Tip-Tapping

Eeeewwwwww

Sun, 12 May 2013 07:08:59 GMT

S.M. Stirling of Peshawar Lancers fame is Writer GOH at SteamCon this year.

I GUESS I'M NOT GOING TO *ANY* STEAMPUNK CON THIS YEAR.

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well that was mildly exciting

Sun, 12 May 2013 06:07:18 GMT

So, I meant to go to Jo-Ann first thing this morning right? Except.... I was feeling blah and everything was blah and I couldn't find it in me to leave the house until around 5pm. And I thought, well, I leave now, and it takes me an hour to get there, I take about an hour shopping, and then an hour back, and I ought to be home around 9pm-ish. That sounds reasonable.

Except I miss the bus and have to wait half an hour, so it's only 6pm that I get on a bus. I had a lovely conversation with a stranger who seemed to really want to talk about his family. He's one of those odd and off kinds who've gone a bit loopy from being homeless for a while, and he told me a bit about living in a different town for a year and getting his cellphone stolen and whatnot. It was nice, actually. I really am still all peopled-out from yesterday, but I really kind of miss this kind of chance encounters that one gets from living in a city.

Anyway, so I shop, and all is well. I get out and try to decide on food, whether I want to eat at University Village or something. But I pass a MacDonald's! And I decide, hey, I haven't eaten McD's in a while, why not?

Well, turns out I must have missed the last bus home? I got to the bus stop at 8.41pm, which in my mind is not that late. I've taken buses from Bayer's Lake which is even middle-of-fucking-nowhere than these shopping malls where there're tons of people out at, and been stuck out in Bayer's Lake close to midnight! So.

Except I wait for about an hour and still no bus. So, I'm a little cheesed, because NIGHTTIME SPRINKLERS keep sprinkling on me, making the nighttime breeze chillier than it already is. They literally pop out of the ground, go over the grass for a bit, and then stop after about ten minutes and go back into the ground for like twenty. And they popped up again! Argh!

So I start making calls to people I know, because I just want to know what the fucking bus schedule is, OK? And here is where I discover I can call six people, I will hit 4 voicemails IMMEDIATELY and only one person will pick up. TX doesn't take the bus but she kept me on the line while she looked up where I was. (Another friend called me while I was on the line with TX.) And TX was like, "it's really late! Where are you, I'll come get you." Yay!

Yeah. I still have no clue where I put my bus schedule, but I guess the rule of thumb is that buses don't run after sunset here. Riverside transit is awful and I can't believe I'm stuck here for the next four years.

Anyway, my haul is pretty decent: lots of flannel to make Marvel and Star Trek TOS themed cloth pads, some cute buttons, a new big rotary cutter (Nalo told me that if I want pieces to be similarly sized, it's better to use a rotary cutter than scissors, because then there's more precision) and zipper to make a new skirt with.

I even got some reading done! And there's a book I need in the Science library which is close to the Botanic Gardens, so I'll go for a hike, maybe? (The libraries open at 1pm! What! I don't even like being in the Gardens after 10am =( Oh well.)

people people people

Sat, 11 May 2013 16:53:17 GMT

On Tuesday, after class, I walked over to my professor's house to have lunch and look around since she needs a housesitter for summer. Turns out I might not be the only housesitter which will be cool. She has so many plants! That is the kind of garden I want in my future house. At the end of the road her house is on there is a hiking trail, so I really want to try that out sometime.

Thursday was a bust as far as concentration goes.

Yesterday was more exciting; we had an inter-dept social with Hispanic Studies and it was really exciting! I brought my smoothie machine. There was some issue with the pizza; I had wanted to make sure there was gluten-free pizza and I just don't understand the issue of making sure a dietary restriction is a significant part of the menu, rather than a side thing for the one or two people. "Does it even matter?" Yes, yes it does, my god. It's not convenient or something? Whatever, parties aren't organized out of convenience. By definition parties require time and planning.

Anyway, it went smashing. I met a lot of Hispanic Studies folk, and even a couple of the CPLT faculty came out, especially the dept chair, who later bemoaned that he didn't finish grading as a result. Oh well. :P I also made sure the staff were invited too. Next time I'll make sure the entire department knows, not just Senate faculty and grads.

