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Sarah's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | | 7:46 pm |
The Whole Story   | | Friday, August 15th, 2008 | | 1:28 am |
These Lands Me, these days.  My constant metamorphosis has been documented in fragments on this forum for going on seven years now. Some things have changed dramatically, more than I thought possible in several short years. Some things remain the same, and are likely destined to play out as fixed remnants of my existence. I think I have come to accept both trajectories, as well as any others which I may find myself confronting one day. Acceptance is relatively certain now and has become the great achievement of my young adulthood. One more thing is certain, too: The love and the beauty I have been fortunate to encounter in this world has been an intoxicating counterpart to the pain-- the sweetness in life that soothes my mind into lulled submission. But I'm always alive. It all seems to keep getting better, and I'm moving closer to something everyday. I've accepted that things are not clear. | | Monday, May 19th, 2008 | | 8:32 am |
What I Did This Weekend:  Strawberry-Raspberry Cupcakes with Strawberry-Raspberry Icing  Red Velvet Cupcakes with Coconut-Cream Cheese Frosting  Chocolate-Chip-Banana Cupcakes with Peanut-Butter-Dark-Chocolate Frosting and Chocolate Pieces  The Happy Trio! I've taken to baking lately. It provides me with a nice sense of relaxed accomplishment. I can think of a nice combination, get the ingredients, and bake-- it is simple, straightforward, and fun. The polar opposite of academic work. Ideas for Upcoming Cupcakes: Blueberry Pancake Cupcake with Maple-Cream Cheese Icing Raspberry-Orange Cupcake with Lemon-Cream Cheese Icing Cranberry Cupcake with Dulce de Leche Frosting Coffee Cake Cupcake with some sort of Liquor-based Frosting (I'm thinking of all those desserts at over-priced coffee shops that incorporate twists on Bailey's drinks...) Cupcakes with Gooey Centers Please send me your cupcake ideas. And feel free to make fun of me: I'm happy. Current Music: Akron Family | | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 10:21 pm |
I feel that I am finally at that "point" where ruminations meet reality-- that moment where I just have to plunge, head first, into it-- just to prove that I can. The time has come to test what all of these years have been successively culminating in. I can no longer sit on the sidelines-- tentatively, apprehensively, ever-so-cautiosly, and admittedly apathetically "waiting" for the "right time" to make a move, examining and thinking and strategizing about how and where to finally make my mark, to do what I have come here to do. Whether or not I feel that I am ready-- I don't think I will ever really feel ready or fully prepared-- it is time to see what moving forward can bring. In a way, I think I underestimate all of the tools I've accumulated through the years, in preparation for this. And I think the full utility of those things will become apparent as I use them with ease, their pained and lengthy acquisition taken for granted and hidden implicitly as I draw on them in the same way that I breathe and move. But maybe not. And that is what I am bound to find out, soon. It's a scary thing, no doubt, but it's time. | | Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 | | 9:17 pm |
(On the Ground) It is April already. I have been in this city for months now, taking it in. I have been throwing much of my being into my work here, trying to understand people, trying to learn the art of research. This is a beautiful place to live and almost everything here seems like a well-kept secret. It sounds strange, but this city is not for those who need to be shown something. It is for people who like to look for things, to hunt and dig their way through to something truly wonderful. That has been both my challenge and my absolute joy here. I love it. In July, I am going here: Morocco.  Current Music: Earth | | Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 | | 12:10 am |
Lately (long time coming) I've been fishing.  I've been friending.  And this is how they make me feel.  Keepin' on  Confines unclear  Yes, I still cannot help but care about the world.  I'm really a zombie.  Just Kidding.  Current Music: blitzen trapper - they sound just like the dead, its uncanny | | Thursday, October 11th, 2007 | | 8:00 pm |
This is a strange post.
So. I'm sitting. Drinking. Smoking. Listening to the new Radiohead and thinking about... reflecting. I am in love with this album. Thom Yorke had this to say about it:
"It's about that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something else'... it's similar to OK Computer in a way. It's much more terrifying. But OK Computer was terrifying too — some of the lyrics were."
