pretty blue salwar

Bluelightful.com

2008-04-19T09:13:00.001-04:00

I can has domain name!!!!!!

www.bluelightful.com will take you right to my new blog; no need to rack your brain for Cole Porter lyrics.

This was a gift from a friend who is more than awesome.

THANK YOU.

When I get the for-real job, I promise I will find a way to give back, or to "pay it forward," as it were.

New Travels, New Title, New Blog

2008-04-18T18:06:00.002-04:00

I've packed up and shifted my blogging home over to Bluelightful, Bluelicious, Bluelovely.

Please update bookmarks/site feeds as appropriate.

I hope all of the readers who have traveled with me here at PrettyBlueSalwar will join me at my new home!

New Blog Going Up Tonite

2008-04-18T13:37:00.001-04:00

... and not a moment too soon.

Watch this space for the URL, if you haven't figured it out already. ^__^

Blog Transfer Status

2008-04-15T18:18:00.003-04:00

Blog transfer is... more and more complete. 100% coming soon.

The Clothes Problem Again

2008-04-14T17:51:00.003-04:00

I was late to class today. Not by much (the university clocktower was striking 11:00 as I ran into the building) but late nonetheless.

I was late because I didn't have anything to wear.

I didn't buy spring/summer clothes last year. While I was still in the US, I survived temping by cycling through three pairs of polyester slacks alternated with about five work-appropriate blouses. There was no air-conditioning in my apartment, so I would come home and strip to a pair of gym shorts and a tank top.

In India, I bought seven blue salwars (and one purple one -- and received one orange salwar and one silver salwar as gifts).

Long story short, there's not much in my closet that's appropriate to wear -- especially to teach -- on a warm spring day. All the temp-clothes have long worn thin. I have tried to rock a kurta over jeans, but even that just looks faded and limp, a reminder that all of my India clothes (and, in fact, all of my jeans) spent three months being washed and wrung out in a five-gallon bucket.

When I did slip into the large lecture hall, late and miserably shabby, one of the other TAs leaned over and whispered to me "don't worry, I still think you look hot."

In preparation for the upcoming move, I have started selling off seven years' worth of accumulated textbooks; I went to the theatre building lounge with a few large (and heavy) boxes, set up a makeshift display, and within the first day made $139. If I sell them all I'll have around $220. I had hoped to save the money for the move, but some of it may have to go toward clothes.

We will see.

BombayGirl's Meme

2008-04-13T16:54:00.003-04:00

BombayGirl tagged me with the following meme:

First, the rules:
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Let's do #1 and #2 and call it a day, 'k? ^__^

Six non-important things about me:

1. Right now, I'm doing my laundry.

2. Also right now, I'm selling off seven years' worth of textbooks on Facebook. So far I've made $20, which is fantastic. If I sell them all, I'll make about $200.

3. In a moment, I am going to go to the grocery store and purchase the following items:

Garbage bags (store brand)
Antibacterial hand soap (store brand)
Conditioner (Garnier Length and Strength)
Peanut butter (store brand)
Strawberry preserves (store brand)
Two loaves whole-wheat bread (store brand)
Frozen broccoli (store brand)
Frozen "whatever other vegetable looks good" (store brand)
Potatoes

(Gaurav, those are truly the essentials. ^__^ Will make enough sabzi for two weeks, and eat pbj otherwise.)

4. Tonight, I get to watch my favorite two hours of television: The Simpsons, King of the Hill, American Dad, and Family Guy. (I'll cook the sabzi during American Dad, because it's usually pretty awful.)

5. I've seen every episode of The Simpsons, or at least I think I have. One of these days I'll have to go through and check them off to make sure I haven't missed any.

6. The dryer's buzzing. GTG!

The Great Blog Transfer...

2008-04-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

... is coming.

Blue's Day

2008-04-10T00:11:00.003-04:00

... 'cause they're all the same now. ^__^

8:30 a.m.: Alarm rings on cell phone. Hit snooze. Cat begins climbing on chest, arms, face. Cat begins kneading various parts of body. Mmmmm... free massage.

8:45 a.m.: Snooze goes off, cat leaps from bed. I follow, a little more slowly. Use toilet, feed and water cat, make cup of tea.

9:00 a.m.: Open up laptop and load up new episode of House, M.D. Unfurl yoga mat. Sip tea. Work teh yogas while listening to House make sexy, smartass comments. Intersperse positions with sips of tea.

9:45 a.m.: House episode ends, hit shower. Kitty likes to join me in the shower -- not in the actual shower itself, but nearby, breathing the steam. I let her do her thing.

10:00 a.m.: End shower, get dressed, makeup, etc.

10:10 a.m.: Dry hair.

10:20 a.m.: Microwave packet of instant oatmeal. While oatmeal is nuking, grab sabzi from freezer and whip together a PB&J.

10:22 a.m.: Eat instant oatmeal while checking email, Facebook, and Google Reader.

10:35 a.m.: Turn head upside down. Brush hair. Flip head backwards (my hair now smacks against the ceiling fan when I do this). Grab claw clip. Secure hair so it does not fall in face.

10:40 a.m.: Fill backpack, grab sabzi and sandwich, pour some Crystal Light "Immunity" (featuring vitamins A, C, B, and B12) into my reusable glass waterbottle, pet kitty, check three times to make sure my space heater is turned off, leave house.

10:45 a.m.: Seriously. Leave the house. I'm going to be late.

10:47 a.m.: Drive to campus in manner of Annette Bening's character from American Beauty, singing loudly to whatever 1930s/1940s American standards I've got in the CD player. On a good day I can hit all the words in Mandy Patinkin's rendition of "It Only Happens When I Dance With You" (it's at 4:08).

11:00 a.m.: Teach, followed by class, followed by rehearsal.

11:00 p.m.: Return home.

We Just Figured Out Blue's Food

2008-04-08T19:07:00.004-04:00

I can get so much mileage out of that post title. ^__^

My roommate, tired of her food getting "lost" behind, say, a gallon of milk and not being discovered again until it had started to smell, decided last night that we should separate out our food by shelf.

Our refrigerator looked pretty full to begin with; but as it turns out, 90% of the stuff in there is actually hers.

When I separated my food out onto its shelf, I discovered I had the following inventory:

1 jar peanut butter (store brand)
1 jar strawberry preserves (store brand)
1/2 loaf whole wheat bread (store brand)
Almost-empty squeezy jar of mustard (store brand)
1 jar lime-ginger pickle (Priya brand)
1 block sharp cheddar cheese (store brand)
1/2 block sharp cheddar cheese (it was a 2-for-1 sale)

Admittedly, in the freezer I have enough sabzi and gobi aloo to last another ten days, and a giant "family-size" bag of brussels sprouts which I portion out and eat along with my PBJ or cheese sandwiches.

I also have half a box of pancake mix sitting on top of the refrigerator, along with some instant oatmeal that I am not actually going to eat because I discovered too late that "sugar free" actually meant "coated in aspartame," and I can't stand the taste.

If the sabzi contains broccoli, potatoes, chickpeas, and green-and-yellow beans, and the gobi aloo contains... well, gobi and aloo... am I getting a balanced diet?

Shah Rukh Out, Hugh Laurie In!

2008-04-06T23:32:00.003-04:00

Yep. My re-entry into American culture is 100% complete.

I've stopped dreaming about Bollywood actors.

SRK, you were lovely, really you were, but things with you were getting a little... repetitive. I mean, your smile's still great, the way you toss that lock of hair off of your forehead before you prepare to start a musical number about your love of whatever holiday your particular film centers around is still... I mean, it's charming as always. Sexy, even. I still enjoy being around you. We can still hang out.

I think it was the whole abs thing that turned me off, honestly. To tell you the truth, I'm concerned that you might have an eating disorder. Or maybe a steroid dependency. And I know that I should be there, supporting you as you go through whatever psychological problem caused all this ab-abbing, but... um, I'm just not that strong. Which is my thinly-veiled way of saying "I don't care all that much."

Because this new guy has started appearing in my dreams. I didn't mean for it to happen. I just wanted something to watch on Hulu while I did my yoga. We were just meeting for fun. He was someone I knew from when I was a kid. Someone I hadn't seen in years. I never thought... but he was so fresh and new, and let's face it, he's a lot smarter than you are.

And now he's the first thing I think of when I get out of bed in the morning. Probably because the first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning (after feeding the cat) is yoga, but let's not talk about when and where we meet. That's none of your business.

Did Kal Penn tell you? Don't look at me like that, I know you all have a network.

No, you don't need to know his name. Or his television program. Just... stay out of our lives, okay?

Oh, but if you ever do another movie with K-Jo, call me.

An Open Letter To Barack Obama

2008-04-05T12:38:00.002-04:00

Dear Senator Obama,

When I received an email from you (yes, from you directly, not from "The Obama Campaign" or anything like that) inviting me to apply for an Obama Organizing Fellowship, I was thrilled.

First of all, I was thrilled that you had even thought to ask me to apply in the first place. Secondly, I was very excited about the opportunity to potentially work on your campaign, thanks to the generosity of your Fellowship Program.

I'll tell you; I seriously considered applying, even though I knew that fellowships didn't tend to pay much and that it would mean living in penury a while longer. I would continue eating cheese-and-mustard sandwiches if it meant I got to work for you.

Then I clicked on the link and discovered that your fellowships were, in fact, unpaid. They also required a minimum of 30 hours/week time commitment.

Senator Obama, you do realize that asking the young people of this country (as I assumed your fellowship was intended for students, since it was a summer program only) -- you do realize that asking the young people of this country to apply for unpaid, nearly full-time positions on your campaign will only appeal to a particular subset of applicants, don't you?

Your Organizing Fellows will be a collection of the well-heeled, with a few kids here or there who are practically going bankrupt doing this and trying to hide it.

The fact that you didn't at least offer minimum wage, that you didn't at all try to make this opportunity possible for the students who have to work through the summers, who can't make it on a full-time volunteer gig, breaks my heart.

The fact that you are offering "fellowships" that in truth must be paid out by either the parents of these students or by the students' own credit cards and loans, astounds me.

No doubt this kind of thing happens all the time; asking for campaign volunteers is no big deal, in fact, and I've got no problem with that.

But you called it a fellowship, and insisted it be a full-time commitment.

Next time, just call it an unpaid internship and have done with it. At least the poor students of America won't get their hopes up.

Yours sincerely,

Blue

Only One More Post About Money, I Promise

2008-04-02T23:51:00.002-04:00

So Gaurav at Gauravonomics has decided to go "off consumption" for a year. (His chronicle of the events can be found here.)

Unlike his predecessors No Impact Man and the people at The Compact, he's not giving up consumption for environmental reasons. He's doing it to gain "insights into what drives us to consume, or not, into the nature of consumption, into human nature itself."

Oh, and he's crossing his fingers for a book deal. ^__^

I support his choice while at the same time part of me goes "What's so special about not buying stuff? Hundreds of thousands of people already know what it's like to pass by a restaurant or store window and not be able to go in, even though you really want to."

Part of me, truth be told, is jealous. I should have rewritten these past few months of enforced frugality as an "off-consumption" experiment and tried to net me a book deal.

But, as Gaurav notes, actual poverty is different from "giving up buying." Today he offered the interesting observation:

Actually, if I did have financial problems, I probably wouldn’t have been able to turn my frugality into a public performance. Only because I feel secure, in terms of both money and status, I can be confident enough to do it.

The moral seems to be: when you're poor, you do what you can to appear better-off, even if it negatively affects your cash flow (e.g. buying interview clothes on credit for a job that may or may not materialize).

When you're financially comfortable, as Gaurav and No Impact Man are (No Impact Man allowed his wife to spend $1,000 on two pairs of shoes before the experiment began, to make up for the lack of shopping to follow), then frugality becomes a statement which can be worn proudly.

Gaurav, I await the riposte. ^__^

Ascetics Invented Yoga 'Cause They Were Poor

2008-04-02T23:19:00.002-04:00

I'm busy. I start teaching at 11 a.m. and end my theatre rehearsals at 10:30 p.m. The days seem to blur into one another; despite our progress both in class and in rehearsal, it feels like I am doing, over and over, the same thing.

Thus: the busier I get with school/work-related activity, the more important it seems to be that I have some kind of alternate creative outlet, something wildly different than what I am doing the rest of the overstuffed week.

Last year at this time, it was cooking. Up through about February, it was still cooking -- but around the beginning of the year, something started to change.

At first I thought I was imagining things, but then the WSJ confirmed it: grocery prices have skyrocketed.

Milk has gone up by 26% and eggs have gone up by 24%. Grocery stores have tried to entice shoppers by cutting prices in other areas, but, as the WSJ notes:

At a Wal-Mart Supercenter in a northern suburb of Chicago, the price of a box of Little Debbie Frosted Donuts was recently reduced to $1.50 from $1.63 while a box of Sunbelt Oats & Honey granola bars was cut to $1.66 from $1.80.

But even with the promotions, the price of a basket of goods selected by Credit Suisse researchers at a Chicago Wal-Mart was up 2.5% in February compared with January. The basket price of a Target Corp. store in Chicago was up 2% and that of a Kroger Co.'s Food4Less store in Chicago was down 0.1%.

Since January 2008, I have purchased milk once: a quarter-gallon to make the quiche, and it was an event. I've purchased eggs twice this year, I believe.

I eat a lot of lentils and spinach, and when there was a sale on vegetables at the Kroger, bought a bunch and made enough sabzi to stock my freezer for a while.

So what have I been doing instead? Yoga -- and I've become obsessed. Obsessed to the point where I kind of plan my meetings around ensuring I will get an hour-long yoga break at some point during the day.

I started out doing a session in the afternoons, before rehearsal; then switched to the mornings, then realized that on certain days I could do mornings and afternoons. I've gone online and drooled over videos of ashtanga, fantasizing about a day when I could take ashtanga classes because it's supposed to be the hardest yoga ever, and learning it would be a superchallenge.

Long story short, it finally hit me: the reason I've become so interested in yoga and exploring my physical endurance is because I, literally, have nothing else to explore. I have frugalized myself down to such an extent that the only thing left is my own body. Other forms of entertainment -- shopping, movies, going to bars, going to concerts, discovering new music, even cooking -- are all out, at least until I get a post-graduation job.

On the plus side, I've got back abs. I've never had back abs before. I suppose lack of income has its benefits. ^__^

So I Did My Taxes...

2008-04-01T00:17:00.003-04:00

So I did my taxes.

I earned just over $7,000 in 2007.

And... um... lived on that.

It was interesting to find out that working full-time for four months at my temp job (three months in summer, one month after I got back from India) netted me $4,800. Had I kept that job year-round, I guess I would have made about $14,400. That's... depressing.

On the other hand, it would have essentially doubled my current salary (which, in addition to the temp job, includes my monthly graduate stipend). Considering my current lifestyle, I could have lived on $14,400 and managed to put money aside for savings. On $14,400, I could have had enough extra to buy a Wii. ^__^

On the plus side, I'm getting about $900 back from the government (not counting the "economic stimulus package"). That'll be just enough to pay my student fees for this semester.

The Online Protest Idea's Becoming A Scholarly Project!

2008-03-30T12:47:00.005-04:00

Remember this post?

I was at a Holly Hughes lecture and talkback, and challenged a faculty member who said "students don't protest physically anymore" with the idea that online protesting and activism does as much, if not more, than previous physical campaigns; and that online protests allow people the safety of anonymity, so that they can retain their identities as students and workers without fear of recrimination.

I just heard from a classmate (in another department) that he and a faculty member (in that department) realized that no one had done a formal study of online activism and its results vs. physical activism and its results; and that they were going to spend the next year working on that project, starting article-length, of course, but testing the waters to see if it's worth further study.

That's so awesome. Also, I wish I were part of that project. Unfortunately I think my first goal right now has to be getting a paying job. ^__^

More Short Fiction

2008-03-29T19:35:00.002-04:00

From the same "book:"

Annalie sat somewhere in the middle third of the lecture hall. She was wedged inbetween the metal chair and its battered desk-like offspring, as well as inbetween her own backpack and the bags of the students on either side of her. Having managed to pull the miniature pretend desk out of the metal arm of the immobile chair, she had discovered that it operated on a slant, which kept her heavy Physics textbook in continual danger of sliding down into her stomach. She wondered where she would find the room to take notes, should notes ever become necessary.

Note-taking, however, wasn’t very important at the moment. Annalie was in the 10:00 section of PHY 101, “Physics and You.” The electronic registration program Annalie had worked with over the summer had suggested PHY 101 as an ideal way to fulfill part of her general education science requirement, and Annalie’s father had suggested that it was best to get all of the gen-ed stuff out of the way as soon as possible.

So Annalie sat, five minutes into the first class session of “Physics and You,” listening to the instructor explain the course syllabus. She wasn’t quite sure why the professor wasn’t really a professor but rather a graduate student who looked down at the overhead projector as he read his own syllabus aloud, and she wondered vaguely why he didn’t trust any of them to be able to read it on their own. Annalie had already been to a music history class earlier that morning, and the professor had started them right away on a discussion of the differences between music and other forms of organized sound; now Annalie was stuck in “Physics and You,” listening to a shaky-voiced graduate student explain the attendance policy. College was strange, and – in Annalie’s mind – inconsistent.

Annalie could feel a slight breeze coming from one of the open windows. She ached to go outside. She had spent most of her free time outside when not busy with the demands of Orientation Week, wandering all around the campus. She had gotten Danielle to go with her once or twice, but it seemed like whenever she stuck her head into anyone’s dorm room, they were either logged onto their computer or attached to their cell phone. Libby, in particular – Annalie could not even begin to describe how disappointed she was about Libby. She had never had a sister; only Chris, who teased her and who was too old to be a really good kind of friend (besides the fact that he was her brother, which made some kinds of friendship difficult), and although she had had several friends in high school (mostly other choir dorks like herself), she liked the novelty of having a very close, sister-type friend. Someone she might actually be able to talk to.