Hispanic Studies folk were also really awesome and they want to know when it can happen again, so... I count that as a success :D CPLT folk tend to get ridic busy and there's the sense that if there aren't a lot of people coming then it's no point organizing a do, but if the idea is numbers of people, then one should join forces with another group.

I'm all peopled out but I really want to get out to buy some fabric for making pads. And I have coupons, so.

Sat, 04 May 2013 07:18:00 GMT

Ugh, if yesterday was a bust due to a headache, today was a bust because.... I don't know why. I can't seem to read anything, even online, for more than a hot minute before my mind starts wandering. Even when I tried to write some fiction, I started thinking about other fiction.

Fucking frustrating.

Sanitary Napkin Crafty-ness

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:20:38 GMT

After a terrible day of waking up late and then not being able to do anything due to a migraine and attempting to rest but just, everything was bleh. It was a bleh kind of day.

So in the end I gave up the whole idea of reading and pulled out my table and started fixing my skirt! Turns out I still had to install a zipper, but with the elastic in place, it fits a lot better. I haven't bothered hemming it, since it already looks so busy, so no one will notice, so yay!

And while I had my sewing machine out, I started making a cloth pad! A matching set, even! (I haven't really bothered matching my pads... if it needs stuffing, I pick whatever happens to be handy.) So the day wasn't a total bust!

I also, for the first time in MONTHS, logged into Model Mayhem to read and respond to messages. I'm not really feeling up to modeling just yet, but it can't hurt to connect with local photographers.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive in terms of schoolwork.

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:08:37 GMT

Food:

I made a briyani thing the other day. The rice is too spicy and I got sick of chicken =( Also, I put my bread in the fridge to freeze and prevent it from getting moldy on me and uh, they're now all stuck together. Shoulda remembered Wilma's advice and separated slices into smaller Ziplock baggies first.

Had my first green smoothie yesterday! Celery and spinach. Dad was right; there's a kind of flavor to celery that's got a funny aftertaste. Well, whatever, I'm excited to be buying vegetables like a real human being now.

Garden:

Squash grows apace! I also dug a hole for compost, trying trench composting this time. Of course, cats are treating it as a litter box. Hopefully this exercise will help make my soil easier to water. I'm going to try slowly working my way throughout the whole patio patch (barring the bits which have plants in them of course).

GE13:

I've been asked several times now about voting from overseas and finally looked into it. I'll give the consulate in LA a call tomorrow or something. Apparently Malaysians abroad have to register themselves with the closest Malaysian Embassy / High Comm / Consulate? Well. Whoops.

To be perfectly frank I'm not invested in either party running right now. Of course, it is nice that we actually HAVE an Opposition Front that is an actual threat to the National Front, but both parties are cut from the same cloth, as far as I can tell. Just that one doesn't have a bad history. And their fanclubs, well... no need to say, heh.

School:

Is fine. No idea what I'm doing about final papers yet. I keep thinking maybe I'll write a short fic for my Phi of Sci class since that is an option but I'm generally uninspired.

Things in my Tabs

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:14:19 GMT

Woman who is a sailor on a merchant ship was on off-shore leave. Bus driver tried to rape her. She got him into a strangehold.

Asians are now largest immigrant group in SoCal. It might explain the anti-Black racism at UCI lately. Dr. Tamara K. Nopper writes in solidarity with UCI Black Students.

Miss America Compassion.

Call for Papers: Imagining Alternatives: A Graduate Symposium on Speculative Fictions. Deadline Aug 23, 2013.

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Things in my Tabs

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:13:13 GMT

9 Upcycled Gift Ideas

Why "Bindis" Are Not A Fashion Trend

Yes I Did Stick A Gear On It: The Illusion of Steampunk Performance

Seed Bombs: A Guide To Forms And Function

The Pink Pony: A Retrospective (essay on the brony phenomenom)

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Smoothies and Swimming!

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:07:40 GMT

Well actually there was no real swimming because the pool was too cold. Anyway, E came over yesterday and we made smoothies in my big blender. The recipe said one cup yogurt, and so I stuck that in, but I don't think I've ever use yogurt as a base anymore because holy crap, that was a super-filling smoothie! It was also my first time buying berries: black, rasp and straw ones. The color really dominates everything else! Usually I see orange but yesterday and today my smoothies have a light pink/purple hue to it.