This album really was... it is one of those. One of those albums. I have been listening to it for days. The way in which this album is getting into my head, making me think and feel things, it is really incredible.
I feel at a strange place in life. This album fits in with the times, my times. The best albums of my life were albums that were not only intrinsically great pieces of artistry, but were things that came along at precisely the right moment. Like some sort of prophetic window IN.
I've been bewildered/enchanted/terrified/trapped by the concept of time lately. I've been thinking about strange things. I've been changing in new ways. This album is strangely now part of it all.
Current Music: Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007) | | Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 | | 4:31 pm |
New
New Radiohead = LOVE.
And I am seeing Wilco tonight as well. Can the day get better? I've earned this outpouring of love. I have fucking earned it.
Current Music: Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007) | | Sunday, October 7th, 2007 | | 8:58 pm |
read, forever read
The best thing I read today:
"The major point is that the peculiar way in which the modern state emancipates man by delcaring that the real differences between men shall not affect their standing as citizens, and hence, leaves these differences intact, not only leaves relations of domination and conflict in civil society untouched, but inevitably, these real social relations infect the political sphere as well." - C.J. Arthur, The German Ideology - Marx and Engels
Sometimes I remember how much I love what I am doing right now.
Current Music: The Bees | | Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | | 11:32 pm |
UPDATE
I could tell you all about my current crazy life in graduate school, but I will suffice it to say that it is 1) crazy, 2) ridiculously busy, and 3) more stress than I ever could have imagined. That said, it is not as bad as I have just made it seem either. I just don't want to talk about it right now.
Instead, I will talk about something that is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE to me. I was reading Aaron Sharpsteen's journal, and he noted in an earlier entry that Rush Limbaugh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
This truly makes me want to ball up in the corner and cry for my fellow humans.
The following is a list of quotations, from yours truly, possible future Nobel Prize winner, Rush:
"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."
"Let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."
"The only thing cruel about the death penalty is last-minute stays."
[On hurricane Katrina] “I mean, why didn't these morons leave New Orleans before the hurricane? I'll tell you why: because they wanted to rape and loot! That's just the way some people are! And if they're black--if the rapists and looters are black--it's not George Bush's fault! We've had these problems ever since the Emancipation Proclamation. Once the whites leave town, all you've got is overwhelming lawlessness. That's not racism, Mr. Snerdley; it's a proven, demonstrable fact. Have you even seen a ghetto in Greenwich, Connecticut? I rest my case.”
“Compassion is no substitute for justice.”
“Why should Blacks be heard? They're 12% of the population. Who the hell cares?”
“I am addicted to prescription pain medication.” | | Thursday, August 9th, 2007 | | 12:13 pm |
Some Things to Think About
It seems that alot of people on this forum, and alot of people in general, are really interested in evaluating the rightness or wrongness of statements. The practice of using logic in a philosophical manner, although important, has never really been a very engaging practice to me. I do, and will continue to, live in accordance with my own belief system-- however loosely defined it is. I imagine others will do the same. Rather than evaluating the truth-value of claims, what has always been vastly more interesting to me is investigating how and why people form the beliefs that they do, and how systems that humans create are similar or different across groups and over time.
I see the human-environment relationship as a constant feedback mechanism. We are constantly influencing- and at the same time being influenced by- the outside world. Because as humans it is impossible to escape from an environment, our physical selves are constantly being prompted, shaped, and influenced by an outside stimuli to some degree. Debate continues to rage over exactly to what extent environment can or does shape human response, but that is a debate that continually intrigues me. Given that the human-environment relationship is always activated, the exciting questions to me are ones that approach ideas about how humans can be agents in creating social systems, but also constrained by submitting to the rules of such a system. Concepts such as class, race, gender, status, etc are concepts that do indeed exist- just ask any number of poor African-Americans. But while such concepts exist, they don't exist on their own-- they are created and maintained by human groups, who act as the participants necessary for the "system" to warrant existence. These observations are ones that prompt the questions that are worth asking to me-- how and in what ways have human lives changed over time.