For a while Annalie had tried to count the number of words Libby had said to her, but somewhere around forty she lost count and stopped caring. Libby’s mouth seemed to be continually moving, but none of her words were particularly directed towards Annalie. They were directed towards Troy, Libby’s boyfriend, who went to the nearby state school and who was on Libby’s cell phone so often, it was as if he were pumping some kind of vital life force into her ear.

Meanwhile, in “Physics and You” – Annalie had gotten distracted in her own thoughts – a real cell phone rang. Half the students in the room bent down to fumble with their bags. It played through a hyper-speed version of Pachebel’s Canon in D twice before its owner finally retrieved it and turned it off, tossing her permed hair over her shoulder and saying, for the benefit of everyone in the room, “Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Annalie shifted in her seat as much as she could, then stopped her Physics book from exercising its rights to the law of gravity and pressing itself into her ribs. The graduate student, irritated at the phone interruption, went back to describing his grading scale. The breeze was becoming more and more imperceptible by the minute.

*******************

(Clearly I have not managed character delineation; while Miri and Anna have different backgrounds and personal struggles to resolve -- the whole book got outlined as part of the assignment -- they seem to have the same opinion and viewpoint on the gen ed experience. ^__^)

Short Fiction on the Undergraduate Experience

2008-03-29T18:34:00.002-04:00

Continuing the ideas from my last post: the following is an excerpt from a project I did for an undergraduate "writing for teenagers" course. Our assignment was to write the first chapter of a book (not the book itself, mind you) which could be marketed to high-school students.

My first chapter, incidentally, was determined to be too "complex" for teenagers to understand, and was judged to contain "too many references."

I'll let the story speak for itself. (It speaks best in Firefox; it'll look all jumbled in IE.)

********************

When Miriam had been in sixth grade, her parents had let her attend a camp for young gifted students. At the time, Miri had loved it; even the goofiness of the icebreakers and the other organized events like Pie Fight and Pajama Day. Now, however, she felt ridiculous.

She had just finished writing in her journal about Orientation Week, the oddly-chosen name for the four days before classes officially began in which first-year students were subjected to all kinds of team-building torture inbetween mini-seminars on important details such as How to Use the Library. The 120 residents of Bryson Hall had all had to run through an obstacle course, sing the Name Game Song, and then sit quietly while a university staff member explained to them how their meal plan worked.

Miri hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but she hadn’t expected this. She had, she supposed, expected something along the lines of Dead Poets’ Society, where intimidatingly charming professors engaged bright young intellectuals in stimulating discourse about life, truth, and the hidden secrets of literature.

Of course, Dead Poets’ Society was actually about a prep school.

This, however, had never appeared in any movie or book about college life that Miri could remember – the experience of being told how to do everything, from using an online card catalog (with which Miri was already rather familiar) to making new friends (Risa had already divided the third floor into clusters, and at the end of each day the clusters met for a few moments to talk about their experiences and play more goofy games). In the meanwhile, there seemed to be continual candy. The RAs were practically plying them with candy. In cluster meetings, every time a resident was able to call anyone else by her correct name, Risa threw that person a Tootsie Pop or a Mini-Snickers. Candy and ice cream and freezer pops – it was still much too warm in the un-airconditioned dormitory.

Miri was baffled, and more than disappointed. She had applied to college, but found herself back in summer camp.

**************

(Yes, before anyone asks, she's got the same name as my cat. ^__^)

Process V. Product: Classroom Edition!

2008-03-27T19:04:00.005-04:00

While I was directing Tempest in Hyderabad, I wrote a few posts about the idea of process vs. product. We know, for example, that "process-based" rehearsals are often more fun, but that "product-based" rehearsals often yield better results for an audience.

(For the uninitiated: "process-based" refers to a system which allows the actors in a performance to create "freely," without any fear of being right or wrong; while "product-based" refers to a system which focuses on eliminating certain choices in favor of better ones, and, while not necessarily dividing things into right/wrong, requires a director to say the dreaded word "no" to an actor -- often many, many times.)

I'm going to write about process v. product in terms of my current theatre production shortly, but right now I want to focus on the idea of process v. product in the classroom.

As a TA, I generally get a section or two of "Introduction to Theatre" every semester. It's the typical American gen-ed course, in which students are exposed to the barest fundamentals of a subject in the name of furthering liberal education.

Like many gen-ed courses in the humanities, this Intro class follows an almost entirely process-based method of teaching (and grading). Effort counts more than result, and participation is valued over content. Papers are graded on whether they answered every question in the prompt, but not on what those answers actually are.

(Incidentally, even though our students were told, repeatedly, that their grade was based on whether or not they addressed every question in the prompt, many wrote papers which did not answer -- or even hint at -- one or more of the questions. Baffling.)

Just as a process-based play is easier to direct, a process-based class is much easier to teach. Everyone feels great, lots of people get As, good times are had by all.

However, today I spent a few hours grading my students' "ten-minute play assignment." (The assignment was... um... to write a ten-minute play.) Because they fulfilled the structure of the assignment (they had characters, speaking some dialogue, with some stage directions) I sat and wrote "nice job! 100%!" on student plays which were, in fact, dismal.

I wished I had the time to sit down with my students and talk to them about what makes a successful play; how to create conflict between characters, how to create believable rising action, how to build to an appropriate climax and resolution. Even more than that, I wanted to talk to them about the very nature of storytelling. Why do we tell stories? What differentiates a story from, say, an anecdote -- or from a description of an event? (Many of these plays were just that: descriptions. Two guys sitting in a dorm room talking about girls and sports and cars for ten pages. No conflict, no momentum.)

I know that the assignment was pure process-based, intended to give students an idea of what playwrights do by having them write a play -- but if the product they turned in wasn't actually a play, then did they really learn anything by going through the process?

But we don't have time to teach them how to really write a play, because next week we're moving on to acting, then directing, then design...

I remember being infuriated at this when I took gen ed courses as an undergrad. I recognized all these easy-peasy courses as simulacrum of the real thing, and I wanted the real deal. I didn't want "Physics and You;" I wanted physics. Eventually, I gave up and decided I wanted to play Earthbound (and write a three-act opera based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses), and became grateful for any gen ed course easy enough to require no mental effort.

I know I've written about this before on this blog, but this whole thing... makes me sad. It also makes me feel like a really bad teacher.

People have been telling me, throughout my entire university career, that I need to spend less time worrying about product and more time experiencing the process. "Put that intellect aside; roll around in the unknown!" Lord knows I tried. I gave up what I knew made sense, and I rolled. But as I approach the end of my graduate career, I'm becoming more and more infuriated with anything that doesn't actually connect process to product. Let's lay it on the line, team: some products are better than others. How do we create them? How do we teach people to create them? That, at the end of all this, seems to be what's important.

What's In A Blog Name?

2008-03-27T00:28:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking, lately, about the name of this blog.

When the blog began, it was a travelogue; the name "pretty blue salwar" came, in part, from an idea expressed in Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees:

Kamal returned with suitcases full of fashionable gifts for all of us. I received a pair of pedal pushers and a black-and-white-striped T-shirt that practically became my uniform. She also presented me with a light tartan shawl and a sterling silver charm bracelet with the Eiffel Tower dangling from it. [...] I had yet to see the rest of the world, but, already armed with a pair of pedal pushers, the charm bracelet, and the Coke, I felt that phase of my life had to be just around the corner. (Jaffrey 237, 240)

I had yet to see the rest of the world, but, armed with a blue salwar I bought on eBay...

Now the name is no longer representative of the purpose of the blog. Not, perhaps, that the blog has a purpose. I still stand by my post-trip statement that I will continue blogging because "life is a continuous travelogue" (and, of course, because I enjoy blogging and enjoy meeting new people via blogging). But, even if my blog is about life-experienced-as-journey, it isn't, anymore, about a pretty blue salwar.

The other drawback of the blog's current name is that, every once in a while, it draws people who aren't aware of its original purpose and who see these random posts by a white woman in a salwar and then tell me what a horrible person I am for exotifying Indian clothing.

It seems at this point I have three options:

1. Keep the blog's name as it is; possibly put something on the "About Me" section explaining the title.

2. Change the name of the blog, but keep the "prettybluesalwar.blogspot.com" URL.

3. Start an entirely new blog with a new name: Blue Ink, Bluewords, BlueBlog, Blue's Clues, etc.

The problem with the last option is that I would seem to lose all of the relationships I had built since I started blogging. At the least, I would lose my Technorati ranking (which isn't that big to begin with, but...). On the other hand, people who are currently following this blog could easily switch their bookmark or RSS to its new URL/feed. I wouldn't change my handle, and would continue to post on all of your blogs as Blue.

It would be... like moving to a new house, and sending round a forwarding address.

What do you think? Should I move away from the salwar association and start a new blog under a less contentious name? Or is the salwar still pretty enough to wear, even though I'm no longer a world traveler?

I Want To Be A Consumer... But Not A Destroyer

2008-03-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

Last week my graduate class had a special guest: one of the original founders of our theatre department.

Prior to his lecture, he wanted to get to know a bit about the current class of grad students, and went around to all of us asking about our backgrounds, what kind of theatre we liked, and where we hoped to direct after graduation.

I was the last to respond, hoping that he might skip me or something. After all, there were the other grad students saying things like "I'm going to start a theatre company in rural America and provide art to people who don't otherwise get that experience," or "I'm going to go to New York and take my chances in the big leagues!"

But he didn't skip me. "You're in your final semester? Congratulations! What do you plan to do after you graduate?"

I didn't let my voice waver for a minute. "I'm going to relocate to a major city, probably the DC area, and transfer my talents to a job in a private industry. I'd love something in PR or Events Management."

"Oh," he said. "Why not theatre?"

And then I got a little chicken. The truth is, I know enough about my skills to know that, while I am a competent director on my own merits, I am in no way set up for the competitive theatre world, nor do I want to spend my time working crap jobs and doing one of the "next step" options: assistant directing "for the experience," trying to start an unpaid theatre company, etc.

But I didn't say "I'm getting out of the theatre because I'm not good enough."

I said "I feel like I've become disconnected from the world, and I need to spend some time back in the world before I direct my next piece."

Which was probably an even dumber thing to say, because his next response was a very disappointed "Theatre... makes you feel disconnected?"

And as soon as he said it, I realized my response was truer than I realized. Theatre does make me feel disconnected from the world. It shouldn't, but it does. For three reasons:

1. The theatre artist's schedule is generally "work (or take/teach classes) all day, rehearse all night." The environment quickly becomes insular and restricting.

2. 90% of the plays performed in America, at both the educational and professional levels, are revivals of "classics." Often, directors attempt to spin these plays so that they have a contemporary relevance, but... putting Henry V in modern dress so people will be reminded of the Bush administration is barely groundbreaking. All of the productions of Henry V in the past eight years don't have the impact of a single showing of Fahrenheit 9/11.

3. Due to both schedule and monetary restrictions ('cause we don't make any money), the theatre artist cannot fully participate in the world around her.

And that's what I really want, and I didn't even realize it until I said it. I want to be a participant. I don't want to live like the former child Blue, reading her parents' copies of Newsweek to memorize details about film and literature (and yes, theatre) that she was thousands of miles too far away to ever see; nor do I want to live like starving artist Blue, in Minneapolis and surrounded by culture and opportunity but too underemployed to afford any of it.

I want to be a participant. More than that, I want to be a consumer. This isn't a popular statement to make, in lieu of environmental concerns, but I don't mean that I want to be wasteful, or consume beyond my needs.

I don't want a lot of shoes, but I want to be able to replace my shoes when there are holes in the soles. (While I had the foot cast on, I spent the entire six weeks wearing a shoe with a big hole in it because that was the only one which matched the sole height of the foot-cast boot.) I don't want to buy a lot of overpackaged, overprocessed food, but I do want to have money to socialize with friends in restaurants.

I want to take a yoga class. I want to find time to volunteer for something interesting and worthwhile (which I kind of did already -- just signed up for the American Democracy Project). If I make it to DC, I'm definitely finding some way of volunteering for Team Obama.

I also want to get a little closer to current technology. I have a secret fantasy of being able to become an early adopter, but I know it will take a few income-level jumps before I get to that stage. Right now I don't even have a phone that takes photographs. ^__^

Long story short, I want to be a participant in the world, not an observer. And theatre, as enjoyable as it is, makes me feel disconnected.

Which is strange, because historically theatre people are supposed to be the types who are engaged with the world and use their talents to spur social change. Did that stop happening, outside of theatre textbooks? Or... has it all been transferred to YouTube?

Blue's Body Betrays Her

2008-03-22T21:20:00.002-04:00

Whatever I've got... don't get it.

Officially, it's bronchitis. But... damn. This thing is wiping me out.

When I'm not in class or at rehearsal, I'm sleeping. I can't take two steps w/o coughing.

And -- tragedy of all tragedies -- I can't do yoga.

This from a person who was still doing yoga with a friggin' cast on her foot, modifying positions as necessary, including a full quota of "girl push-ups" ('cause I couldn't do the regular kind with the cast), which aren't yoga but are evidently the best indicator of physical fitness out there.

It's been eleven days since I first fell ill (and fell quickly, too -- was watching a movie with my sister and felt fine at the beginning, but ended up feverish, shaking, and coughing by the end). Two days ago I thought I was well enough to try yoga again, if for no other reason than mild physical activity seemed like it might help speed up the recovery. (I also get cranky when I don't exercise.)

So I raised my arms above my head to start a sun salutation... and set off a fit of coughing.

I bent over to touch my toes and set off another fit of coughing.

Etc.

Evidently movement = coughing (even stretching = coughing), which makes exercise a problem.

Which means that I am very, very cranky right now.

My body has also betrayed me recently in terms of its rapid hair growth; very nice when it's on my head, less so everywhere else. Sally Hansen promised me I would be hair-free for five to eight weeks; I was hair-free for less than two. The waxing job lasted for exactly thirteen days; stubble started turning up about the same time I caught the bronch. Now I'm all fuzzy again.

'Cause bending over to shave... starts a coughing fit.

*facepalms... then coughs.*

srsly. 2 sick 2 blog.

2008-03-17T23:56:00.002-04:00

or 2 spl.

been sick since Tuesday evening of last week. nearly all dc plans canceled. still sick.

ttyl.

Audiences, References, and the Benefits of Getting A YouTube Video Six Days Later!

2008-03-12T16:44:00.012-05:00

Wow. Nearly a week after I tried to get YouTube to embed this video onto the blog, it shows up!

Here's the related post.

What's Up With Apple?

2008-03-11T18:41:00.003-05:00

About four months ago, I had my first ever Apple Store experience. A friend took me in to the Apple Store Chicago, and at first I was all "why are we going into this computer store?" and then I found that it was filled with wonderful toys that you could touch and play with and cheerful staff who greeted us upon arrival and ran around happily explaining the features of each Mac product even before we had to ask. "Have you tried tapping the iPhone? Have you tried tapping it twice?"

Today, as I had promised to do in an earlier post, I went back to the Apple Store -- this time the DC version.

But this time it was not at all the same.

First of all, no one greeted me when I came in the door. In fact, no one noticed me. I tried to flag down an employee, but I couldn't tell who any of them were. Finally I figured out that they were the scruffy, kind of desultory-looking people wearing dark blue shirts. They were all busy either behind a register or at the Genius Bar; a few were on the floor, but they were assisting other customers.

So I found a computer and signed up for a Personal Shopper, since I assumed that was why some of the other customers had helpers. The next time slot was fifteen minutes away. The computer said that my name would be called when it was my turn, so I decided to settle in and start playing with the toys.

The second thing that troubled me was that very few of the toys were turned on. The majority of the laptops and iPhones weren't connected to the internet, and none of the iPods had sample earbuds attached. I found the single working iPhone and poked at it for a few minutes, but it wasn't all that fun.

My appointment time came and went, and no one called my name. No one called anyone's names. I started trying to catch the eye of one of the employees. No one would look at me, although a few people looked at my shoes. Finally, twenty minutes after my appointment and almost an hour after I had arrived in the Apple Store, someone asked me if I needed some help.

I mentioned that I had signed up for an appointment, and they were instantly apologetic, explaining that they were understaffed today... people had quit, some people hadn't shown up. In the end they hauled out one of the managers, who gave me a thorough tour of all of the laptops, but by then I felt pretty bad for him since I wasn't going to buy anything today anyway, and he knew it.

We did have an interesting conversation, however, about the MacBook Air. The manager was explaining to me all the virtues of the itty-bitty super-slender Macbook Air, and how the only thing you had to buy to go along with it was the $400 external hard drive.

"So I can't just... um... plug a thumb drive into this thing? Or any other external hard drive?" I asked.

"No." He looked at me like I was an idiot. "You have to buy this one."

Then I started asking "where's the speakers? where's the microphone jack? how do you burn a DVD on this thing?"

As I expected, all the parts of a laptop you might want to use were sold separately, at $100-500 a pop. The MacBook Air itself was a glorified paperweight, and an insubstantial one at that. ^__^ (Yes, I am ready for all MacBook Air-lovers to attack.)

"Do you see this as the future of laptops?" I asked my personal shopper. "In two years are they all going to be like this?"

"Probably," he said.

"You guys are brilliant," I said, winking. "Getting people to pay extra for all the stuff that used to come in a laptop for free."

Of course, there are benefits to this model, namely that if one thing breaks, you don't have to replace the entire laptop. ^__^ So it isn't completely bad. In fact, having a laptop shell (or... um... eggshell) that you can modify (and upgrade) as you want, pulling things in and out of the USB port as if it were a fast-processing Mr. Potato Head, probably will be beneficial -- and kinda cool -- in the end.