After that E and I hung out in the pool and found one of the hot tubs had a jacuzzi jet going but no heat, so we hung out in it for a while. Then we went to the UCR Community Garden to check their event out, and it was fun! There was a lovely lady there who was hosting the vermicomposting table. She's part of the UUCR too! So she gave me her email in case I want to get in touch with her for more worms, which I definitely do.

But wow, after dinner, when I got home, it was maybe 7.30? And I just about passed out until like 9 or so. And then I tired-reblogged stuff from the following tags: tapir, sewing, garden, gardening, urban gardening, guerilla gardening, victory garden

I am especially fond of this find in the tag: someone painting milk bottles and setting them up with plants around the city. I hate the fact that my compound doesn't have a recycling program (just one for mixed paper, and that's right at the postbox since we get so much flyers) and since I don't have a car, I can't take my bottles out for recycling regularly. But re-using them for plants is a much better idea! And painting them so they become more attractive... I smell a summer project in the air. I guess I better invest in a drill.

I've also been learning about seedbombing and how guerrilla gardeners have been using them. The reclamation of space, however small, really makes a difference. I may try to persuade my dad to do some of it with me when I next go home. He's had some luck with random gardening in the new house so he might be down for some public gardening.

Anyway, I have new pictures of my garden up on my Tumblr if you're interested.

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:34:50 GMT

Hmmm.... I made a chicken and rice casserole using the directions on this jar of chicken gravy I got the other day. I replace the 2 cups cooked rice with one cup rice and one cup of couscous, and used some chicken sewers, and instead of cheddar cheese I use that Kraft Mexicana blend.

It's fairly decent tasting but it occurs to me that I have no basis for comparison on how these things really ought to be.

Do wish I'd remember the garlic powder though.

The smoothie did not last me through the whole evening, sadly =( Oh well! Tomorrow is a new day.

Health things

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:06:25 GMT

Allergies:

So I do indeed have allergies and my shrink was like GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR and I now have to wait for a referral to an allergist so yeah. In the meantime, the nasal spray has been helping mightily!

I also changed my sheets and washed my pillows, while vacuuming. It was a good weekend. And thanks for the tip on fluffing pillows using the dryer, Kate! :O All those dollars wasted on getting new pillows because I didn't know how to get them back into shape...

Exercise:

To help with the allergies, I've gotten back into exercising. Since it's no longer ridiculously cold out, AND I have more time, it's been easy to pop to the exercise room to get in some cardio. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill. But I never run, I just kind of do this fast walking. I notice if I go in during the late morning, afternoon, someone will be on the stairmaster, and that's where my best sweating happens. At some point I'll also start swimming again. Of course, one can't read while swimming the way one can on the treadmill.

I would really like to make it a habit of hiking in the Botanic Gardens but it feels really far, especially since the sun is coming up so fast nowadays. I think I'll give it another go this weekend though, and see.

Blending!

I got myself a blender! Two actually; one for personal use and one which has a dispenser for parties and I do intend to have parties. So far I've been making stuff with apples and oranges since I still have stuff left over, but tonight I also made stuff with grapes, carrots and celery. (Well, not in plural, I added ONE carrot stick and ONE celery stick). Still, I am eating greens! :O Kinda. I've also put in Yakult but next time I'll try for some actual yogurt... it's hard to find plain yogurt though.

This is the blender I bought. The idea is that you can blend and then take the thing with you, but the travel lid is, imo, kinda flimsy so I don't really trust carrying it on my backpack. I'll have to find another way of carrying my blends with me. I seem to take FOREVER to finish one 400ml cup but it's pretty filling, so this might be a good thing for me to bring to my afternoon class which always happens around lunchtime so I get really hungry about halfway thru.

I'm very excited about the possibilities! :D On Munira's suggestion, I've put some fruit in the freezer instead of using ice, for tomorrow's smoothie. I don't really like ice much in my drinks, so freezing the fruit makes a lot of sense. I'm adding banana and grapes to the thing too, and vanilla ice-cream really helps, even just a couple of teaspoon scoops.

Sleep:

I think I am oversleeping? I got a good 8 hours of sleep last night (after a full day of not sleeping), but today, after class, going to the bank and doing a bit of work in the cafe, I came home and zonked out for about two hours. And it's barely 11 and I'm getting sleepy again. It's also not good for producing any output. I can't seem to put my finger on it. The shrink and doctor say it's due to allergies, which OK, but STILL.

