Synaxis TV

In case you didn't know, I've moved on over to http://www.JasonCRomero.com.

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This was the week that classes started. My classes were East Asian youth, anthropology of contemporary Mexico, politics of life—a Foucault biopower/biopolitics class, and Japanese.

Daily Journal Entry #11702 01/13/08 Sun

• Read an excerpt from the book Made to Stick, and their point on emotions reminded me of both (1) an argument I made for the importance of affect in ethnographies and (2) my displeasurable response to the aesthetics of (quantitative) sociology, as opposed to (qualitative) sociocultural anthropology: "How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something. In the case of movie popcorn, we make them feel disgusted by its unhealthiness. The statistic '37 grams' doesn't elicit any emotions. Research shows that people are more likely to make a charitable gift to a single needy individual than to an entire impoverished region. We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions." (Got there from this New York Times article that says, "As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off.")
• Found an incredibly funny and surreal video about the hand vagina (it's safe for work).

• Went to Murphy's to meet up with some of the atheists. This guy Elliott, a Christian, argued for the inclusion of intelligent design in the science classroom, and I explained that in asking for its inclusion he was actually asking for a complete transformation of what we consider to be "science."

  Daily Journal Entry #11703 01/14/08 Mon

• My Japanese teacher was born in Tokyo, went to school there, and also worked for the Board of Education there.
• Figured out how to download BBC radio shows and found a place to download NPR. Pure heaven.
• Lifehacker's combination of feeds and tags reminded me of an idea I had about having high priority feeds that only feature "important" posts, so you can stay subscribed to someone, but not drown in their content.
• Super nap from about 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

• Had a really good time at C-Street's industrial night. They played Dominion by Sisters of Mercy and Tanz Mit by Laibach.

  Daily Journal Entry #11704 01/15/08 Tue

• East Asian youth started off on a neoliberalism tip (and Karen complimented me on my hair).
• Japanese.
• Rosanne exposed me to Corey Worthington, the Australian guy with the famous sunglasses.
• It was way cold. It got down to 24F around 4 p.m.
• Went over the syllabus in politics of life.
• Started using /shrug instead of *shrug* in IM conversations.

• Sherri Shepherd from The View hears voices too.

  Daily Journal Entry #11705 01/16/08 Wed

• Japanese.
• I worked on my journal at the Courtyard Cafe. This girl had a teddy bear charm on her phone that was bigger than the phone.
• Went over the syllabus in anthropology of Mexico.
• Went to El Toro with Ricky and John. Ricky said he didn't understand why people in the social sciences couldn't just go to another department when they encountered a problem that was handled better in another discipline, like they do in the natural sciences. When I explained that each discipline has its own turf, history, politics, and theories, he argued that we just haven't come up with a precise language to communicate with each other, as they have in the natural sciences. I rhetorically asked if he had ever even heard of semiotics, which I consider to offer some technical precision, and, when he said no, I said that the social sciences doesn't get to benefit from an early and extended education in mathematics, physics, and chemistry the way that the natural sciences does. We got onto morality at some point, and I argued that it makes the most sense to understand the history of morality in terms of changing styles, but, when he argued that we have simply gotten better at discerning moral truth, I just gave up.
• Rosanne and I chatted about golf claps, Valentine's hearts, and harmony balls.

• At some point I came across Minpaku, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan.

  Daily Journal Entry #11706 01/17/08 Thu

• Japanese.
• I discovered Tiny Living, which has "furnishings for small spaces," watched some great moments from the leaked Scientology video (and Jerry O'Connell's wonderful parody), downloaded a free copy of My Tiny Life, watched this bizarre hypnotism/virtual reality video, and got excited by embodied cognition.
• I gave an impromptu talk at the atheist group about the differences between "new atheists" and "friendly atheists." A curmudgeon took issues with the terms themselves and gave me a hard time in general about the whole endeavor. After he grumbled when I said that friendly atheists were pro-alliance (as opposed to new atheists being anti-religion), however, I did concede that I was still searching for the best terms to use. Almost everyone got riled up, though, when I said that new atheists had a bias towards men, which I supported with observations in our group of men showing a preference for debate, and women showing a preference for discussion. In the end, I said that we should at least be aware that these two perspectives exist in the atheist community, and that they should also be formally built into the structure of atheist organizations, such as by having a committee for each.

