Blogs

I just finished watching Strictly Ballroom. I had never seen it before, but I had heard for years how great it is. And it is great, absolutely wonderful. After seeing it, though, and being so moved by it, I thought about how much I also loved Dirty Dancing and even Dancer in the Dark. And, I recently had a conversation with a colleague in which she told me she regularly takes classes in the dance department, just because she loves dancing. I've been doing a little reading about Martha Graham, too. There are probably some new-agey self-help books that say I'm experiencing synchronicity. Maybe. I do think the art of dance is a latent interest I haven't explored yet, which could probably enhance my life in any number of ways. Anyone have any suggestions of dances I should learn, or other good dance movies?

I'm going to follow in the footsteps of Liz and Alex by posting my tentative AoIR itinerary. I won't get to the conference until Friday night, so my Saturday schedule is as follows:

8:30: "Pornography and Ideology"

10:00: "Identity: linking identity, community, and belonging"

11:30: Keynote

2:00: I might need this time to meditate before my presentation, but if I go to a session, it will most likely be "Expanding the Boundaries: Methodological Issues in Doing Internet Research."

4:00 I'm presenting--in the "Blogging: authors and consequences II" session.

Sunday:

8:30: "Digital Divide: haves and have-nots?"

10:00: "e-Democracy: localism"

Hey, Anne and Andrew, what are your schedules like? Are we going to have a bloggers' night out? (Ugh, that sounds nerdy.)

Update: Looks like Anne's going elsewhere.

I just found this reading diary entry written by my friend Darren on In the Time of the Butterflies by Alvarez. It had the same shattering effect on me too. If you haven't read it, read it now, and while you're at it, read her other books, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Yo!, and In the Name of Salomé. Alvarez is one of the few fiction authors I try to keep up with; when she comes out with a new novel, I buy the hardcover and read it immediately.

I'm trying to think of some techniques for writing essay conclusions (to give to my students), other than just the "summarize what you've already said" method, which harks back to the 5-paragraph essay model: tell us what you're going to tell us, tell us, then tell us what you told us. Here's what I've come up with so far:

• Call for awareness: Several students are writing about new issues, so ending with a call for awareness seems fitting.
• Unanswered questions/Implications for further study: What issues can be resolved in this essay, and what questions remain about the issue?
• Rationale: Why is this an important thing to study? (This is mainly for people doing comparison papers.)
• Call for action/What you can do: Kind of like a call for awareness, but with specific directions for the audience on how they can get involved and combat this problem.

Can anyone think of any more?

For my birthday, my friend Andrea gave me a gift certificate from Barnes & Noble, specifically instructing me to "get something 'cupcake'" since I do a lot of theory-reading. So, with my gift certificate, I got The Bad Girl's 2004 desk calendar. However, I couldn't resist also getting a book I've been wanting to read ever since I heard a riveting NPR interview with its author, Aidan Hartley: The Zanzibar Chest. It's a memoir of Hartley's life in Africa. He says a lot about the devastating effects of colonialism.

Today I got an email from Thierry Robin, who told me about his upcoming trip to Iraq. He says (this is from his blog, not the email):

:: I'm a freelance journalist and reporter and a member of the ABIR association. I feel concerned by the fate of Iraqi women and men since 1991, year of the first war conducted against the government of Saddam Hussein. Twelve years of embargo have followed and finally a much debated occupation. In October 2003, I will go on a trip to Iraq within the framework of a humanitarian action organized by ABIR, in company of three female members.

This experience is essential from a human point of view. It's also crucial for the various feelings and realities that I will try to "print" and reveal through my articles and photos. My favorite subject is the condition of women and girls in Iraq. I'm going to listen to their words, silences, claims and hopes. I will try to seize their glances, to catch a moment in the life of these women, of these girls in the turmoil of this war which does'nt finish. I'm going to meet them as if I were visiting the members of my own humane family. That's the main thing. It does not matter what these women will dare or be able to tell me, what they will reveal about their life or inner feelings. Try to decipher the language of the human heart in such a situation will give all the depth to this work, like a unique testimony of our time.

Should be interesting.

His blog mostly consists of book reviews--very nice! In an applied methods class I took, we had an "analysis of research study" assignment, in which we took a book-length study and analyzed the entire research design, including how well the choice of methods fit with the theoretical framework and research question, etc. One of the options was Spinuzzi's dissertation, which I chose. It's an excellent genre analysis and has been published by MIT Press.

What a beautiful day: 64 degrees and thunderstormy. I say that knowing how much I sound like a member of the Addams family, but oh well; I do love this kind of weather. Last night I had a very weird dream. I attended a speech given by George W. Bush. His photographers had forgotten their cameras, so one of his aides asked if anyone in the audience had a camera. It just so happened that I had my big fabulous Canon A2E, so I went up to the front. They instructed me to sit in the front row, along with a bunch of soldiers in Army uniforms, and take pictures. I did, and then after the speech, Bush asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand and stammered something about women's rights, and Colin Powell said, "Why don't you tell us what you really think?" They then told me they liked my pictures so much that they wanted me to be Bush's official photographer, and were willing to pay me a lot of money. I thought to myself, can I really be the photographer for an administration that goes against everything I stand for? Would I still be able to blog about my political views? Then I woke up.