Elements of vacation

• Catherine Opie–portraits
• Archie comics headquarters
• Alexander Calder–wire sculpture
• Smoove B’s love for Michelle Obama train ride read
• The Kite Runner–backseat reading
• homemade pasta and ricotta lasagna, california zinfandel, real salad
• house music l’academie, salon daome
• coriander chutney
• Lynda Barry–What It Is (can I compare a PhD to tasks and conquering mythical beasts to save a kingdom?)
• le cagibi
• jardin du cari (*with* pumpkin)
• Boite Noir
• Fugitive Pieces–the movie
• The Entity (search “episode 511“)–South Park climate change solution? (300 mpg, 200 mph–picture Al Gore and David Suzuki on one)
• Functionable, fashionable belt, where are you?
• unplanned designer skirt purchase
• musee des beaux arts, andy warhol?
• tha goods nye

Culture fix

The most important post card

It is so easy to unwind when you start drinking good wine in the afternoon everyday. Yum. And when you get to get your culture fix from NYC after months of Kitchener (which is good for school concentration but it is no NYC).

Have been to the Met and saw the exhibit Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography. So crazy, because the theme was pretty much on about what I was on about in my highschool art class. They even had a photo from Gregory Crewdson, who I wrote a paper about in HS.

Today hit the Lower East Side, which I love love love. Went back to the Italian Cafe I found years ago when I was broke broke broke (landed back from SL) and discovered that if you search hard enough in NY you can find good food for cheap. Hit the Tenement Museum, and then Bluestockings where I found the above postcard, and a calendar with amazing poster art from contemporary artists where proceeds to go campaigns for political prisoners.I also discovered Danica Novgorodoff who wrote the graphic novel “Slow Storm”, but I’ll pick it up in Toronto since I have a gift certificate there.

On to MOMA. Saw photos by Mikhael Subotzky, but not crazy impressed. The photos seemed staged and somewhat exploitative of very marginalized South Africans, and he did not describe his means of achieving the shots (at least at MOMA). Really liked this one by Marlene Dumas, though. Reminded me of those hazy grade school memories.

I mentioned that I had not eaten cheese fondue in ages when we were at the french resto yesterday, and my uncle has kindly volunteered to make that for dinner tonight. Life is so hard. codejill was right–I was close to vacation when I posted Grump-o-rama.

Contributions III

I’m hanging with my cousin and uncle, and we’re playing the contributions game. I said I was proud that I managed to put ‘dogma’ in one title, and a goal of mine is to use the word ’synthesis’ in a real paper title at some point. We came up with this:

Geography: A Synthesis of Dogmas

So so true sometimes. I wish I had this as title of my analysis paper of the changes in theory and methods in human geography.

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We hit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a french restaurant and boozed and ate chocolate mousse (cake). Here is what we came up with. It makes no sense at all, kind of like academia:

Geography: A House is not a Home Without Dogma

Canine Identity: Dog or Dogma?

Moustaches: Deconstruction of a Post World War II Superiority Complex (not sure about this one)

Chocolate Mousse or Chocolate Mousse Cake: A Post-Modern Synthesis of Chocolate Narcissism. Is There Any Truth?

Whoopee Cushion: An Appropriate Response to Everything. (my favourite)

Semester Done-O!

A little Krio-ism up there. I finally emailed in my last paper, which was at least 1000 words over the limit, but a classmate assured me it was not inane drivel so it was okay and the prof would like it. And I *did* use “dogma” in the title since my most trusted academic wordsmith (a PhD in anthropology–she deals with concepts I can’t even imagine) said I was using it properly. Heh.

Two really important books for my comprehensives, one on logic, one reconceptualizing ’sustainability’, came after I left Kitchener(they are due back really soon since they are interlibrary). Oh well. As soon as I had set up a meeting with both advisors at the same time the second week back (so I have first week to ‘reflect’ and prepare), I turned on the out of office auto reply on my school email until January.

Feeling that end of semester weight in my head, shoulders. Acupuncture felt like nails. I fell asleep early the past two nights, even though I’m totally into my current read ‘Arrow of God’ (read it, Achebe is a genius). So I’m avoiding running, curling up with some hot apple cider, and watching Persepolis the movie.

