conferencing

06Nov09

I give my conference paper today. Here’s hoping… I’m not wildly happy with it but I just think I’m being wildly too hard on myself and it’s fine for the occasion and for the stage I’m at in my work.

And after that? Application fun.

 

Filed under: dissertation   |  Leave a Comment

my thoughts on maine

04Nov09

My first year of graduate school, a friend of mine told me that he couldn’t trust straight people (until they proved themselves to be allies, of course). I was offended. Then again, I had the luxury of getting offended.

But now I get it and he’s right. I wish I didn’t understand because the recognition of all the hatred makes me jaded. Having spent so much time observing the US from the vantage point of the UK hasn’t helped. I’d like to think we’ll move past this soon (although the fact that interracial marriages are still considered sinful in some quarters does not give me a ton of hope). But how many lives are going to be ruined by the hate and fear that underlie votes like yesterday’s.

Filed under: observations   |  Leave a Comment

things aren’t so hot

29Oct09

In the next three weeks, I have to:

1. write and present a conference paper at the major conference in my field. The paper comes from a chapter I wrote some time ago but I’m increasingly unhappy about this chapter and I have to wrangle it into something presentable and analytical.

2. create the appearance of a compelling project for several fellowship applications.

3. do all this while battling a particularly crippling melancholic spell. I’m struggling to get out of the apartment at this point and I can’t get any work done in the apartment. And even if I do get to campus, I’m generally not getting anything meaningful done either.

It’ll be nothing short of a miracle if I can get this all done without being embarrassed of the result. I’m also pretty much giving up on having a productive semester. The chapter that I needed to write this semester (but that is also a beast) is not going to happen.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  3 Comments

on why i don’t care about obama’s basketball games…

27Oct09

I shouldn’t need to convince anybody about the startling lack of substance in our politics. But for what it’s worth, here’s a great post by Tenured Radical where she explains why real feminist politics have to consist of more than inane complaints about Obama’s basketball games.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment

sigh…

22Oct09

In the last 24 hours, I’ve heard what I think is a mouse (or at least I hope that’s all it is) rattling around in the walls of my new apt. This is going to be a problem. It’ll be even more of a problem if it’s a rodent worse than a mouse. It’s going to be a massive problem if it’s coming into the property through the small hole for the water pipes to the washing machine. Of course this happens when my landlady is out of town. (I live in a private apt that’s part of her family home. Her husband’s here but generally I handle my business through her.) The mouse was one problem. The other is that there’s a possibility that my bedroom could be overrun by swarming ladybugs. Most of the windows in my house are pretty well-sealed but one of the ones in my room has the air conditioner unit and so doesn’t have quite the tight seal it should. Three or so bugs trickled in…definitely not a huge problem but the potential of an overrun is a huge problem. I bought some caulk and tried to patch up any obvious gaps but who knows…

And it was all going so well with the apartment.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  1 Comment

toxic parents

20Oct09

The New York Times website has an article today on a topic I think is all too infrequently acknowledged: the idea that some parents are toxic and best removed from their children’s lives. (The author’s not referring to situations of physical or sexual abuse but the insidious emotional abuse against which there is no legislation.) So much of our current obsession with the family (on both sides of the aisle, to be honest) ignores the fact that families aren’t always something to be celebrated; they can be sources of immense amounts of pain and no amount of trumpeting how amazing the family is will change the reality for people who are stuck in these toxic households. It’s about time somebody talked about that publicly.

Filed under: observations   |  Leave a Comment

another placeholder

01Oct09

I’m here and I have things to write about but I’m still completely in the weeds, moving into a new apartment and trying to kickstart the year even while I’m missing the hell out of the UK. It’s all made worse by some computer repairs I need to have done. So continued radio silence from me but I do have some posts brewing. I’ve got a final big brother post (now that it ended a month ago) plus my thoughts on what little fall tv I’ve managed to watch. And of course, some thoughts about historical research, now that I’ve done the most significant portion of my dissertation research.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment

i swear i’m here…

27Aug09

and not just watching big brother, although it’s ridiculous how much of my leisure time that show’s taken up. Whatever. I’ve got an obsessive personality, always have. I can’t be bothered about it.