I believe the key to achieving a clearer understanding on many matters involves a great deal of context. The farther back you stand from an object of inquiry, the more of its lifeline you see-- and more relationships, connections, and influencing variables become apparent. Of course it usually follows then that the less likely you are to be comfortable with making an assertion about something. Once you situate something in history, its cultural, social, and political context, its ideological context, its physical or biological context, and so on, you are working with an extremely complicated set of interacting variables that usually leaves no one answer emerging as the "natural" explanation for the phenomena. I happen to be particularly interested in exploring the socio-cultural context of things as a useful input to what shapes human existence. But my interests have always been pretty inter-disciplinary as well, because the way I see it, no one area takes the cake on valuable input. All disciplines could benefit from incorporating more of what everyone else has to say into their doctrines.
And on a more specific note, I can definitely defend sociology as a discipline for making one of the best efforts to move to a more interdisciplinary platform. As a sociology student at UI, I took classes in the department that combined information from political science, economics, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, communications, psychology, biology and cognitive science, and law. One of the things I remember talking a great deal about in classes was about how the increasing division of departments was doing the most disservice to educational pursuits, as scholars in all disciplines become highly insulated and unable to communicate with academic counterparts across areas.
I am a fan of ideas. Given that, I would love to see cooperative collaboration win out over self-serving departmental promotion. From what I've seen of academia so far though, that wish might just be in vain. But, dreamers always hope.
Current Music: Brian Jonestown Massacre | | Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 | | 12:52 am |
mmm
oh my god nothing is quite as good as hot biscuits and gravy at 2 am. after so much alcohol. life breathes a sigh of satisfaction. | | Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 | | 9:15 pm |
A bridge collapsed in my future home tonight, killing six people. It just collapsed. | | Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 | | 12:16 pm |
"...planetary fetuses gestating in the amniotic effluvia of terminal industrialism..."
-The Promises of Monsters, Haraway
The academic life for me.
So Soon, with only two or so weeks to go before I make the move.
I can't wait to look for abandoned furniture in alleys. I've already found so many wonderful, FREE things on craigslist. I honestly don't know why people buy furniture these days, when you can find unique, original, free or inexpensive pieces with a little digging.
Today's world has lost the art of bargaining, a fine art indeed.
Something else the world has lost: I saw this travel channel special on Yunan province in China, where there is an ethnic minority group that engages in a special, traditional fishing practice that allows them to literally work together with birds to catch fish. The trained birds dive for the fish and release them to the fishermen. In exchange, the fishermen feed, house, and protect the birds as the main source of their livlihood. But now, this practice is being all but obliterated as traditional fishing methods are being replaced with more mechanical or technological methods. The commentator remarked about how sad it was that this natural union between man and animal was being replaced with one more thing that served to separate humans from the natural world. I thought that this was sad also, extremely so.
