Diffused Illumination

About that 95%...

It's up to 97% and may jump into the 99% range depending on last night because I keep getting 100% plus extra credit points on the pop quizzes.

My prof & I have been emailing, and I uploaded my final project template and the introduction/bibliography sections so she could see where my focus is. Her response? So fun! I love it. The PDA with the quill is great as well... I love your topic, really fascinating.

Eight days. 8!

Not quarters.
Not months.
Not weeks.
Four more nights of class
And I am done with undergrad work forever.

I also managed to pull a first in my UW academic career, possibly my collegiate but I don't remember: I did worse on my second paper than my first when the rest of the class did better! Woohoo!

Does Ms. 3.98 GPA care that her slacker butt only has a 95% in this class so far?

NO WAY!

Is she recycling her web template from last spring's final project for this one and skipping out on the lab time where everyone else is creating theirs?

HECK YEAH!

Viva summer senioritis!

You will probably not hear a peep of whining about my summer class. It's very easy for me to forget in the 12+ years I've been traipsing around the net that everyone can surf but many don't have a clue about the mechanics of it. Last night we were taught how to hammer out HTML in Notepad & FTP it. I tried going at the prof's pace, but finally I couldn't stand it anymore and half listened as I went my own way. Everyone else uploaded blank white pages with one or two lines of blank text for their starter pages. Mine was purple with an alt-tagged and centered Jedi picture of Kieran from his birthday, some bullets about me with hyperlinks, and my scrambled email (the AT and DOT stuff). I refuse to do a clickable link since I have enough email volume at work and the spam filter for the university misses a fair chunk of crap already.

I helped out a few students sitting near me, and was slightly amused when the prof began losing a bit of patience with those who truly still didn't get it after over two hours. Those nearby me looked at my purple Kieran page and thought I was some internet goddess. I humbly replied that I've just been online and around geeks for a dozen years and can do basic stuff by osmosis. I deliberately have no web page to my name now, and am a borderline Neo-Luddite. In fact, I'm considering doing my research project this quarter regarding the lovely paradox of disseminating information about Neo-Luddism on... the internet. It's just too funny to pass up.

The one thing about class last night that grated on me worse than fingernails on archaic chalkboards which are a rare sight on campus now?

The prof kept calling gifs 'jifs'. Is there a J in the word gif? NO! It's GIFS, like gifts without the T! AGGGGH!

Calm blue ocean. Fulfill residency requirements & complete your Communication major, admire how far COMS has come with the internet since you left it in California, float on ok.

I'm Not A Geek, I'M NOT A GEEK!
(but you are dressed as one)
5 credits left til it's a done deal!

I got my final paper back in the mail today with, "Once again, you BLOW my little mind into bits/pieces. XLNT synthesis, great material, clarity and vision. Graduate, rest, come back to graduate work..."

A high compliment because this same prof scared the shit out of me my second quarter back in school, and it's made all the difference in the entire journey. That reminds me, I have to email my old mentor the picture of me in front of the Communications building here on commencement day...

"But in seeking to cut the ground from under its opponents' feet, postmodernism finds itself unavoidably pulling the rug out from under itself, leaving itself with no more reason why we should resist fascism than the feebly pragmatic plea that fascism is not the way we do things in Sussex or Sacramento." (pg.28)

Eagleton, Terry 1996. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

In the midst of trying to comprehend extreme Oxford drunken (according to my prof) professorese in this book, this quote caught me off guard & cracked me up. He clearly has never seen the insurance lobbying agency & their tactics in the State legislature in my fair hometown.

I know I said I'd write about the other book I finished for class, here's a stab at it but it's so wide-ranging that I'm still leaving a lot out. It's Race in North America - Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley. It explores the roots of the cultural myth of race as a system to establish inequality (England's view of 11th century Irish is an early precursor), through the entrenching of it in American slavery through the 19th century (although there were more Irish than African slaves initially), the unscientific methodologies used by science to justify racial categories (Louis Agassiz was a right bastard in this regard), how a 2nd century Roman guy's writing (Tacitus) led a late 17th century French guy (Boulainvilliers) to essentially create a biological myth called Anglo-Saxonism (whose ardent followers included Thomas Jefferson & Hitler), and how all this crap is still perpetuating itself today both openly and underneath PC veneers of 'cultural diversity'.

This book and one from a previous class (Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith) sum up my views in anthropology which aren't exactly mainstream. We had a discussion in class last night about the bureaucracy and how to play with situations to make them a cost benefit to the Dean & further improve the impression of the anthropology department because they're not after undergrads... they want more graduate students, prestige & grants. The prof & I gave each other a knowing nod & wink because now we've both spun the educational bureaucracy game in our favor. I am really going to miss being on both the employee & student side of the game after I graduate, but even though graduate studies won't work out for me right now I have a feeling I'll be back.

