I have been thinking a lot about school...this school in particular. UB for those who don't know where I go...

I guess I can't help but feel like I am on a treadmill to nowhere. I sit in class and listen to people talk about Foucoult and academic debt and blah blah blah, and I can't help but what wonder what the fuck they are talking about. Granted, I can follow along, I know the lingo, I can talk the talk, but I get sick of it pretty quick. There is no activism coming from this dept. Outside of getting our work done, writing papers and thesis and whatnot, how does anyone in grad school have time to give a shit about anyone but themselves? Isn't higher education just another machine to assembly line out people with legitimate degrees in order to look good for other people? I was speaking about this with a fellow student who is a black female immigrant from Africa. She said that she felt that getting her education is the only way for her to be heard, to get ahead, to be respected in the world. I agree with this in some ways, but aren't we just playing into the system? Who the hell do I think I am with my fancy degree that says I am smarter than other people who don't have one? Gross. Even "higher" education has hierarchical implications. Aren't we all just little rats in tubes trying to get to the coveted finish line?

Don't get me wrong. I love school. I love learning. But I am not here to get a degree, and I think most people are. Get in, get out, get on with your life. But can't we learn everywhere, don't we? I get so sick of things like "good" schools, ivy league bullshit and academic credibility. I am no more credible that any other schmuch out there. It grosses me out. Really. We sit in our comfortable little classrooms talking abour rage, gender, class, inequality, etc etc, and we aren't doing a damn thing about it. Is academic feminism an oxymoron? I think so.

Oh yes. And on a side note...I need to make it quite clear that my rambling are no more than that. I am never ever trying to present all sides of a perspective. My mind changes on a daily basis. And here is another complaint...when people criticize an author about what s/he missed, what was left out, underdeveloped, blah blah. How the hell do we expect one single person to ever get it all right? I know it is an excercise in one's ability to critique, to be analytical and all that jazz, but seriously. Come on people. People are starving, are poor, are dying, are getting murdered for wearing the wrong clothes, saying the wrong thing, for no reason at all and we are worried about this petty shit?

I am full of it today. :) Peace out.

I got in the shower no more than half an hour ago...and now, quite suddenly, there is snow on the ground again. Forgive me for talking about the oh so mundane weather, but what the hell is wrong with Buffalo?

Shit. You see, this is the problem with blogging...I guess my issue is I have this seemingly innate self-editing process that prohibits me from speaking of the random, the ridiculess, the everyday. I think that people aren't interested, don't care, have their own lives to deal with, etc etc. Felly and I were talking about this last night. I am not a story teller. You know how some people just spout stories of when they were doing one thing or another and this happened and hahaha wasn't that crazy? I just don't. And yet, I am terribly fascinated with the idea of the story. I think that human beings are (dare i say naturally?) inclined to think and live in storyland, not to be confused with reality. We have to have reasons, ideas, ways of making sense of things in order to believe them, to want to see them through, to be invested. What more than meaning makes a human being? We eat, shit, sleep like every other godam animal on this planet, but we make it MEAN things. What we eat tells about where we come from, our culture, our upbringing, out health... but does it really? Yes and No I suppose....but thats not the point. I guess there isn't really one at all. I wanted to post and this was the first thing that came to mind.

does it mean anything that it is cold outside? No. Not at all, but I will sit here and tell you straight out that I will make it mean that I don't want to leave the house and go to class and would rather stay in all day and read and snuggle with my cats. But that is my story. and that doesn't mean that that is what I will do. Rather, that is the story that I will carry with me today as I get in my car, drive to campus, walk from the parking lot aallllll the way to class, sit in class.... etc etc etc. Grumble grumble grumble its cold outside. See what I mean? Ha!

Ok, so me and this friend of mine have to do a joint presentation on a book. for those of you who care, it is Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower". And we made plans to meet today to go over our thoughts and stuff...and I had it in my little head that she would (preferably) come to my place cause it is bigger and I can smoke without climbing three flights of stairs. Either that or we would go to her place. Fine. I could deal with that too.
But...when she finally called me, she was like, oh, lets me at Spot. Two things: First of all, why the hell do people like going to public places where it is loud and uncomfortable and distracting and costs money, when you could easily be at home, for free. (This is a privacy and social phobia issue I have as well). Second...I realized not only are we going to Spot, she wants to go to Spot on Delaware, one I have never been to before. Now granted, I should take this as an opportunity to expand my horizons, expand my Buffalo, blah blah. But I don't want to. I know I sound like a spoiled two year old right now. I guess this is what happens when one has expectations that were completely and totally existing only in the reality of my head. I am not upset really, don't take my tone to be anything other than fascination with my own idiosincracies. I am a wee bit crazy and it comes out at the strangest of times.

Its always kinda nice to open up your bank account and realize you have much more money than expected. Its kinda like finding money in your dirty jeans or in the lint trap of the dryer. Although, Felly and I are supposed to be buying plane tickets for Seattle, not buying strange and "exotic" foods from the organic aisles in Wegmans.

In other news...

Felly and I wacthed this terribly interesting little show about Bodies. As in, Bodies: The Exhibition.
Fascinating really...like how most of the bodies are of asian descent and come from this rundown shack of a wearhouse/laboratory in China which supposedly doesn't know where they come from. And this creepy but cute German doctor who came up with the plasticization process that these bodies go through but who cried when he was recalling how he accidently was working with some bodies who had not voluntary gave their bodies up...he incinerated them. And the millions of dollars that this exhibition is bringing in for americans, never mind the fact that they, in order to avoid human corpse laws, claim that the plasticized human body parts are plastic "models".....