• I met some cool history grad students, Andy and Rachel, at Murphy's. Andy was drawn to my hair and was worried about how his puppy at home was doing. Rachel told me to read John Randolph's book The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism.

  Daily Journal Entry #11707 01/18/08 Fri

• Japanese.
• I had mixed feelings about Juno. The writing was a little too hip and witty to be believable at some points. The part that bothered me most, though, was when Juno proclaimed her love for Bleeker at the end. He seemed like such a lackluster character throughout the film that I wasn't convinced there was a good enough reason for her to have these feelings, and I felt that she was still a little too inexperienced in life for me to be able to fully respect her feelings, no matter how smart she was. I also didn't like how Jason Batemen's character, who had sacrificed so much for his wife's normative lifestyle, was made into some sort of bad guy, when it was Jennifer Garner's character that was the real villain.

• Went to Barfly with Bharath, Kiril, and Ricky. Someone was repulsed by my 2g1c name tag, and I facetiously argued that the video was an ironic anti-war statement against Bush, where the "stuff" is his lies, and it is being shoved into our mouths.

  Daily Journal Entry #11708 01/19/08 Sat

• Watched a great clip of Sarah Silverman's show with the following dialogue:

  “What do we want?”
  “The freedom to explore issues of race in American culture through the use of post-modern dramatic irony.”
  “When do we want it?”
  “We think it’s fairly obvious.”

• Watched the trailer for Teeth, which uses "vagina dentata" as its plot device.
• Kevin said, "Every time I hear Ira Glass laugh it reminds me of you. For years. Your laughs are almost identical." In my subsequent confirmation of this fact, I found some wonderful storytelling suggestions by Ira Glass!
• Went to salsa night at Radio Maria with Bharath, but I didn't dance.

• Shot my video late late late in the evening.

I finally have some insight into the motivations behind a common question many close friends have asked: "I know you would journal anyway, but why do you have to share it with complete strangers?"

Typically, I explain that the public nature of blogging is more a side effect of the means of publishing, where it is incredibly easy to reach a wide audience, than the result of pure intention. I also explain that I consider my blog to be "virtually private," given the work that someone would typically have to go through to stumble onto it. I always admit, however, that I do appreciate how blogging creates the possibility of making connections with people I might not interact with otherwise.

Today, though, I thought about creating a tumblelog in addition to my regular blog. Why, you might ask, would I need another blog? Well, I thought, it would be nice to have a place to put the incomplete thoughts, observations, and experiences that aren't worthy of being on my "real" blog. That was when it became clear.

As I thought forward to what a typical post might be like, I considered the unlikelihood of having any sort of audience, because of the sheer unreadability of such a blog. But then, if so poor in quality, why share? In that moment I saw that to publish such prattle would liken me to those dreadful students who utter unintentional non sequiturs and regard their words with far greater importance than they deserve.

The desire to have a tumblelog does point to a personal need for (yet another) avenue to release creative energy. But for your sake, brothers and sisters, I will keep those things private. After all, I'm not a narcissist.

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Daily Journal Entry #11695 01/06/08 Sun

• Went to eat breakfast at the scary McDonald's in downtown Dallas with Matt and Jacqui, then started my trip home to Champaign. I left around 11 a.m. and got to Champaign at about 1 a.m., which wasn't bad considering my trip to Texas. I listened to some Slate podcasts on the way home, and enjoyed seeing my subjectivity reflected in their mention of Sarte and David Lynch. My tribe is out there.

• I was finally able to pick up some presents that had been waiting for me when I got to my dorm. I got Rant from Chris, and Paprika and a digital voice recorder from Yvette et al.

  Daily Journal Entry #11696 01/07/08 Mon

• Lots of time on the Internet: feeds and chatting. The only significant and coherent activity I participated in was to look at microphones online. I also discovered two new terms: Electric News Gathering (ENG) and Electronic Field Production (EFP). In the evening I went to El Charro for dinner and their tacos were excellent. I opened a gift from Rosanne on the way there, and found that she got me a wonderful black thong with hot pink writing that says, "Mrs. George Michael."

