The Online Protest Idea's Becoming A Scholarly Project!

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

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

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!

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?

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

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

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.*