So many questions
Topic: Odds and ends

Did you ever wonder what might have happened if The Kingsmen had employed scantily-yet-shinily-clad background dancers? 

Did someone wake up one morning and think, 'You know, what this millennium really needs is it's own 'Louie, Louie'? 

Would the following be better classified as 'so-bad-it's-almost-good' or 'so-bad-it's-gone-past-good-and-back-to-bad-again'?

'Macarron Chacarron' or 'Chacarron Macarron'? The jury is undecided.

Video (if you've got the bandwidth, like shiny things, and aren't prone to motion sickness) and lyrics.

Adventures in baby visiting
Topic: Catching up

The Good Doctors have a new grandson, and I finally met him this weekend.  His parents live in Zone 3, so it's a bit of a trek for me to get out there.  Pep and I had talked ages ago about taking a Sunday trip out to the end of one of the Zone 3 lines, back when we thought we would have time to do things for no better reason than 'just because'.  I don't know what we thought we were going to do once we got there, but the idea of 'the end of the line' appealed to both of us, and we were curious about what lies outside of the urban and self-contained Zone 1, since we so rarely have cause to venture outside of it.

I didn't quite make it to the end of the line, but I got close to it.  And what is out there is a lot of suburb.  It's quite the familiar scene to American eyes, except that the strip malls are generally a bit smaller, and it seems somehow more green and congenial.  There appears to be more of a mix of business and residential areas, and the design of suburbs here seem to have incorporated at least some thought to the needs of pedestrians.  There doesn't seem to be the assumption that everyone is going to be driving everywhere, and therefore vast commercial wastelands can be placed along the main roads and all the houses can be set back behind them.  I remember staying with a friend in one of the newer Maryland suburbs on my first trip back to the States from Macedonia, and being shocked to find how hard it was to get around without a car - there were almost no sidewalks, and very few bus services.  The Melbourne area does suburbs much better.  It might take a while to walk to the shopping centre, but at least it's possible.

But this was not meant to be a post about the relative merits of suburbs.  This was meant to be a post about babies!  The new baby is a charming little fellow with a head of dark hair and big, serious blue eyes.  He's nearly three weeks old now, so he's definitely past the stage of looking like a generic newborn and into looking like himself.  He hasn't chubbed up yet, so his intentness makes him look rather like a quizzical little old man.  NewMom and NewDad are having their first go at parenting (hence the 'New"), and seem to be managing well so far.  And NewDad, in particular, is absolutely besotted with his bub.  Not to imply that mom isn't, but dad sort of melts when he picks the baby up, and it's adorable to see.  Particularly since NewDad is a big, bluff sort of guy - funny and a bit wicked, not the type to be obviously sentimental. 

I was shown around the house, too, since it was the first time I'd visited, and the best thing about the nursery was a thick stack of song lyrics printed off the internet.  NewDad said that, when they got Bub home, they suddenly realized there were an awful lot of songs that they only knew little bits of, so they tracked down the lyrics online to make their own new baby songbook.  Which is something I'll have to keep in mind for the future - a personalized songbook would make a good baby gift, if one is fairly confident about knowing at least one parent's musical taste.  

Overdeveloped
Topic: Uni

... women academics seem to have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility in relation to their work, which resonates with the fantasy of the perfect mother ... they [set] out to achieve the impossible in relation to the quantity and quality of their research and their teaching.
- Paula Nicolson, Gender, Power and Organisation: A psychological perspective, p. 83

Way back before the beginning of last semester, when I was just starting to get into my thesis and my reading course, my supervisor lent me her copy of Gender, Power and Organisation.  It wasn't a particularly rich resource for my purposes, but I remember sitting on the tram on the way to uni one summer morning reading it and that sentence hitting me right in the head.  Because while I can't speak for 'women academics', I can speak for myself, and is that ever how I approach my work.

