Who Knew?

I'm a snob. Academic superiority finally made its way to my head and today manifested itself in a post-seminar discussion on my disappointment with the Gender, Politics, and History class. Perhaps I should put this anecdote off for a bit and start at the beginning. Monday, 10:30 a.m. I began the day with a check of the ol' e-mail as I usually do. I received a message from Joseph, the Historical Studies secretary telling me that Blackburn was to send in the grades. Apparently, the part in my e-mail to him where I stated I received an incomplete was not explicit enough. So I responded with a reiteration of my disappointment. A little later he got back to me and said he'd check with administration. That's very vague -- administration. But it would have to do for now.

2:00 p.m. Helen (a friend in my program with Aussie/U.S. citizenship to refresh your memories) wanted to meet before classes started on Monday because she'd been in Australia for the break. Before I met them, I went up to the bloody fifth floor, thereby reliving the nightmare that was "The Rise and Fall of New World Slavery" (I thought I had said my goodbyes to this floor last month). I explained everything to Joseph again, this time relying more on my facial expressions and vocal intonations to relay my growing frustration with the situation. He suggested (very nicely, I might add) I go to Records (the "administration" he spoke of earlier?).

2:15 p.m. So off I went, back into the crisp cold air, j-walked across 5th Ave., and into the GF. After some clicking of the keys, the man at Records raised his eyebrows in surprise and proceeded to tell me that the painfully absent-minded professor (not his words) had given nine incompletes. Nine. Out of 13. He told me what I didn't want to hear: I was going to have to contact the professor. No I wasn't. Joseph was going to take care of it.

2:25 Back out into the cold, back across 5th Ave., and up to the fifth floor I went. I told Joseph the wonderful news and he began to look for a number for Dr. B. He told me to check back after noon on Tuesday.

2:33 p.m. I was supposed to meet the ladies (Helen, Lorena, Renata) at 2 p.m. So much for punctuality. My neurosis requires that I have all loose ends tied up because if I don't, then I stress out. It's terrible. Anyway, we had a nice time. It was nice seeing Helen. I had already seen Lorena and Renata the other night over Korean food on 31st St. It was ok. We all had a nice talk during which time they convinced me to sit in a Liberal Studies course called "The Modernist Imagination."

3:30 p.m. I really liked it. The teacher, Robert Boyers, was engaging, on top of the subject, had just the right amount of "shits" and "bullshits" to impress me, and he taught me some stuff. I'm not taking it, though. I know. Why not? Because the class would be more for personal fulfillment. Yes, grad school is part personal fulfillment.

But I need to spend the units on preparing myself for my thesis. Discussing the avant-garde, reading Notes from the Underground again just three months later, and doing another 30-page paper on top of a presentation with all my other stuff is out of the question.

5:40 p.m. I then went to "The Fundamentals of the Sociology of Culture." Since I decided to stay in the Liberal Studies department (a decision about which I'm really quite happy and I'll go into it later), I was kind of turned off by this class. It's an overview and extremely heavey in social theory at the front. Which is fine and I'll read these guys eventually. But there is a culture class offered in the Liberal Studies department that I'm going to sit in on tomorrow.

7:40 p.m. With tears in my eyes from the cold wind, I headed to the Lemongrass Grill for thai fried rice with Helen, Robert and Evan. After dinner, Robert and I went to a hangout of his where he knows the bartender. This, I have found, is the cheapest way to drink in NYC. I paid for one pint. The other two were free. I left one sip in my third pint because I didn't want Joss to fill it up again. It was fun. Joss is a tenor who may or may not be on Broadway one day. He's got an agent, so that's a start. And we talked to this other guy named Brandon. We spent about 30 minutes trying to come up with stage names for him.

Tuesday, 12:20 a.m. I made it home and actually got to bed by 2:30.  Sorry this is a long entry. Shane Peterson hates long entries. It's just one of his things. But that's why we all love him so much. Anyway...  Tuesday, 9:00 a.m. Snooze.  9:09 a.m. Snooze.  9:18 a.m. I turned the alarm off.  11:00 a.m. I got out of bed and got ready for class. But first, I had to see Joseph.

1:30 p.m. The elevator door opened on the fifth floor and I looked right at Joseph through his window. He was on the phone. With Blackburn. Wanna know what happened? He airmailed the papers to himself. They never made it. I was going to have to e-mail it to him. I love technology. A lot. But I certainly don't trust it. Especially e-mail. Especially New School's system. So I sent it to him from two different accounts. Let's hope I get a grade soon....not that I really want to see it that badly.

Feminist Political Theory, 1 p.m. There's not much to report here. I'm going to get a lot of theory background. Most importantly is that the class has 10 people in it. I talked, too. I didn't talk last semester. Maybe a couple of times. But I've talked a lot this week in three classes. It's been fun. I think I'm going to return to black feminism for this class. Of course I'll have to update some stuff. And I may take it completely in a different direction. Like maybe look at its role in the development of gender...who knows. Whatever. It's only the first week. I have that class with Jen (I went to India Arie with her last week) and Ashley (she was in my T.A. group last semester). They're fun.

Gender, Politics, and History, 3:30 p.m. Ok, so the snob thing. My professor's name is Elaine Abelson. She's very nice. She teaches at Lang, which is the undergraduate Liberal Arts division. I can tell she teaches undergraduates. As we went into the second hour, I started to feel the impatience rise within me. The discussion was all right but very basic. I was able to keep in mind, though, that it was the first day and first days tend to be like that. So I kept the impatience at bay until we got the syllabus.

There is a lot of reading, which is fine. But I read the paper section. The first, due just before spring break, is to be five pages. Five pages. It's supposed to be an analysis of two of the readings from the first two weeks. She said she wanted to get a feel for our writing. That's great. The second, due at the end, is to be 15. She said on the syllabus that she would give us the topic. Give us our topics?

So I raised my hand and, again, relying on my facial expressions and vocal intonations, asked her to discuss the second paper. When she got to the topic part, she said what I wanted to hear. What I was trying to get her to say with my secret power of persuasion: grad students could choose a topic from their work. Thank you.

We also have the opportunity to teach one of the classes. I really want to do that. I'll be nervous as hell but I want to try it. The post-seminar discussion was about our ability (mine, Ashley's and two other people) to "raise the standard" of the class. What snobs!  Texts and Interpretations, 5:40 p.m. This class killed me. The professor was really great except that he read to us from notes. I hate that. But he was still good. It's a sociological methods course that I'm actually signed up for but will drop. There was too much emphasis on the use of my left brain: variables; validity; small n. It collapsed about halfway through the first hour and I was never able to regain it. There was some interesting stuff finally at the end when he actually discussed interpreting texts about the text as context or the time period in which it was written as context. Katharina is in the class and she's keeping it. But she's in Sociology and she needs it. I don't. It's dropped.

Wednesday, 4:00 a.m. Speaking of dropped, I gotta get to bed. Peace out to the West Coast and other parts of the world where I'm sure it's not...wait, let me check, 26 degrees....wow, that's warm. G'night.