Things are winding down over here and because of that, I’ve been too swamped with work and preparing to come home to say much of anything. I’m shattered, mentally, intellectually, and emotionally, hence the silence. Things will likely remain on the quiet side for the next month or so.

Filed under: my life   |  1 Comment

the story continues…

26Aug09

I’m still enthralled with this year’s UK Big Brother, to the detriment of my sleep and research. At the moment, I’m fascinated by a hot-cold something-between-friends-and-lovers relationship between my favorite housemate (a Geordie) from the beginning of the show and a Brazilian student. Actually now, I think they’re closer to boyfriends than friends. Anyway, the situation I described in my last post did reach a conclusion. When I last wrote, Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto had begun spending quality time together under the nose of Wolverine, who’d been busy trying to outwit Hot Guy, who he saw as the true threat.

It turned out that Irish Lass did have a thing for Hot Guy. She was more attracted to him than she was to Iranian Fashionisto, despite the fact that she’d been kissing the latter. To make things worse, Iranian Fashionisto had truly fallen for her, to the point where he saw himself marrying her. (He also had had a girlfriend at the time, who he effectively broke up with on television.) The same night Irish Lass told Wolverine that she and Iranian Fashionisto had a little thing going, she tried to tell the latter that they were just friends with benefits. (She neglected to mention her feelings for Hot Guy, of course.)

Meanwhile, another housemate (who has turned out to be even worse than Irish Lass) told Hot Guy that Irish Lass didn’t like him and that she had something going on with Iranian Fashionisto. This was patently untrue, and while it wasn’t this housemate’s place to tell him the truth, she certainly didn’t need to lie either. A few nights later, Hot Guy, who was one of the more normal contestants this season, couldn’t be bothered to stay any longer. And so, a day after brilliantly taking down Wolverine in a verbal duel, he left the Big Brother House.

With Hot Guy no longer there for her to crush on, Irish Lass continued to spend time cozying up to Iranian Fashionisto, even though she knew his feelings were stronger than hers. In conversations with other housemates, she even went as far as to say that it didn’t matter if his girlfriend showed up because they were together. Even up to this point, I had no real issues with her; being in that house must be like being in a pressure cooker so some bad decisions are bound to happen. But finally, she went beyond the pale.

For weeks, I’d seen rumors that her ex-boyfriend of MTV reality show fame was going to be entering the house. He had some legal complications and it took them longer to let him into the house than expected. Had he gone in when first planned, Iranian Fashionisto wouldn’t have been in the picture. But once he and Irish Lass had started a little something, I thought it was irresponsible for the producers to send in American Boyfriend. But they’re not concerned with ethics, or even with the possibility that contestants might flee the scene and so he went in.

The second Irish Lass saw her ex, Iranian Fashionisto ceased to exist for her. She was back with American Boyfriend without a thought for the broken man she’d left behind. The real issue wasn’t that she went back to the ex-boyfriend she’d been talking about all season; it was that when he showed up, she didn’t even so much as throw a glance Iranian Fashionisto’s way, let alone speak to him. American Boyfriend, on the other hand, went outside to speak to the dejected housemate within the hour. Irish Lass didn’t speak to him until the next day. And that’s where me, and apparently the rest of the country, parted ways with her. Unfortunately for her, she was already up for eviction against Wolverine. Ever since she’d told him about her dalliance with Iranian Fashionisto, he’d been sulking in a corner for days. When American Boyfriend came in, Wolverine sprang back to life, claiming that he’d seen her for who she was and providing some false comfort for Iranian Fashionisto. It’s a testament to how loathed he was at the time that she was only evicted by 60% of the vote. Had she been up against anybody else, she would have been well into the 80-90% range.