  Daily Journal Entry #11697 01/08/08 Tue

• Helped Carolyn find another word for "bidirectional." I decided that reciprocal captured the relationship between humans and nature she was trying to get at best.
• Sent my unused copy of XP to Chris and got a Pilot Precise retractable .05 mm needle point pen at the Art Coop.
• Went to Cafe Kopi in the evening to eat dinner and write about pleasure. I got an open faced turkey and brie sandwich.
• After Kopi I walked across the street to read at The Blind Pig, ran into some friends, and talked to them about Boellstorff's The Gay Archipelago. They were playing great music, like James Brown and Curtis Mayfield ("Pusher Man"). When everyone left I did a little bit of reading while finishing up my Young's Double Chocolate Stout (so delicious).

• Told Marylee that the Rilo Kiley song I Never reminds me of Freddy Fender's Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

  Daily Journal Entry #11698 01/09/08 Wed

• Stayed in my room all day and picked up when I wasn't on the Internet.
• I think I may be switching from my Pilot Dr. Grip Gel to the Pilot Precise retractable .05 mm needle point pen as my main pen. I have trouble writing on surfaces sometimes, either because they are slick from being touched or because I am not writing on a hard surface. It is a bittersweet decision that, at the moment, is more bitter than sweet.

• Read a little of Mexico Profundo by Batalla while rummaging and it was pleasant to see how he thought at certain points. On pages 41-42 he says, "A basic causal factor in cultural diversity is the land base. Geographical variation, without being an absolute determinant of cultural differences, without doubt underlies many distinguishing characteristics of regional lifeways," which reminds me of Diamond's argument in Guns, Germs, and Steel, as well as Becker's notion that "everything has to be someplace." On page 54 he is critical of the fact that all of the Indian materials in the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park are on the second floor, "[Since] many visitors do not go through those rooms, because of fatigue or lack of interest, both factors [being] directly related to the layout of the Museum space," which reminds me of my own emphasis on pleasure when considering the human construction and experience of a space.

  Daily Journal Entry #11699 01/10/08 Thu

• I spent a lot of the day using Graphviz to visualize my social network.

  Daily Journal Entry #11700 01/11/08 Fri

• Finally sent my pony tail off to Locks of Love. Only took me five years.
• Looked around Jane Addams Book Shop, which is "a full-service antiquarian bookstore."
• Emo haircut at Ippatsu.
• Caught up on Weeds (surprised by the philosophical Mexican in the finale, and also left wondering if the series would continue).

• Pen sadness mitigated by figuring out that I could put the Precise cartridge in the Dr. Grip shell.

  Daily Journal Entry #11701 01/12/08 Sat

• Worked on my journal and caught up on feeds.

• Went to Ricky's to watch Touch of Evil. It was funny and ironic to see Charlton Heston play a Mexican. Though, I didn't have a strong response to this, or the way that Mexicans were represented in the film more generally. The movie itself was just okay, though Welles's performance was quite humorous.

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Daily Journal Entry #11688 12/30/07 Sun

• There was some miscommunication, so Yvette et al. had something to eat in Houston after they landed rather than immediately coming to Bryan for my party (my birthday is actually on the 31st). I tried to play something light from my music that everyone could listen to and chose Autechre's album Amber. My mom said, "Do we really have to listen to this?," and I said, "It's my birthday!" I was only joking, but it worked, so I went with it. I don't remember the last time I exerted my birthday power. Later, as we were all sitting around the table having a good time, a family argument appeared out of nowhere.

  Daily Journal Entry #11689 12/31/07 Mon

• My sister Jacqui gave me this awesome emo shirt with a bleeding heart.

• Time passed, and then we (Yvette et al.) went on a long trip to my cousin Denise's bar in Austin. It really wasn't my kind of scene, what with all the Tejano and cumbia. However, I did dance just a bit to some hip-hop, and the menudo was good. There was also family there that I don't see very often. My favorite part was when everyone's champagne glasses got filled with glitter. My other favorite part was when my cousin Tommy said, "Oh, you're an anthropologist? So you know Carlos Castaneda?" I had to tell him Castaneda had been debunked. Ah yes, another favorite moment was when Jacqui texted me to say, "Kendall and I agree, a little bit of you died inside tonight." It was my birthday. I turned 32.

  Daily Journal Entry #11690 01/01/08 Tue

• Went to Denise's restaurant for a long time and learned a lot of things about the family that I didn't know before.

