bathrooms, let me know!

It only makes sense that as my personal life begins to fall apart that things in my professional life start to come together nicely. I got this email today, last year when I applied to sshrc I was cut in the first round, it's nice to know that I've made it through to the final stage this time.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council acknowledges receipt of
your application to the Canada Graduate Scholarship - Master's.

Note: There is no document attached to this message. Depending on your
software, it may appear as though there is an attachment. If so, please
ignore the message.

i just finished reading the frankfurt school's cannonical text "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception"

I feel depressed.

had drinks with my old professor today after class, it was nice to talk to him outside of a professor/student binary.

we chatted about research, PhD stuff, travel plans for the summer... i have muchos respect for the man and it made me realize that this is what i want. more than anything else. i want to be an academic.

it's nice feeling like the old marcos again.

today felt like a breath of fresh air, and made me remember why i came back to toronto after undergrad. why i'm doing this MA and why i want to keep doing it.

there was a cute article in the globe and mail the other day about the conference i'm headed to in saskatoon.

yay for summer camp!

woke up this morning at the crack of bloody dawn (oh wait, before that, at 4:30am) and headed to the airport at 5 to catch my 8am flight out to Saskatoon. I could have probably cut it a little closer but I'm paranoid that I'll get held up at security so I always try to get to the airport at least two hours prior.

A nice surprise- I got a seat in business class and my inner capitalist came out when someone from coach tried to use our bathroom. get to the fucking back of the plane dammit. (I'm kidding... maybe).

Saskatoon is... interesting. Although I haven't really done any exploring, more on the city itself later. I did notice that most of the houses look like post WWII prefabricated houses

I didn't really do much today since I had to finish off an assignment and took an afternoon nap in the process. Got really excited when my friends started to show up, I'm actually really excited about the conference and the trip in general. It's nice to get away for a few days and be immersed in the nerd equivalent of summer camp.

it's been a busy day!

didn't get a ton of sleep last night and the alarm this morning came WAY too fast, but i hiked up to york and got myself ready for my first week of tutorials (i call them the dog and pony show)

the first week is always the best, you get to keep it light, introduce yourself and call it a day. i'm excited because my class is senior students, they know the drill and the game which in some ways will make it easier to get through the tutorials.

i just hope marking doesn't suck as much as it did last year...

i delivered my paper friday morning, it got mixed reviews i think critiquing same-sex marriage in the states is incredibly politically charged in ways that it isn't in canada (at least not any more).

let me elaborate:

i'm not against same-sex marriage, or at least not as much as my audience seemed to think so. i understand why queers get married: citizenship rights, tax breaks, and a relationship that can be "understood" by the mainstream (because it copies dominant ideologies that surround family structures).

i get mad when people compare the same-sex marriage movement to the issues faced by first nations people, or people of colour. when a (largely) white middle class group of citizens thinks they are being oppressed in the same way.

don't get me wrong, i think homophobia remains a systemic issue and there are a lot of fucked up problems that queers face but don't compare it to the racism faced by other minorities especially when you are implicated in these issues. why aren't we (and i'm including myself in this) more concerned with at-risk queer youth? hiv/aids issues in the community? the growing problems with crystal meth? the government's biased age of consent laws? right, because we're too busy looking at martha stewart wedding magazines.

le sigh.

i spent last night having dinner with some colleagues from ComCult who were also at the conference, it was nice to sit down over a shared meal and just talk about nerdy things in a non-nerdy way.

more on this later, i'm still working through a few things.

this past weekend i presented a paper at the Communication and Culture Graduate Student's conference.

i can't remember the last time i was that nervous, the room was filled with friends and colleagues all of whom i have tremendous intellectual respect for. add to that one of canada's tier one CRC's and you can imagine how nervous i was. (she is also on the admissions committee for my PhD... natch.)

the first five minutes of the paper were pretty jumbled, my palms were sweaty, my voice was trembly, it was not so great. once i calmed down and got to an altitude of 35,000 feet everything improved. i'd never presented in front of people i actually cared about before, normally i go to conferences where nobody knows me for that very reason but i have to say the 20 minutes of discussion after my presentation made me feel pretty damn great. i got several compliments on the paper which was nice, my intellectual Moriarty took some great delight in pointing out how nervous i was... sometimes people can be huge bitches.

now back to the grind... will the foucault ever end?