Current Music: Jens Lekman! | | Monday, July 23rd, 2007 | | 10:02 pm |
July Things Colorbang  Kid Drawings  Home  Chicago Head  Swingtime  The Lady  Light  Bikes n Things  | | Monday, July 16th, 2007 | | 3:01 pm |
It Was and It Is To Come Here are some of the things I saw and experienced in China.  Men playing checkers on the Beijing neighborhood streets was a common sight. It seemed as though Chinese culture embraced various games like parlor games or loose equivalents to hacky sack as alternatives to a drinking culture. We rarely saw recreational drinking in mainland China. Rather, beer is a staple for men at mealtime only. This did not stop us from walking the streets with our Tsing Taos, as drinking in public space is not illegal here.  In Tiananmen Square, we witnessed the daily sundown ritual of lowering the Chinese flag. We were in the square on the anniversary of the Tiananmen tragedy, June 4th, and were haunted by the cultural lack of recognition of this historical event. It was business-as-usual in the square.  The crumbling sections of the Great Wall were the most beautiful ones to see on our four hour trek from Simatai, one of the most remote and physically demanding sections of the Wall open to the public in Beijing. You hear about its beauty and read trivial facts about its majestic quality, but there is nothing like hiking it and seeing it stretch beyond your vision. Absolutely breathtaking.  A common sight in the Beijing hutongs (neighborhoods), a man opens his fruit cart for business in the early morning. A short walk from our hostel door could get you any number of fresh things to eat for breakfast.  A hutong street, part of a network of thousands of little alleyways, homes, markets, and local culture. I wanted to explore it all!  There has to be two or three bikes for every person in Beijing, which makes for alot of them. They are everywhere and bikers definitely own the roadways. This was mine, which I rented for three dollars a day, from the Beijing hostel we stayed at. My bike in Xian was nicer, complete with a bell for getting agressive. You really have to fight your way in sometimes.  Matthew and I enjoy each other on a paddle boat in the Summer Palace.  One of my favorite pictures from the adventure, the red in the Summer Palace walls comes out. The Summer Palace had some of the most amazing architecture I'd ever seen in my life.  The Summer Palace had so many doors, and I quickly became enamored with all of them.  An open-air wet market in Hong Kong, where you can get literally anything and the sights and smells are endlessly interesting.  One of my favorite moments and one of my favorite pictures from Beijing. A curious young girl jumps to look through a Summer Palace window. I like the colors and the composition. There are hundreds more photographs where those came from. These pictures only represent a small portion of my month-long stay. Maybe if I upgrade my LJ account, I can show them all :) I have a wonderful record of my experiences in China, a time I will never forget. For the long term, I look forward to hitch-hiking Europe next summer. For the short term, I'm moving to Minneapolis in one month. I have a nice place with old-home charm and great hardwood floors in Lynlake, a diverse residential neighborhood just east of Uptown Minneapolis. It's a short bike to UMN campus, downtown Minneapolis, the county lakes and nature trails, a waterfall park, and a street with 16 blocks of ethnic cuisine, including a Panaderia very near to me. My landlords live next door and they are laid back, middle-aged artists and environmentalists, great people. I'm pretty sure the communal herb garden in the backyard will give many gifts for the cooking pot. And who knows what they're growing elsewhere. Anyway, I love my new city. Grad school awaits. | | Monday, July 2nd, 2007 | | 12:55 pm |
I Have
too much to accomplish. Finding a place to live in Minneapolis that won't break me financially or aesthetically is proving to be a challenge. What I will end up comprimising will be geographic convenience-- the apartments closer to UMN tend to be of the pricier-box version. For a daily bus or bike commute, I can have a much nicer and roomier place with hardwood floors and "vintage charm." We'll see. All of this is difficult to plan for, given I have not received my teaching assignment yet and have also not yet registered for courses, meaning that I have no idea what my weekly schedule will look like. I can pretty much bank on being at the U every weekday though, between my TA-ing, my own classes, and the office hours I have to keep for all those lame undergrads who actually want to ask me questions. Actually, that is the part I am looking forward to the most-- getting to help someone conceptually grasp sociological theory. I will be helping to shape young sociologists of the world-- and as a result-- will be fostering the growth of amazing human beings. I applied for several different courses, including two intro criminological and criminal-legal theory courses, a standard race-class-gender course, and an upper-level law and society course. After the fact, I wish I had not applied for the law and society course because it is more than I can handle at this point. But they are likely to place me in one of the intro crim courses anyway because I have the strongest academic background in crime, law, and deviance studies.
I have so much to figure out. Less than two months now, and I will be taking up residence there, for better or worse. Maybe I should get a dog to help compensate for my long-distance boyfriend. I'm definitely getting pretty dishes for the first time in my life- I already bought some plates and mugs with alarmingly bright painted flowers-- thrifted, of course.
I also cannot wait to buy furniture. LOVE.