• Tried to look at some shops on South Congress, but they were all closed, so I said goodbye to Jacqui and Matt and they left back to Fort Worth. While we were out there I asked my sister Yvette about a foreign film she saw with Darrell recently where the story was told from a number of different perspectives. My sister said it was confusing, but that the people they were with said this was common for movies from countries other than the United States. My sister asked, "But how do they know what happened? Do they just pick the version they like best?" I told my sister that this was a typical Western response, and that in anthropology there is a greater emphasis on getting at different perspectives, which represent people's actual experiences rather than some objective truth. I also explained that holding this anthropological view relieves some of the tension we face when communicating with others, because it creates room to understand different experiences, and also that this issue wasn't entirely foreign to Westerners, citing the gospels as an example. She paused, thought about it, then said this was a really helpful point for her and thanked me for bringing it up.

  Daily Journal Entry #11691 01/02/08 Wed

• Went to Coco Loco with my parents, and got into an argument.
• After that went to Aliens vs. Predator 2 with dad and my four nieces. It was really gory. An alien busted out of this young kids chest right after he saw one burst out of his father's chest. And later the aliens left these gaping holes where pregnant women's stomachs had been.

• Finished reading D'Andrade and Strauss's Human Motives and Cultural Models. The book wasn't as good as I thought and hoped it would be, mostly because they are arguing for a connection between culture and action, and I am already sold on this. They are also too rooted in connectionist language and thinking, popular in cognitive science, for my tastes. Either way, it's still good and reassuring to hear someone say, "A hoped-for by-product of this argument is to highlight the irrelevance of theoretical conceptions of culture which have no psychological reality and cannot be related to either action or feeling" (D'Andrade 1992:41). In addition, I appreciated the attention given to how motivations might be captured ethnographically.

  D'Andrade, Roy G. 1992. Schemas and Motivation. In Human Motives and Cultural Models. Claudia Strauss and Roy G. D'Andrade, Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Daily Journal Entry #11692 01/03/08 Thu

• My nieces watched an ungodly amount of television. (Wait, does saying it was ungodly make it a good thing? Must make a greater effort at decolonizing myself.)

• Quickly finished up with Barnard's History and Theory in Anthropology and Erickson and Murphy's A History of Anthropological Theory. Barnard is a concise upper-level book that would be good for a graduate class, while Erickson might be better for undergraduates. One interesting feature that both shared was their acknowledgment of Foucault and Bourdieus' influence. Barnard (2000:140) says, "Finally, there is philosopher-historian Michel Foucault, who, along with Bourdieu, has had a profound effect on social anthropology over the last twenty years or more." Erickson and Murphy (1998:141-142) say, "While a number of scholars stand out as having made profound contributions to developing a 'postmodern' perspective (Antonio Gramsci, Anthony Giddens, and Raymond Williams, for instance), two in particular have directly influenced the course of anthropological theory, and deserve brief mention here: the French social theorists Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu." I guess this was only surprising to me as a result of interacting with colleagues who don't already know that this is the case. It was also interesting to see Erickson and Murphy say, "In the analytical perspective adopted in this book, theoretically anthropology can be considered to be a branch of science, humanism or religion," especially after Shweder (1992) produced a moment for me where I thought about ethnography as an endeavor similar to convincing someone of the truth of a particular religion.

  Barnard, Alan. 2000. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Erickson, Paul A. and Liam Donat Murphy. 1998. A History of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.

  Shweder, Richard A. 1992. Ghost Busters in Anthropology. In Human Motives and Cultural Models. Claudia Strauss and Roy G. D'Andrade, Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Daily Journal Entry #11693 01/04/08 Fri