This means more strategies for getting more energy! I guess I'll take my doc's advice and get some Zyrtec-D to help with the allergies. It really does seem my most active is in the morning though.

This means, no Tumblr in the morning?!?! It's gotten to the point where I have to actually shut down the computer in order to not be distracted. Of course this doesn't help when I have work to do that requires a computer. Still, it's been nice having the computer off. Welp.

Busy busy busy (curating and Eaton)

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 05:11:44 GMT

So, I curated for a week at @twt_malaysia last week! Let me see if I can recap:
Day 1 started with people establishing that I 1) am boring, 2) look like a K-pop star or pelakon Ultraman, 3) am one of the anime geeks. I went all over talking about race in the States and a lot of people really wanted to talk about steampunk, and bla bla bla.
Over the course of the week I talked about: mental illness, feminism, bullying. Funny thing is when I shared my stories of bullying, a load of trolls decided to yell at me for being boring and unable to take criticism and acting like a victim.

it's quite clear that there are some people who expect twt_msia curators to be their dancing monkey! There were a lot of derogatory "unmensi" tweets (apparently some newfangled Malaysiana term for "unmentionable" for when you want to talk about someone without mentioning their name).

Nonetheless, I appear to have won myself a few fans who were impressed at me telling off the "twitfemes" (apparently some newfangled Malaysiana term for "Twitter famous" which seems to mean anyone with a lot of followers, maybe over 50k). One woman said that it sounded like I was shouting without using all caps based on the way I wrote, lol. People, using active sentences makes whatever you say sound stronger, you know. I had some really great conversations with complete strangers.

Munira tells me that apparently a ton of people disliked me because I was "race obsessed" and had few kind words to say about the U.S. which, as a Malaysian-Chinese, I'm supposed to praise to high heaven. I went after capitalism as usual, and as usual people kind of stop at "cut costs" without further interrogating the ethics of cutting costs. (Like, no shit Sherlock, I know they do it to cut costs. This is not the end of the conversation.) Whatever fans I lost from the Malaysian-Chinese crowd, I appear to have gained from the Malay crowd, who were impressed that I support Muslim businesses and took Tasawwur Islam in secondary school.

And of course there's the cohort that yells at me to watch my language and I was like whatevs, I was told to be myself, and myself swears.

I also made friends with the curator of @bangkoking! She also yells against capitalism, so that was pretty exciting. (She's also a photographer, and was tweeting pics from Songkran, which is a fairly exciting festival. The inland SEAsian countries really usher in their New Year with gusto.)

Around the same time, last Friday, the Eaton SF Conference started and it happens downtown. There was a reception on Thursday, and the conference went on Friday and Saturday. I kind of forgot to buy registration. Emily Jiang drove down from SF and was staying in LA, and she came to pick me up for the reception and even though we didn't have badges, we just walked in anyway. Afterwards, we had some pizza and then went to Nalo Hopkinson's reading.

We managed to get there early on Friday morning for registration, and went to see our friend Kathryn Allan's talk on disability in Star Trek. I also got to see my steampunk friends, Jess Nevins and Mike Perschon!!!! They'd never met in person before so this was kinda neat and it was just wonderful being able to hang out not at a steampunk con. I got to see Emily's and Jess' talks, and Jess shared a panel with Indigenous SF scholar Grace Dillon!!! And so I very nervously went to introduce myself to Grace Dillon and SHE WAS THE BEST!!!!!! She is so sweet and full of laughs. AAAAAAAA!!!!

I hung out at the bar with Jess and Mike because we were invited to have drinks with a couple of the English grads. The bar had science fiction themed drinks!! Apparently a couple of bar staff even dressed up on the first day because they thought it would be THAT kind of con XD We spent HOURS there. It was amazing. I was so fatigued because I'd been sleeping at 3am due to twt_msia but I didn't care. Friends!

I woke up early again the next day to see Mike present. His was really cool because while I'm not interested in monster movies, he had a few things going on: talking about the anxieties and processes behind making monster movies, talking about the reception and critical readings about the monster movies, AND using all of the previous plus the movies themselves as a teaching tool for his Composition class. So they have primary texts (the movies) to compare and contrast and learn how to analyze, and they have the assigned secondary sources on the primary texts in order for them to see how a critical analysis is developed, and also how an argument is made in academic writing. Which I think is pretty fucking genius.