Still: at the end of the day, my time in the Apple Store was surprising and a little depressing. Does anyone know if there's something up with Apple? I mean, a year ago it was one of the best places to work retail (in terms of employee creativity, status, and pay scale) and the employees were, for the most part, happy. But the employees I saw today were overstressed and, worse, undercoiffed. They didn't look healthy, they didn't look taken care of, and they didn't look happy to be there.

Is it 'cause of the recession thing (is Apple, like everyone else, cutting back), or is there something else going on?

Notes from a DC Tour

2008-03-11T15:12:00.002-05:00

Here are a few snapshots from my DC adventure:

* Going into an interview and hearing "You put on your resume that you type 100 wpm. Is that really the truth, or aren't you exaggerating a bit?" "I've been clocked at 100," I say with a smile. "Well," my interviewer tells me, "we'll give you a chance to prove it." After the test is over he comes back, astonished. "98 wpm and not a single mistake!"

* While I'm blitzing through the standard "prove you know Microsoft Office" tests, suddenly realizing that there are job interviews out there that don't require you to prove you can do a mail merge, and that later on this week, I'll be going on one of them. ^__^

* En route to the Apple Store, helping a group of very old, very giddy British ladies navigate the Metro -- from the turnstile to their eventual landing at Fashion Centre. No doubt they're here to take advantage of the falling dollar; one of them spends the entire Metro ride bursting out with little fits of happy "shopping, shopping, shopping!" Followed by "how many more stops?"

* Taking a breather at the Fashion Centre food court (to rest my foot) next to a group of young people involved somehow with our military (couldn't tell whether they had yet gone to Iraq, but they were clearly the troops in "Support our Troops"). They were talking about other young people in the military they knew who had committed suicide. They knew a lot of people who had committed suicide, mostly after returning from Iraq. "It's usually the really young ones who do it," one of them said. "The ones who haven't started families yet." It was a very sad conversation.

We Just Figured Out Blue's Shoes

2008-03-11T14:38:00.004-05:00

I first noticed it this morning, when I went in for my first interview of the week.

The look starts at the top of the head: sleek, shiny hair, pearls, crisp dotted-swiss blouse, decent suit, tidy manicure... and then it stops.

The eyes wrinkle. The meaning is clear.

What are these horrible shoes doing on this poor girl's feet?

I didn't think they were that bad when I bought them. Sure, they have the telltale orthopedic sole, but they don't really look like old lady shoes, right?

Yet in a world where every other woman is wearing calf-length stiletto boots, these shoes are 100% wrong.

I kept getting the look, particularly as the day wore on and my foot started to tire out. Of course, by then the look was changing from what's with the terrible fashion choice? to poor thing, there's obviously something wrong with her.

So I've got to figure out some way of preventing people from ever noticing my shoes. This might involve a longer pant cuff, or a distractive measure like a sudden burst of conversation.

It's a shame that I can't wear a handicapped tag like the one I currently have on my car. Something that says "Inside this ugly shoe is a toe that is still, technically, broken; the bone has only formed a hard callus and will take another month or so to fully heal."

Then there should be an asterisk with the note "And she was not drunk or anything like that when she broke it!" ^__^

Off to DC!

2008-03-09T10:41:00.002-05:00

I'm traveling today... it's time for the DC Interview Tour.

Interestingly, I was in DC this time last year, though for different reasons.

If anyone will be in the area and wants to get in touch, well... you know how to reach me.

TTYL!

(BTW -- sorry I haven't responded to some of the recent comments, esp. the ones from new commenters... will do so when I've got a smidge more time. ^__^)

Want to Join the "Will It Last?" Laptop Pool?

2008-03-07T22:58:00.003-05:00

My laptop crashed four times today.

It's a Compaq Presario M2000 series. Runs XP. The hard drive was completely replaced last year because... well, the guys said, "It's crashed so many times that your hard drive is completely worn out. Oh, and it's full of viruses."

I invested in some better anti-virus software (the university gives us all some free stuff, but clearly free wasn't doing the job), and haven't had a problem with viruses since.

However, my computer is crashing again. Repeatedly and annoyingly. Not to mention that since the beginning of the year, there's been some kinda problem with the monitor in which all of the parts of the screen that are supposed to be white show up pink, and all the parts that are supposed to be black show up green.

I've been telling myself "it only has to last for eight more weeks" (eight being the number of weeks until graduation), and have started backing up assiduously. In truth, it probably has to last for a little longer than eight weeks, since I probably won't be able to replace it until I get some money, and I won't be able to get some money until I get a job, etc. etc. etc.

But lord-a-mercy this is annoying. It took me twenty minutes this morning to print a paper for class.

If I have some time during my DC tour, I'm going to hit up an Apple Store. (And I've got to figure out if this "make a reservation for a Personal Shopping Assistant" deal is free.) Obviously I'm not going to buy anything; I've got $271.21 in my bank account and it's got to last through April. But I... want to fantasize about buying something.* Actually, I want to begin to look at my options. There must be an Apple employee ready and willing to talk about reasonably-priced laptops for the newly graduated.

'Cause it's going to be a Mac this time, people. Seriously.

* I also want to play with the iPhones. Did you know that in those Apple stores, they just let you... play with all the stuff, for as long as you want? ^__^

Audiences, References, and the Benefits of "Over The Head" Learning

2008-03-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

I haven't done an education post in a while, but a recent conversation brought this to mind.

To wit: we were having a discussion in our theatre class about whether or not you can present an audience with material that they might not understand right away. Specifically: if a play uses a reference that an audience might not get, do you cut the reference? If an entire scene might be too "over their heads" for university undergrads, do you cut the scene?

I've had this argument in other classes as well. Once I took a "writing for teenagers" class where the professor insisted I remove almost all cultural references from my story since "most teenagers haven't read the books you've read or listen to the music you listen to." (This was years before Family Guy and Juno and our current trend of inserting as many references into a creative work as possible.)

Her argument was that teenagers would read my work and become alienated/bored because they didn't know why a particular composer was important to the story's characters. My argument was that including unfamiliar references in a creative work -- whether literary, theatrical, or otherwise -- actually inspired learning; it forced the reader to interact with the material because it was no longer a matter of simple understanding. Whether the reader created his/her own meaning via context clues, or whether the reader hauled out the dictionary to look up the meaning, the reader was actively working with the text and actively learning from it.

(In the class, of course, I cut the references from my stories. Profs give the grades, after all. But I still believe in my argument.)

I wanted to share this clip with you because it was from my favorite childhood television program, Square One TV. I started watching this show when I was six years old and continued watching until it went off the air when I was thirteen.

(I've been trying to get the video to embed for about an hour now. YouTube doesn't wanna let me embed it. Until I can get the vid up, watch it here.)

Note the references packed into just the first few minutes of this clip:

Missing person? No, missing avis.

Hollywood Boulevard.

Angelenos.

Roscoe "Fatty" Tissue.

Taxidermy.

And that's even before you get to the math. None of them are references a six-year-old would understand; few of them are references a thirteen-year-old would understand. But the words enter our heads, and years later if we read a reference to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle we know, without having to look it up, that he was an entertainer and comedian whose career ended in scandal.

Long story short: leave the references in. A reader/audience member shouldn't have to understand everything about a piece right away. If they're the eager type, they'll go home and Wikipedia Soupy Sales or the Texas Two-Step; if they're not interested at the moment, the references will still provide them with a cultural background which will return to their memories at surprising moments.

It's worth noting, unfortunately, that PBS no longer shows children's programming more complex than Postcards from Buster, and even the highly meta Sesame Street has devolved into the over-obvious Elmo's World. (Early episodes of Sesame Street are sold on DVD with the note that they are no longer determined educationally appropriate for children. Wow.)

More Budget Fun: Wesabe!

2008-03-05T22:19:00.003-05:00

For a long time, I budgeted on spreadsheets. I'd have to enter everything manually (sigh), sort it manually (sigh), and set up all the formulas myself (okay, I think spreadsheet formulas are really cool, so I didn't mind that too much).

Yet I continually thought "oh, if only there was a program that could take the transactions directly from my bank statement and staple-sort them itself!"

Turns out there are a kajillion of those kind of programs. After some research, I went with Wesabe. You upload your bank statement (alternatively, you can choose to give Wesabe your bank passwords and have it do automatic uploads, but I chose the manual upload option, which keeps Wesabe out of my bank account, even though I have to re-upload every week or so to maintain accurate information), and Wesabe sorts your purchases by type and provides all kinds of graphs to illustrate your spending habits.

Now, I know that Wesabe is kindly providing this free service so it can get its grubby little paws on my spending preferences. Probably very useful for Wesabe to know whether or not its users spend more at Walmart or at Meijer, etc., and to know whether they buy gas on weekdays or weekends. However, it's a free service, and somebody's going to get that information anyway, so it might as well be someone who gives me a few really cool graphs in exchange.

With Wesabe, I found out that every month, I spend on average:

$137 on groceries
$70 on gas (this has got to stop)
$130 on utilities
$93 on car insurance
$16 on restaurant food (i.e. anything I don't cook myself)
$6 on entertainment (which is actually the three movies I saw in January totaling $18... no entertainment spending since...)

Oh, and I've spent $392.10 on the DC interview tour, which includes the plane ticket, clothing, and a new pair of shoes.

I am officially tired of being poor.

Blue's Anti-Product Placement: Secret Platinum "Vanilla Chai" Deodorant

2008-03-03T18:45:00.007-05:00

While I was shopping for my leg wax, I also made a stop in the deodorant aisle. (Note to readers: this was not an "impulse buy;" I always shop with a list -- and who impulsively buys deodorant, anyway?)

Like I've done for the past year or so, I scanned the products -- and rescanned -- hoping to find my favorite brand, Crystal Clean. It wasn't there. It's never there. The internet says they're still selling it, but I haven't seen it in a supermarket for ages.

Then I saw something quite unexpected. To wit: deodorants "for ladies" generally come in two kinds of scents: floral and beach. Floral is self-explanatory; the beach deodorants, however, never smell like sand, or salt water, or fish, or anything like that. They smell like "Caribbean Cool," which isn't a recognizable scent at all, but at least it covers up the B.O.

Anyway. I'm getting off track. In the middle of all the "Sweet Pea" and "Ocean Breeze" and the occasional "Powder Fresh," I saw a deodorant that claimed it smelled like something fabulously different.

Chai.

Yes, Secret just launched its "Vanilla Chai" line, and to its credit was presenting the scent in glittery, girly colors as opposed to, say, the blatant cultural travesty of Caress' "Exotic Body Wash." (OMG it smells like sandalwood!)

But seriously. Chai? As an underarm scent? Do people really want to raise their arms and be reminded of a hot beverage?

Since my mission is to "test-drive corporate multiculturalism so you don't have to," I bought a stick of chai deodorant and went home. Here is my (highly scientific) report:

Secret Platinum "Vanilla Chai" Deodorant is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike chai.

It doesn't smell a thing like genuine desi chai; it smells nothing like Lipton faux-chai; it doesn't even smell like the monstrosity that is Starbucks chai.

It smells, if it smells like anything, like the goo that comes out of a gas-station cappuccino machine; a gritty combination of sugar and vanilla with a little coffee thrown in. (How can a deodorant smell "gritty," you might ask? Trust me.) It's the only deodorant I've ever put on that makes me feel like I need to brush my teeth.

The smell lasts all day, which is... what it's supposed to do... but I can't say I'm a huge fan. I guess I'm stuck with it until the stick runs out.

Anyone else try this stuff?

Blue's Product Placement: Sally Hansen Lavender Spa Body Wax Hair Removal Kit

2008-03-02T17:32:00.002-05:00

Preemptive Editor's Note: Blue would like to preface this by stating quite firmly that she supports wholeheartedly the natural state of both the female and the male of our species: hirsute. However, she understands that many people -- e.g. employers -- do not share this sentiment. This is her response.

While I was in India, I stopped shaving my legs. The bucket bath was not conducive to a daily shaving, and I'm the kind of girl who will revert back to stubble within 24 hours.

I stopped shaving my legs, and my underarms, and didn't miss it for a moment. Of course, I was fortunate in that all of my pretty blue salwars hid the furriness. I loved that I could go from "just woken up" to "ready to face the world" in fifteen minutes.

When I returned to the US, I started shaving again. I hated it. Not the smooth legs vs. furry legs business, but the act of shaving itself. It was time-consuming, repetitive, and I nicked myself far too often. I found myself seeking out excuses not to shave my legs: well, I'm wearing jeans today, etc.

Then I found the best excuse of all: my broken toe. As I had to shower with one leg taped into a plastic garbage sack, shaving was clearly not an option.

So here I was, with a month's growth of hair on my legs, dreading the idea of going back to shaving. Then I had an inspiration.

Enter Sally Hansen and her Lavender Spa Body Wax Hair Removal Kit. I figured that since I had already done the hard work of growing out the leg hair, the least I could do was see if waxing really kept it off "for 5 to 8 weeks."

My first thought was to get it done by a professional, but even the college student joints wouldn't do a wax for less than $70, and Sally was only $9.99.

So last night I stripped to my skivvies, sat on a flattened 20-gallon trash bag (to catch the spills), and waxed my legs.

It took just about 90 minutes, and I distracted myself by watching episodes of CSI on Hulu. I found it a lot easier to pull out my hair by the roots if I was trying to figure out who the killer was before Grissom did. All said and done, however, it wasn't all that painful. I mean, it was a little uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt anything like some of the stuff I've been through recently.

The wax was really messy, but it got the job done. I would definitely urge anyone considering a DIY waxing to set out some plastic or something for the mess. I was also using the internet trick of dousing my legs liberally with baby powder before applying the wax (theoretically the wax will stick to the hair, but leave the skin untouched), and so my trash bag station was soon covered with drips and powder.

And there's nothing cooler than pulling off a strip and seeing exactly what hundreds of hair bulbs look like.

I know that people consider leg waxing to be one of those horrible things women do to oppress themselves, but -- barring my switch to reusable menstrual products -- this was the 100% most liberating thing I've done as a woman in a long time. I've solved a problem and now I shouldn't have to deal with it for five-to-eight weeks. That's fantastic.

I'll let you know when it all starts to grow back.

Finally, Another Cooking Post... About A Quiche!

2008-03-01T17:49:00.003-05:00

Since I received my lovely slow-cooker, my cooking routine has become extremely streamlined.

1. Wash dal
2. Dump dal in slow-cooker
3. Add veg
4. Add water
5. Go to sleep...

But a person can only live on dal and rice for so long. Even with a variety of vegetables.

So when I heard Jon Stewart mention quiche during the Oscars, I turned to my roommate and said "I wanna make a quiche!"

I thought it would be extremely difficult, but it was super-easy. I added fresh broccoli (since it was on super-sale at the grocery store) and a can of diced tomatoes, drained. Heated up cumin, garlic, and crushed red pepper in some oil, added the broccoli and tomatoes, got 'em all spicy, and then added them to a bowl which contained eggs, milk, and shredded cheese. Stir it all up, and pour it into ready-made pie crusts... then into the oven at 350 degrees for one hour, and I had two colorful, tasty quiches!

If I had a camera, there would be pictures... but imagine orange and green and red inside a nice brown crust.

Making quiche is a lot more expensive than making dal rice (by "a lot more" I'm talking $7 instead of $3), but it was great to get a protein source from something besides a lentil. ^__^

Happy Feet

2008-03-01T00:06:00.003-05:00

I've had the pins out of my toe for four days now.

No more cast, though I do wrap the top half of my foot in the equivalent of an Ace bandage so the healing toe is kept close and tight with its buddies.

The first two days were extremely painful, as my foot re-adjusted to its new surroundings (and lack of pins), but yesterday I woke up without pain, and it hasn't hurt since.

I can walk quickly again, and I can walk without getting tired. This is delightful, after five-odd weeks of shuffling around and measuring "should I go to the library?" by how many steps it would take to get there and how many I had already taken that day.

The weirdest part of all of this is feeling my big toe wiggle again. The break was below the knuckle joint (and in fact the bone never completely broke through -- that's why I was able to wiggle the toe even after it was broken, and why I put off going to the doctor for a week, since the old adage is "if you can wiggle it, it ain't broke"). After being completely immobilized for over a month, bending or wiggling the toe sets off all kinds of funny alarms in my nerves.

I don't do it deliberately, because the Ace bandage doesn't encourage it, but I find my toes instinctually responding like they used to; i.e. moving like a foot, instead of a block of wood, and so every once in a while the toe curls up without my thinking about it, and then it's kind of fun to feel the nerves react.

It's great to be able to take a shower without having to wrap my leg in a plastic bag. The skin on my entire foot is still really dry and scaly, despite my use of loofah and moisturizer, and for some reason there are several hard yellow calluses on the sole of the foot.

The toenails seem not to have grown at all, strangely enough. I found this out when I went to clip my toenails this evening; the unaffected foot needed clipping badly, but the other foot didn't have nails long enough to clip. That part I don't understand.

Anyway, I'm doing really well and am so glad to be back on my feet again. ^__^

Midterm Threats

2008-02-29T18:38:00.005-05:00

Two days ago, someone at my university discovered a piece of graffiti written in Sharpie inside a bathroom stall.

The message was determined to be a potential threat to university safety.

Campus officials responded by (among other things) increasing police presence on campus and sending a university-wide email announcing that students who do not wish to come to campus during this potentially dangerous time cannot be penalized for missing class.

As this email went out, the campus became awash in threatening graffiti. Students woke up to find "you're next" written on their dorm room doors. Emergency residence hall meetings were called, to try to establish some kind of safety guidelines for residents. The graffiti didn't stop.