The rest of my class picked the easier essay question as well for our midterm with a just few exceptions, and before our prof handed them out last night she said she typed up 'a really good essay' & copied it as a handout to pick up during our break.

I got my bluebook back, a perfect score with 'thank you!' written under the grade. Then I picked up the handout, and after a few sentences realized my essay was the one she used.

I'm not certain I've ever felt this combination of pride & embarrassment before.

This all puzzles me though, as I appear to be headed for a 6th quarter in a row of a 4.0. I do only have one class a quarter, but I have plenty that I'm juggling otherwise so my entire focus in life isn't school. The classes have all challenged me and I've learned a great deal from each one, so I'm not coasting through on easy material either. One thing I have noticed is that I study the prof more than the material the first week or so, and I seem to be able to figure out what makes each one tick and adapt my writing & class discussion style accordingly. Maybe I'm a chameleon?

As my beloved psychotic prof I've had twice & will have again next quarter has taught me, it's pretty much all a game of power. I added a dash of theory from his classes in my final midterm paragraph, and that may be what bumped mine to model status. Hopefully the two students I know who have also had the psycho prof won't suddenly know I wrote the essay because of it!

I realized I haven't talked about my class this quarter, which is studying the Native art of the Pacific Northwest coast. I'm not so certain I'll get a 4.0 because I don't do well with rote memorization of art details for tests, but I'm having fun nonetheless. Our professor explained her background & mentors at the beginning of the quarter, and I'm glad I paid attention because I unexpectedly met them today.

( Research and meeting cool art people )

I was way too embarrassed to give an art history legend a piece of 80s tourist art to identify after that encounter!

I haven't really mentioned my new class that started this week, because to be perfectly honest I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. About 75% of me wants to run screaming, but the other 25% is intrigued by the challenge and the fact that I'm not comfortable with it.

The class is absolutely not as advertised by the generic class description I registered for. As the prof wrote in the syllabus, "Know that this format is different for each student - challenging all, amusing many, unnerving some, even angering a few. The rumors are that I am hyper, intense, passionate and prone to abstraction. All are true!... Moreover, I think and speak in a specific Althusserian struggle where human agency and capacity are always tied to ideology and power."

On top of that he says (although the system doesn't, yet) it's a W course, meaning writing-intensive. This is a category I've been meaning to shy away from until next year as I get these rusty collegiate gears running smoothly, especially where critical thinking is concerned. My discomfort stems from the fact that I haven't done this in a constructive and organized fashion for a long period of time, and my entire grade rests on my ability to do so in 3 papers & 1 class presentation.

Can I pull this off? At the moment I have no idea. In the span of just two classes I've been acutely reminded that I've lost forgotten misplaced(?) a lot of the spirit that my old mentor who was the Minister of Education for the Yippies (I am not making this up) inspired & encouraged in me. I still have his letter of recomendation & the email with the assurance of "Good luck with school. You'll finish your BA, I know." pinned on my cubicle wall. I have a gut feeling that if I stick it out this will be one of the most rewarding classes I'll have ever taken, right up there along with my work on Project Censored ages ago.

We shall see...

Ryan & I both have had some weird cramping-type stomach virus all weekend that we intially thought was food poisoning but it's gone on for too long to be that. Now we just have our fingers crossed that Kieran doesn't get it because it really is quite painful.

On top of that, my French midterm didn't go so well. Traffic was a bit worse than I had anticipated, plus I sailed right by the huge sign that indicated the temporary library location directly across from the Convention Center so I ran late (which I hate more than anything) & was stressed out. I'm not worried about it though, as long as I pass the class I get to check off the GE requirement. The grade isn't even part of my UW GPA, so I'm letting that go and focusing again on the A for art history.

That reminds me, I have to go check the online reserves to see if my prof put up the slide of the demons eating human sushi again. I had no idea that Buddhism could be so macabre, but in a sick way I kind of enjoy it!

So a while ago I was talking about an appointment to start fixing some mistakes I've made. At that time, I was informed about two things I needed to put in motion. One started on our anniversary, the other was completed yesterday. Now I have to wait a while for the next step to be done by others, and once it is I'll spill what I'm up to. I'm very nervous about either failing (again) or being thought of as a failure for going through this in the first place, so it'll be an anxious wait.

A very long time ago, an Alarm song used to motivate me when life repeatedly knocked me flat on my butt and it's come back to my mind today.

( I can't give in 'til the sky turns black )

It's meant many different things to me depending on where I was in my life, and I forgot all about it when I made the mistakes I did. Not this time.