Jess and I went to tea-dueling at the nearby UU church, because it's now a steampunk church and the reverend wants to make tea-dueling a thing. What's tea-dueling? Jess and I didn't know so we went to find out and report back to Mike. (FTR it is a thing where you dip a biscuit into your tea, lift it up, and it's like, you have to be the last one to get the biscuit into your mouth before it crumbles from the dunking.)

Sunday I rested, but on Monday I had to run around getting forms for a thing, and then Grace Dillon was showing some indigenous SF films so I went to that. Afterwards I had a nice long talk with her and the previous speaker, Istvan, who spoke on Science Fiction Music and we had a great chat about dealing with problematic stuff and inner-community stuff. As he left he told me "Courage!" (in that French way).

So yeah, it's been quite a week! I'm glad that it's over. I'm also collecting my brains and am capable of reading again without getting too distracted, so that is nice too!

Anyways.

Things in my Tabs

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:57:57 GMT

Investment and Inefficient Charity

Man serving life sentence for stealing BW TV

About the founding of Sriracha hot sauce

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Today's Loot

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 03:45:12 GMT

Got to campus early to help TX with her diss section which was due at noon. Then I went to the Botanic Gardens plant sale!! I brought a grocery bag because a) it would limit how many plants I'd buy since I was probably walking home with them and b) no awkward walking around with plant in hand.

Turns out many of the pots for the plants I wanted, herbs, were very tiny! It was bigger flowering bushes that would have REALLY limited my yield.

I bought:
- two kinds of chives: regular and garlic. One flowers in spring and the other in fall, and apparently the flowers are edible. I'm pretty sure once I transplant them I will have no idea what they are anymore. I'm thinking of not putting them in the ground, but in a new, larger pot. I'll set that on the wall so my neighbour can help herself to some if she wants.
- an little oregano, now right next to my parsley
- a curly-leaf parsley planted in the same plot as my Italian parsley. (The Italian Parsley is now flowering or something so I've got to do something about it.)
- a squash, because I couldn't resist it, even though one of my classmates said she's giving me one of her squash seedlings. I planted it next to the garlic, and the other one can go to the other side of the garlic since that's where it's sunniest;
- a Spanish lavender, which I've planted closer to the flower row. Once that starts thriving, I'll go get an English and a French one so I can have a variety of lavenders.

There were also delta maidenhair ferns available! And birds' nests!! I got super-nostalgic when I saw them.... my family had a delta maidenhair when I was growing up. Not that I knew what it was called, of course, but I recognized the leaves immediately. Am contemplating it, but it looks fussy. If I had a bigger bottle, I'd make a terrarium with it, which is an idea... I'm going back tomorrow for a talk on vegetable gardening, and may buy one if it's still there.

At this rate I'm going to need a planter or more for all the things I want!!

Concentration Issues

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:40:26 GMT

Maybe I just don't like the material, but I am having a ton of difficulty with these readings for Phi Sci and Directed Studies. It's all science stuff, which I really, honestly, do not have the least bit interest in. Coupled with the fact that I am still not really recovered from last quarter, am on my period, and am just generally fatigued, concentration is not a thing.

I've also been napping for inordinately LONG amounts of time. Which is weird, because last week I didn't need to nap this much, but this week it's like I just do not want to crawl out of bed. Ever. There is some crazy aggressive distaste to waking up in the afternoon that my body is displaying. I may bring this up to my doctor next time I see her.

Tomorrow there's a plant sale at the Botanic Gardens. I went hiking this morning which was nice, and tomorrow will see TX to help her proofread. There's also a conference going on right now, which is free to attend, and there's a postcolonialism session later in the day, so I may just pop in. We'll see.

I am so tired and I need to stop being so tired.

Classes so far

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 07:45:09 GMT

OK. I think I'm going to get very impatient with the Philosophy of Science course. Not because of the prof or the classmates! Well, maybe the undergrad classmates. It's weird; there are two lectures and then a grad seminar. This means we grads are kind of stuck with all the basic 101 questions and statements the undergrads make, like, "science is about making progress" and LOL NO. I brought up the Tuskegee syphillis experiment and one of the undergrads was like "but now we have the knowledge that we gained from the experiment itself, and then we also have a new kind of knowledge of human relations" LOL WHAT NO.