I know I am going to love Minneapolis. | | Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 | | 10:01 am |
Home
I have arrived [home] again. Here is how it ended up going: Hong Kong-Beijing-Xian-Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Chicago. Coming back is strange. I spent about one month living out of my bag in a place where I didn't understand most of the speak on the streets and had to point to get what I wanted-- or in some cases, smile sweetly. The grand extent of my verbal universe included "Hello," "Goodbye," "Thank you," "How much is it?," "That's too expensive," "Toilet," "Beer," "Cigarettes," "Very Good!," and "Beautiful." I learned that Mandarin is without a doubt one of the most difficult languages to write, pronounce, or interpret well. I fell in love with Beijing, a land in which I met many other travelers from all over the world. I saw the juxtaposition of bustling city-scape and remote scenic green, an interesting and always thrilling ride. I walked the hutongs (neighborhoods) for days, looking at the life, sampling street food, letting the locals see the pictures on my camera. I had rich conversations with these people without ever exchanging any real grammatical sense. I marveled at ancient Dynastic Chinese architecture, climbed a crumbling section of the Great Wall, and ate everything from tarot ice cream to frozen duck blood. I flirted with the local night life and kissed Matthew for free shots of whiskey in a "kissing-bar." Open-air markets, the flourishing Beijing art district, ex-pat karaoke bars, and bicycling adventures... Alot of life in a short amount of time. Exhausted and completely satisfied with the experience, I'm back.
Current Music: birds | | Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 | | 7:36 pm |
I am done with college. | | Sunday, May 6th, 2007 | | 12:58 pm |
It always amazes me...
For the last four years, I have been partially or fully enveloped in a bubble-- a liberal-intellectual bubble generally, and a sociological bubble specifically. I am reminded of this everytime I speak with someone who rejects the concept that society exists as a structure independently of and with real effects on the individual person. I am always reminded of this gross logical malformation when I talk to my father. My father is a smart man-- arguably, you have to have some level of competence to support a family of five for twenty years in the post-industrial age. But undoubtedly beyond that, my father is a very smart person. I continually ask him for advice on certain matters-- mostly for things of a practical and financial nature, of which I continue to fumble over with indifferent ignorance. So I am always amazed how reasonably intelligent people can find it appropriate to completely disregard the fact that the world which we are immersed in everyday must significantly and fundamentally shape our existence in some profound ways. This seems evident to me-- or maybe it is just that I am in many ways a product of this bubble I have been in for years. There is no doubt that becoming a part of the higher education system socializes one to think, behave, and argue in certain ways. (In fact, I am doing it right now.) I rather like the bubble I've been in-- rather than a blissfully ignorant refuge from the "real" world, I'd like to think of it instead as a response to and rejection of that other world-- the realization of another way, the constitution of an alternative existence. For this reason, I have chosen to continue my residence in this bubble, for another unspecified number of years in a graduate program. But I can't help wondering how my peers who are not continuing on in their studies will encounter the "real" world. I still think that great things are possible for our communities, our country, and our lives as members of those groups. It would be interesting to see how my opinions on these things would change if I were to enter the workforce, start making payments on a house, and get a dog. Would I grow cynical, apathetic, unaware? One thing I have noticed about my professors and others who have remained academics is that they are all making house payments and raising families and putting gas in their minivans everyday and on and on, but they still believe in possibilities. They stand in front of a group of young people three times a week and talk about things like deliberative governance, participatory democracy, and social capital like they believe in them, like they are real alternatives to the system in which we live. I just hope as I go on, I never lose my passion for social change. Some would call it idealism-- I call it active imagination. It is amazing how so many people do not seem capable of envisioning an existence that has not already been created for them-- as if all of the possible paths of progression had been defined, set, and locked into place by some fatalistic, illusory force. Before change can occur, you first have to be able to perceive of it, and to comprehend its possibility to exist. If this process isn't included in the "real" world, then I like my bubble just fine.
Current Mood: fired up
Current Music: JANIS, but of course |
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