• Square One for lunch with Bobby, then he got me this awesome multi-tool pocket knife!
• After that went to Houston with my pops. We had dinner at The Golden Room, a Thai restaurant, on Montrose. It was my dad's first time to eat at a Thai place, but he managed to find something fried on the menu (bacon wrapped butterfly shrimp), as I have experienced before (when I took him to get sushi for the first time he ordered a fried shrimp roll). I ordered mild green curry with chicken (they didn't have my usual yellow curry), which was quite good (my dad liked it too), though I wish it had been thicker. When our food came out the rice was in a cute little Texas shape.
• From there we went to the Laff Stop to see John Mulaney. The MC wasn't so great, and the opener was only a little better, but I really enjoyed watching the way that John told his jokes. However, the two funniest things I remember weren't actually jokes (though John did tell a funny joke about turning into a detective in the morning after a night of heavy drinking to figure out how he got home). The opener said he recently had a one-night-stand for the first time, and found it strange that the woman kept his shirt. A woman in the crowd said this was standard, and that it was common knowledge, to which the opener replied, "No, I think YOU'RE common knowledge." The other moment was when John said that this was his first time in Houston and asked what places he should visit. A guy in the front asked if he was seriously asking the question, then said he thought John was just being rhetorical, after which John joked, "You know that saying, right? What good places are there to go to in Houston?" When the show was finished I could hear the guy explaining to his party that it really did sound like a rhetorical question.
• Dad and I drove around Houston. He said that Main Street brings back memories and he always likes to go there when he is in Houston. As we were driving around my dad said, "Have you ever thought about doing stand-up?" I said, "Yes, I have thought about it actually," then jokingly asked, "Have you?" Surprisingly, my dad said, "Yeah, I have thought about it. A lot of people think I'm pretty funny." I imagine you have to know my dad for that to be humorous to you, but it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard (my sisters got a big laugh out of it too).
• Before driving back to Bryan, I took my dad to the House of Pies. We both got a slice of Bavarian chocolate pie, and it was good. The cashier was a short Guatemalan woman with the same name as my mother (Olga).

• Kendall admitted that SHE let the dogs out! (Kendall's uncle gets a kick out of subjecting her to corny humor.)

  Daily Journal Entry #11694 01/05/08 Sat

• I said goodbye to my sister Yvette, my nieces, and my parents, and drove to Dallas.
• Picked up Jacqui and Matt at the Dallas Museum of Art and drove to Python Dolly, a "vintage clothing store" that also sells "weird junk."
• Curiosities was a similar store, selling antiques, folk art, and fine art. It is run by "Jason Cohen, founder of Forbidden Books and Video and Forbidden Gallery," who is probably the person most responsible for me loving Dallas so much and for having the image of Dallas that I have today (I always made an effort to go to his store and went to an opening at his gallery once). I told him I was thankful for everything he's done.
• For dinner we went to Vickery Park, and I really enjoyed my brisket sandwich with Kahlua cream sauce. It had a nice, sweet, but not overpowering, taste. Jacqui mentioned this interesting exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art with people from different countries all singing the same Morrissey song.

• Kevin showed up as we were leaving and met up with us again at Ginger Man. I was a little overwhelmed by the normalness, and Kevin left when a band started playing rockabilly. After a while I just started reading Foucault.

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Daily Journal Entry #11681 12/23/07 Sun

• Popeye's for lunch (seriously took forever), trip to the mall (smelled lotions with Jacqui), and dinner at Fuzzy's (pork was good, but unimpressed with the rest).

• I did a quick dance to The Humpty Dance before Jacqui left to work to cheer her up – it did.

  Daily Journal Entry #11682 12/24/07 Mon

• I followed Matt and Jacqui to Matt's sister-in-law's house in San Antonio, TX. I listened to more Amber Spyglass on the way.
• My parents showed up during the white elephant exchange, and I got the broken monkey lamp I had "brought" as my own gift!

• We slept at Matt's parents' house.

  Daily Journal Entry #11683 12/25/07 Tue

• Jacqui gave me Blue Velvet and Gummo. Yes!

• Ate massive amounts of food. Napped while everyone rode a go-cart. Forgot my parents were leaving so early. I read a lot throughout the day.