I guess...well, it really gets me thinking about all kinds of things. My first instinct is to say that as American's we have some creepy fascination with death coupled with a conflicting taboo which is why people are so drawn to these types of things in the first place. Taboos create fascination. I believe this. There are other cultures in the world who have no (or at least a different) taboo around death or the dead body...sometimes they hang out with the bodies, take parts of it home with them, things of that nature. Death is natural and normal for them...it is not the end of the world like it is for us. Yeah ok, we believe in heaven, but we also believe in ghosts and vampires and that sort of thing. Don't kid yourself. We do. I won't get into the "we" of America because that is a whole nother post.

So maybe the Bodies exhibit isn't all that bad? Maybe we should try to be more comfortable with death? Maybe then we wouldn't see people freaking out getting plastic surgery and tring to look "Ten Years Younger" and all that youth is beauty bullshit. But then...here is the tricky part I spose. these bodies are NOT of old people who died of natural causes. According to ABC or whoever, they were young, healthy people who didn't look ready to die. So hence the question...where do these bodies come from. I do not doubt...for one second...that there is an underground, clandestine body business going on. It has happened in the past, why not now?
Anyways...I am not saying you should or shouldn't, but if you are interested, here is a website called No Bodies 4 Profit...


decide for yourself.

Someone asked me to post more...so this is what you get.

I hate automatic flush toilets, automatic soap dispensers, hand dryers, paper towle dispensers, the list goes on. My first inclination is to be offended. I am really quite capable of flushing the toilet myself. Really. And I think it should be my choice when the toilet is flushed. And then I think, well, what does this say about our society? That people are such inconsiderate assholes that they can't flush a godam toilet by themselves? That we are basically all little children who need someone out there to make sure that it gets done? Of course, the situation may be slightly different for say paper towles or water...I get that they probably save some trees, some energy, whathaveyou. But the toilet flushing thing. Come on.

In other news. Felly made me steak last night for dinner. We are so cool. I wanted to get dessert...and apparently she did too, and we both got the exact same kind of strawberry cheesecake. So now we have two. One for each I suppose.

Also, for fair and future warning...Break Dancing Battle NEXT SATURDAY FEB. 23. You folks really should come. It will blow your mind. Come after 8pm...910 Main Street (Door to the left of the Hyatt art store) Seriously. $4 cover.

There is also a showing of the Vagina Monologues TONIGHT at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo ( 695 Elmwood Ave. at West Ferry Street). $ 15 @ 7: 30 p. m

So there. Post...complete.

Thanks everyone for coming out last night!!
I had such a fantabulous time and it was so nice to see so many people!!
Particular thanks to (e:jim), (e:james), and (e:jbeatty) for representing (e:strip) at mi casa!
(e:james), your jacket is at my place!!
so nice to see (e:terry) and (e:flacidness) also!
for those of you who were there but i never saw...thanks for coming out anyway :)
I couldn't have asked for a better night, and you folks helped make that happen. word.

Saturday night Felly and I, along with some friends, will be going to Club Marcella's for my...gasp, 25 birthday! We will probably go around 10 oclock or so...cept I have never been there and don't know when the party gets going (anybody?)

If you wanna dance...now is the time!

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my potential project...I have to admit, I am also considering doing a project on monogomous gay couples and depending on how many I find, I might do that instead, as it is slightly more relevant to my personal research interests, but if that doesn't work, I will be sure to let you all know.

Today I am going to the dentist. Advantage Dentistry on Elmwood in Kenmore. They aparently have stereo headphones for my probing pleasure and a pill that can make you sleep through the entire procedure...I don't know about that whole thing...I am hoping that doesn't mean I have to pay extra for those pansy ass folks who can't handle a little poke in the mouth. Hah.

Oh yes...and the Bandits game. I have to say, it was less painful than I thought. I felt kinda like the first time I went to NYC though.. we got to the suite and there were all these tables with candles on them, a beautiful food spread, and a bartender who came right up and asked if he could get us anything. Free booze rocks! I felt like a star. And plus...the sing a song...or chant a chant, whatever you want to call it...and maybe I am juvenile, but BOX is just funny.

Hello friends...I know I have been neglecting you all, and now I have come to ask yet another favor. I am taking an ethnographic methods class (ie. qualitative research) and I have to eventually write a 20 page paper based on interviews of a select group that I choose... I have not cleared this with my Prof yet, but I was considering using you all for this little mini study. I think that online communities are all the rage :) and this would be the perfect size to do a small scale, localized study of such a group. Of course you would be completely anonomous...I guess I have to go through some board of blahdeeblah in order to get my research approved, so it will all be on the up and up....so you get this gist? I would of couse be wanting interviews...anywhere from an hour or more that would be recorded...and I would buy you coffee or lunch for your troubles. Again, this is not a sure thing yet, but if anyone would be willing to participate, please let me know so I can have an idea of whether or not this is feasable.
Thanks!
<3

ok, so i need to have a wisdom tooth pulled...i am pretty sure it should be a simple extraction...not needing an oral surgeon... however, i have no insurance and am therefore looking for recommendations for dentists who are reasonable cheap yet won't give me a staph infection. i am not one of those terrified of dentist types, but I have only been to one dentist in my whole life who went to my church and was friends of the fam, so this is new for me. Please help!