Mired

I told myself, and you all I believe, that I would write more often. That's not what I've been doing. Two of the days weren't my fault, however, because the Internet at my place was down. It's really scary how dependent I am on it. So it's a good thing it's back up.

Last week was full of all kinds of interesting goings-on and I just knew I would remember everything. I'm certain I have forgotten some of the gems, but I will try to recall what I can. The farthest back I can think of is Tuesday when I turned in my gender paper for the much-anticipated feedback from my favorite teacher in whole wide world. Her comments came back to me within a day and I wasn't that pleased but I did manage to fix most of it I think and it's now two pages longer than it was, bringing the total to 18.

But I've already gotten ahead of myself. That day, we discussed Adrienne Rich's "Compulsory Heterosexuality."From that we moved on to an essay about black sexuality. I'm too lazy to look up the title. Anyway, someone in the class brought up the fact that she is always annoyed by an ignorance of the discussion of lesbian gender: butch/femme stuff, if you will. Myself being interested in this topic, I began to participate a little more in the discussion that I previously had. We discussed texts; the existence of a definite gender hierarchy in the lesbian community (which is accepted by some and not others within the community); and FTM (female-to-male) issues. She had to ask what "FTM" meant (my gender teacher had to ask).

For the last 45 minutes of class, we had a great discussion. Everyone was taking part and asking questions and by the end, some had said that they wished there was more about this on the syllabus. I invited people to come get a beer and continue the discussion, but I only had one taker. That was ok. Wings and beer with anyone (within reason, of course) are always good. Especially if she thinks you're 23. Seems as though I'm getting younger, rather than staring 30 in the face.

On Thursday, I went to see Ellen Degeneres. For those of you with HBO, be sure to check it out. They taped that night for her June special. I was sitting in the orchestra in row N, about six rows directly behind Ellen's mom. The woman (Ellen, not her mom) cracks me up. At one point, she talked about public bathrooms and I about fell out. Then halfway through my facial contortions, I realized that there is a chance (though slim) that the camera would see this and catch me in an unflattering position. I tried to stop. I couldn't.

On Friday I had two meetings, one with my feminist political theory prof. and the other with Jim Miller, my other favorite person. Actually, someone told me that he said I had a good heart.

Well, I guess he's ok now. Anwyay, I wanted to talk to him about my thesis. Before we started our meeting, he told me that I was the first person he saw since he found out about the financial rewards being handed out to the folks in the Liberal Studies department. It appears as though I'm getting either 25% or 33% of my tuition taken care of. That's pretty cool. He didn't help me much about my thesis but he didn't say that I shouldn't do it. This is basically what I was looking for. (I guess I can't totally erase the word "basically" from my vocabulary.) I want to spend the summer reading for it and I didn't want to waste time.

I met with my professor before him for about 45 minutes about my paper for her. It's going to be really hard but it's all I have left. My goal is to finish it by next Friday. I'm just doing a reading on Butler's Gender Trouble to get at how to break down -- or at least problematize -- gender categories.

My other two papers are about that, though from different perspectives. For my gender class, I just presented identity categories in general, then went to a discussion on the emergence of the gender binary, then finally got to transgenderism as a way of shattering the gender binary. Since I began writing it, I've had a discussion or five about actually naming transgenderism and what that does to actually not disrupting anything. Whatever. I'm not changing anything. From this paper I took about eight pages and slipped them into the paper I wrote for the conference. I will turn this in tomorrow, as well, to my culture professor. I like that about grad school. I will do the same for my last paper.

The prof. even asked if there was something about transgenderism that I can use. Between the two meetings, I went outside the GF for a few minutes. And then, I looked to my left and spotted Susan Sarandon passing not three feet in front of me. I recognized her immediately even though she was wearing sunglasses and walking briskly. I was happy. She's so cute.

I picked up the keys to my house last week. I've taken three loads over and will take a fourth tomorrow. This is a really interesting way to move but it will help. The movers won't have much to take care of on Sunday and that will be nice. It should be a quick process. After all, I do have a paper to write. I could have waited until next weekend to move but I just want out of here. And when I want something, I want it. I'm very excited. I have a job interview tomorrow. It's with the Academic Affairs department. It'll just be for the summer. I hope I get it. It will allow me to have fun. Unfortunately, I won't be able to spend weeks at a time in California but I will definitely be there for my birthday.

Speaking of jobs, there is something else about last week. My TA from last fall's modernity class, Erica, is graduating. She came up to me about three weeks ago (she rarely says more than "hi" to me) and told me to talk to Elzbieta about her job with the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies. I thought it was strange but thanked her and pretty quickly forgot about it. The week before last, she brought it up to me again in passing so I figured I'd better get on it.

I sent my resume to Elzbieta and told her that I would be interested in it but wasn't sure if I'd get work study (it's a work study position). She forwarded the message to Timo, the assistant director. He e-mailed me and told me to come in and see him when I went to see Elzbieta. I did. I had kind of forgotten about it, though (I don't know what's going on with my memory) and was waiting for Elzbieta outside of her door.

This guy came out of the office across the hall and saw me and asked if I was Catherine. I said, "yes." He introduced himself as Timo and told me Elzbieta wouldn't be in. He invited me into his office and began telling me about the job. The job is editor of the bulletin they produce three times a year. He asked if I had workstudy and I told that I wasn't sure yet but that I didn't get it this year. He told me that if I didn't get it to appeal and to tell him so they could write a letter in support. He proceeded to tell me more about the job and that I would be splitting editing duties with another incoming Liberal Studies student. It was a short meeting and I left kind of perplexed. Had I just secured myself a job for next fall? And an editing job at that? So I just have to wait and see. I think that's it. We're all caught up. Oh wait. No we're not. I saw Erin's play last Friday. It was The Rimers of Eldritch. It's weird as hell, but Erin did a good job. She does a good hideous southern accent. I also saw a former classmate of hers from Solano who also goes to Purchase. It was nice to see her. She took me back to the trainstation and we got to talk. She's going to be coming to see my new place next week before she and her girlfriend head out west. She also called me tonight because she had to perform her final scenes. She needed a "break a leg." She performed them last night in front of the people who control her future there. She said it went well. Ok, so now we're all caught up. It's Wednesday morning, and I'm going to turn in two papers today. I'm very happy about that. But before that can happen, I need to sleep.