Sociologist?

After a full day of studying on Friday, a friend and I went to an Off Off Broadway show that cost only $7. It's called "Behind the Musical" and it's produced by Gotham City Improv. It's basically a soap opera that goes behind the scenes of an Off Broadway musical. It started Friday so we watched the auditions. And it was all improv. I had a good time. I'll be going back a few more times, because I want to see how the story evolves.

Before the show started, we crossed 7th Ave. on 23rd St. and went to the Chelsea Hotel. We looked really quickly at the art and tried to soak up the vibes of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Edie Sedgwick (who almost burned down the place once upon a time). I got a B+ on my Hegel paper and am happy to have that done. I'm not happy with the grade but there's not a whole lot I can do about it now except try to do a better job on my paper for next Tuesday.

We're reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground. I got an A on the paper before Hegel so there's hope. I met with Sarah, my Race teacher, today for two hours. I wanted to talk about my paper on white privilege. I'm happy that she was patient enough and willing to just hang out like that. I think it's really important. And she's only a couple of years older than I am, so that's nice, too. I brought up random issues regarding race relations and we just talked about it. She's been here for a year and a half. She teaches a class at Columbia and I jokingly told her that she liked teaching at New School better, thinking that of course she was more into ivy league Columbia. Not so, she says. New School is better. A little validation is good every once in a while. She's trying to become a full-time faculty member.

If I change to Sociology, she may very well be the faculty adviser I choose. With this conversation and then the very brief one I had yesterday evening with my Slavery teacher, my paper season has officially begun. I decided to look at literacy during slavery for that class. I want to examine the threat of literacy to the masters, as well as the hope that it offered the slaves. I'm also interested in the dangers slaves exposed themselves to in trying to learn how to read. And of course there are the slave narratives, which remain a significant aspect of American literature. So that's that. I need 20 pages. I hope to get this out in two weeks so I can devote much of my time and energy to the white privilege paper. I'm anxious to see what I'm going to learn there. Hopefully some language to use to try to teach some people some thangs.

I was pretty close to going to Prague for Christmas. The plane ticket cost $480 and I couldn't pass that up. The person I was going to stay with, however, is having a visitor already and he will be there for three months. And that is why I'm not going to Prague. That's ok. I'll take the next best thing. I'll be staying with a friend from Prague while I'm in Sac. I'll be there on Dec. 23rd and I'm leaving Jan. 4th. I've got to get my reading list in order for the break. I'm thinking Durkheim, Marx, Weber, de Tocqueville.......... My roommate Kim got a job. She'll be working 40 hours a week. I'll be alone more often. I like that. Well, I fear I'm just boring now so I'm going to close. My writing is a little rusty anyway.

Till next time: "We have not yet reached a situation in which white people and white cultural agendas are no longer in the ascendant. The media, politics, education are still in the hands of white people, still speak for whites while claiming -- and sometimes sincerely aiming -- to speak for humanity. ... We may be on our way to genuine hybridity, multiplicity without (white) hegemony, and it may be where we want to get to -- but we aren't there yet, and we won't get there until we see whiteness, see its power, its particularity and limitedness, put it in its place and end its rule. This is why studying whiteness matters." -- Richard (white guy) Dyer, "The Matter of Whiteness"