I'm of a cynical mind, and my instant reaction is "midterms begin next Monday, and someone -- or a group of people -- is trying to get the university to shut down the campus."

The undergraduates, however, have told me that they are legitimately afraid. Never mind that this additional graffiti appeared alongside the university's "you can skip class" policy; never mind that none of the previous school shootings have been predated by a graffiti outbreak. The undergrads are afraid, and they have good reason to be.

One student even asked me where the safest place would be in a lecture hall, in case of a shooting. Near the door (for possible escape), in the center (surrounded by a mass of bodies, able to duck and hide behind a row of chairs), in a far corner (potentially inconspicuous)??? I didn't have an answer for her.

What does a university do in a case like this? Clearly, if something were to happen, they would be liable. They also want to ensure student safety, and so taking some kind of proactive action is both appropriate and necessary.

At the same time, announcing that students can skip class if they feel afraid (and, in fact, do not need to write their professors any note explaining or acknowledging such fear; they can simply not show up, which essentially meant carte blanche for anyone who missed class today) would seem to offer students a seductive opportunity: want to get out of midterms? grab a pen...

I guess we don't know where to sit in a lecture hall anymore, or what to do in response to threatening messages.

What would you do, if you were a university administrator? What would you do if you were a student?

Is An Online Mutiny Not Mutinous Enough?

2008-02-27T23:05:00.005-05:00

Today I had the chance to meet Holly Hughes, making this the third of the infamous NEA Four I've met in person. (Memo to John Fleck: wanna do lunch?)

Hughes gave a talk about performance art as a political act, which evolved into a group discussion of the state of activism in the US.

One of the older faculty members made the following comment: "No one wants to be a public activist anymore. Everyone goes online and does these clicky-clicky things, but that's anonymous and impersonal. No one's willing to go out there and be an activist in their body, and take that public risk in front of everyone."

Immediately I responded that these online "clicky-clicky things" had perhaps spurred more political change in the past few years than any physical act; the internet brought down George Allen, Dan Rather, and Rick Santorum, just to name a few. The internet revealed the true horrors of the Saddam Hussein execution. As soon as the Clinton campaign "leaked" pictures of Obama in "his native clothing," the internet was there to call bullshit.

Another faculty member said "But it's not activism if you're online doing it anonymously. To be truly political, you have to put your name and your face and your body out there."

It soon became a split discussion. The "young people" argued that online activity has done plenty to further political and social change (where would Obama be without the internet?), and that the impersonality of a laptop was more than overcome by the connectivity of an online group. The anonymity of the internet also afforded those of us who might be unable to participate politically "in the body" (we're all worried about employers finding out, after all) to take part under an assumed identity -- an identity which, online, became as public as one's real name.

And the "older people" told us to stop dinking around on the internet and go out there and march, even if it meant losing our jobs or getting sprayed with tear gas.

The trouble, I think, is that the internet generation has seen marches. People have been marching on Washington since the beginning of the Iraq War (that'd be five years now), and nothing has changed. We saw Cindy Sheehan protest, physically, outside of GWB's ranch... for three years.

We've also seen people who try to politicalize the physical get fired, get tased, and -- in some cases -- get detained "indefinitely." As students, we could be expelled for protesting the building of a parking garage, or see our politically-themed play canceled (with the administration asking us to saw all of our prop guns "in half," lest someone go into the prop shop and use a whole prop gun to threaten someone).

But we can put an anonymous video online and watch it go viral, we can bring down a candidacy while posting entirely under avatars, and we can organize everything from flash mobs to bone marrow registry drives.

Okay, okay, I know those last two involve physical actions. ^__^ But the moral of the story is this: perhaps we don't feel the need to put our bodies on the line because we have the capability to put the truth online.

And the truth will set us free.

Pretty Blue Update!

2008-02-26T18:17:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick update, before I dash off to a rehearsal:

* I did not win the Oscar pool. This disappointed me greatly, because I am ridiculously competitive. I *almost* won; for the majority of the awards I was neck-and-neck with another party guest, and came out ahead at the last instant because I called No Country instead of Blood for best pic; and then this guy who had been sitting quietly in the corner all night said "Actually, I got the most right," and showed us his ballot. And I'm totally not bitter about it or anything. ^__^

* As of this morning, I no longer have a soft cast on my foot. I had "the opposite of surgery," where the surgeon removes all of the metal pins he put in during the surgery, and then I had my pinholes sutured with silver nitrate, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I've regressed back to creeping down the hallway. I was all excited about getting the cast off and the pins out, but it looks like having the opposite of surgery traumatizes the foot just as much as having surgery does. In short, it hurts to walk, and it'll hurt for a few days. On the plus side, I can wear a regular shoe again.

* I saved $10 by giving myself a manicure while watching the ABC premiere of Raisin in the Sun. The manicure turned out all right; bought a kit for $2 which gave me a little jar of white polish and a little jar of "nail color" polish so I could do it French-style, and surprisingly I was able to pull this off. Raisin in the Sun wasn't bad either, although I was disturbed by the choice to make Asagai Beneatha's teacher, instead of her friend. Made the inevitable romance just a little creepy. For the record, Sean Combs can act... and thank goodness.

That's all for now. Sorry there isn't any more... um... substance; it's been a light news week in Blue-land. ^__^

Duct Tape Solves Everything

2008-02-24T17:54:00.003-05:00

So... remember how I duct-taped the word "VOTE" to my sweatshirt for Super Tuesday?

Tonight I'm going to an Oscar party.

Racked my brains trying to think of a costume. (Everyone's going to go as Juno, right?)

Then I came up with a brilliant solution.

Grabbed duct tape, a jacket, and set out to spell "PUNK IS NOT DED."

Problem solved!

Job Search $$$: Shall We Start Keeping A Running Total?

2008-02-23T18:28:00.003-05:00

Over on the hilarious A Philosophy Job Market Blog (tagline: "It'd be funny if it were happening to someone else"), the group bloggers keep a running total of how much money they are spending on the act of job searching.

From the most recent money post:

Holy shit, the APA was expensive. Three nights in the hotel, even at the reduced grad student rate and splitting a room with one of my office mates, came to a $180 plus taxes. Transportation was $288. Add in internet service in my room at $10 a night, a couple of burritos at Chipotle and a sandwich from Potbelly, and I'm looking at a Visa total of about $544.60 for the conference.

So I've spent $995.39 on the job market this year. That's more than 5% of my gross annual income.

To amuse you all, I thought I might start a similar tally. Today, I spent $84 on interview clothing, and $200 on a round-trip plane ticket to DC.

Which is... over a third of my monthly income. Woo-hoo!

Paging Daniel: Someone Translated My Blog Into German

2008-02-23T17:37:00.003-05:00

To Daniel and all other German-speakers:

Someone's started copying my blog posts and translating them into German.

Here's their rendition of this post:

Sie dürften fragen, wenn Sie von einer zynischen Drehung des Gemüts sind, warum ich Bargeld auf Schönheitflüssigkeit und Haar goo fallen lasse, wenn ich deutlich für Geld und Gegenüberstehen von bevorstehenden medizinischen Rechnungen und eine potenzielle Verschiebung festgeschnallt bin.

Jene Frau sollte ihr Haar allein verlassen, dürften Sie denken. Sie sollte Mild benutzen. Oder Setzen Sie besser noch Gleich.

"Beauty fluid" becomes "schonheitflussigkeit," but "hair goo" is "haar goo." ^__^

Barack Obama And The Unstoppable Momentum

2008-02-23T13:11:00.004-05:00

Tagging off of a comment I made on Ultrabrown:

Barack Obama has taken the place of Harry Potter in our collective consciousness.

Think about it. Last year, the entire world waited to find out what a seventeen-year-old wizard would do to save the world from evil. To pass the time, they made fanvideos, posted online, and generally whipped up enough momentum to cause grown people to dress up in ridiculous costumes and stand in gigantic lines to pay $30 for a book.

With Harry Potter done and gone, where will America (and abroad) transfer its collective fandom energy?

How about onto this other, slightly magical man whom we believe will save the world from evil?

I think it's fantastic that Obama is gaining so much momentum from what are, essentially, fangirl techniques. I also think it's fantastic that this momentum is cropping up within nearly every demographic; will.i.am, Viva Obama!, and the infamous BollyObama video.

(A full collection of fanvideos can be found here.)

All that's left are fanfic and cosplay. I did a search for Obama fanfic and -- luckily -- didn't find any. But I wouldn't be surprised if it started turning up in the next few months. (The only slash we see had better be Barack/Michelle, 'kay?)

As for cosplay... well... the national election, the big one, is on November 4. My birthday.

I think I just decided on my party theme.

Image, Beauty Fluid, and Credit Cards: Blue Rehashes the "Dress For The Job You Want, Not The Job You Have" Argument

2008-02-21T15:10:00.004-05:00

You might ask, if you're of a cynical turn of mind, why I am dropping cash on beauty fluid and hair goo when I'm clearly strapped for money and facing upcoming medical bills and a potential relocation.

That woman should leave her hair alone, you might think. She should use Suave. Or better yet, Equate.

Well. Here's why.

The short answer is that I'm test-driving low-cost image enhancements so that I can look my best when I go on my upcoming Informational Interview Tour.

The longer answer is that I'm tired of always looking like the poor temp (or poor graduate student) in the corner, and that it's important enough to my future career that I transform myself, even if it takes a disproportionate amount of my income.

Every career book I've read mentions this, including Suze Orman (whose Young, Fabulous, and Broke is technically a money book, but contains a section on starting careers).

I was always the temp who had three pairs of polyester "office pants" which she strictly alternated against a handful of blouses and sweaters. (At one temp job, my supervisor actually gave me some clothing, under the guise of having accidentally received some that didn't fit.)

Prior to this adventure, a job was something I showed up to do, and as long as I did my work well enough, it didn't really matter what my shoes looked like -- or my nails -- as long as they were clean.

This time I'm playing it differently.

I had a graduate student classmate who, unlike the rest of us, always showed up for class and rehearsal looking like she stepped out of a catalog. She had a standing manipedi appointment at the local salon. Every few weeks, she would appear with a new outfit or accessory.

The other young grad women asked her about this, one night when we were all hanging out together. We asked her how she managed to fit her great style into our tiny grad stipend.

"I took out an extra loan to pay for this," she explained. "It's an investment in myself. People get hired based on image, and I figured out what my image needed to be."

And then she said something very interesting. "I'm never going to buy a house. Statistically, because of my age and the cities I plan to live in, I'll never be able to break into the housing market. So my image has become my house loan and my mortgage. I'm wearing my house on my back."

Guess who moved the furthest in her career, after graduation? My savvy, well-coiffed friend.

I don't want to take it quite that far; I'm wary of "wearing my house on my back." But, at the same time, I want to shed the Scrappy-Doo graduate student persona.

So, over the next three weeks before I leave for the DC tour, I'm going to trim my cascade of hair, get a $10 manicure at the local cosmetology school, and comparison-shop to find two professional-and-attractive interview outfits. No polyester. And yes, I'll put them on the credit card if I have to. It makes me cringe, but even Suze Orman says to make the investment.

Blue's Product Placement: Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Weightless Anti-Frizz Serum

2008-02-20T21:15:00.002-05:00

I shop store brand. For nearly everything. Oatmeal, cookies, coffee, soap. I even swapped out my favorite Dental Care for the much less appealing Ultrabrite (which is supposed to have some baking soda in it somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it).

But there is one product for which I will not shop store brand. I tried, and switched back instantly.

That'd be my Garnier Fructis Length and Strength shampoo and conditioner.

I love this stuff. I discovered it in Hyderabad, when I was using my increased purchasing power to try every different shampoo I could get my hands on. (I was buying new shampoo all the time, given that the university kirana only sold 8-oz bottles.)

Long story short, I've got almost two feet of hair now and Garnier helps keep it soft and fluffy.

I did have a problem, though. During the course of a day, my hair would start to separate into straggly individual locks. I wanted a curtain of long, straight hair, not something that looked unkempt and unbrushed.

I also wanted my hair to stay glossy throughout the day, instead of turning dry and dull by evening.

So. I tried using more conditioner, and less conditioner, and then I tried using different conditioner. I tried using hairspray to get my hair to stay together (I don't recommend this one). Once I bought some "conditioning milk" that was on super sale (not a Garnier product -- this one was Sunsilk), but that only made my hair feel greasy.

I spent most days walking around with a rubber band on my wrist, so that I could scoop my disheveled hair into a messy bun around 4 p.m.

And then I went to the Garnier website.

They've got this fantastic little application called "Hair 411," where you get to name your specific hair problem through a flowchart-style interface. Then they list a few suggested products.

For me, that product was Sleek and Shine Weightless Anti-Frizz Serum.

Since I'm a competitive shopper, I know exactly which supermarket chain sells Garnier product at the lowest price. I got my magic serum for $3.

And ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you about how fabulous this little bottle of goo is. I haven't yet been able to replace my digital camera, so I can't take a picture. Whatever it does, it does well. My hair stayed glossy and fresh-looking all day long, and not once did it get clumpy or straggly.

Oh, Garnier. I know you've got someone on your team who follows site links, so to the rep reading this: I heart your product.

The Job Search Defined

2008-02-20T00:13:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to define, for the past few months, what I am looking for in a job -- and in a job search. I had been floating around, trying things out, without a real plan of action.

Recently I had the chance to connect with a person who is going to talk with me about opportunities in DC and will undoubtedly give me some indispensable advice. But I couldn't meet with this person without a plan.

So I sat down, and thought it out, and then wrote it out -- and then revised it, until it made sense and felt like an achievable goal.

And here we go.

I'm not necessarily looking for a job in the fine arts, despite my degree. My goal is to find an admin or entry-level position in an organization which will allow me to use my analytical/writing skills. These seem to be the two biggest assets I have to offer an organization, and are also the parts of my current work which I find the most interesting.

With the entry-level job in hand, I'll begin to learn more about the internal structure of the organization, determine where my skill set could be most useful (and where I need to fill in the gaps in my education), and prepare myself for an eventual move up or a lateral move out.

Which means, at this point, that I'm not focusing on getting a job in a particular industry (e.g. "I want a career at a publishing house"). I'm looking at a variety of possibilities and am hoping to find an opportunity.

Part of the reason why I am looking at so many options (academic sector, government sector, private sector) is because, in truth, I don't really know what's out there -- in DC or anywhere else. My knowledge of the working world is framed by growing up in a tiny town.

That last part is especially true, and seems to be why I've found it so hard to name the type of job I might want. I just... don't know what kind of jobs there are, in a world larger than my hometown and larger than my university town.

But this goal seems workable, achievable, and promising. I like that.

It also -- perhaps most importantly -- gives me a logical next step.

Blue Dreams of Cherry Blossoms

2008-02-18T16:08:00.002-05:00

Those of you following the blog know that I'm "on the market" this year; that I will need some kind of a job to follow my imminent graduation, and that I would prefer it to be a nice job, with things like sick days and health insurance, and possibilities for advancement.

Although my initial fear was that I was unqualified for anything except blogging, I have since created a pretty spiffy LinkedIn profile (wanna connect? email me at prettybluesalwar-at-gmail-dot-com), gotten my resume professionally analyzed at a Resume Rodeo, and crashed a rather famous national convention to talk to industry reps.

Long story short, I'm more qualified than I thought. Thank goodness.

What's the next step?

For me, it was deciding on where to live. I know that some people think the job should come first, but environment seemed to want to come first for me, for two reasons:

1. What I want is an opportunity rather than a specific position. My education thus far has been... um... liberal, and so I'm not lined up for any particular type of opening. Whatever job I get, I'm going to have to get through my communicative skills and my ability to sell myself. And, because I know so little about the professional work world (though I know a great deal about the service work world), I'm open to any opportunity that I can find.

2. I do not have the money, or the time, for a national job search. I have one spring break, which I know I'll have to spend in a single city, meeting and talking to as many people as possible. After graduation, I could temp in my sleepy university town, but my best bet would be to relocate to the city I visited over spring break, start temping there (at more prestigious companies, natch, with possible temp-to-perm options), and continue to meet people and apply for positions until I find something permanent.

So. Where, in the entire wide world, should I go? One friend suggested I go to Singapore; I've always wanted to live in Toronto; Chicago's just a train ride away.

I knew I didn't want to move to a city where I didn't have any connections or current friends. That's what I did after undergrad; moved to Minneapolis on the strength of an internship that fell through, and spent a year in the city with no social or professional connections. I'm smarter now. I know, for example, that the bigger your social network is, the more opportunities you have for both work and fun.

So I made a list of the places where I knew people. And then I thought about each of these places.

And then my heart did something kind of silly. It told me "Blue, the most exciting place in the world to be next year will be Washington, DC. Can you imagine, living at the heart of the place where a new president is going to be working to restore our country?"

I told my heart to be quiet for a moment, and reminded it about things like "no taxation without representation" and DC's expensivity and the fact that it might not be Obama, after all, doing the restoring (to which my heart responded "okay, but Hillary would be cool too!"), and that the idea of moving to a place because it was close to a bunch of exciting white buildings seemed... romantic, at best.

But my sister lives in DC, and I miss her.

So I called my sis to ask about life in DC, and what kind of opportunities would be available to me.

And she talked about what she was doing at work, and what her friends were doing, and then she said the sentence that clinched the deal: "... and with your skill set, we might be able to get you an entry-level job in a think tank."

Which she had to immediately follow up with "Hey! I said might!"

Long story short: after research, consideration, conversation, and a bit of idealistic romanticism (the heart wants what it wants, after all), I'm flying out to DC in two weeks to go on the "informational interview tour," to see what actually is available for a person with my resume, and whether or not I'll be moving there this summer.

Hold your thumbs for me.

Workend

2008-02-18T00:29:00.004-05:00

Today I was in Borders, reading another "career guide" book (really, I should stop; they all say pretty much the same thing).