Today, I was anxious all day because I had a meeting with my supervisor, and I was frantically trying to justify the amount of work I'd done for the past two weeks, because I didn't feel like it could've possibly been enough.  I've dreaded nearly every supervisory meeting I've had since February, because I always feel like I'm walking in with nothing to show for the two weeks  between meetings.  I can't ever quite believe it when my supervisor says she thinks things are going well and shaping up nicely.  How can it possibly be?  I'm such a slacker!  I haven't done anywhere near enough work!

And teaching - what with everything I had going on this semester, most of the time it was all I could do to finish the readings before tutorials and listing some questions or issues to highlight.  I always got that much done, but I worried that my students weren't getting the best from me because of my attention being so divided.  I felt like they deserved better.  We got the results of the quality of teaching surveys back recently, and nearly half of my students had positive comments about the tutorials I led, and no one said anything negative.  And my first thought was 'I guess I didn't do that badly after all'.  And my second was 'These poor students must've had some really lousy tutors if they were impressed with me'.

I'm trying not to take this into 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me' territory.  But sometimes there is truth in parody.  And there's no point trying to pay attention if you're already setting yourself up not to believe what you're being told. 

----- 

Random recommendation: go have a listen to 'Fidelity'.  

Not editorializing
Topic: Editorializing

Despite filing this one under the topic 'Editorializing', I'm not.  I just couldn't work out where else would be a good place for it.  'Whatever' is overpopulated, and 'Politics' isn't quite right.  I need to re-think categories.  And I need to think about moving this blog elsewhere if the problem with the comments doesn't get fixed right quick.

And for more thinking fun, I've got two posts inspired by the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.  On humanitarian.info, Paul points out several graphics meant to explain or illustrate aspects of the conflict.  Thanks to my fancy-shmancy postgraduate education, when I look at graphic representations of complicated information, I think 'Oooooooh.  Pretty.'  Then maybe if I'm up to it, I get around to trying to figure what information is missing or misrepresented.  After all, as Paul says in his post, any attempt to represent the 'real world' is going to simplify by leaving information out.   

Ethan Zuckerman asks if Israel is a problem for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pointing out that the media attention focused on the Middle East is not actually justified in terms of the scale of the conflict, particularly when one considers that far more people have been killed or displaced by conflicts in Africa.  Simplification is a factor that Zuckerman points to, as well, arguing that stories about the Middle East have been simplified and are, therefore, easier to digest than those about contemporary major African conflicts:

This helps explain why Congo has gotten less attention than the conflict in Darfur, or the conflict over a decade ago in Rwanda. Those conflicts - accurately or not - have been described in stark, black and white terms - evil people are killing innocent people… the sorts of terms Israel/Lebanon is often reduced to by partisans on one side or another. As the situation in Darfur gets more complicated, it may get less attention, because the story becomes harder to tell.

Please, have a look at the essay in full.  There's a lot of food for thought in it, as well as some pointed illustrations of the concepts of  'consonance' and 'continuity' as 'news values'.

Theme alert!  It comes back to attention, again, and the questions of where one's attention directed, and why. 

And reflecting on that, I realize I need to be directing my attention back to my research. 

Experience, perspective, and paying attention
Topic: Development

Once upon a time - I'd like to say that it was when I was younger and more idealistic and thought that marching in the streets was going to affect the course of American politics, but really, it was when I was younger and couldn't think of a better way to express my disgust with the way US foreign affairs were being conducted - I was something of an active demonstrator.  During the build-up to the invasion of Iraq I went to protests in DC, I went to protests in Baltimore.  I marched, I chanted, I held signs.

And I found myself in a difficult position when those activities failed to make any sort of impact on the Bush administration's plans.  The difficulty I found myself faced with was that my belief that the invasion was wrong conflicted with my belief that when you make a mess, particularly a nasty, ugly, infrastructure-and-stability-destroying mess of another country, those responsible for the mess should also be responsible for making a good-faith effort to clean it up.  After the invasion happened, the tenor of protests changed to demanding the immediate withdrawal of military forces, and I didn't think it would be wise or humane to withdraw without re-establishing infrastructure and some degree of day-to-day stability and security in Iraq.  

