So I am ready, and going en ville, and I am awake. Maringouin feels tomblike and I feel apologetic about noticing this. So many desire it and cannot wait to get home. I, too, am grateful for it after visiting yet more desolate places but the fact remains that for me, arrival here is like … More Et asteur
This is what the academic advisors say, boiled down: (1) rush yourself, (2) sacrifice everything, and (3) conduct large amounts of conventional research that will affirm the status quo. This is the only way to evade execution. It is that threatening atmosphere, prison and sacrifice, and the gag rule, do not publish research, but only … More The cautiousness
Now we are beginning to Occupy these bayous, filling the atmosphere with our own, expanding, ignoring the forces that pull us down, honing our own strengths. #OccupyHE Axé.
“Pessimistically driven,” someone said. That is why I do not like academic advice: it assumes life is terrible and you are incompetent and lazy, so you must be kept on the straight and narrow and hurried along … and disabused of all interest in creativity or pleasure. The advice is correct insofar as it is … More Pessimistically driven
Someone is President of an organization called Restore Louisiana Now and I am envious — that is the kind of job I want. I think of my law degree and work on globalization and prison industrial complex, or my Near Eastern Studies degree and the active job I would have found in a large, international … More On enthusiasm
People say we are in the best profession because we have the most autonomy and my difficulty here is the cognitive dissonance: one is said to have autonomy, but this means in practice only that one has no support … and one is in fact working under a regime of total control. A student writes: … More That most wonderful profession
I am still bored with the “formative” series since this weblog is already my Bildungs-space, but it is still an opportunity to look at things from a slightly different angle and think of a few new things. One thing I have always wondered about is what the students mean when they say I am not … More Formatif et déformatif
I think I will go to the botánica and have trauma removed. I am utterly allergic to having teaching supervised by persons who know nothing about it. I used to feel fear and guilt around this, but now I feel anger. I do not think the way I “check out” of these traumatic situations is … More Botánica
At the café we discussed our lack of focus and the disturbing agitation of the atmosphere this semester. We decided we were not actually slackers, but that we had our energy blocked, and were “checked out” because of wanting to check out not from our work but from the disturbing atmosphere. We decided we should … More Au café
I should talk about kinds of music, nature, and possibly storybooks and poems, to participate in that series on “formation.” I should also talk about the grape boycott and related events of that time. Really what I have to say is that I should never have left California or rather, that I never had the … More Stand-in
coldhearted scientist وداد 