signalnoise

congrats to the wife (though I don't know shit about her).

best of luck to all yous.

and you're damn skippy I told those fuckin' chokes whats up!! it was brutal.

the end of a long haul for her, no doubt. that must be an amazing feeling!

I'm a pretty typical left-leaning intellectual.

In that, while I love humanity, I'm not too fond of any particular humans.

So I guess that's hypocritical.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself re: the type issue, though. After all, we're primarily talking about immediate physical attraction here. Most people can find themselves growing attracted to someone who's not their 'type' over time, if they are intrigued in other ways.

Plus, sexuality is one area where we have to give ourselves some degree of Freudian pass. It comes from a much more primal part and essentially fucked up part of the brain than, say, taste in shoes. Most of us have at least one sexual skeleton in our closets - I, for instance, have a near-absolute physical dealbreaker that I find abhorrent from the perspective of my politics. But, try as I might, I'm just not attracted to folks of a particular 'type.'

Having a 'type' isn't a character flaw. But you were right in the first place nonetheless - not being able to recognize a 'type' for the somewhat superficial weighting of initial preferences it is, and being able to see past it, *is*.

I have only been in Chicago once...but I want to go back this summer....I need money first. The big goal is to move to Chicago...when I get successful with my music degree.

talk to ya later?

yep, saw vol.2 last night. as my father says simply when reviewing good movies, "Yes".

running into old friends is great, especially when cigars and pontification is involved.

so...uh....who do we have to talk to to get our friggin' answers checked?!?!?!?

I saw vol. 2 last night. I liked it. Certain elements I felt worked beautifully (the entire chapter with Pai Mei was just wonderful - as were the scenes with Darryl Hannah) but I still feel like I preferred the first one. I don't know. I need to see it again.

And you're right - group projects would be nice. I do a lot of sitting around and talking with people in the lab about ideas for experiments, but when it comes down to it, it's just me doing them, and it would be nice to have a group to confer with about how to do them and what the results me.

As for what you said about my last journal entry... it's funny, I feel like my grad student friends are more interested in married life than my non-grad student friends. I don't really know why. Maybe because Columbia tries to select an older grad student population than a lot of other places (we have 9 in my class, I think the average age is 31, and we're in our 3rd year) people tend to be more settled. Friends outside of grad school are more interested in having fun. Odd social dynamics.

I am doing well thanx....I watched the Cubs win today....I thought I would give baseball a try this season....so far im liking it...GO lOUA!!

about the rant...not to mention that the police dont even DO those jobs =) forensic scientists get the fun of attempting to put the cases together by using the evidence collected from teh scene...after the police have gathered it.. sometimes without the proper training, technique, and consequently with damage, missing evidence, and often relevant information about where it came from.
scientists mostly get bags of stuff that have case numbers on them.. no info on where the fuck it came from...? realistically its not a lot to solve a case on, or very helpful. im not saying there arnt specialists that do get to have first dibs on the scene...its just in major cities..your right, its just not feasable to use the technology to solve most cases =) so yeah in long.. or short, i agree.

Allo. Yep, new friends are good--even if it's in cyberspace. I have to admit, I was wierded out at first by all this, as in "You mean, I just 'request' a friend? This is so unlike real life." Then again, one can get a decent sense whether or not a person is an asshole/moron based on reading their journals for a while. And you do not seem to be either.

I think my cold is finally disappearing; it has become the lingering chest cold that lends itself to gutteral coughing fits...especially when I'm writing exams. I horked on my exam book on accident and had to be "excused." I think I amuse my teachers.

I've now written 3 of 5 exams, with some success. The one where I wrote about a bunch of books I haven't read; the teacher emailed me (!) and told me it was "very good." Ahem. Really? Since I'm working on a paper for that course, this little bit of encouragement really helps. I hope to finish my paper today.

On a happier note, I have procured tickets to go see the Pixies at their Toronto show in November. Yaay credit cards. "And for everything else in your life...there's Mastercard." Barf. But anyway.

Good luck with the stats; I have heard the horror stories. The joy of being a literature/history person is that I'm the asshole in the house who always gets to lounge around in fuzzy slippers with tea while reading a book, while everyone else pulls their hair out in frustration over things like stats. I'm soooooo glad I don't have to take that.

Haven't seen Kill Bill 2 but I plan on it. If I can manage to squeeze it in sometime, that is. Between now and Apr 26 I'm relegated to salvaging my school year.

A thunderstorm is starting here just now. Nice. It will be a good writing day.

Yeah man, I really know what you mean - comparing grad students with non-grad students (especially in big cities, where people our age routinely make six figure salaries) is just too depressing. I guess I take some consolation in the fact that I've already taken three weeks of vacation this year and it's only April, while they're lucky to get three days off a month (including weekends.)

So Kill Bill 2 was good? I'll probably see it this week - I'm very much looking forward to it.