This one mentioned that to get ahead, a young go-getter should plan on spending most weekends in the office, secretly getting projects done ahead of schedule so that the boss can be pleasantly surprised "to find them in his mailbox on Monday morning."

Eew, I thought. That's vile. I want my weekends!

Then I thought about what I did this weekend. On Saturday, I spent about six hours working on an administrative project for the Shakespeare Festival, since it's part of my graduate assistantship which I really like ('cause it's administrative rather than "artsy-fartsy creative," although it also involves a lot of writing, which I love) and because I want to impress the pants off of the Artistic Director of the Festival (also my supervisor) so she will give me even better projects and, eventually, a good recommendation.

I got the project on Friday, and was advised to complete it within a week, but you betcha it's going to be on her desk Monday morning.

I guess I'm a "young go-getter" after all. And, I suppose, like the career book says: you work the hardest when you like the work, and when you have a good supervisor.

Balm for a Twenty-Six-And-A-Halfth Birthday

2008-02-17T22:35:00.005-05:00

Today marked the end of an epoch.

I bought a skin moisturizer which also... sigh... reduces the appearance of fine lines.

When I was in Hyderabad, one of my students said "Madam, you really should put oil on your face, for your wrinkles." (I loved my students' honesty.) He told me that coconut oil was best, and so I diligently applied coconut oil to my face for about a week, until I made the connection between applying coconut oil in the morning and sunburning in the afternoon. Turns out coconut oil was what people used to slather on their bodies in order to achieve those really dark tans. Who knew?

After I returned from India, I was hanging out with a friend and he took a silly picture of me on his digital camera. It was before I broke my toe, and so I was showing off my hard-earned yoga flexibility (incidentally, today was the first day -- after a week of no practice, and then two weeks of one-footed practice -- when I was finally able to once again flatten my back in the seated forward bend).

I looked at the picture. "See, this is the problem," I said. "My face looks older than the rest of my body."

Which it did. Bending in my yoga pose, I looked like Gumby with a bunch of crinkles in his forehead.

Then I noticed this post, at HERstory. Anna's been using Neutrogena Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Cream SPF 15 since her late 20s, and she's gorgeous.

And I'm in my late 20s.

I put it off for a while, since no one really likes thinking about buying wrinkle cream at twenty-six, but I realized the other day that moisturizing my precious face with the same Bath and Body Works Sweet Pea Body Lotion that I use on my elbows is probably not a good idea.

So today I bought a facial moisturizer that -- oh, I couldn't bring myself to buy anything that said "wrinkle cream" on the box, but I did buy one that is designed "to reduce the appearance of fine lines."

It wasn't the Neutrogena, unfortunately, as I don't have that much cash in my pocket (the Bath and Body Works stuff was a gift), but it was a store-brand alternative.

I'll keep you posted as to the results.

Love Means Never Having To Specify Which "Katie" You Are

2008-02-17T17:02:00.003-05:00

They've installed two large computerized billboards at our local downtown center, which I can only assume is some kind of effort to make the cross-streets of Main and Oak seem more like Times Square.

These billboards annoy me to no end, because I have to drive past them every day and they're like having two giant TV screens flashing at me from either side of my car. They aren't even placed near any traffic lights or stop signs; no, they're placed where the road curves.

Anyway. Driving home the other day I happened to glance at what was on one of the flashing screens.

A picture of a middle-aged man and woman, faces pressed cheek-to-cheek, with the text "Katie B., Will You Marry Me? Love, Carl."

I glanced again to make sure. Yep. Katie B. Even though her face was clearly on the billboard, Carl still felt like he had to define her by her last initial to distinguish her from all of the other Katies in his life. (It makes me wonder who Katie A. is, and why Carl was so concerned she not think the proposal was for her.)

If anyone ever proposes to me on a giant billboard and includes my last initial, I will not marry him. No friggin' way. Don't waste your billboard money.

Ask Blue: Miss Ginny's Question

2008-02-14T20:53:00.003-05:00

Using Pride and Prejudice as a reference- Why is it that women, as a whole, always seem to end up pining miserably over the Mr. Wickham-types while simultaneously cooing over how SWEET the Mr. Darcy-types are and how much they'd like to date someone exactly like that...

Happy V-Day, by the by. Give Miri-belle a pat from me :D

~Miss Ginny

Dear Miss Ginny,

Miri says hi. ^__^

My official Pride and Prejudice Theory of Romance is that all women think every Mr. Wickham is a Mr. Darcy until they find out that he is, in fact, a Mr. Wickham.

This is what Lizzie does, after all. She thinks Mr. Wickham is the be-all and end-all, until she finds out that he isn't.

I'd argue with you that the sweet types aren't actually Darcys at all, but Bingleys. And there's nothing wrong with a Bingley. But it's hard to be with a Bingley when you really want a Darcy, and the trouble with Darcys is that they so often get confused with Wickhams.

Darcy and Wickham grew up together, after all. Like, in the same house. No wonder they're similar.

BTW, the quickest way for a man to go from being a Bingley to being a Darcy is to find some way of challenging his Lizzie (take her rock climbing, or sit with her during the presidential debates and start playing devil's advocate about her favorite candidate). A Bingley-turned-Darcy can be quite an attractive man.

Unless, of course, the Bingley wants a Jane. Bingleys and Janes are generally quite happy with one another, and neither of them have to worry about the belay devices breaking.

Hope this helps!

Advicefully yours,

Blue

Ask Blue: Indianoguy's Question

2008-02-14T20:51:00.002-05:00

What women want?
No, its not a plug for the movie ;)

Indianoguy

Dear Indianoguy,

I can't speak for what women want. Women are a diverse and complex group of individuals, and to make any sweeping judgment about "what women want" would be as foolish as assuming that all desi boys like the yoga. (This is wrong, of course. They all like the Kama Sutra.)

I can, however, speak for what I want. Maybe this will be able to help you.

I want someone who will let me be me, without trying to change who I am. I don't mind if he thinks I should try cooking scrambled eggs a different way, or something like that, but I don't want him to try and stop me from being all of the quirky, fun things I already am.

I want someone who gets excited about the Wii.

I want someone who is completely cool with my cat.

I want someone who will let me sing Cole Porter while I do the dishes. Someone who will maybe sing with me. That's even more important than doing the dishes with me. (In five years, doing the dishes will probably be more important.)

I want someone who will let me organize his things and not mind; someone who will let me hang up the shirts by color and sort the bills by due date. Someone who will smile when I put scented candles in the bathroom and curtains on the windows.

I want someone who will send me a note when something exciting happens in his day and still find things to talk about at night.

I want someone who will let me talk to him as much as I want without my feeling like I'm being clingy or overwhelming. I have a lot to say, after all. A lot of questions, too. About life and philosophy and superdelegates and whether he had a good day at work and what's bothering him and can I help and does he maybe want a back rub?

I want someone who will laugh with me.

I also want someone who will spar with me. Challenge me. Debate me. Tease me, even. Let me fight back. (This may be the most important thing, and the rarest thing to find. But women fantasize about Mr. Darcy for a reason, and not just because he's played by Colin Firth.)

Is that a start? Keep in mind that every woman is different. Some women just want a hot body, and some women prefer a fat wallet. (You can fake this by stuffing your wallet full of old receipts and sandwich club cards.) Many women like being taken out to dinner. That's probably the best place for you to start, if you don't know what women want. Take a woman to dinner, and proceed from there. She should give you at least one good clue about what she wants next.

Advicefully yours,

Blue

Ask Blue: Andre's Question

2008-02-14T19:59:00.004-05:00

How come whenever I try to go out with an white person, they always say something to me about how much they love yoga or bollywood or some other aspect of Indian culture? When I dated a French girl I didn't go on and on about how much I like Proust. It makes me feel like a token instead of a real human being. Which is why I mostly date Indian girls now.

Andre

Dear Andre,

Of course you wouldn't mention to a French girl that you liked Proust. You would mention that you liked fine wines and the film Amelie and possibly that trip you took to the Centre Pompidou in college. Playing the Proust card would be like white girls playing the Tagore card.

But they don't play the Tagore card. They play the yoga and Bollywood cards -- which, first of all, should be looked at as two separate cards.

Yoga, as we know, has been completely co-opted by white culture. I've taken years of yoga classes where everyone in the room was white, including the instructor. The young woman who mentions she does yoga is either A. stating something important to her without being aware of its Indian background (as in "Hi, my name's Mandy and I like candlelight dinners, walks on the beach, and yoga") or B. is aware of yoga's cultural heritage and is trying to open a dialogue with you about culture.

Which is probably what the young woman who mentions Bollywood is doing: poking around the outer edges of a more serious cultural dialogue. She's saying, in a somewhat awkward way, that she's aware that you're brown and she's a little bit aware of what being brown means, though she's not at all sure what it means to you. She wants you to know that she knows a little bit about Indian culture, and if she's like 99% of women on this planet who start making long-term projections on the first date, she's probably wondering how culture will play into this relationship. Will you be the kind of guy who wants to take her to tabla concerts and who cooks his own naan, or are you more Panjabi MC, or Goldspot, or Rihanna, or Hannah Montana? In short: She's trying to tip you off to the fact that she'll be down with the brown, if you're that kind of brown boy.

White people generally aren't good at opening cultural dialogues, and sometimes it sounds like we're "othering" the people we're trying to understand. (I wrote more about that here, about a year ago.) On the plus side, we adapt really quickly, and after a date or two should start to figure things out.

If, however, a girl bursts out with a giggly "You're Indian? I love yoga and Bollywood!" then feel free to DTMFA.

Advicefully yours,

Blue

Ask Blue: Ctrlalteredmind's Question

2008-02-14T19:57:00.000-05:00

Why is Children's Day celebrated exactly 9 months after Valentine's Day, in India?

Ctrlalteredmind

Dear Ctrlalteredmind,

Children's Day is celebrated nine months after Valentine's Day because it's the time when all of the babies conceived over Diwali and the other winter holidays are born.

What can I say? IST is a powerful force.

Advicefully yours,

Blue

Ask Blue: Miri's... um... question???

2008-02-14T19:52:00.002-05:00

Give them to me! I love yarn!

Miri

Dear Miri,

These socks are made of synthetic materials, and they're not for you. You already have a Valentine's present: a parade of hotties lined up outside your door. Unfortunately, you're an indoor-only cat.

I still love you.

Advicefully yours,

Blue

Ask Blue: Mom's Question

2008-02-14T19:41:00.002-05:00

What's a mom to do? Let's say a mom bought her daughters Valentine's socks. And then one of the daughters falls down the stairs, fractures her toe and is in a cast. What is a mom to do with the socks?
LOVE
mom

Dear Mom,

Your daughter will undoubtedly look at these socks as an unexpected double bounty. Since one foot is in a cast, she now only requires one sock at any given time. Thus, her supply of existing socks (and the necessary time between laundering said socks) has now doubled. Mathematically, consider it 2x, where x equals the number of original pairs of socks.

Upon receiving two Valentine's Day socks, your daughter will rightfully assume that you are aware of this mathematical equation and have chosen to give her two socks, instead of one, because you love her twice as much. She will wear one sock on Valentine's Day and one sock on the following day, the feast of Lupercalia. Then she will wash them both.

Advicefully yours,

Blue

P.S. She thinks the socks are really cute.

They've Got The Hots For Mew

2008-02-14T19:36:00.004-05:00

After putting my kitty's picture online, she found this message waiting for her in her Catbook inbox.

Clearly she has many admirers.

(Original image source here.)

PostSecret Style!

2008-02-12T23:51:00.004-05:00

The Modern Love parody, as well as the advice column answers, are still to come...

But first:

PostSecret just released its "Valentine's Day" edition.

We've all thought about sending a postcard to PostSecret, right?

In honor of V-Week, here's one of mine.

Blue's "First Kiss" Story: "I Don't Think It Should Become An Everyday Affair"

2008-02-12T11:35:00.000-05:00

In honor of Valentine's Week, I dug out one of my old diaries (I've got boxes of these things, dating back fifteen years) and found the entry where I wrote about my first kiss.

I'll recreate it verbatim, though the names are changed where appropriate.

March 29, 1997

And today Brian kissed me.

I'll backtrack...

We all went to [nearby town slightly larger than my hometown, large enough to have a mall], and Brian and I held hands in the mall, and then we went to Wal-Mart & got our picture taken in one of those little booths, and etc. etc., until Brian and I were suddenly left alone in Brian's car, the rest of the group electing to ride in Heather & Megan's cars.

So Brian said, "So you've never held a guy's hand before?"

And I said, "Once, but it was for a show, so it didn't count."

And then he said, "Have you ever kissed a guy before?"

And I said, "No."

So then Brian said, "Have you ever wanted to?"

And of course I said, "Yeah."

So Brian asked me if I wanted him to kiss me now, and I (even though I knew it was coming) just about went nuts.

"But I don't know how to kiss anyone," I semi-wailed.

So Brian was like, "It's really easy... just... kind of... like this."

And then Brian kissed me. (And I was so dumb. I didn't even kiss back, or whatever that means.)

My first reaction was kind of weird. I mean, to be brutally honest, I thoroughly enjoyed the kiss, but is it considered bad form [and the words "to wipe the spit off of your mouth when it's done" have been scribbled over in heavy ink].

And then Brian said "You know, you can relax a little."

"No, I can't," I said. "I am physically incapable of relaxing right now."

So then we were like, "What do we do now?" and I suddenly decided to see if my new lipstick was kiss-proof. So we kissed again.

But it wasn't. So Brian ended up with peach frost on his lips, but he wiped it off.

That was all we did in Brian's car. I really liked being kissed. But I don't think it should become an everyday affair. That way, it will be all the more special.

[end diary excerpt]

Oh, poor Little Blue. Just wait a few years until you meet some people who are better at kissing.

Thanks For the Questions! Advice Will Come Soon...

2008-02-12T11:32:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all who've dropped questions in my Advice Column post (and there is still room for more questions, so think 'em up!).

Answers will come on Valentine's Day itself.

In the meanwhile, you may drool with anticipation.

Hurt

2008-02-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

One day into Valentine's Week and I find myself unexpectedly having hurt, badly, two people whom I care very much about.

Neither of them I meant to hurt, and I don't know how to make either of the situations better.

This makes me sad. I can be mean sometimes, but then I'm deliberately mean and I lash out and get it over with. I hate hurting people accidentally, or foolishly.

I'm sorry.

Blue's Giving Free Advice. Get It While It's Hot.

2008-02-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

Here's the deal, Team.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm playing Advice Columnist.

So: if there are any burning questions you want answered (including questions about things that shouldn't be burning), drop 'em in the comments.

Answers will appear on Valentine's Day.

While we can play PG:13 here (and I am not above answering the patently ridiculous), I reserve the right to delete any question that is left with malicious intent as well as any questions that are gratuitously obscene.

Feel free to comment anonymously.

If no one leaves me any questions, I will cry, and then be forced to answer a random sample of questions written to other advice columnists.

So... question away!

Pretty Blue Salwar: Valentine's Week Edition!

2008-02-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

This week, in preparation for Valentine's Day, and for the even more important Post-Valentine's Day Discounted Chocolate Sale (I'm swooping up a couple boxes of those Queen Anne chocolate-covered cherries in the slightly disturbing white goo), the Army of One here at Pretty Blue Salwar is going to swing it Modern Love-style.

Mostly because I just learned that Modern Love is having a submission contest for college students... but they're only letting undergrads participate. And as a long-time reader/hater of Modern Love (it's like watching a car crash, except the car crash can afford much nicer shoes than you), I have long wanted to contribute to its oeuvre.

I'm also going to take a shot at playing Advice Columnist, 'cause I've always wanted to (and because it's an easy way to increase my page hits). Whether my advice column turns out more like Dear Abby or Dan Savage (or, lord help us, Dear Strong Bad) is up to you. More to come in a later post.

At any rate, keep reloading for lots of Valentine's-style fun!

The Konkans

2008-02-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

When Ultrabrown posted about Tony D'Souza's new book The Konkans, and mentioned it was the story of a family created when a white woman who believed India to be her spiritual home married (as D'Souza puts it) "the one living-and-breathing souvenir of that place who could also get a job in America," I knew I had to schedule a block of time to visit Borders and read this book.

It is a lot like The Namesake, in that D'Souza and Lahiri both focus on squeezing about forty years of events into 150 pages, and thus the stories of the families themselves seem a bit surface-level; timeline rather than narrative. This happened, then this, then this. Unlike Lahiri, D'Souza presumes omniscience and tells the history not through the viewpoint of himself as his parents' son (this isn't a second-gen coming of age story; in fact, D'Souza's role in his own family narrative is tangential), but as a sort of floating narrator who attempts to portray everyone's motives and flaws honestly and equally.

The result is a depiction of characters both sympathetic and slightly repelling. Without giving too much away, it becomes clear that this unhappy family is unhappy in its own way because at the very start, the union of husband and wife was built on a double bait-and-switch; Denise, the white woman who travels to India via the Peace Corps to escape a childhood of poverty and abuse, and who wants more than anything to stay in the country where she first achieves a sense of agency and purpose, marries Lawrence assuming he is her ticket to an Indian passport; while Lawrence, who knows full well that he is using Denise to get to America (he and his parents conspire to make her life in India so miserable that she will begin to yearn for the comforts of the US), moves them both to Chicago only to find that Denise comes from a family of white trash and that he has, without knowing it, "married below his caste."

And then there's Lawrence's brother Samuel, whose visa Denise sponsors and who becomes the only person in her life to appreciate her for who she is. This kind of story is guaranteed a happy ending.