Then I started in on my thesis research, and reading about the threat that some peacekeeping troops and relief and aid workers represent to local populations began to instill doubt about my position.  Reading studies about the trafficking of women and girls to Bosnia and Kosovo to work in brothels that soldiers and civilian workers frequent, studies about aid workers and peacekeepers exchanging food for sex with refugee women and girls, and the failure of civilian and military organizations to adequately address these issues - these are the sorts of things that made me start questioning my earlier position.  

The latest post on Baghdad Burning only exacerbated this questioning.  River discusses atrocities in Baghdad, including the killing of a young friend of hers and the recent story about American soldiers raping a girl and killing her family (Heart at Women's Space wrote a series of gut-wrenching posts about this story, beginning here), and asks:

Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

Just to further complicate matters, I then read this perspective from an Afghan man, reported by Vasco Pajama, a development worker in Kabul:  

For many years, the Russians tried to occupy our country. They sent over a hundred thousand soldiers. About thirty thousand of their soldiers died. Yet, they were not able to control even one province. Now, we only have less than 40,000 international troops. And about the same number of Afghan troops. And we control all the country. Every province and every capital. Insurgents do not have control any of these. How can this be done without the support of the Afghan people? This shows that Afghans want international troops here. In fact, our worry is that they may leave too early.  (emphasis added)

I was interested in this perspective because it echoes sentiments I once heard from Bosnian colleagues about their concern that war would start again if international forces withdrew from their country.  The comments in the thread following this post question and add complications to the picture this quote paints.  In particular, there's a very interesting discussion of who is perceived to have a 'valid' opinion in these matters, and there are contrasting local opinions offered.  

The point of this post?  I don't know.  I'm wary of trying to draw a unifying point from two individual perspectives in two different, difficult and very sensitive situations.  I guess if I have even an inkling of a point, it's one about listening to people, or maybe even more importantly taking the time to ask people for their opinions and then paying attention to what they say.  And paying attention to what opinions you accept as valid - where they come from, what they're saying, how they affect your own perceptions and opinions.  (It's really elementary stuff, all this, and yet I keep getting - and needing - reminders of how very important it is to be aware of where I get my information from and how it's delivered.)  And, of course, I wanted to share a couple of posts I found thought-provoking, which, really, may be point enough.

Added (because comments still aren't working, thanks ever so much for the lovely new system, Tripod), from my mother:  

I was cleaning the basement yesterday and came across the June-July 2002 edition of The Catholic Worker.  There was a tribute to Fr. Rutilio Grande that coincides with your last paragraph.

Fr. Grande served the poor in El Salvador and was a close friend of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Fr. Grande was murdered a month after Romero became Archbishop.

I quote from the article:
One year after [the murder], an old woman was asked what she remembered most about Fr. Grande. 'What I recall most,' she said, 'is how one day he asked me what I thought. No one had ever put that question to me in all my 70 years.'

Later in the article, it says: "there is one constant element in all [Grande's] pastoral work: to seek, always, the greatest possible participation of the people at the base - never to proceed autocratically, but horizontally."
 

My goddess is headless
Topic: Catching up

Poor Episteme.  If even the goddess of Knowledge's immortal skull eventually exploded under the immense pressure of information, what chance does my measly mortal brain casing stand?

This is a picture from Ephesus in Turkey, from a trip I took just before I left Macedonia.  That was such a wonderful trip, but since right after I got back I started getting to ready to leave, I never wrote anything at all about it.  But, nearly four years later, I'm now finally posting pictures, at least (more here). 

I'm giving Zooomr a whirl for photo sharing/hosting, and based on my five minutes of playing with it, it is so much more fun than Flickr.  It has a much more intuitive interface, better options for hosting photos on blogs, and it lets you tag where you took your pictures on an interactive map, which sold me.  I love maps.  That's not all that's offered, by any means, but the ease of posting photos to my blog, the interface, and the map were the features that really grabbed me - even though the map of Turkey is woefully empty outside of the Istanbul area, so I had to take a fairly wild guess at where to stick the virtual pin for my pictures of Ephesus and Bodrum. 

And, since it has only just launched, Zooomer is promoting itself by offering a free Pro account to anyone with a blog.  Basic accounts are free to anyone. 