American Boyfriend left an hour after she was evicted, claiming that he wanted my favorite housemate to win. But really he was in an impossible position. While he fit in surprisingly well with the housemates, the situation was so wretched that he would have been doomed, yet another reason why he should have entered when planned or not at all. He was tainted by the fact that she’d been so horrible to Iranian Fashionisto, even though he’d been nothing but reasonable. He would have been a goner the next week anyway.

As for Wolverine, he’s somehow managed to recuperate his image in the public eye and two weeks ago he saw off a wildly popular housemate who had been the bookies’ favorite to win for weeks. Nobody in the world thought Wolverine was going to stay; now he has a decent shot at winning. Iranian Fashionisto became another favorite, benefiting from sympathy over how Irish Lass treated him. But in the past week or so, he’s grown tiresome as he’s continued to refuse to participate in the nominations process that determines the people up for the public vote. He claims he’s not nominating because he wants to take himself out of the game (although he wants to stay in the house). He thinks continuing to have the public keep him in is the best way of doing this. Only problem is that every time he refuses to nominate, other housemates face the axe as punishment for his misdeeds. It all came to a head a few days ago when my fav lit into him over it. When Iranian Fashionisto tried to claim the high ground by prattling on about his moral code, my fav reminded him that he’d in fact cheated on his girlfriend on national television. Great stuff.

As it happened, Iranian Fashionisto miscalculated. According to his tortured logic, he couldn’t nominate because if he nominated the person he wanted to, that person would have received more votes than him and he wanted to ensure he was in the mix. By not nominating, he believed he and this other person would have the same number of votes, putting them in the eviction lineup along with Wolverine. Not so fast, Iranian Fashionisto. This other contestant was never going to be up because Iranian Fashionisto had received enough votes before he pulled this unnecessary nominations stunt. Oops. So this week either he or Wolverine’s out.

The house all think my favorite is going to win, largely because he has a very tragic medical situation in his family. I’d love him to win (and I loved him from the start before I found out about the situation) but I don’t think he will. Viewers seem to be quite turned off by his jokey demeanor and the way he often pushes pranks too far. He’s also suffering from unflattering editing that reduces his arguments with the Brazilian to the moments of explosive rage at the exclusion of what provoked these incidents, the aftermath of them, or even the basic timeline of when they fight and when they’ve made up. If I weren’t one of the losers losing sleep because I watch overnight live feed, I’d miss how complicated and genuine their situation is or how my fav means well but is a bit misguided and insecure. (In fact, because of a particularly abysmal edit two weeks ago, I’m even more cynical about reality tv than I already was.) There are only about ten days left and it’s still all to play for. My best guess is that either the Brazilian or Wolverine will win. If Wolverine hangs on this week, I see him potentially going all the way.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment

and now for a story…

24Jul09

Since I write under a pseudonym, my blog isn’t quite as good a representation of myself as maybe it should be. I tend to write more about writing and research because they’re activities that can be hashed out in some detail without getting too specific about the subject matter I study. But I haven’t written as much about one of my true loves, pop culture, especially television. So I may write more about television. I am a bonafide television whore and I am not ashamed of it. I proudly watch too much television, a lot of it reality. Right now, I’m obsessed with the UK version of Big Brother.

I’ve watched some portion of BBUK every summer save one since my very first research trip for my senior thesis. I’ve come to associate research trips with Big Brother, which is going to be a problem when it ends, likely next year. BBUK was practically very useful because it was, for me, the first exposure I had to the different accents in the UK. As anyone who’s spent a significant time in the UK knows, for such a small country, there’s a stunning amount of accent diversity, some of which are almost unintelligible to the untrained American ear. There’s Scottish of course, but the Geordie accent (a personal favorite of mine, from Northeast England, up around Newcastle) and the Scouse accent (around Liverpool) are particularly difficult. The Mancunian and Yorkshire/Lancashire accents are distinctive but generally pretty understandable. I’ve gotten fairly good at telling where somebody’s from based on their accent but that wouldn’t have happened without BB. (For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure there are more distinctive regional accents in the UK than there are in the US, which only really has a few standout ones. The amount of country covered by a general southern accent, for example, the thickness of which doesn’t actually correlate to state, is many times over the size of the UK.)