The characters in The Konkans are all searching for identities, and it is telling that the character who is most comfortable with his identity is neither the American wife wanting to raise an Indian family nor the Indian husband wanting to raise an American family, but Sam, the brother, who attempts -- and achieves -- a hybrid of both worlds. (That is, until Sam's father sends a letter telling Sam that a bride is waiting for him back in India.) We don't know enough about D'Souza's character to know where he fit into this family story (he ends his family narrative while his character is still a child), or how he built his own identity between the warring impulses of his parents, but -- as Ultrabrown notes -- he has already written about this subject in other novels and articles.

So. Would I recommend? I suppose my initial response is "sure, why not," but at the same time... well... let's put it this way. There are much better books out there, and better memoirs, and better discussions of cultural identity; but no other book with this particular combination of characters. That's the reason to pick it up and give it a try.

Live-Blogging His Dark Materials, Part IV: Lyra's Oxford

2008-02-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I read Lyra's Oxford, the short sequel to His Dark Materials and the prequel to The Book of Dust.

Pullman describes it as a story that, while it was being written, collected to it scraps of paper which "might be connected with the story, or they might not; they might be connected to stories that haven’t appeared yet." He states that these papers floated through doors from world to world, blown by winds, until they collected here, in his book.

I suppose these papers did their floatings before the doors between the worlds were closed.

The story itself is short and not particularly memorable; it's kind of like a MOTW where Lyra is chased by a witch who is trying to kill her (because the witch's son died fighting for Lord Asriel and we know that witches kinda get venegancy when people they love disappear), and meets an alchemist who isn't actually an alchemist -- he's using it as a cover so that people will think he's crazy and ignore the actual scientific work he's doing in his basement. We don't find out what that work is, although my money's on "meth lab." *__^

One of the most interesting things in the book, however, comes in one of Pullman's "scraps of paper" (these are actual pieces of paper kept separately within the book's pages, Jolly Postman-style). It's a list of books written by Jordan Scholars, one of which is titled With Gun and Rod in the Hindu Bush, by Captain R. T. G. Collins.

So. Let's theorize here. Was the Authority also the Hindu Authority? (And would that be Vishnu, Brahma, or Shiva?) If the Authority wasn't the Hindu Authority, then did their faith remain unchanged? Do the Angels hang around the Hindu Bush, or do they leave those crazy people alone? Do they try to convert them?

I guess I was assuming that Lyra's world was an entirely Christian world, as that was what Pullman had set up for us previously. Even Will, who comes from our world, doesn't mention anything about people from other religions. It would have been interesting if he had said something to Lyra along the lines of "in my world, not everyone believes in Adam and Eve and the Church's God." But... Pullman seemed to want to limit his book to a critique on the Christian church only.

So, to my readers: does knowing that Lyra's world contains people who don't belong to the Church or the Authority change Pullman's atheist message and philosophies? If so, how?

"Diverse and International Populations"

2008-02-07T20:58:00.001-05:00

When I got my resume critiqued at the Resume Rodeo, my HR representative told me I should make one addition to my "statement of qualifications."

"You've been to India," she said. "So you need to promote that you're good with diversity. Diversity is a big thing right now."

She told me that I should add the sentence "experience working with diverse and international populations" to my statement of qualifications.

Which I did, because any piece of advice is worth taking at this point, and it now shows up both on my resume and my LinkedIn profile.

And it makes me feel really, really weird. It's like code for "this white person won't wig out around people who aren't like her."

The HR rep who gave that piece of advice falls under the category of "diverse and international" herself, so she's seemingly okay with it; and yet I have to wonder if she puts it on her own resume. If she worked in an office full of white people, would she be able to include the statement?

After all, it might help her move her career forward. Diversity is a big thing right now.

Jury Doody

2008-02-07T15:37:00.001-05:00

... because calling it "Jury Bulls**t" would be too vulgar.

This week I got called up for jury duty. No big deal; I had already missed half a week of class due to foot surgery, and so what was another few days more?

Luckily for my attendance-'n-grades, I didn't actually get picked for a trial. (And no, I didn't have to lie and say I was "prejudiced against everything." There was a plea-bargain, and so the trial was canceled before any of us got interviewed.)

Before we were sworn in as jurors, we had to sit through an educational film about our legal system. This film, which looked like it was made in the early 1980s, exhibited the same standards of narrative and quality common to most slide-reel educational presentations of that era.

At the end, the camera focused on a group of men (and one woman -- all white, of course) sitting in a jury box.

"You should be proud to be a juror," the narrator intoned, "and to participate in a country founded on the idea that everyone has the right to a fair and public trial. Unlike other countries, the United States does not have secret trials, and it does not keep accused people hidden away, preventing them from receiving justice. You, the juror, are part of what makes America great."

Right. What Makes America Grate. Add "blatantly lying about our secret trials" to the list.

Live-Blogging His Dark Materials, Part III

2008-02-06T22:20:00.000-05:00

I finished The Amber Spyglass two days ago, but didn't blog it yesterday because I was busy watching the politics.

It was the sort of book where the impact of the ending took over and made me forget the details of the earlier parts; so I need to read it again. (I'll have plenty of opportunity, as this foot cast is going to stay on for another two months.)

Here are some thoughts, as they cross my mind.

* Metatron. I know Metatron is part of the Judeo-Christian mythology, but I couldn't look at the name without imagining Godzilla Vs. in front of it.

* You can see how the technological differences between 1995 (when The Golden Compass was published) and 2000 (when The Amber Spyglass was published) filtered through into Pullman's text. He gives us, in Amber Spyglass, an internet, courtesy of the Gallivespians and their lodestones. Even in a parallel universe, Pullman can't imagine a world without email.

* The serpent, in the form of Mary Malone, offering Lyra and Will the gift of knowledge. Which isn't "what is the nature of G-d," because they've already learned, Wizard of Oz-style, that God is just an old man hiding behind a curtain; nor is this knowledge the meaning of life and death, since Lyra and Will have already traveled through the land of the dead and discovered what we are meant to do after we die. What Mary Malone gives Lyra and Will is the knowledge of the flesh. In short, she teaches them about sex.

* Which they promptly have. Lyra is 12 and Will is 13. This was the only part of the book that disturbed me a little. Lyra, after all, hasn't even started menstruating yet. Yes, Pullman is pretty vague about what happens in that forest, and doesn't give us any paragraphs about "throbbing manhoods" or anything like that (thank goodness), but they lose some kind of virginity in that forest, and even my liberal heart says that's at least three years too young.

* Pan becomes a marten, eh? I hope I wasn't the only reader who had to look that one up.

* There's something very satisfying about Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter sacrificing themselves by pushing Megatron into the infinite abyss. The thought of them falling, down and down, for the rest of eternity is a little chilling, however. I hope Pullman realized that he wrote them a way out: when the angels go to close the doors between the worlds, they say they will close up the abyss as well. Surely, while they're there, one of them could dip inside and bring Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter back to the surface.

* There's something much less satisfying about the "we have to close all of the doors so you and Will can never see each other again" business. Sure, the idea that Lyra and Will would have to separate was kind of a given; but the reasoning behind it seems a little contrived. The doors create Specters? The most idiotic villains in the book? Oh, and Dust is leaking out of them?

This also doesn't bode well for philosophies on international or intercultural relationships. Lyra and Will come from "different worlds," so they can never be together because "neither of them can survive in the other's world." It makes me start humming West Side Story's "Stick to your own kind/stick to your own kind..."

On the other hand, Adam and Eve were banished from paradise. But they were banished together.

* Pullman did write a note at the end of this edition; a series of what he called "Lantern Slides" distilling images of what happened to certain characters after the trilogy's conclusion; he included a scene which implies that Lyra and Will do talk, across space and time, at the wood bench in Oxford. Assumedly this works because Mary planted those magic seeds there, which grew up into a lovely tree.

* Which brings me to: people who cross into other worlds die, but seeds grow? And don't tell me it has to do with humans having Dust, because those seeds Mary planted were the very essence of Dust itself.

* So. The central philosophy. The innocence of childhood can reveal things us adults can't understand; then the kids are supposed to grow up and have sex, whereupon they have to spend the rest of their lives re-learning what came to them naturally before their sexual awakening.

* I hated that the alethiometer just "clicked off" in Lyra's hands. That was unfair. And she suddenly couldn't remember what the symbols meant? That didn't make sense either. It would have been better if she could remember the symbols, but couldn't control the hands, or something like that.

* And yeah, cried at the end. Poor Lyra and Will.

There is a short "sequel" titled Lyra's Oxford, which Pullman evidently means as a short prequel to his next book, The Story of Dust (in progress). This I look forward to reading, if only to find out how much Pullman lets Lyra and Will communicate, or if he introduces a new love interest for either of them. ^__^

Super Tuesday Analysis: Obama and Middle America

2008-02-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

So Clinton and Obama are neck-and-neck. At the NYT's latest count, Clinton had 892 delegates while Obama had 716.

I couldn't be happier. Yes, of course I wanted Obama to win every state and carry the day, but... I knew that wasn't going to happen.

What I am happy about has to do with the states Obama won. He won Middle America. Let Clinton have the state that elected the Governator; Obama won in states where people put gun racks on the back of their trucks. Obama won in whitebread country. Obama won in the vast central plains, where the majority of people live in small communities and often have little experience interacting with "hyphenated-Americans."

That's where the people want change. People who have seen jobs vanish and towns dry up; people tired of one-sided politics and politicians always preaching to the coastlines. Students at land-grant universities. Parents of children long at war. The continually belittled, mocked "Flyover Country." Of course we would rally behind "Yes, We Can."

And even when Obama doesn't "look like us," he looks like us. He's not part of a political dynasty; he doesn't separate himself from us; he doesn't condescend to us. He is like us but better; like we might hope to be. Straightforward, forthright, and eminently inspiring.

Middle America has spoken. We want Obama, to be sure; but more than anything else, we want change.

This is going to be a close race.

Handicapped Parking Revisited

2008-02-05T18:36:00.001-05:00

Called the university's Disability Office and got permission, instantly, to park in the "visitor" handicapped spots.

That was astonishing.

I hadn't expected that at all, given some past experiences with university bureaucracy. But it worked right away, thankfully. ^__^

What Makes America Grate: Handicapped University Parking

2008-02-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

Years and years ago, my sister was assigned to write an elementary school essay titled "What Makes America Great." She messed up the homophone, and the spellchecker didn't catch it, and so the entire essay came out as "What Makes America Grate." As in: Immigration makes America grate because...

I thought of that today, because of two things that recently happened... one that I will post now, and one that I will post later on this week.

Today's "grate" installment?

I had my foot checked out again, and the doctor asked me how close to the university I was able to park. I explained that I didn't use student parking, since the passes were expensive and the lots were nearly always full, and so I parked on a side street about four blocks away from my building.

"Four blocks is too far away," he told me. "I'm writing you a pass for a handicapped tag, and I want you to park in the handicapped section of the student lot. Those spaces shouldn't fill up as quickly, so you'll probably get one."

I grimaced at the thought of having to shell out $150 for the lot pass, but figured I was already in for the cost of the surgery, so what was a few more dollars here or there?

The handicapped tag certifies me to park in any handicapped spot, university or otherwise; but before I went to Student Parking to shell out for the lot pass I decided to do a short reconnaissance.

I drove my car through the lot, looking for the handicapped spaces.

There weren't any.

It was a large lot, and there were many parking spaces in relative proximity to the university buildings, but none of them were designated as handicapped parking.

Then I drove to my building to check out the possibilities there. It's got a theatre attached, after all; it should be required by law to have a few handicapped spots.

Yep, there were two handicapped parking spaces outside my building. Both with notices: "For Visitors Only. Must Display Visitor Pass."

It didn't seem to make any sense. Obviously I wasn't going to pay for a student lot pass, as there was no guarantee that I would get a space, let alone one near the university proper (and a space at the far end of the lot would mean a further walk than my current street space), and I wasn't entitled to use the ones closest to my place of work as they were reserved for visitors.

I should start talking to everyone I see on campus with a cast or crutch or wheelchair and ask them how they do it.

Super Tuesday Couture

2008-02-05T12:42:00.000-05:00

Just to prove that I will never, ever, ever be cool, I'll let you know what I am wearing today.

A sweatshirt, turned inside out (so you can't see what was on it originally), upon which I have written "VOTE" in duct tape.

I am well aware that this will not convince anyone new to vote. If they haven't already figured out their polling place and blocked off time in their busy schedule to vote, they aren't going to do so just because I'm pretending to be a walking billboard.

At the same time, it felt weird not to do anything. And, as I couldn't wear one of those nifty "I Voted" stickers (since I voted in today's primary a few weeks ago, on the day when I drove a car full of unregistered grad students down to get registered), I thought I would let the verb take the imperative form.

(Writing about verb imperatives is another reason why I will never be cool.)

Yay Super Tuesday!

Blue's Resume

2008-02-04T23:37:00.001-05:00

I'm putting up my resume for reference's sake, although I have changed any details that might give away my current location, as well as left off my "Objectives and Summary of Qualifications" section.

Just wanted to share my "career path" with the team. ^__^

(BTW -- the formatting seems to work in Firefox only. So if you've got IE, it'll look messy. Dunno about Opera or other browsers.)

**********************************

Visiting Instructor, Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts, University of Hyderabad, India, 2007

· Directed and produced a Telugu adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest; led class sessions on movement, voice, acting, and design

Banking Associate, Insurance Company, 2007-2008

· Restored over $13,000 to the company through continual contact with Unclaimed Property divisions in all fifty states

Director, Super Shakespeare Festival Annual Fundraiser, 2006

· Wrote, designed, directed, and produced a promotional fundraiser for the annual SSF Donor Dinner; raised over $10,000 for SSF

Assistant Company Manager, Super Shakespeare Festival, 2006

· Facilitated and managed internal paperwork relevant to Shakespeare Festival personnel; provided hospitality services to the 100-member company

Producer, Hometown Festival Theatre Summer Drama Camp, 2006

· Managed the second season of the HFT Summer Drama Camp, including writing a $800 Foundation Grant

Producer/Director, Hometown Festival Theatre Summer Drama Camp, 2005

· Managed the inaugural season of the HFT Summer Drama Camp, including a $500 National Endowment for the Arts Rural Initiatives Grant; taught camp sessions and directed the final performance

Receptionist/Mailroom Assistant, Giant Insurance Company, 2004-2005

Managed and directed incoming calls; greeted and provided hospitality for clients; wrote and managed correspondence for upper-level executives; assisted with mailroom and postal services

Subscription Sales Associate, Famous Orchestra, 2004

Led outgoing sales calls to lapsed orchestra subscribers; earned “top seller” designation for the last three consecutive months of service

Critiques are welcome, though not required. I just wanted to provide a reference for this post.

Career Fun Fair: The Resume Rodeo and the Importance of Career Trajectory

2008-02-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

Today was the first in a series of Career Fair Events hosted by my university. We'll call it the Resume Rodeo, because it's real name was equally silly.

The hook? Get a free resume critique by local HR representatives.

The catch? What you have to do while you wait.

I showed up, resume in hand, expecting to be able to sit quietly and read The Amber Spyglass until my name was called. Instead, they shepherded us all into rows of chairs where we had to listen to employer pitches from Giant Fast Food Franchise and Giant Big Box Store(s). Sure, the fast food reps were theoretically telling us "helpful interview tips," like "don't chew gum!" (Seriously? People don't know that?) But what they were really doing was promoting how much fun it would be to work as a shift manager, or, in the case of one Big Box, an "Executive Team Leader," who does all of the same things everyone else on the retail floor does but has the ability to decide who's turn it is to go on break.

I was really disappointed in my university. Yes, fast food places need shift managers; but (as I blogged earlier), as graduates of the flagship public institution in the state, shouldn't our Career Services program be promoting careers that are a little more... career-oriented? Or at least something that pays in salary instead of wage?

After an hour of this, it was my turn for the Resume Rodeo. I think I was the only graduate student getting her resume critiqued, and my HR rep wasn't prepared for what I set before her. She couldn't find anything wrong with the layout, or the wording (although she did suggest I reframe my directing credits as management credits; this prompted her to ask "as a director, how many people were you directly responsible for supervising?" and I responded "usually between 30 and 50," which made her jaw hit the floor).

Then we got down to the real question; the reason I was at the Resume Rodeo in the first place. I asked the HR rep how I could present my combination of directing credits, professional theatre management credits, professional writing credits, and all of my unrelated but transferable "doin' it for the money" office experience as a package that an employer would understand or appreciate.

Her answer surprised me. She said "When I look at your resume, I see a person who must be very talented at a number of things, and that's good. But as an employer, I see a person who doesn't know what she wants. You've done so many different things in the past four years that you seem unfocused. I'm looking for someone who's been climbing a path towards a specific goal."

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about this in Bait and Switch -- her discovery that employers found any deviation from a traditional path a justification not to hire someone. It didn't matter if the deviation was because of health issues, or parenthood, or an attempt at entrepreneurship or freelancing; once you stepped off the path, you were sunk.

The "I see a person who doesn't know what she wants" comment was stranger still, because all of the resume books in the world say not to make it about you want, but about what you have done for other employers and what you can do for this new potential employer. Ironically, at this point in my career I don't know, exactly, what I want; but everything on my resume is something that I very much wanted to do, and don't feel like I should regret doing.

When should I have started aiming towards the goal? And what should the goal have been?

His Dark Materials: A Note On Names

2008-02-03T13:04:00.001-05:00

A brief note before I launch into The Amber Spyglass:

Given what we know about Pullman's naming predilections, we can assume that the metaphors of the last book will have something to do with Lies and Free Will defeating the Angel of Death and the Sexy Spokeswoman for the Republican Party. ^__^

Oh, and Serafina turns out to be an Angel. Somehow.

