Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: Academics

Classes and coursework.

The Materiality of Just Breathing Fluidity

Academics, CHID 270 (PF), Spring 06

Oh, today was one of those glorious days where everything just… clicks. Right. The world is a puzzle and all the pieces are locked together, making a beautiful image. I’ve had the perfect music on today, a mix of songs from Grey’s Anatomy and Bones, the weather was delightfully crisp and sunny, the late cold snap delayed the cherry blossoms so that I was able to stand in the Quad in full glory, and the first day of class was just…perfect. Right. Working. Phillip and I fell into banter in the hallway, and it continued through to the end of class. It was lovely to see Giorgia again, and I’m so much more confident in myself a year later I know I will get so much more out of working with her. And Garrin, the other PF, just cracks me up. He’s a great mix of serious and silly, and I know we’re going to have fun.

There was simply a fluidity to the day, a movement of right. It wasn’t just a matter of having perfect music, but of having perfect words. Of being able to stand in front of a class without any preparation and talk about the roll of the PF, to talk about my interests, to see that I was indeed charming the students. To have people come up and ask how to insure they get in my Friday section.

I spent the late afternoon, early sunset in the Quad. Perhaps you could even say I was there during the gloaming. I took pictures, and I spun in circles under the just beginning to fall cherry blossom petals, inhaling the sweet scent, photographing and being photographed. (I’ll post the photos soon.)

Life feels fluid, but it looks sharp. Everything is crisply outlined – and while I’m sure some of it is a considerate lack of sleep last night, I think some of it is simply the knowledge of lasts. This is my last class PFing for CHID. This is my last cherry bloom in the Quad. This is my last, my last, my last.

…you see, I formally accepted UAlbany today. And the back of my brain has a continual song, I’m going to graduate school. I’m going to graduate school. I’m actually achieving the things I set out for. I’m actually doing it.

Lasts. Lasts and firsts.

Time, Desire, Reality Television

...and everything else, Academics

It feels almost obscene to wake up before 8am without an alarm. I suppose that’s what happens when you prime your body for waking up at a certain time; it begins to wake up naturally before that. Although it does feel obscene, physically I feel fine. It’s just the principle that’s at issue.

I watched American Idol last night, which is, despite everyone’s howls of protest, actually a form of research for me. I’m still keeping an eye on reality television (RTV), and revising my thoughts on why we watch it as, well, I watch it. RTV has changed a lot in a year; when I wrote the original paper on creating desire via RTV, there hadn’t yet been a split between what, for lack of better term, I’ll call the exploitive and encouraging (or positive).

The exploitive shows are the ones you watch and groan and wince: Nanny 911 is an exploitive show that a friend of mine watches. It’s the kind of show where you’re promised something if only you’ll humiliate yourself (and potentially friends and family) for it. Of course, it’s entirely possible that the folks filming the show don’t feel humiliated, but the people watching feel humiliated, shamed, embarrassed at their amusement, and outraged at the extremes they see. For better or worse, you could probably call these crass and uncultured shows blue collar reality television.

On the other side, then, would be the white collar shows. The ones that don’t humiliate their contestants. Of course, one of the first ones that comes to mind would be the Extreme Makeover brand of shows. American Idol, American Inventor, So You Think You Can Dance, The Apprentice – all shows where it’s not about humiliating yourself, it’s about proving yourself. You have to rise above the others, show that you’re more talented, more deserving, the best person for the job. There’s no eating as many hot dogs as you can in a minute on these types of shows. There are probably judges, coaches, or teams of people that come in and “do good”.

The question then becomes, if these two have really diverged into two subcategories of reality television, why do people watch one, the other, or both? I think that the reasons remain the same: they create desire. It’s just that the desire they create is different. On the crass, exploitive shows, the desire created is for one’s 15 minutes of fame, to get something for nothing more than being who you are. There’s no exertion, no having to rise above other contestants, and you don’t need to have natural talent or a devistating story to create sympathy and appeal. It’s the everyday Joe; no fancy lives, no college degrees, no flexible bodies or trained vocal cords. And the other side of the coin is everything that this side is not: you have to have talent, skills, something that moves you to the extraordinary, whether that be an outstanding ability to sing or a story that moves people to tears. These are the shows for people who want to compete, who want more than 15 minutes of fame. The carrot offered is not being on television, or any trick monetary prize. It is simple and clear: a recording contract, a year’s salary and apartment in downtown New York City, a remodeled house. These positive/non-exploitive shows require you to rise above the rest; the exploitive shows simply want you to be like everyone else.

White collar ambition, blue collar lives. The split exists in reality television, but the mechanism for desire that creates the show remains the same. Offer the carrot, show that the end result, be it 15 minutes on television or a year in New York City, and show people doing it, and more will line up for their chance. This 5th season of American Idol, they have had to move to stadiums to hold the number of people trying for their chance at a recording contract. People fly to the nearest big city in an effort to make it – Hollywood come to the masses. Obviously, the formula is working well for those running it.

Lend Your Lungs to Me

...and everything else, Academics, The Great Grad Hunt

Eating is a strange thing for me, in that I rarely feel hunger, but when I do, I’m ravenous. (And this was prior to taking opioids, which have made the situation even worse.) One of the things that this leads to, aside from never eating, is eating badly. Hence, chunky me!