(Thanks to Jeremy at Antipixel for the notice about Zooomr's debut.)

Getting it done
Topic: Uni

I don't expect it to buy me two years, but I did just finish drafting an outline for my thesis.  (Not long now and I'll have to come up with one of these.)  Not a very good outline, but a start, at least.  An accomplishment.  Proof that I have been productively engaged in something over the past few months, which at this point is proof that even I needed.

I've hit that point - an all-too-familiar one from my days of gainful employment - where I had a big project that was going to take awhile and I was enthusiastic at the beginning because I could see how important it was going to be.  Then other things intervened and distracted and played havoc with my plans, and by the time I worked through those things I'd lost sight of not only what I was doing on the original project, but why I was doing it.  My experience is that it's difficult to regain that perspective after I've been derailed.

But I think it may be trickling back, now.  Between the  outline and the combination of embarrassment and envy I felt while talking to one of the PhD students last night about how driven he is by his research, I think I might be starting to get a handle on this project again.    

I'm going to go back there some day
Topic: Whatever
Lots of little reminders about Macedonia have been popping up in my life lately - e-mails from friends I made while I was in Skopje, talking to my brother's girlfriend about their plans to travel in Eastern Europe, and now, this portentously titled series on Yahoo:  'Sacred Mysteries of Macedonia' which I should probably wait to post until I've had time to do more than skim it, but which seems to be reasonably well-researched and generally flattering, which makes me happy.  Some of the pictures are especially lovely - even prettier than my rose-coloured memories.  And it's making me wish for sidewalk table, a grchka salata and glass of T'ga za Jug.  

Totally random
Topic: Reading

1. Pick up any book.
2. Go to page 127.
3. Find third sentence
4. Post it on your blog (plus these instructions)
5. Don't choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you.

Why? I don't know why. Why not, especially since I've always got a book to hand?

'Such reinforcement lends legitimacy to possibly controversial decisions and actions and also serves as a constant reminder to all peacekeepers.'
- Gender, Conflict and Peacekeeping, edited by Dyan Mazurana, Angela Raven-Roberts and Jane Parpart

There's something about the pointlessness of this exercise I find appealing. Or maybe not the pointlessness so much as the effortlessness, because everything seems to be so much work right now. Writing is like pulling teeth and research is just dreary. Bleh. I hate to feel like I'm just slogging, with no inspiration behind what I'm doing.

Added:  From a blogless friend, who would've commented if Tripod hadn't done something new and alarmingly non-functional to the comments facility (sorry, if anyone else has found it not working - unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it aside from send irate e-mails):

"Priests should, therefore, ensure that they so preside over the celebration of the Eucharist that the faithful know that they are attending not a rite established on private initiative, but the Church's public worship, the regulation of which was entrusted by Christ to the apostles and their successors." 
-Sacrosantum concilium (The Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy) Chapter 9, paragragh 45.

50
Topic: Reading

50 books
6 months
39 novels
20 sci-fi/fantasy novels
7 books for uni
7 books I didn't especially like
5 good recommendations from friends
39 books by women
3 books read once prior to 1 January

Book #50 is White Noise by Don DeLillo. Which was the one recommendation from a friend that I just wasn't into. I didn't dislike White Noise once I got a few chapters into it, but if my friend hadn't been so adamant that I had to read it, I don't think I would've bothered to get that far in. DeLillo doesn't seem to care about the characters at all - they're constructs on which to hang his ideas. They all speak the same way, distinguished from one another only by the theme they obsessively talk about. There are no distinct voices. Fear of death, the meaninglessness of rampant consumerism and advertising, power, interpersonal politics, and the awkwardness of familial relationships are just some of currents throughout the book, and it's not that DeLillo isn't insightful about these themes, or skillful at weaving them all together with sharp, ironic wit, it's that when all is said and done, I don't care, because I can't accept the characters as real people. I'm not at all opposed to novels about Big Ideas, but I like them to involve characters I have some feeling for, one way or another.

Update:  The full list can now be found here.