So there was that. But BBUK is just endlessly fascinating television in a way its US counterpart is not. Here’s why. First, there’s the fame element. Unlike in the US, being a housemate makes some people a minor celebrity. The late Jade Goody was the most successful at this but she was certainly not the only housemate to parlay her time on the show into magazine deals and the like. So the show attracts really outsized characters with delusions of grandeur who have fame in the back of their minds; this encourages them to behave in a ridiculous and wildly entertaining manner.

But there’s a more substantive difference. The US version is all about strategy and gameplay. Who wins is determined by the players themselves and so it becomes a 24-hr strategy session. Everybody’s there to win the money. The UK version is completely different. There is no worse crime to housemates than having a “game plan” and people who behave as though they’re there only to win the money are uniformly criticized (even though of course they want the money.) The television audience determines who’s evicted each week and who wins by a phone vote. The only part housemates play in the process is when they nominate fellow housemates for eviction and even then, routine BB punishments often involve putting up housemates for eviction. Moreover, housemates are strictly forbidden from talking about nominations. If they do so, they generally find themselves up for eviction themselves. So there are no 24 hour strategy sessions, save some rudimentary attempts at code that BB quickly susses out. When the strategy element is taken out, the only thing left is the interactions between housemates.

Why am I writing about this? Well because I love the show. But also because what started out as a pretty humdrum season has become some of the best television in the past week. (The other thing about BB is that you do have to commit. It’s every single night of the week for at least an hour, plus nightly live feed, which has ruined my work schedule. While I’m sure a lot of viewers do come in and out, you never know when something’s going to develop out of the blue and, for me at least, the joy is in watching things slowly develop over weeks. That’s generally why I prefer serial dramas and soaps like EastEnders over anything else. I just love good stories.) I’m not going to use names b/c I don’t want a lot of traffic from random googlers but those interested will be able to figure out who I’m talking about through a basic wikipedia search.

Here’s the story.

Let’s start with a housemate I’ll call Irish Lass. Irish Lass spent some time on one of the more recent Real Worlds, where she dated one of the contestants down under. Irish Lass is mixed race and beautiful in that girl next door kind of way. Although two other housemates had a relationship for several weeks until one was evicted, Irish Lass is more interesting because virtually every straight man in that house has “fancied” her, as did one woman. The first housemate to fancy her declared he was falling in love with her and then proceeded to follow her around for weeks. Irish Lass didn’t cut him off soon enough and, to some degree, she encouraged it but he was eventually evicted.

Moving on to guy two; he’s a person of interest so he’ll get a name. This character is ridiculous. He’s quite unattractive, which wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t insist on having a huge mullet ponytail and gigantic mutton chop sideburns modeled after Wolverine, which is the name he’s going to get. In that typical way of cocky men, Wolverine thinks he’s a catch and also thinks he’s the smartest person in the house. (As he stated in the diary room, he didn’t think Big Brother was going to be able to find anybody as cool as him.) He has a caveman-like lurch about him (complete with a lot of sleeveless shirts), which he has used to full effect to lay claim to being one of the leaders of the house. Worse, Wolverine is prone to lecherous and degrading statements about women, bolstered no doubt by his conviction that he’s God’s gift to women.

Wolverine has fancied Irish Lass for weeks but unlike guy #1, he made himself indispensable to her. See, Irish Lass has had quite a bit of trouble making friends with  the women in the house and she wasn’t too popular for letting the situation with guy #1 go on too long. Wolverine then became her only friend and biggest confidant and they started having numerous long conversations, sometimes under duvets, about her position in the house. (She’s told him numerous times that she’s not interested but he insists she is and the fact that she’s so isolated in the house has worked to his advantage.) A few weeks ago, she got into a huge fight with another guy in the house (another person of interest who will get a name in a minute) that turned much of the hosue against her. Wolverine of course has tried to milk that isolation by being the only person she could turn to. He tries to make her feel guilty about hanging out with anybody else, telling her that she’s too stupid if she doesn’t see how they’re trying to use her.

