ramble through the bronx

Friday, November 21, 2003

I still hate phoning strangers

You'd think that after having worked at EthicScan and calling executives all the time, I'd be over my fear of phoning strangers. Back in the day, my mom tried to school me out of this fear by having me phone around for Girl Guide meetings and so forth. But no, still petrified. And I'm even returning a phone call. I still hate it. Boo!

jane 1:08 PM [+]

you know you need coffee when

I had been sitting in front of the computer for twenty minutes. Nothing was clicking inside my brain. Suddenly, I wondered what that white blob was in the corner of my eye.

It was the coffee I had purchased! Coffee! I have coffee! Who knew!

...you know you need coffee when you forget to drink your coffee, and in fact forget you even have coffee.

This is sad.

(though not as sad as my desire for a cigarette. it would just be a nice excuse to leave this basement office and stand in the sun for a bit. that would be very nice.)

Which reminds me - there should be some research somewhere about the prevalence of smoking amongst graduate students. It seems far higher than in the general population. Further, I'd like to see the research broken down by discipline. Who smokes more, philosophy or theology? Biology or sociology? I'd like to know.

There is, however, a Grad Student Purity Test Purity test. It's almost worth it for the question about quoting Heidegger in bed, or complaining about the second-class-citizen treatment of grad students. I answered "yes" to 75 of 163. (Many of them seem to be Princeton in-jokes)

jane 12:20 PM [+]

viva las vegas

Hey, check it out -- this was in the Economist New York City briefing the other day:

---
New York has more *single people* than any other state, with most of them living in the city, according to a report released in October by the US Census Bureau. The city's five boroughs boast some 2.4m people who have never walked down the aisle. And the New York metropolitan area ranks fifth in the country for its number of young singles with
degrees. San Francisco has lured the most young college graduates.

The report, Marital Status: 2000, also finds that half of the state's adult population is either widowed, divorced or has never been married. But there are only 79 single men for every 100 unmarried women. For better odds, bachelorettes should look to Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb, where unmarried men outnumber unmarried women 118 to 100.
---

Which has of course led San Francisco Josh to mention the superiority of San Francisco (although, to my thinking, a lot of it is probably Silicon Valley related, which isn't particularly exotic or exciting). Too bad the straight-single-men tally isn't highlighted in the report (or the non-Jesuit tally -- hey, what do Jesuits write on census forms and other such things?)

jane 10:13 AM [+]

mmm, men in skirts

just a quick note, since I really do have a lot of work to do, but anyone in new york or planning to be in new york before February 8 should check out the Met's Bravehearts: Men in Skirts exhibit. Really quite a lot of fun. And good people watching (the meta-exhibit).

jane 11:50 AM [+]

oh yeah - Congrats David Miller!

Since I know Paul reads this -- good job! Natalia brought me Eye and Now so I can read all up on this guy. I just want to know -- you think he's good people? Give me hope & I'll believe!

jane 1:35 PM [+]

Happy Remembrance Day

Since I'm not going to hear it around here, and it's tradition, I'm posting Flanders Fields --

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--

Other Canadians will remember reciting this poem every November 11, and also that it is on our new $10 bill (not the $5, which has the hockey & the paragraph from The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier).

--

This was scary though-- I looked up "Flanders Fields" on google, and the first site that came up called itself a Canadian site about "Rememberance" [sic] day, but turned out to be a xenophobic anti-immigration site (at http://www.freedomsite.org/cfirc/our_heritage/rememberance_day/ -- I don't want to link to them; I don't want to encourage them) talking about Canadian "heroes" and the immigrant menace. The titles of the sections of the site are things like "| The Case Against Immigration | Immigration: Canada's Silent Health Threat | Immigration and Crime | Chinese Illegals - Full Coverage | Canadian Immigration Hotline | Our Heroes, Our History, Our Heritage | Government WATCH | Audio and Video Files | Canada is Changing | What the Polls Say? | Immigration in other countries |" The final image on the site has the slogan: "Made with European Culture -- Accept no substitute".