Grump-o-rama

Today was the day I finally asked “I quit the working world for THIS?”

My psychic flux of enjoyment is low low low. So is the amount of sleep I’ve had. And the amount of exercise. Academia keeps whispering in my ear “just one more day and the paper/marking will be done and you’ll be back to running”.  Ha.

I miss these days.

I have some goals I will start working on in January, and my short-term check in date with myself is next September, when I am due for the comprehensive exam. I think 8 months is a manageable timeframe, rather than 2.5 or 3.5 years.

Time for some waffle therapy.

Contributions II

I can’t stop the alliteration. Here is a proposed title for my next paper, which I will mull over before handing it in on Monday:

In Search of “Sustainability” in Geography: Rejecting Dogma for Debate and Differentiation.

I think I am turning into Sydney from the comic book dykes to watch out for.

Frustrations and cleverness

Am trying to write a paper about the role of human geography in environmental/ecological issues. Encountering some problems. They don’t address environmental issues as a discipline. And I feel like I get slightly scoffed at for mentioning ecological economics. I could not figure out why I couldn’t find much of anything, despite the fact that some spatial economists pointed out (nearly 10 years ago…am I the only one listening?) how, for instance, the ecological footprint could be improved upon from a spatial perspective. When I finally read Castree’s ” Environmental issues: Signals in the noise” in Progress in Human Geography, I could not help but burst out laughing. Some key lines:

It is a peculiar fact that. while the natural environment is one of geography’s key research and teaching foci, it is difficult to specify what the discipline’s distinctive contributions to environmental understanding are.

uh huh…

Here I want to take an honest look at the diversity (incoherence?) and character of human geographers’ research into environmental issues.

You noticed?

though strangely environment doesn’t get a formal mention in Holloway et al.’s recent Key concepts in geography (2003) except under the rubric of ‘physical systems’

They are making me read that, and I also noticed.

Theoretically, the most exciting and original thinking about the environment seems to occur in other disciplines. Human geographers acknowledge this fact by importing ideas from sociology, science studies and philosophy (among others). These ideas are then finessed and applied to new empirical contexts, but rarely reconstructed.

Maybe I will try if my patience for the discipline does not run out this week. Back to my comment above, that some suggestions came 10 year ago.

Am I exaggerating? When I recently attended an environmental reading group in London, an eminent environmental sociologist expressed delight and surprise that human geographers were studying environmental issues too!

Geographers also seem surprised that I am studying environmental issues, despite being in the Faculty of Environment.

i am glad he resisted the trend by not reducing “environment” to “resource management”, the latter being terminology I really don’t like at all, because it does not invoke understandings of the impact of the economic (capitalist) system.

What has this meant for me this term? All of my papers have involved reconceptualizing work from other disciplines into geographic inquiry.

Office as place

Humanistic  geographers love discussing place as part of one’s identity, or place attachment. Spending *a lot* of time here these days when I’m not running or doing errands/chores.

Sunday morning

Now that I’ve gotten over the little hump of a few weeks back, I’m generally glad to be in this PhD-land I’ve set up for myself. And after all of this talk about prorogation and a coalition government this week, I woke up this morning especially thankful that I don’t work in the public policy system anymore. Emphasis on the servant part of civil servant. What no one is really talking about now that prorogation has been granted to Harper so he can pull his budget together are all the long hours the Department of Finance and some  line ministries likely  have to pull over the holidays. Awesome for them. Pizza at 11 PM two days before Christmas is probably not that exciting.

My current biggest problems are that I have to edit my concluding case study and conclusion for my development studies paper, it’s hard yet possible to run through snow, and I have almost run out of almond milk. I realize that while I was aiming for three years of this, I am now thinking it’s completely viable to make sure it is stretched to four.

Dance your PhD continued

I just can’t get enough of this contest. I stayed up late last night watching all sorts of entries.

This one is my favourite, and I understand transcription now.

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This is one of this year’s winners. I really like the costumes, and how they show how the experiment works with the camera sequence.

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And this is not a winner, but I love the sheer enthusiasm of the dance. I don’t understand the science part at all, though.