The syllabus is also horrifyingly white and predominantly male (I count only one female name on this whole list)... apparently we're only doing "modern" science as has been shaped by Western European powers (but let's not mention that at all!!!!). This textbook that's an introduction to the philosophy of science is just........ I think it's very descriptive but oh my god do I ever want to punch walls. And we have to read Bacon's Aphorisms! Oh my god! I can only tolerate "B'AWW WORDS ARE HARD AND COMPLICATE UNDERSTANDING" this far... eventually I fucked off and decided to read Galileo instead. And you know? I'm quite sure the first scientists to work on optics were Arab? No, let's not mention that at all, it would diminish Galileo's genius.

I am going to be SO MUCH OVER DEAD WHITE DUDES than I have ever been before after this class!

The saving grace is that the professor is open to reading all sorts of other kinds of stuff, extra reading that aligns with the grad students' research interests. He's also a VERY good teacher, as in teaching style. My grad classmates also seem cool; we have a psych student, an anthro student, and a grad in the School of Education who's doing work on... aquariums? It's really neat. She's neat too. We also have someone who's not even registered at the uni sitting in, and two Philosophy students. Who. Wow. This brings my count of Philosophy Students I Have Met up to 3, and they are all dull people who... for some reason... do not like talking about their work? It makes me wonder why they're doing it in the first place. It's not even a case of "how can I explain my work to the layperson unfamiliar with my academic interests" there's just no enthusiasm at all. Maybe they'll open up though. Either way, the seminar should be loads of fun, and the professor is a lot of fun too.

My Directed Studies course with Dr. LR is, I think, going to be a challenge. She's SO OLD SCHOOL!!! We're doing work on Mind/Body dualism! I just.... cannot really grok how it is going to be relevant to my work. The texts are totally interesting, of course but I'm going to somehow ask her if I could think through what we're doing with performativity, and embodied performativity. She might say no, because it's not very science-y? The workload is really light though; she assigned me some books and told me to get through as much as possible as I could. She was pretty strong on her preference for a seminar paper--she's so old school she thinks in terms of "something to publish" at the end of it. Why is American academia so obsessed with getting in as many publications and conferences as much as possible? All it does is just make everybody fucking anxious as far as I can tell. Anyway, whatever. We get along and I'm sure as long as she keeps her hands off my dissertation, I'll be fine.

The idea for incorporating performativity came from the SEA Lit class, which I think is going to be a hoot. I always worry that Dr. HM is going to be old-school disinterested in politics and whatnot, and I am theory-heavy while he is trained as a text-based philologist, but honestly he is SO EASY to get along with and we always have good chats. We're reading a shitload of really cool old Malay / Malaysian literature which I'd never even heard of in school and wish I did. We're also doing some colonial literature ABOUT Malaya which I think is going to be really interesting (I did not know that Conrad wrote on Malaya too). I'm pretty sure he understands that Malay literature has just about absolutely no bearing on my dissertation, BUT definitely a hella lot on my ambitions beyond academia. It feels like he's bending over backwards to help me do SF even though that is seriously just not one of his fields at all.

AND my classmate for that class (yeah it's just the two of us) does Indonesian!! So I asked if we could do stuff in the original Malay / Indonesian since we ALL can read the texts in their original languages anyway! I AM EXCITE. (She is also white and blond and I am tickled. She seems very quiet, but nice. I'm afraid of stone-rolling over her.) It was so awesome today; we basically just shot the shit and our conversation ran from the actual readings and anime and translation issues and future plans and other departments and politics and aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. Makes me want to cook some nasi lemak for an even more leisurely kopitiam feel.

I did discover that there's a "Science Fiction Cinema" class in Media Studies, which I'm kind of pissed off about; if I'd known, I would have taken it, because it would have fulfilled two slots in my requirements list. I may have missed a bullet though; the prof assigned "The Windup Girl" as one of the texts... this I saw in the bookstore when I went to buy my philosophy textbooks. I may email him to see if he'll be repeating the course. I'm also going to get in touch with relevant departments to find out what their planned schedule is for the next year, so I'm better armed with what classes I could take. Since I won't be the only SF student next year, it'll be really worth my while to get together a list of potential courses we can all take to fulfill requirements.