So this week, I’m trying to get into better eating habits, amongst other things. That means learning how to eat properly. I’m not terribly interested in dieting, for several reasons, but I don’t thinkk that eating properly need equate dieting. But my tummy is looking at the food in front of me (peaches, half a large muffin, a hardboiled egg, coffee) and says “well, can I have the coffee and skip the rest?” Sadly, the answer is no.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday virtually investigating Albany: asking questions on Albany-related LiveJournal communities, poking around newspapers and Craigslist. It looks like it’ll be some sort of combination of Eugene, Oregon and Reno, Nevada. I admit, that intrigues me; I do miss some aspects of Reno. Of course, most of those aspects are probably the ones not being translated back east, but… I also liked Eugene, so it’s promising. I am beginning to suspect that I’m capable of living in just about any environment, so long as I have an internet connection and some folks around who enjoy the same things I do.

We’re trying to figure out getting me back there to do a walkabout, an idea complicated by the fact that it will take me all day to get back there, and I’d like to go during the week so that I can sit in on a class and see the campus as a whole. That doesn’t sound terribly complicated, until you realize that I have class MWF, and I can’t miss Friday class, as that’s the day I teach. I wonder if I could leave on the 2nd and come back late the 4th or 5th? I guess I could technically do it the Monday after, as well. Er, although it occurs to me that I should check their schedule and see when spring break is.

Anyhow. Isn’t my life exciting?

While I managed eating and exercising yesterday, as well as morning writing, I failed pretty miserably at everything else. Well, unless you consider writing up a recap of Grey’s Anatomy for Seattle MetBlogs and doing research about Albany as accomplishing things. I need to crack down a bit on myself today. I should get at least a few pages of writing on my thesis done, watch an episode or two of Stargate, and write corresponding papers to them. Not to mention perhaps read a chapter or two of a few different books. (Again, I reiterate: the exciting life of an academic.) I’ll be the first to admit that I need discipline, though, so longterm this is a good hell to walk through.

I’m sitting at the table, looking out the window into a stand of trees. Occasionally a squirrell the size of a small dog wanders by one of the tree branches, and behind the green I can see peaks of overcast grey. It’s going to be a cold day. If I look to the right, I can see out the living room windows; my parents cherry tree is starting to bloom. So although I’ll probably miss the UW trees, at least I get to see some. If I’m lucky, they’ll fully bloom and fall while I’m here. My father is pacing in the kitchen; he’s on the phone with one of his relatives, talking about the homestead in Alaska. It sounds like they’re going to split the property and sell half, developing the other half before they sell it for more money. This makes me kind of sad; although I know the homestead has no real value now, other than being a very pretty place, it’s something my grandparents worked hard for, and it seems like a shame to sell it. Then again, I wasn’t the one who had to grow up in a one room log cabin on that property; perhaps if I had, I’d be more inclined to sell it.

Anyhow, that’s it for forced writing on waking today. I spared you the talk about my dreams and nightmares, for which you should be thankful.

Changes

...and everything else, Academics, The Great Grad Hunt

I made a long and somewhat rambling post to a LiveJournal I keep (largely for commenting in friends posts), talking loosely about friends and moving. It’s still on my mind, not the least for which it being largely uncommented upon by the people who saw it. This is not surprising – what do you say to someone saying things like “we never see each other, so will moving 3000 miles away really change anything about our relationship?” But I do think it’s interesting how segmented my life has become. I have my academic friends, and then the non-academic friends. They rarely mix or mingle, when they do get thrown together, it’s awkward. (I’m already wincing at the idea of my graduation…) I see many of those academic friends several times a week, where I see the non-academic friends once a month if I’m very lucky. Some of the people I still communicate with frequently I haven’t actually seen, face to face, in several months.

It pulls at me. It’s hard; I have a lot of friends I love dearly, but who I can’t talk much about my education with. I’ve finally reached that point of specialization where I want the indepth conversation I simply can’t have with people who aren’t also studying or conversant in the topic. We can still talk about other things, but as school and my thesis continues to consume me, it becomes harder to focus on things that aren’t about the phenomenological implications of affect in medicine, or however it should be phrased today.

It’s a corny metaphor, but I feel like a butterfly in a crysallis. Stirring, moving, coming close to breaking out of my shell and flying away. In a lot of ways, I’m looking forward to living in a new city. It’ll be hard, sure. I’m not great at making friends, social small talk and the like, but I’ll be around people with similar academic interests (I am largely isolated in my interests at UW), and that idea alone really energizes me.

I was at the Beaverton Powells on Friday afternoon, and managed to lose my father in the store. After wandering for a bit (and picking up books I hadn’t been planning on buying), I opted to stand in one spot and wait for him to find me. The spot I chose was the ethics segment of the philosophy section, and I just stood there looking over the books (and yes, okay, grabbing one or two to buy). Dad found me after about five minutes, and the first thing I said to him was “can you imagine? In a few years, my name will be up here somewhere on the shelf…”

Can you imagine that? Sometime in the not so distant future, you’ll be able to go into a bookstore and buy something I wrote. Something meaningful that I wrote. Now granted, it’ll have to be a large bookstore carrying a large ethics section, or a university bookstore (unless I go the pop culture route with my dissertation, who knows), but it will be out there. I will be out there.