To be nitpicky for a moment: since Lord Asriel is currently building an army to attack God, he's not actually the Angel of Death, and his name should be something like Lord Lucius. On the other hand, since Will and Lyra already figured out that certain things "switch names" in various worlds (e.g. electrons and amber), perhaps in Lyra's world Asriel was Lucifer, and vice versa.

(I posted on Ultrabrown that I wanted a professional job as a fact-checker someday. I get a kick at poking around details.)

Catch y'all later -- is there some game or something going on this afternoon?

Live-Blogging His Dark Materials, Part II

2008-02-03T00:02:00.000-05:00

Read The Subtle Knife in two stretches over the course of the day, the first in a Starbucks, which I don't recommend (I had gotten a gift card from my temp agency, and had an absolutely disgusting, oversugared mocha coffee thing).

Anyway. Will probably start Amber Spyglass tonight, but I want to write down my thoughts before I peek ahead.

The most interesting part of the philosophy of Subtle Knife can be summed up in two quotes:

Both the Oblation Board and the Specters of Indifference are bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Specters feast on it, but it's Dust both of them are obsessed by.

Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.

So Dust, which equals consciousness and/or Angels, settles on a human body when he or she gains life experience. However, once this dust is taken away, life becomes meaningless and the person becomes seriously depressed/mentally ill/catatonic.

What's puzzling me is that if these novels are truly "atheistic" as the critics claim, then they should indicate that a human being can live a full and complete life without needing religious belief or faith. Yet Angels seem inexorably linked to the idea of faith. One can't believe in Angels without believing in God, or at least in a power stronger than what can be seen on Earth. Perhaps Pullman will explain that Angels are linked to science; special particles within atoms or something like that.

It's also interesting that Dust is also explained as "consciousness." We're back around to that free will argument again, and I'm interested to see how Pullman plays it.

Looking back on the "living is hateful, and death is no better" quote: it seems linked with my earlier reflection on the sadness of "the loss of possibility." People have asked me before how I stay in good spirits about things, and... well, first of all the truth is that I don't always stay in good spirits, but I think part of my general ebullience is that I see my life as a story and am very interested to find out what is going to happen next. Lost in Dworka Sector? That'll make a good story. Nothing in the kitchen but a bag of dal and a box of crackers, and no cash in the bank account? I'm really excited to see where I'm going to go with that one. Broke the ol' foot? Now I get to see what an operating room looks like!

I know it's cavalier, but it has to do with my belief in possibility. Something interesting is bound to happen, and I can't wait to find out what it is. Would Pullman consider this belief "childlike?" I suppose I'll have to read to the end to find out.

Other musings:

* Though it isn't stated, I'm assuming Serafina Pekkala escapes being killed by Specters because Lee Scoresby used his flower to summon her. Interesting that the flower, which was given to Lee so that he might be saved by Serafina, saves the witch instead.

* Specters, on Earth, manifest themselves as mental illnesses. That's fascinating. Since this novel is based in science, Pullman must be suggesting that chemical imbalances in the brain are caused by a lack of Dust.

* Specters are also, apparently, Dementors. Black-robed creatures who suck out your soul by putting their mouth to yours. As Prisoner of Azkaban was published two years after Subtle Knife, I'm giving the credit for the idea to Pullman. Unless, of course, you consider the Ringwraiths (again, fifteen-gazillionth person to note this).

* Specters could, of course, actually be Dementors (in a parallel universe)... because that parallel world Ruta Skadi talks about, where young men and women fly around on brooms doing magic, is totally Hogwarts.

* Even though Grumman thinks he has broken his oath to Lee Scoresby, I'm betting what he tells Will actually does more to protect Lyra than if he hadn't said anything at all.

* I hope in the next book we get to see Mary Malone fall in love with someone, and I hope it's implied that they have fantastic, passionate s3x.

* Oh, and the only Indian character we've seen in the books (so far) runs a convenience store.

Enough for now. We'll chat again when I've finished the trilogy.

Broken-Toed Yoga

2008-02-02T20:19:00.000-05:00

I am delighted to report that there are a number of yoga exercises that can be performed with a foot encased in a soft cast and orthopedic shoe.

Triangle, for one. And plow.

Essentially, anything that doesn't force me to bend the foot (in other words, no down dog and no cobra and no child's pose).

This is great.

I can also technically do sit-ups with my foot like this, although that is less exciting. (Friggin' sit-ups.)

I am so much happier now that I can get back to my quasi-yoga practice again.

Live-Blogging His Dark Materials

2008-02-02T11:55:00.000-05:00

When my poor foot went under the knife, a friend loaned me the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy, as a recuperation present. 900 pages guaranteed to keep me off my feet, as it were.

For whatever reason, I missed Dark Materials the first time the books were published (1995-2000), which puzzles me. I can only assume that it was because this "atheist fantasy trilogy" never made it to my Midwestern hometown school library. Certainly I read every fantasy book on the local shelves, including The Prydain Chronicles (loved), The Dark is Rising (hated), and the Enchanted Forest books (the first in the series is possibly the best fantasy parody ever).

Anyway. I just finished Golden Compass (in one long stretch) and am going to drop a few responses. Here be spoilers, obviously.

* I can't take Lord Asriel seriously because of his name. Poor guy. Yes, he was originally named after the Angel of Death (and the name also shows up in Madeline L'Engle's Many Waters as one of the seraphim), but whenever I hear the name I am prompted, however unfortunately, to think of Lord Asriel Abyss.

* What prompted Roger to accompany Lyra in the last chapters? Pullman never says. Chapter 20 ends with Lyra telling Iorek that she is going to find Lord Asriel, and Chapter 21 begins with Roger riding along beside her. Because of the plot twist at the ending, I feel like we missed a scene where Lyra invites Roger, or Lyra decides she needs Roger with her, or Roger begs to come and Lyra finally relents.

* The story contains a lot of familiar tropes (Lyra's an orphan who turns out to be of noble blood, etc.), but what makes it stand out are the philosophies woven through the book. I think I'm probably the fifteen-gazillionth reviewer to make that comment. I'm very interested to see where Pullman goes with this Dust idea, particularly as I already know (thank you, Salon) that the series ends with... well, I won't be like Salon's movie review and spoil it for you.

* I can't help reading the fixing of the daemon in adulthood as a metaphor for "the end of possibility." Thank you, quarterlife crisis.

* On that matter, although I know from another movie review (which I'm not going to take the time to look up) that Pullman, unlike C. S. Lewis, is pro-maturity and pro-sex, I find it a little troubling that all of the adults presented in Golden Compass are tragically flawed. Grow up, kids. Embrace the Dust. So you can turn into... an unctuous Scholar? a crabby Gyptian? Mrs. Coulter?

* Had to laugh that the biggest villain in the book (so far) is called Mrs. Coulter.

* Loved the chapters where the bears wanted daemons. I think by the time I finish this trilogy I'm going to want a daemon.

* After finishing the book and then going to YouTube to watch the movie trailer, I was surprised (and disappointed) to hear Lyra's name pronounced "Lyra" instead of "Lira." Since Lyra spends most of the book lying her way out of things, this suggests that Pullman's naming creativity is on par with J. K. Rowling's (who named a future werewolf "Remus Lupin," and then expected us to be surprised when he started baying at the moon). It also suggests that Lord Asriel will probably turn out to be the Angel of Death, after all.

* I was also surprised to see the daemons presented as solid creatures. I had imagined them to be slightly transparent, airy, ethereal. Having the soul of a cat running alongside you is not the same as having an actual cat, after all.

* And on that note, what a great book to read while snuggled next to a kitty. Every time Pantalaimon got some cuddling, Miri did too. ^__^

* Oh, and if this is one of those books where, at the end, Pantalaimon turns into his final form but the narrator coyly doesn't tell us what it is, I'm going to throw all 900 pages across the room.

On to The Subtle Knife!

American Girl Has Introduced A New Doll. This Time, She's A Pole Dancer.

2008-02-01T19:37:00.001-05:00

Okay, not really.

But doesn't she look like one?

Julie, btw, seems based off of the same model as the retired Kailey doll. Also, I know too much American Girl trivia.

Julie's also got a "friend doll," Ivy Ling. Ivy, AG's first "second-gen" doll (assumed via context -- I can't confirm it until I sneak into Borders and read the book), deals with a rather predictable culture-clash scenario:

The only place Ivy feels at home is at gymnastics. But this year the big gymnastics tournament is scheduled for the same day as the annual Ling family reunion.

Someone on that creative team watched a little too much Bend It.

Ivy is also being promoted as AG's "first Asian doll," despite the release of Jess Akiko McConnell in 2005. Jess, however, was promoted as AG's "first biracial doll." Incidentally, she and Ivy share the same face model, which goes to prove that AG thinks all Asian dolls, whether Irish-Japanese-American or Chinese-American, look alike.

No, wait.

What it really proves is that I know way too much American Girl trivia.

OMG. I Touched A Wii.

2008-01-31T20:41:00.000-05:00

So, in honor of my current gimpiness, a friend offered to let me park in her driveway (which is across the street from my departmental building and much closer than the student parking lot).

When I went back at the end of the day to retrieve my car, I found that it had been blocked in... by about six other cars.

I gimped up to the porch and rang the doorbell.

When my friend opened the door, I saw why there were so many people crowded into the living room.

She had just bought a Wii.

There was mutual squealing and screaming.

And, as everyone else was taking turns passing around the Wiimote, I was very kindly worked into the rotation.

What is it like to touch a Wii?

Pure fantasticness. The future of gaming is here, my friends.

Now I want one. Like, super really. The only thing that would be cooler than having a Wii would be having a Wii with a WiiHelmet that you could wear over your eyes (remember? like that short-lived "virtual reality" craze in the early-1990s, which Piers Anthony, among others, chronicled in the novel Killobyte?) so it looked like you were actually inside the game, 'cause that's pretty much what it's like.

Why is there no WiiHelmet?

Meh. There is still the Wii, and it is cool.

Strong Bones Weren't The Only Things Building Up

2008-01-31T12:33:00.000-05:00

So that whole "eat most of a block of cheese in one sitting" thing?

NOT RECOMMENDED.

Um... seriously. Don't do it.

Ouch.

"Just Because We Laugh At Stereotypes Doesn't Mean We Believe Them"

2008-01-30T22:17:00.001-05:00

As part of my graduate assistantship, I teach a section of the "Intro to Theatre" course (for non-majors). Today we were learning about improvisation.

During one improvisation, a male student chose to play a character in a stereotypically "flaming gay" manner. The scene went to the point where I felt like it had crossed the line between being tongue-in-cheek and being potentially offensive.

So, after the improvisation was over, I felt like I had to address the idea of stereotype. I began to explain that I wanted us to be a class who didn't perform stereotypes that might be offensive, or make our classmates uncomfortable.

A student raised his hand. "But the book says that the purpose of theatre is to offend people and make them uncomfortable."

Crap. This was true. The opening chapter of their textbook did give the standard "theatre is supposed to shake up the status quo" paragraph.

He wasn't finished. "And Avenue Q is full of stereotypes, and it's got a really stereotypical gay character, and everyone loves it!"

Then another student jumped in with a very serious "Look. The reason we all laughed at this character was because what he was doing was funny. Just because we laugh at stereotypes doesn't mean we believe them."

There was a murmur of agreement with that comment, and so I didn't press any further, told my class that my "Michael Scott moment" was over, and set up the next improvisation exercise.

But something about this still doesn't feel right to me. I mean, I don't think I'll get a chance to address the issue again with my class, but I don't think I handled it as well as I could have. Despite my students' assertions, I don't really think that our Millennial generation has 100% "stopped believing in stereotypes."

Had I been able to think faster on my feet, I should have turned it towards a talk about identity, and how stereotypes affect the way we see various identities. Maybe. But I don't know how to do that without marginalizing identities; the idea that some people are stereotyped and others aren't, etc. I couldn't even say "we shouldn't make fun of gay people because someone in this class might be gay" -- I started to, but shifted gears mid-sentence because that, in itself, sounded like it was making gay seem like less -- or different -- than the rest of us. Not to mention that when you say that, people all start looking around and trying to guess who the "secret gay person" is.

Have other teacher-readers dealt with situations like these before?

Calcium Equals Strong Bones, Right?

2008-01-30T22:13:00.000-05:00

So I'm doing better and walking more quickly... and I'm absolutely starving.

I have plenty of dal, thanks to my slow-cooker, but when I was driving home from class today all I could think of was "I want a cheese sandwich..."

A few hours and three cheese sandwiches later, the block of cheese is nearly gone.

Is this 'cause I'm growing bones back together?

Also: 500 bonus points for the first person to name the source of the following quote:

She finished my cheese. I had this brand-new brick of cheese. She devoured it.

So I Creep, Creep, Yeah...

2008-01-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

Okay. First day back on campus after the foot surgery and I am discovering just how difficult walking around is.

Scientifically, it's because the cast and shoe immobilize my foot, so I can't "push off" from my toes. I can't push off from anything. I take a step with my left, and then literally lift up the immobile right foot and set it down next to the left one.

Ca-CHUNK. You get the idea.

This is also a fairly slow and laborious process. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so laborious. It's kind of exhausting. Which is driving me crazy, since I'm the sort of person who tries to suck it up and keep putting one foot in front of the other (it's what saved me during many of my Indian adventures, for example; the ability to just keep walking despite pain, sun, food poisoning, and repeatedly getting lost).

Side anecdote: today, limping down the street towards my university building, I got offered a ride from a friendly guy in an electrician's truck. I hopped in, and he asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to the theatre building, and then he told me that he was also a MFA graduate... in my very program. I almost asked him to teach me how to become an electrician, instead. ^__^

Anyway. But I've got to figure out some better way to get around, because this method of "walking" isn't working. It takes me ten minutes to shuffle from one end of the building to the other. People have suggested I go on crutches, but I'm not sure that would increase my speed (not to mention that I wouldn't be able to carry things very well).

I'm going to have a meeting with our Alexander Technique instructor later this week, and I hope he'll give me some tips for how to limp more effectively. Just slugging it around today has made my entire body hurt, and I've got to figure out how to get across campus to teach my class tomorrow. Perhaps I'll start walking a half hour early.

Thoughts?

Dream Job?

2008-01-29T12:34:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night that I was running a successful business.

What was I doing?

Teaching adults how to engage in dramatic play (e.g. "make-believe") with their children.

Hmmm. Wonder if there's a market for this kind of thing.

Eat Pray Love Redux REDACTION

2008-01-29T11:57:00.000-05:00

Team, I just learned from Holly Corbett's sister Sara that Holly didn't actually write the Page Six article titled "My Year-Long Trip Changed My Life - FOR THE WORSE."

According to Sara, Holly did an interview for Page Six about her trip and spoke positively about her experiences, just like she does on The Lost Girls, and Page Six rewrote the story (including fabricating the headline quote). From Sara:

Unfortunately page six six six decided they wanted something juicer than the truth and the great experiences, and put a really bad spin on her decision.

Also, Holly didn't get paid for the article, which seems really unfortunate, esp. because she's getting lambasted at places like Jezebel and, formerly, here. (I've pulled my original post, which was about how writing negative travel articles made all travelers look bad.)

Interestingly, the Jezebel commenters have also figured this out, and are jumping to her defense. (Well, most of them.)

Thanks, Sara. I hope that the Lost Girls blog posts something about this, because they're bound to get a lot of traffic from people curious to know who Holly Corbett is.

An Ode To My Slow-Cooker

2008-01-28T22:28:00.000-05:00

Oh my slow-cooker
You were such a nice gift
By helping me cook lentils
You help me live a life of thrift.

Oh my slow-cooker
You are so freakin' sweet
Add water in the morning
When I come back, there's food to eat.

Oh my slow-cooker
You neither overboil
Nor leave those stains on my stove
'Cause I would never stir often enough, and dal goo would run out of the sides of the pot, and leave those stains that kind of looked like foam but were actually really hard and required me to scrub at my range top with a sponge which really was too much work and (oh wait, I've got it) toil.

And you make the dal have such a lovely soft texture...
Yum.

Update on the Giant Blue Foot

2008-01-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

My giant blue foot, which I was mistakenly calling a "Smurf Foot" until I remembered that Smurfs wear white footed leggings (except for Smurfette, who wears heels -- btw, if you want to read something bizarre and anti-feminist, check out Smurfette's biography), seems to be healing a bit.

There's no pain left except for an occasional dull throbbing, so I'm off the Vicodin (for now).

I haven't done much walking because my doctor told me to stay in bed for these past three days (I go back to my university work tomorrow), but I can already tell that walking is going to be really weird.

For starters, although I have a complete range of mobility in my ankle, I have no mobility within the foot itself, and the combination cast and orthopedic shoe put a lot of weight on my leg. To understand what walking is like, strap a large brick to the bottom of your foot and see how well you get around.

I told my roommate that I wanted one of those signs that said "Slow-Moving Vehicle."

Showering is no big deal (strap on a garbage sack and tape it to the skin), but getting dressed is tricky. Even putting on sweatpants is a long, inch-by-inch process. Do you remember what it was like trying to get a pair of pants on a Ken doll? It's the same problem.

Every once in a while I can feel the pins, but they don't really hurt. They just feel... there. That's cool. I'm dorky enough to think it's cool. ^__^

This sort of thing is theoretically supposed to teach me patience and blah blah, but I'm already pretty good for patience and am more interested in finding out how to get around without completely screwing up my body alignment, etc. Thoughts?

Michelle Obama Is Rocking Awesome, Too

2008-01-26T19:53:00.001-05:00

A friend forwarded me this article about Michelle Obama, which I think everyone should read.

Michelle Obama apparently cured Barack of commitment-phobia (the story of the wedding proposal is priceless), and she's fighting for more family-friendly policies in the workplace.

Oh, and Barack still does his full share of chores at home, even though he's running for president.