What's scary is not so much that the site exists -- that's fine, it has the right to -- but that it's the first site listed by Google. This means that people are *linking* to the site and referring to it. It doesn't even give the words to McCrae's poem!

So weird. So un-Canadian. Very creepy.

jane 1:32 PM [+]

Things that are obvious... but neat

1. That people feel most comfortable in environments they grew up with. A friend and I were comparing notes. He grew up in the east end of Washington state, near the high plains desert. He feels most comfortable in desert environments, because he feels he can see all around him, and feels anxious in forests, because he feels enclosed and confined. Meanwhile, I grew up right near Pinhey Forest in Nepean and always used to walk through it by myself (often I'd cross country ski right from my back step into the forest, and ski until the sun went down). Consequently, forests to me are cozy and comforting, and I enjoy listening to all the rustling. While I was in the Southwestern desert this summer, I found it beautiful, but unsettling. Getting to the forests of Colorado after driving through Arizona was like coming home. Another friend, who I mentioned this to last night, said that while he'd spent a lot of time in deserts and forests and was not too anxious in either, he really craved the ocean. An obvious point, overall, but neat.

2. It's nice to just hang out with friends in their homes, rather than in bars.
2b. (Corollary) You really don't need alcohol to have a good time.
2c. (Corollary) As long as you have coffee.

3. As a straight single girl, it's great to have friends who are (a) gay men (b) married men (c) Jesuits. (and believe it or not, I'm not even being a little sarcastic.)
3b. (Corollary) I'm serious about the Jesuits.

4. No one is ever really going to wake up early in the morning just to go to the library and read Kant. Not even a little.

jane 11:08 AM [+]

another reason not to be a Christian

I was reminded today that in Christian belief it's possible to sin in thought. (please correct me if this is just a Catholic thing)

Now, wherein does moral action lie if it is not in choosing upon which thoughts to act? If I think, "Hm, I could screw over my friend in not repaying her the money I owe her," the sin/wrongdoing does not lie in that thought, but in the action of not repaying the money. If I never even considered the possibility of not repaying the money, repaying the money wouldn't be as strong a moral act.

This is not such a good example, since I don't generally contemplate mistreating my friends -- I pay them back more by habit than by morality.

But what's the point of having our little private consciousnesses if we can't entertain thoughts that we would never act on? (The example of having naughty thoughts about people we could never have, for instance, comes to mind, as does imagining bad things happening to boring professors). Conflating thought and deed leads to unfortunate and even nasty conclusions, like saying that it was OK if a woman was raped who'd previously had rape fantasies.

Certainly if thoughts become obsessive then there's a problem, but in that case the problem is with the obsession, not with the thoughts per se.

Anyway. Things that randomly come up in discussions in the grad student lounge.

jane 5:50 PM [+]

I'm being corrected

Apparently I'm not drunk. Apparently I don't sound drunk.

I inquire, how I would sound if I were drunk.

It's not that I would sound unintelligible.

Apparnetly my friend has an intuition that I don't sound drunk.

Would I sound less giggly? Less combative? Apparently I'm giggly. Apparently I'm intoxicated. Apparently I'm not intelligible.


...morning after addendum

Well, actually it's the evening after. Note to self - no more of this nonsense. I'm going to work on my brain-to-mouth filter. It'll get me into less trouble.

jane 8:44 PM [+]

drunk!

Woo hoo! I'm drunk! The moral of the story is, don't drink beer on an empty stomach -- food consumed today: one SlimFast, one chicken wing, 2 mozarella sticks. Alcohol consumed: 3 Sam Adams. Surprisingly: drunk! Normally: not! woo hoo!

Probably secondary considerations: Up early this morning. Lack of sleep carried over from last week + weekend. Out with friends I trust. Discussing (lack of) love life. Choice: morose or cocky. Conclusion: cocky!

Addendum: Kant. kant kant kant! Doug, the monad. Not getting mugged. Should talk to him as soon as he's done class. Topic of conversation.

Doug, in clericals! not usually so. First time, in fact, that I've seen him as such.

Further addendum: Doug the Jesuit, not Doug Pollock, who has commented on cats. Important distinction.

jane 8:32 PM [+]