So that was the status quo as of last week. Mildly interesting, yes, but it was pretty clear how it was all going to end. Wolverine’s frustration would cause him to lash out at her, causing an ugly scene; that’s if one of them hadn’t been evicted first. Neither of them are too popular with the public. I’d have watched this with some vague interest because I’m a hardcore fan but its predictability did not make for good drama. Irish Lass was never going to be interested in Wolverine and because Wolverine is a nasty piece of work, I wasn’t going to feel bad when it all busted up.

There’s another standard trick that BBUK does that BBUS never does and that’s add loads of new housemates several weeks into the show. That’s what happened last week. Of the five new housemates, in came Hot Guy. Now I don’t actually think Irish Lass was planning to do anything with Hot Guy and Hot Guy is actually pretty cool so he wasn’t looking for drama. But Wolverine got it into his head that his territory was threatened and so he’s begun a smear campaign against hot guy. He’s also begun to lurk around around Irish Lass considerably more. In the time that he’s been trying to dispatch the person he sees as his biggest threat, he’s missed the actual threat. And this is where things got interesting.

Another of the outsize personalities on the show is a man I’ll call Iranian Fashionisto. There’s really no way to describe this man other than he plays around with clothes, makeup, hats, and his hair in a very interesting way. This is going to sound really cheesy but it’s clear he views his body as a canvas. In my mind, he usually pulls it off but I could see others having a different opinion about him. What distinguishes Iranian Fashionisto from Wolverine is that while the former is indeed quite confident in himself, he doesn’t feel the need to be in control of the situation. He’s generally a chill dude. Iranian Fashionisto and Irish Lass had a big bustup a few weeks ago, as I mentioned, probably the biggest ruckus of the season. Now Wolverine and Iranian Fashionisto are tight, although when Wolverine was trying to isolate Irish Lass, he told her that he thought Iranian Fashionisto fancied her. But after the fight, it was pretty clear that Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto were struggling to spend time in the same room.

So while Wolverine has spent much of the past week rallying people against the hot guy he thinks has designs on Irish Lass, Tuesday night, Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto get a spare moment to themselves. (Remember Wolverine has constantly been lurking.) Come to find out, Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto are totally into each other; they talked around the issue in less than convincing code. Never would have seen this coming. But yesterday it got even better.

While all of this was going on, another of the new housemates had been having a bit of a breakdown over what he thought was a message from his girlfriend, an original housemate who had been evicted ten minutes after he’d arrived. He decided to escape from the BB house Wednesday night/Thursday morning in dramatic fashion by scrambling over the wall and lowering himself down from the roof. Wolverine helped him do this and was punished  yesterday by having to spend who knows how long in a makeshift jail cell in the house garden. He was there well into the night which gave Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto ample time to get quite cozy. No need to describe further. At the very same time, Wolverine continued his campaign against Hot Guy, talking endlessly to some other housemates about how Hot Guy had designs on Irish Lass. Wolverine continued to insist that he knew everything that was going on in the house, although he said that it was amazing how much you could miss while you were outside. Even then, though, he believed he was on top of every situation. Of course the camera kept cutting back and forth between Wolverine’s macho guff and Irish Lass and Iranian Fashionisto. Utter brilliance.

Whereas last week the inevitable blowup between Wolverine and Irish Lass had a predictable conclusion, now the plot’s gotten thicker because Iranian Fashionisto is one of Wolverine’s trusted comrades. Meanwhile Iranian Fashionisto and Irish Lass have to try to hide what’s going on between them. How long is it going to take for Wolverine to find out what’s going on or will they be successful in hiding it until he’s evicted? (He could possibly be gone as early as next week if he’s not up against the one housemate most disliked by viewers.) How long is Wolverine going to keep up the campaign against Hot Guy? If other housemates find out, will they keep the secret or tell Wolverine? Finally, I’m hooked.

Seriously, you couldn’t script this shit if you tried.

Filed under: pop culture   |  Leave a Comment