  Daily Journal Entry #11684 12/26/07 Wed

• Jacqui took me to Chris Madrid's (with Matt and Danny), this famous burger joint. It was super packed. I got the burger with the tostada and beans. It was good but I couldn't finish it all.
• From there we went to La Cantera, this ritzy shopping center in San Antonio. Jacqui looked around Sephora, this expensive cosmetics store. I looked around Juicy Couture, which had some cool stuff, and this guy, responding to my tag, told me he wasn't able to finish "two girls" but his stock clerk had watched it a few times. He said, "I thought you were keeping track or something," and I said that I was in a sense.
• Next we went to Barnes and Noble to browse and get coffee, and when the guy at the counter saw my tag he said, "You're killing me man." Danny told me the guy had to clear his mind for a bit before being able to help him.
• Watched some Best Year Ever during a pit stop. Jacqui hadn't seen the Chris Crocker thing!
• Finally went to see No Country for Old Men with Jacqui and Matt. I didn't like the movie as much as I thought I would, though the dialogue was good and there were some wonderful shots of Texas. Also, Genevieve and Kiril said that Chigurh reminded them of me, but it was difficult for me to see the resemblance.
• Back at home Jacqui told me that she got sucked into Tila Tequila too, and we both agreed that there were moments when she actually appeared to be genuine.

• I ran across this movie Wordplay, which is about the New York Times crossword puzzle and this annual competition associated with it, and it turned out to be really good. It was amazing to see how important and moving this relatively mundane and banal game was for them. I read the film as an example of an emergent pleasure that was somewhat hidden but strong enough to be part of someone's identity and generate related practices, which I suppose is simply what a hobby is.

  Daily Journal Entry #11685 12/27/07 Thu

• This was a lazy day. I stayed in my pajamas all day, read, and finally got around to doing my weekly video. Later Matt's nephews came over and played Guitar Hero and Halo on the XBox. They all made me laugh, especially Ian.

  Daily Journal Entry #11686 12/28/07 Fri

• Followed Matt and Jacqui back to Bryan, TX, and we went to Casa Ole with Stephanie. I asked Stephanie if she had seen No Country for Old Men to tell her about my supposed resemblance to Chigurh, and she had already told her brother that the character reminded her of me! I asked Stephanie about Atlas Shrugged because she is an architect, and she said her dad gave it to her when she graduated from high school, but she never read it. I explained that it was evil.
• Logans (which reminds me of Chronos that was in Ni-chome because of the pictures of movie stars) with the addition of Jeanette and Holly. Holly is a believer – she thinks "two girls" was real.
• O'Bannons, this Irish bar, with the same crew. Some guy thought he knew me, saying something about the time I burned a bible. I wonder who he was thinking of. Dirty Dan perhaps?
• Quick stroll through Mad Hatters.

• I hate this town.

  Daily Journal Entry #11687 12/29/07 Sat

• Thankfully finally finished Boellstorff's Gay Archipelago. I really appreciated his insistence on an anthropology of similitude, and thought it was interesting how the archipelagic concept and experience of Indonesians meshed with Unitarian Universalism and the way its large umbrella houses many different perspectives, as well as its obvious resonance with queer politics. I suppose the problem with similitude can be the way in which this becomes a disciplinary power in its own right, as Foucault was sensitive to, but perhaps there is a way to produce similitude that is anarcho-syndalistic in nature rather than juridical.
• Met up with Jacqui et al. at Fox and Hound. They were watching the game.

• Left to meet Bobby at Cheddar's, then went over to his place, listened to some new music (LCD Soundsystem and Prefuse 73), met Donny (freelance videographer), and played Call of Duty (poorly).

Download the mp3.

Daily Journal Entry #11674 12/16/07 Sun

• Woke very very late and time passed.
• In the evening I went to Chester Street for a drag show with Kiril and Maria. To our surprise it was the annual Christmas show. The show itself was only somewhat amusing. It was also odd for the show to be closed out by the MC (who is the son of a Baptist minister) saying that no matter what religion we are, even if we are an atheist, we all need spirituality, because you can't get through life without God, followed by Ave Maria.
• I finished Vertigo. I was impressed that I could be surprised and weirded out by such an old movie. But there's something I don't like about Jimmy Stewart. I think it's his voice.

• I didn't go to bed.

  Daily Journal Entry #11675 12/17/07 Mon

• Completed and cleaned up various outstanding tasks.
• Went to IHOP for "lunch," then stopped by Walgreens (root beer) and Starbucks (coffee).
• Went to Staples (replacement folding crate) and Target (couldn't find a good book crates replacement).
• Finished reading Mysterious Girlfriend X. There is a part I think I can use to talk about how we respond to others' pleasures.

• "Early" to bed after being up for over thirty hours.

