Life as an Extreme Sport

Comcast Sucks

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

So, I got home to find Comcast prompting for installation of software, which I take issue with, having successfully used the service nearly two years now and not needing to do that. Of course, I couldn’t find any actual open number to call for help, so I’m sitting in Bauhaus catching up on paperwork, and trying to be committed to the idea of typing in this thing every evening. (Technically, I acknowledge I’ve already posted here today, but habit is habit.)

I’ve spent the last hour getting a message board together for 390, sending out information about the focus group, modifying the mailing list, and posting a few different items to said message board. I’m always surprised at how much additional work PFing* is; it’s not just doing the readings to the point that you can discuss them confidently, it’s the grading and the communicating and the… ohyeah, I’d wanted to create a smaller mailing list for “my” students. Gotta remember to do that before heading home.

But, oddly, I’m on top of things right now, which is an odd feeling. Then again, Phillip and I sat down today and knocked out a reading list for the next two quarters, and I have authors like Locke, Bentham, Mill, Spinoza, Deleuze, Hayles, Massumi, Serres, and so on starring at me. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I’m starting chronologically; this will be the quarter of philosophical backgrounds to autonomy. Thankfully, I can combine at least one reading with my intellectual history class, so that’ll be a small load off.

Where was I? Oh right. Comcast sucks. And because they suck, I don’t have my course reader for 390 with me, which means I won’t be posting my thoughts on Geertz, exoticization, eroticization, The Other and positionality. Perhaps tomorrow, when I’m tired of beating my head against a computer screen at work.

*PFing – shorthand for Peer Facillitating, which is basically an undergraduate student functioning as a teacher’s assistant. We create lesson plans, lead discussions, grade papers, and give feedback to the prof. It’s just that instead of being paid, we pay for the privilege. But it’s great experience; this is the third time I’ve done it, and I’m hoping for at least one more course this year. It’s weird, but it’s something I really and truly love to do.

Weir’s Semiotics 101

Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

So, in the grand tradition of my own adviser, I’m offering 101 short courses during my teaching time. Today I’m planning on Semiotics 101, since Geertz uses the word a few times in the course of the readings assigned for this week, and Tuesday’s class suggested that most of the students hadn’t encountered the term in any sort of “need to know” sense before.

I am nothing if not thorough when about to get in front of a group of students and teach them something they’ll remember for the rest of their academic careers (well, if I do it right), so I opted to spend a few minutes refreshing my own familiarity with semiotics, referrents, signs and signifiers. For a lark, I punched “Semiotics 101” into Google, and it spit back Robert Weir’s “Semiotics 101 for Freshmen” post at Inside Higher Ed. His message sent/heard interpretations are remarkably accurate, and well worth the read. I particularly liked:

Messege Sent:
“I work full-time, care for small children, and am involved in community charity groups. It’s hard to find time to juggle all of this.”

Message Heard:
“I work full-time, care for small children, and am involved in community charity groups. It’s hard to find time to juggle all of this.”

“Unlike slothful bums like you who just show up to class, put in an occasional office hour, and then bugger off to drink coffee, and nap in the faculty lounge.”

He ends the article saying

I could go on, but these humble examples should suffice to make first-year students realize that all utterances are texts and that they cannot privilege their interpretations over those of their professors.

I know I’m eyeballs deep in this right now, and it’s probably making it funnier than it is, but given that I’ve already had two students not hand in papers because “they didn’t realize they were due today”, I find Weir’s essay just damned funny.

Blink and Begin

Autumn 05, CHID 491, Thesis

You blink once, and suddenly you’re a week into the fall quarter and up to your eyeballs in everything.

Well, okay, I’m actually caught up right now. I know, I know, miracles apparently do occur. I’m hoping to get back into the swing of this blogging thing by typing up thoughts, notes, commentary and such on a daily (nightly) basis – we’ll see how well it goes.

The first thing I’d like to get out of the way, post-wise, is what I just sent Karen (who’s functioning as Thesis Guardian Angel this quarter), which is basically a summation of my thesis:

Iin broad strokes, I’m interested in the conflict and confluence of science and religion in our medical ethical decision making, and especially the fallacy of autonomy within that. I can see pulling in phenomenology, the history of medical ethics, the Enlightenment, and modern religious thought, agency, affect and autonomy.

I think in a large part I’m going to be arguing for affect (affect-ive ? Heh) ethics, where we stop looking at the individual as an autonomous being and instead see them as situated within webs of connectivity.

Author-wise, I’m looking at Appadurai, Barabasi, Latour, Thurtle (heh), Caplan, Moreno, and a few others.

It’s going to be a long year. 🙂

Stargate Atlantis: Conversion

Stargate

“I know you have a high threshhold of pain, but this is…
…gone.”
“What?”
“Gone.”

Heh. Dr. Beckett gets a lot of the good lines on Atlantis. Geeks abound! Geeks abound!

Don’t feel like doing a writeup of this, but I am surprised by how much I really liked this episode. I was expecting it to be relatively trite and irritating. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by an intense and character driven episode. The horror aspects were well done, and I really liked how Rodney reacted to everything. It was obvious how much he cared, and how impotent he felt in the face of something that could only be solved by something outside his field. Also, the interplay between Weir and Sheppard was incredibly thick with emotion; it was nice to see the two play so strongly off one another.

I really, really liked this episode. Might just be the best of the season.

Stargate SG1: Babylon

Stargate

“Well done, Bones.”

*chuckle* Nice. Glad they did that nod. (Sorry, I don’t really feel like a writeup this evening. Story didn’t much move me, although I liked the bits with the Prior. They’re just popping up everywhere, aren’t they?)