What do you think 'America's Army' the video game? If you aren't familiar - it's a highly realistic first person shooter that the US army put out for free a year or two ago. It wasn't compatible with my video card so I never had a chance to try it, but apparently every mission has you in the role of someone in the army, and you're always fighting terrorists that look vaguely (or openly) middle eastern. Kind of a similar idea. Propaganda, when revealed to be that, always disturbs me a little.

As for your comments in my journal... yeah, experimentation is really nice. It's great to be able to come up with an idea and then test it and see if it works. Obviously social scientists can't do this sort of thing (and I think it's probably healthy that they can't) but I imagine how it could feel less satisfying as a result.

I've noticed this. On days when I work at home I'm often eating lunch during Judge Judy, and I'm subjected to a constant (and depressing) stream of commercials on how to get my inventions patented, how to collect on my disability insurance, and how to get a technical degree in two years. I guess the Navy is targeting people with jobs that they don't like much or aren't fulfilled by rather than the Judge Judy crowd with no job at all...

One of the best-crafted examples of this I've seen, though, is actually a commercial commissioned by NARAL (my fiancee used to work there, and so I got to see the tape even though it didn't play in my market). It was a pro-choice commerical crafted for the 'red states.' Whereas the 'blue state' commercials were all about choice and liberty and women's rights and such, this one was much more somber and hammered home (repeatedly, but well) the idea that abortion was a deeply moral decision and that the problem with legislation was that it would interfere in the woman's own soul-searching.

I don't know how to feel about it, actually - the implication is apparently that, living in DC, I must be an amoral bastard who just wants to do whatever I please.

I have the same feelings when I retrace my footsteps. I find the idea so unsettling that I simply never go back to a place when I'm done.

Thank you for the well wishes. I hope pleasant, interesting days find you as well.

For my own curiosity, however did you find my journal in the first place?

it's what I do. I know the feeling. Or is it th other way around for me. When i see people who used to know me, they look at me like.."Wow, you changed! But you still ahve that same spirit".

BBSing was hilarious. It was so funny that it was going on at the same time as DARPAnet, which was like light years ahead technologically, and none of us had any idea. I remember spending hours downloading single files for cracked games and really bad porn pictures at 2400 baud. When I got my 14.4 bps modem - man I was king of the hill.


As for your journal. I totally agree with you. I'm a political lefty - but I don't think that personal ideology has any role in serious academic discourse. My feeling is that the facts should speak for themselves (go figure, I'm a scientist.) People should be able to look at the facts I've presented (and I should present them ALL not just a sampling that says what I want it to say) and draw the same conclusions that I have based on what I've shown. If they don't - the fault isn't necessarily with them, it may be with the conclusions that I've drawn, and I should reevaluate my own position.

I really think that dogma has a nasty habit of getting in the way of learning. I try my hardest to follow in the footsteps of Socrates, and live by the credo that knowledge is the greatest barrier to learning.

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I just don't have the time to come out here that often right now.

Glad you liked the Shell Silverstein piece. The whole work is several pages long, and it's a blast from beginning to end. I will try to update my journal with more excerpts.

Sounds like you had a great weekend. I could have used some of that!

As to objectivity -- while I am (as you know) a relativist, I don't see that that is a problem for an academic. It is certainly possible to take a relative stance and accept that other people have their own valid positions. Objectivity can never be wholly successful, but that does not mean that it is therefore wholly a failure. It is a goal that one should strive for; through that struggle one learns to reason. Demanding that others accept one and only one view is an abuse of power, whether it's a teacher that makes that demand or someone else.

Accademics who "preach" to their students will lose them. Only those students who already accept their ideas will listen. And then you're just preaching to the converted, as the saying goes. What's the point of that? I believe teachers have a responsibility to encourage their students to think for themselves, and the only way to do that is to encourage them to strive for objectivity, and to recognize when they are slaves to ideology.

True enough; adrenalin does amazing things. I think we all "worry" about shit like that, but, when the time comes, most people manage. I'm going to tell you a story...

After drinking all night on my first date someone, we went back to my apartment. It was a huge apartment complex and his place was just across the parking lot. He didn't know if his roomies were gonna be home, so we chilled at my place. About 20 minutes after we got back, we sitting on the couch and he started gasping for air, fell on the floor and stopped moving.

Bad. Very bad. And...I was hammered. After a couple seconds of freak out, I remembered that I'd seen an asthma puffer at his place, so I grabbed his keys and ran to his building. I had no clue which keys to use to even get into the building, and of course, there were lots there. Yeah, it was bad. I kept thinking "Shit, 3 minutes without oxygen until brain damage..." I ended up just buzzing my way into the building.