He does the laundry, makes the bed, takes out the garbage, she says.
"The girls need to see him doing that, and he knows I need him to do that," she says.
"That was a meeting of the minds that we had to reach.
"I wasn't content with saying, `You're doing important things in the world, so go off and be important and I'll handle everything else here."

That's fantastic. The fact that they still take out their own garbage is fantastic. And the fact that Barack is still taking out the garbage in the middle of all this campaigning means that he knows how to live in the "real world."

Which can only be good for America, 'cause we've been governed by a man living in an astonishingly fake world for far too long.

Obama Won South Carolina!

2008-01-26T19:47:00.000-05:00

This is a fantastic excuse for me to play one of my favorite John Linnell songs. ^__^

I am so excited, especially since the sources say he creamed Clinton.

I'd jump up and down, if I could. Barack Obama is the most rockingest presidential candidate ever.

IF YOU ARE NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE THEN OMGWTF REGISTER!

Everything You Need To Know About Toe Surgery: or, Pretty Blue Foot!

2008-01-26T12:03:00.001-05:00

So yesterday I had surgery on my (right) big toe, since the break was complicated enough that it couldn't simply be buddy-taped to my index toe.

(It is a testament to my nerdiness that when I saw my own x-rays, the first thing I said was "cool!" and then when the doctor gave me this "no, it's not cool" look, added "I mean, that looks like it's going to be difficult to fix.")

I showed up at the hospital ready to roll up a pant leg and let the surgeon do his work, which... shows how little I know about surgery.

Things I learned:

1. I got the full "awesome" treatment, which included being wheeled around the (tiny) hospital in a wheelchair. Am waiting to see how much they're going to charge me for the ride.

2. I had to remove all of my clothing, including my bra, because the three metal hooks "might interfere with the equipment." The hospital gown they gave me had been pre-warmed for my comfort. I wish all of my clothes could come to me pre-warmed.

3. The operating room (operating theatre?) looked pretty much like they do on TV. I was hooked up to lots of beeping machines, there were those giant round lightbulb things hanging over me, etc.

4. The local anesthesia hurt terribly going in, but after that I didn't feel a thing.

5. Not even when the surgeon took what appeared to be a small electric screwdriver and literally screwed things into my toe.

6. There was a nurse whose duty seemed to be to stand by my head and ask me questions, so as to distract me from what was going on at my feet (she also prevented me from craning my neck up to watch, unfortunately). What question did she lead off with? "You have a very pretty voice. Where are you from?"

6.5. To tie in to the "where are you from?" question and Manish's recent post on mispronouncing Sanjay, when I was first introduced to my surgeon he asked me ("building rapport," no doubt) why I pronounced my name incorrectly. I explained that it used Germanic rather than Italianate vowel sounds, and he knew what I was talking about, which was actually pretty neat. Those med-school grads are smart.

7. At the end, they gave me a choice of colors for the soft cast which I will be wearing for the next 4-6 weeks. It should be obvious which color I picked.

8. The soft cast (and its combination orthopedic shoe) are gigantic. So much so, that when I was in the recovery room trying to put my pants back on, the nurse helping me said "you might not be able to get that foot into any of your pants, honey" and brought me a pair of scrubs to wear home. I'm excited to see how much these cool scrubs are going to cost me. Also curious to know what I'll be wearing for the next 4-6 weeks.

9. Vicodin rocks. The nurse did warn me that I would wake up at 2:30 a.m. in great pain regardless of the Vicodin, and whadda-you-know, she was right. I wonder why.

10. When I go back to school I am seriously going to get a cane from our prop shop. The surgeon and the nurses all told me "you can walk normally on this," but I have found that trying to put any weight on the foot results in giant screaming pain and thus have been literally hopping back and forth to only the most necessary places, like the bathroom. (If this continues for the next day or so I will call them to ask if the pain is "normal.")

11. If you're ever planning to have surgery, go to your local animal shelter and adopt a cat. Having a kitty purring on your chest is the best thing to make you feel better. If I were the entrepreneurial type, I would start a business that rents cats to people recuperating from illnesses and injuries. (The business would also include a human assistant who would stop by every day and feed the animal, clean the litterbox, etc. Oh, and feel free to tell me that this business already exists.)

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted as to my recovery.

Everything Old Is New Again

2008-01-24T19:02:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid (we're talking five years old here), my sister and I used to make our own "soundtracks" by holding a tape recorder up to our television set while we watched a movie. Using this method, we created "albums" for The Sound of Music, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Heidi's Song, and all of our other childhood favorites.

We didn't just record the songs; we actually recorded every bit of underscoring throughout the film. Sometimes, we recorded our voices as well, arguing over who got to turn the tape recorder off.

(When I was older and found out that record companies actually produced professional-grade movie soundtracks, which included not only songs but also underscoring, I was more than a bit miffed that someone had already thought of this concept which, previously, I believed I had invented.)

Anyway. Two decades later, after CDs and mp3s and Napster and iTunes and the fact that I can have any song in the world I want for just 99 cents, I'm doing the exact same thing.

I'm making myself an album by going to YouTube, finding fanvideos of songs I'd like copies of, and holding a microphone up to my laptop speakers.

The audio quality is fairly poor, but then again... so am I.

And necessity is the mother of invention.

(I could write another post, at another time, about how when I was a kid we had rabbit ears taped to the top of our television and my sister and I watched hour after hour of fuzzy PBS; and now, after flat-screen and high-def and TiVO and everything else, I've still got rabbit ears taped to the top of my television and actually watch most of the things I'm interested in seeing on tiny, fuzzy YouTube screens. The technology keeps getting better, but somehow I never catch up with it. Meh.)

Still Broken-Footed, But Now It's Cool

2008-01-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

Went to the surgeon today, and it turns out that A. my foot will be very easy to fix and B. my insurance will cover 80/20.

Which is nice.

I was given the opportunity to either be completely anesthetized, or to just have my big toe numbed.

The cost differential was a bit ginormous ($700 for the entire body, $100 for the toe), so I elected that they numb the toe only.

Which means... I get to watch the surgeon work on it.

This is making my nerd heart very happy.

Broken-Hearted and Broken-Footed

2008-01-23T22:51:00.000-05:00

I have to see an orthopedic surgeon tomorrow.

To quote a friend: "But that's the most expensive surgeon of all! My husband was going to be an orthopedic surgeon before he decided to become a professor... yeah, we regret that mistake all the time..."

I was going to write a quirky post about the ironic fun of breaking my big toe and driving my car into a ditch in a two-day span, mocking up my mishaps Bridget Jones-style and dubbing myself Calamity Jane, only without the guns (and without the anti-Native American rhetoric).

But mostly I am feeling miserable about two aspects:

1. How am I going to pay for this? (The first thing out of my doctor's mouth after she told me that I needed to see a surgeon was "and your insurance won't cover it.")

and

2. How long will it be before I can start doing yoga again? (Not doing regular stretchies makes Blue very cranky. Friends can attest.)

It's really weird to be sitting here knowing that there's a bone broken somewhere inside of me. The strange thing is that it doesn't hurt at all. Which makes me, probably, very lucky.

w00t lucky!

HALP! SKOOLS IZ EATIN ME!

2008-01-17T18:06:00.000-05:00

Back to being a graduate student.

Doing something constantly. 33 contact hours/wk plus homeworks.

That means... the lovely yoga practice schedule I set for myself while temping (which basically involved me doing yoga during the hour of daily syndicated Simpsons episodes on Fox) has gone out the cliched window and is being replaced by unenviable softness. (Someone remind me that guys like a little softness, 'kay?)

It also means I have no clue what happened in Michigan on Tuesday, except it involved Romney doing something and Clinton doing something else which she shouldn't have done because the DNC hadn't approved Michigan anyway.

On the plus side, I really like my coursework this semester. I convinced my advisers that every theatre person should be well-versed in the art of running a business, and so I am taking two grad-level business courses. It's such an interesting dynamic to go from grad seminars which are all about the interpersonal (i.e. "working with actors") and which contain very few "right answers" (but plenty of wrong ones), to a course where I can, quite satisfactorily, point to figures and numbers and have them lead me to a logical, viable conclusion.

So if I post sporadically for a while... well... yeah. I'm in teh classroom, teachin' teh undergrads. Etc.

This Is Why I Can't Have Nice Things

2008-01-15T00:29:00.000-05:00

So I managed to snag myself a lovely glass bottle when I was at a departmental lunch meeting.

Brilliant, I thought. Now I have a re-usable water container that doesn't leach bisphenol-A.

I was all ready to carry that water bottle around with me, refilling it and washing it, for the entire semester. I slipped it into the bottle holster on my messenger bag and set out to seize the day!

Six hours later (the first six of an eleven-hour stretch; I have 30 contact hours/week this semester) I reached for my bottle holster to find it... empty.

Lost, in less than one day.

I just hope whoever finds it puts it in a recycle bin or something.

Lucca Vs. Marle: The Dating Stages of Girl Gamers

2008-01-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Samrat Sharma just wrote a post about the four stages of dating a gamer:

Level two, which comes about very soon to fairly early, depending on the season (Christmas deluge plays weird murder games in the relationship) is marked by resigned acceptance. Go on then, she thinks, play your stupid games. At least I know where you are at all times. At least you’re not eyeing my best friend, or shagging someone on the side.

Probably true, if the lady involved is not a gamer herself. But what if she is?

Stage One: Wow. There's A Girl Who Likes The Same Stuff I Like!

This is the stage in which the girl (not yet a girlfriend) reveals that she is a gamer. She often becomes a girlfriend by virtue of that revelation alone. I once got a date by using the pickup line "so, how many of Shadow's dreams did you get?"

Stage Two: Where We Play So Many Video Games We Forget To Make Out

Title's self-explanatory. The relationship starts out with about a 50:50 "games vs. nookie" ratio, but after about a month turns into around 90:10. Sure, there's the casual, friendly kiss when you walk in the door, but then you get handed a controller and all your energy's devoted on making sure Pikachu beats Link.

Stage Three: Enter the Tall, Blonde, Hot, Non-Gamer Girl

See, what happens is that by becoming your guy's gamer buddy, you fall into the role of the "smart, mechanical girl." And we all know what happens to that girl. Chrono dumps Lucca for Marle, Cloud dumps Tifa for Aeris, and your guy will soon dump you for the tall, leggy blonde who has no idea how to beat him at Mario Kart 64 and thinks that his little video game habit is "so cute!"

The guy will offer you his friendship, as a consolation prize, and also because he needs someone to play games with. This will end, however, as soon as the new girlfriend gets jealous (which is pretty soon).

But, if Samrat's post is right, all of the Luccas of the world can smile vindictively knowing that Marle is going to leave Chrono for an i-banker. ^__^ (Unless, of course, Chrono uses Samrat's "cheat code.")

I Made Idlis! I Also Tried To Make Gulab Jamuns, But They Didn't Turn Out.

2008-01-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

I haven't done a cooking post in a long time. Mostly because I haven't cooked any new recipes recently. I made a delicious karhi yesterday, which prompted my roommate to offer to pay me to cook dinner for her every night, forever.

And today, for the first time, I made idlis.

Technically, I didn't make idlis. Technically, I added water to an idli mix and steamed it in an egg poacher (which Bitterlemons had suggested I use instead of shelling out for an idli pan).

But when they were done, they looked like idlis and they tasted like idlis, which made me very, very happy. (To be fair, they weren't as fluffy as the idlis I got in India, which I am assuming was the fault of the idli mix and not the egg poacher. I suppose I should get a grinder and start making my own batter if I want authentic fluffiness.)

I also made chutney and sambar, both of which I have made before. Sambar turned out a little thick, but that was okay.

And then... well, when I was at the desi grocery, there was a box of gulab jamun mix sitting right next to the box of idli mix. It only cost seventy-nine cents, and I do love gulab jamuns... of course, the idiocy of trying to recreate a dessert made from fresh paneer and rose essence by adding water to some white powder that can be purchased for $0.79...

The results were disgusting, to say the least, and I managed to fill the entire apartment with smoke during the "deep-frying" part. From now on, if I want gulab jamuns, I'm going to have to buy the ones that come in the tin can.

Clinton Didn't Actually Win New Hampshire; She And Obama Tied For First

2008-01-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

I just realized something, and blame my ignorance of the presidential primary system for not bringing it to your attention earlier.

Hillary Clinton did not win New Hampshire.

Sure, she won the popular vote. And that two-percentage-point lead over Obama (which amounts to about 8,000 votes) has become the subject of every political analyst in the country.

OMG Clinton won. Was it because she cried? Was it because white people in New Hampshire hate black people? Was it because the local universities were closed, so Obama couldn't claim his youth vote? Was it because of Gloria Steinem and her "most-emailed" editorial?

Even I fell into that trap. I saw the results and thought that Clinton had won.

But she didn't. Clinton won the popular vote. That's all. In terms of delegates (the people who actually count, since the presidential nomination -- like the presidential election -- does not rely on the popular vote but is instead based on the number of awarded delegates from each state), Clinton and Obama tied. Nine delegates each.

It's worth noting, btw, that currently Clinton has 24 total delegates and Obama has 25. This is going to be a tight race.

And why aren't these statistics on the front page of the newspapers, instead of all of this analyzing the decisions of 8,000 people whose votes didn't actually affect the final outcome? (Of course, the incessant analysis will probably affect the future outcome: the Michigan primary, next week.)

Grrr politics.

College Student Leaves "Ambiguous" Status Message On Facebook; University Responds By Slipping Expulsion Letter Under Dorm Room Door

2008-01-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

We're back to the serious now, Team Readers.

Do you remember Allen Lee, the high school student who got arrested for following a “do not judge or censor what you are writing” classroom journaling project and writing the phrase "Drugs Drugs Drugs are fun. Stab, Stab, Stab?"

(Incidentally, although the story was in several major newspapers when it first broke, none of them followed through with what happened to Mr. Lee after his arrest. Allen Lee was charged with disorderly conduct, but nowhere on the internet can I find out if he was actually convicted.)

Now Valdosta State University, Home of the Blazers, has expelled sophomore T. Hayden Barnes. The reason?

In a letter apparently slipped under his dorm room door, Ronald Zaccari, the university’s president, wrote that he “present[ed] a clear and present danger to this campus” and referred to the “attached threatening document,” a printout of an image from an album on Barnes’s Facebook profile. The collage featured a picture of a parking garage, a photo of Zaccari, a bulldozer, the words “No Blood for Oil” and the title “S.A.V.E.-Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage,” a reference to a campus environmental group and Barnes’s contention that the president sought to make the structures part of his legacy at the university.

Using the word "memorial," even in satire, now apparently constitutes a death threat.

It gets worse:

As additional evidence of the threat posed by Barnes, the document referred to a link he posted to his Facebook profile whose accompanying graphic read: “Shoot it. Upload it. Get famous. Project Spotlight is searching for the next big thing. Are you it?” It doesn’t mention that Project Spotlight was an online digital video contest and that “shoot” in that context meant “record.” The appeal also mentions that Barnes’s profile stated, at one point, that he was “cleaning out and rearranging his room and thus, his mind, or so he hopes.” That was likely a status update, commonly used by Facebook members to update their friends on what they’re doing at a particular moment — whether literally or metaphorically.

Emphases mine. Both quotations come from Inside Higher Ed.

Wow. Barnes had been trying to organize students to protest the building of the aforementioned "Zaccari Memorial" Parking Garage, while simultaneously exploring amateur filmmaking and cleaning out his dorm room. Sounds like an average hyper-involved college sophomore to me (well, except for the "cleaning the dorm room" part). Does not sound like a threat.

And yet that expulsion notice got slipped under Barnes' door (was campus mail not working that day?), all the same.

On a slightly unrelated note, Taser International has just released the world's first "taser which is also an mp3 player!" It should come with a complimentary mp3 of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta:" Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me...

Can Avatars Age?

2008-01-10T19:42:00.000-05:00

You might ask, noting my fascination with computer-generated avatars, why I've never posted a Yahoo! Avatar on the blog.

My answer is... dunno. After all, I've made several. Why not post a few?

So I logged on to an ancient Yahoo account and pulled up my avatars.

Then I noticed something strange.

Although all of the avatars I made were based off of the same generic mold, they appear to age in a sort of logical progression. The most recent avatar looks decidedly older than the first one.

To wit:

At the far left we have an avatar from a few years ago, back when my chosen haircolor was much more "Little Mermaid" than "natural." (Herbal Essences Cinnaberry. I wouldn't recommend it.) I was a beginning grad student and still living off of a bunch of thrift-store clothes I bought in Minneapolis.

In the middle we have one from last year, where I've tried to bridge the gap between "professional" and "casual." (People who teach theatre generally have to manage both, since their jobs require them to do all kinds of extreme physical "actor-y" things.) Note the layering. As I once said, to a dear friend, "Remember when women only had to wear one shirt? Now we have to buy at least two if we want ourselves to be completely covered."

Also note the colors. I have a weakness for wearing color, even if it doesn't always suit me.

And lastly there's my most recent avatar: SuperTemp! Clearly it's "Take Your Cat To Work Day." And don't I just look as polished as can be?

Anyway. The last avatar looks considerably older than the first one, although they're all cast from the same mold. It's like The Picture of Dorian Gray, except I'm -- sniff! -- getting older too...

Meezes!

2008-01-10T00:16:00.000-05:00

For those of you not in the know, one of my favorite games is the "can I make it look like me?" avatar game.

Today's adventure took me to Meez.com, home of the 3D Animated Avatar!

I've never been rendered in three-dimensional animation before.

Neither has my cat.

But I think she's enjoying all the petting.

Oh, and I did have the option to clothe myself in a blue salwar, although for some reason it did not include a dupatta, so I elected not to wear it (it would feel so... incomplete).

Anyway.

Here it is!