  Daily Journal Entry #11676 12/18/07 Tue

• Recorded my journal entry (much easier now), then spent a lot of time learning how to tweak Quicktime Pro (masks and picture-in-picture).
• In between I watched I Spit on Your Grave. It made me think about the connection between movies like Monster, Kill Bill, and Death Proof. Spoiler alert: I was also surprised at the lengths she went to to kill the offenders, willfully using her sexuality but not her gun. Somewhere in there is an article on her rejection of the male gaze.
• I also watched the finale to Tila Tequila (Lesley told me it was on), and it was interesting to see that she chose a boy (Bobby). How did I get sucked into this program?
• Finally got a chance to read more Death Note (spoiler alert: I'm at the part where the second Kira shows up).

• I was amazed at how quickly and unproductively the day passed. I never left my room, and most of it was spent in front of my computer. I partially blame it on the scratchy throat I woke up with.

  Daily Journal Entry #11677 12/19/07 Wed

• Processed, looked at Hubert's statement, and did some laundry and cleaning. As usual, I got sidetracked while glancing over incompletely processed books before their trip back to the library. I was struck by a part about Temple Grandin in Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction, and ended up watching a video about her on YouTube. I was particularly interested in the fact that she explicitly tried to observe the world "from the cows' perspective," and made her observations based on "extended fieldwork." Her eye for detail and patterns, as well as her sensitivity to sensory stimulation, made me wonder about similar personal characteristics.
• Went to El Toro with Maria, and we talked about labels. She doesn't care for them because she finds them restricting, which seems to be common in my generation and those that follow. The problem isn't so much with her own experience of labels, but the way that others try to use these labels to discipline her into a particular mode of subjectivity. I told her that for whatever reason I've never felt restricted by labels, though I often achieve this effect by combining multiple labels or playfully modifying them, such as listing my religion on Facebook as "Atheist/Pantheist/Humanist/Unitarian Universalist/Discordian/Buddhist/Catholic" or identifying as "mostly straight." Maria replied that it isn't that simple because this causes people to ask, "What do you mean?" But I responded that that really is the point and is much better than someone just assuming what a label means instead of asking for an explanation. Whenever someone describes themself using a particular label we should always ask, "What do you mean?"

• Read at Starbucks after dinner, then got sidetracked while cleaning again. I still don't care for John Ashbery. I did read a poem of his that I liked, but I can't find it now. On the other hand, Steinbeck is still incredibly wonderful.

  Daily Journal Entry #11678 12/20/07 Thu

• I went to assist this girl Jessica who asked for help with Drupal on the local LiveJournal community. She wants to have the blog module say "news" in the breadcrumbs, and it looks like she'll either have to change the module code, change the database, or make a custom module.
• Dropped off books at the library and left a very small gift for Nancy.
• Processed feeds and installed Twitter Tools. Steinbeck is so good.
• Holy crap did I have a wonderful evening. I spent some time in Am-Ko (there was a strange section of burned CDs and DVDs in the back, but I couldn't tell if they were music, movies, or both) trying to find a white elephant gift. I considered some canned squid, then ended up getting some soju and some One Cup Ozeki sake (which I was surprised to find and brings back vivid memories of Tokyo).
• The white elephant party was at Mike 'N Molly's. Jennifer mentioned one of her dog's toys spilling out its plastic innards, and I said it would be interesting if someone purposefully made the insides of a plush dog toy look like entrails. I ended up with some really nice pads and a multi-colored pencil. Jennifer asked me why I knew anything about Drupal, and I explained that it was from running my own blog and looking at software to use in the classroom.
• After the party we went over to Jupiters, and Jennifer told me about her love of umeboshi and these exquisite umeboshi she got in Kyoto that were about $10 a piece and individually wrapped.

• From Jupiters I went over to the Canopy Club with Kelly and Jessica. MITN was experimental and very cool, and made me miss making music. The Duke of Uke was cool too. Then I was tired and left after meeting a surgeon who moved here a year ago from Springfield and thought I looked like a musician.

  Daily Journal Entry #11679 12/21/07 Fri

• Met with Ellen. We talked about "science" vs. "humanism" in prosem, the department admitting anthropologists who don't like anthropology (which she said is ironic given anthropology's heavy self-critique), and the details you have to ignore to do activism. She said that my use of indexical pleasure is okay, and she is one of the few people who didn't have a problem with the notion of humans perpetually trying to optimize their experience of pleasure.