THEN, I couldn't get his apt. door open. No shit. I knew it was the right key, but, little did I know it was "one of those" where ya gotta fuck with it to get it to work. ("3 minutes until brain damage....") Then I thought, "fuck it, I'll go back to my place and call an ambulance." BUT, I forgot to grab my own keys on the way out, so I couldn't get back into my building.

What's a drunk girl to do? Start running up and down the halls banging on doors and screaming "I need to use a phone!" Some kids were partying and let me in; I told them the situation and --IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THIS-- one guy had an asthma puffer and he was over 6 ft. tall, which meant that he could get into my 2nd floor apt through the patio door.

We called an ambulance and ran over to save the day. After administering the puffer (my "date" was blue by that time), the paramedics came and checked him out. He was fine. And what were they concerned about....

A vile of musk oil on the table. (Cuz dope is CLEAR, right?)They thought it was drugs. No mention of my good work or anything. They just treated me like some junkie and told me that next time I better "be more careful."

Long story, but a good one. Moral: You can be hammered and encounter a fatal situation and STILL manage. Why? Adrenalin. It sobered me up completely. If you told me now that that was going to happen and I'd be expected to cope with it, I'd say, "No way." Oh, and I also learned: If yer on Prozac, you can't drink a lot because it'll make a lung collapse. A very educational day, to say the least.

As for the paper, I had to make a website for it. If yer a geek like me and are curious, here's the site: www.angelfire.com/falcon/hist232

I can watch those TLC shows till the cows come home. When the blood is real and right before my eyes is a different story though. Anytime I give a blood sample I break out in a cold sweat and get all light-headed. A couple months ago my friend got hit by a car right in front of me. I was able to help him up and get him to the curb alright, but after the initial shock wore off, seeing his slightly bloodied face made me quite nauseated.

I guess its best not to worry about these things....until the dead walk the earth!!!!!

Have a nice trip!

My day in the lab went really well. I spent the whole time posting on the boards here and read about 3 sentences of a paper. Fun!

Your point is well taken and accurate. However, there is no possibility of consensus on this issue. Either you have "freedom" or you don't. For the average American, freedom means being able to own any car you can afford, drink as much alcohol as you feel you deserve, and watch as many sporting events as time and television will allow. Of course, we know this is not real freedom, but the masses don't know any better, and they are often perfectly willing to do without "rights" that never meant anything to them in the first place. Remember the proles from 1984?

Thus, for the protectionist, fear and comfort outweigh any other issues. But the "liberal" (and we have to be very careful with that word) recognizes that freedom comes in different forms, many of which are ignored or taken for granted. Given that fact, said freedoms can easily be revoked, and once you lose them, they are rather difficult to regain. The servicable medium can only be achieved through a struggle. As long as both sides are pushing each other, the "fallout" will hopefully be a detente established through rigorous observations of each side. This is, of course, a cop out; but I see it as the only viable answer when reality dictates that such a struggle can only be resolved by the supremacy of one side or the other.

The problem stems ultimately from the fact that we don't really understand what "freedom" means. What is freedom, at least as an objective reality? Such a "thing" may not exist (and probably doesn't). Therefore, we are forced to fall back on its relationship either with the individual or with the state -- neither of which establishes a universal category from which we can say "This is freedom, this isn't." Thus, complexities will always make for a struggle. But that might just be my relativism talking again!

By the way, did you get my last comment?

You're far too humble with respect to your posts. If you didn't write content, then a content-writing audience would not read your bullshit.

My program is fully funded and my stipend is solid. I have nothing to worry about, especially with a research project that I've already been promised. It should be an amazing opportunity. I am going to be constantly torn between theorists and empiricists within this department. I will be blessed to join a department that gets along with each other remarkably well, but I will still have to deal with the challenges of acquiring the right tools for my future scholarship.

My best friend (a psyche PhD candidate) showed me this book called the complete academic, which, though mostly for psyche students, lays out an entire academic career path. I was pretty impressed. I dont expect mine to be quite so typical for numerous reasons, but I was still intrigued with what I read.

The occupation of Iraq does concern me greatly, especially when we lack public officials who are willing to admit their own faults and challenge the whims of the masses. I met with Tom DeLay last year. When asked whether he believes America is becoming an empire, he said, The United States is in the business of exporting freedom and democracy. I dont know quite what he means, but alongside the aforementioned issues, I certainly think weve got some problems.

Hey, sorry it took so long to get back to you. My life is positively maniacal these days.

I like the points that you raise. As always your comments are inciteful. However (and I may simply be misunderstanding your comments), I hope that you don't think I was encouraging you to abandon your reason! I was only trying to illustrate, in my usual obscurantist fashion, that analysis is one of the tools we use to deal with events that are too emotionally disturbing or frustrating. Because we don't have the luxury of a "proper" emotional response, we have to fall back on a psychological ploy (analysis) in order to divert psychic energy (though I am aware how outdatedly Freudian that sounds).

Take it easy.