• More cleaning, shirt for dad, burger at Murphy's (which was quite deserted, as is the rest of the town), then packing. Excited about my next video, but not about driving.

  Daily Journal Entry #11680 12/22/07 Sat

• Left around 10 a.m. and got to Fort Worth around 2 a.m. I got slowed down by wind and rain, stopping to browse and eat, and a gap in my directions. The trip itself was perfectly fine. I listened to Keith and the Girl, in addition to bits of Red Bar Radio (which wasn't that funny), The Word Nerds (which was too nerdy), and Free Talk Live (which was ridiculously libertarian).

Download the mp3.

Daily Journal Entry #11667 12/09/07 Sun

• I worked on my methods discussion, caught up on some other methods homework, read Genevieve's proposal, then perused some sample proposals before going to get some fabulous noodles on Green and some cocoa at Walgreens.

• Time passed, and I studied kanji.

  Daily Journal Entry #11668 12/10/07 Mon

• Did some studying for Japanese then bought some cookies at Sharon's pagan bake sale on the way to my test, which went well (forgot some honorific forms).
• We had an optional four fields discussion with some of the folks from prosem. I personally benefitted from considering the importance of professionalization as a reason for a four fields education.

• Time passed, and then I worked on methods.

  Daily Journal Entry #11669 12/10/07 Tue

• Spent a lot of time finishing up my proposal, then made some edits to my interview before uploading.
• Decided to take a break, got sucked into the computer, then picked up terrible barbecue on the way to Sharon's to watch Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley. I didn't much care for the traditional romantic element, but Sharon and I both cried when the father was happy that his daughter was happy.

• Went home and found that the day had passed too quickly.

  Daily Journal Entry #11670 12/12/07 Wed

• Woke and wrote my paper for contemporary ethnography (I got excited about multi-sited ethnographies). I ordered Jimmy Johns so I could keep working and not go out.
• I updated my Amazon wish list, but it was hard figuring out what to put on it. I don't want physical objects anymore if I can help it, so I don't really want books, though reference books would be fine. I've settled on DVDs for my canon. Everything else I want is too expensive, like an Edirol R-09.

• I couldn't decide whether to sleep or to stay up and work through the night, and I ended up just laying down for a few hours.

  Daily Journal Entry #11671 12/13/07 Thu

• I got up from laying down around 5 a.m. and started writing. I wrote until noon, when I went to campus to turn in my paper. I went to the library and got some books and DVDs.
• I caught up on my feeds, and then had dinner with Cass at Chipotle. Cass thinks "2 girls" is fake.
• Stopped by the Art Coop and had a brief discussion about "2 girls" with Maria. She thinks it's real. I also showed her the difference between 05, 07, and 10 G2 pens.

• Drank some chocolate milk and watched some Natural Born Killers before sleep.

  Daily Journal Entry #11672 12/14/07 Fri

• Woke late at noon thirty.
• Read feeds for a long time.
• Picked up tamales from Aide at four.
• Read Boellstorf's The Gay Archipelago.
• Went to Murphy's with Ricky, Sarah, John, and Ricky. Ashley showed up later.

• Went to Steak and Shake with the same. Ricky poured ketchup on me, but he made up for it by paying for my shake and a pitcher from earlier.

  Daily Journal Entry #11673 12/15/07 Sat

• Woke late and read Boellstorf's The Gay Archipelago while online, took a nap, read some more, then went to Ricky's. Bharath and I resolved our differences over Matthew Barney. He had seen a film, whereas I had just seen the images, which allowed us to understand why he would have a negative reaction, and I would have a positive one. Then I discovered that Bharath had not seen "2 girls" and promptly arranged a screening, with a long preview of Portal. Bharath cursed me, and asked Chris why he had not issued him a warning.

• The snow was ridiculous.

• Woke up at 3 p.m. for some reason, then stayed in my dorm room all day and read my feeds, chatted, and read more Wright.

• Started reading Wright's The Moral Animal, and it's terrible.
• Went to the Harvest House with Anona to help her do some filming.
• Did more reading. Gene-culture coevolution is pretty interesting.

• Went to see Lust, Caution. It's is my new favorite movie – sorry Tarkovsky.