In the meantime, Dr. LR asked me to write the grad advisor and chair about the SF Track, if I feel strongly about keeping it. I do, but I really want to have its requirements changed so it's more flexible for students who, like me, AREN'T into hard science and science fiction that's really just about science stuff. What I do is, I guess, academically called "speculative fiction" (Nalo and I had a conversation about terms the other day; she uses "science fiction" as a blanket term to also mean fantasy and horror and everything else) and I imagine, for those of us doing more fantasy stuff, courses on mythology and history are more important than courses on science specifically. So... yeah, I'm going to think up why we need a separate SF track and not just an interdisciplinary one (which the department does have; they are thinking of assimilating the SF track into the interdisciplinary one if we can't find a compelling reason for them to stay separate). Given that the grad advisor does manga and anime, I think she'll understand where I'm coming from on this.

On the medical front because apparently I am forgetful as fuck, I tried to order birth control since I have my period this week? And I was told, nope, you have your prescription for the month, come back WAY later and I'm like, whut. And now that I think about it, I DID get my prescription earlier for this month so I wouldn't have to scramble.

........ except I kept it in the paper bag and I thought I didn't need it anymore and I think I accidentally threw away the prescription medicine inside. /o\ I mean, I hope not and it's just laying around my apartment somewhere?? But I really cannot think of anywhere else I would have put it!

AUGH.

Oh well.

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 05:59:50 GMT

If you walk out of your panties, keep walking.

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Surprise Poetry and some

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:01:22 GMT

I wrote two poems in two days! What a surprise. I thought I was completely lacking in creative energy after that terrible quarter.

One is about women and moons and misandry, and the other is in response to a #diversitylit Twitter chat I had the misfortune to watch one day that decided to wring their hands about authenticity.

I tried to finish the skirt off with an elastic around the waist tonight; I thought it would be a simple matter. However, what happened was.... now the skirt is too tight. And I have no more fucks to give: school starts tomorrow and I really need to clear my tables. I cannot with this skirt anymore. I'll bring it with me to WisCon, to the Clothing Swap, where maybe it'll find a home that's not around my waist. Next time, I'll be more careful about measurements and putting things together, at the waist area especially. As in, next time I will measure things and not just draw around existing clothes.

This afternoon I had a meeting with the UCR Mellon SF group and got a lot of rehash of stuff that the older members had already told us. Basically we have to write a proposal about anything goddamn thing we want to have happen. And I was like, "yeah, Grace Dillon and Nisi Shawl." I also want to reach out to the sciences and agricultural college divisions too.

Things in my Tabs

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 08:13:02 GMT

Star Wars art director Roger Christian to make zombies out of Malaysians
And he can go fuck right off.

Black Unemployment Driven By White America's Favors For Friends

Exorcising Hegel's Ghost: Africa's Challenge to Philosophy

This entry was originally posted at http://jhameia.dreamwidth.org/79138.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Day Trip with Nalo!

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 08:09:01 GMT

Met up with Nalo today to hang out. She gave me a copy of SISTER MINE! ^_____________^ \(^o^)/ We bused to Day St, where I promptly forgot how to get to Jo-Ann and had to think a long time. Found it, of course, because it is not easy to stump me for long. I needed some ribbon for my dress, and she needed yarn. I also ended up buying some more fabric... to make cloth pads with :D Nalo said she might have green and yellow towel stuff that she could give me. And it's PERFECT because one of the fabrics I got is a set of Marvel characters XD I'm so excited! After finishing this dress I'll be drafting stuff for pads and experimenting with sizes and then I'll take them to WisCon with me.

We stopped into a home deco store because I needed some over the door hangers, since I'm a bit tired of my crap laying around on the floor.

Then we went into Michaels because, well, it's Michaels, and we are both craftsy people.

Since there wasn't much else we wanted to do, we headed to downtown Riverside to have some tacos at a very interesting restaurant she told me about, whose proprietor makes sculptures on his premises out of junk.

By the time I got home, it was 5.30, and I just about passed out.

I tried finishing my dress, but the elastics didn't work, and in the end, it just didn't fit well! =( I really underestimated how stretchy the fabric is. I'm still not sure what to do about it. I could go with the original plan of making a pinafore, or I could experiment with even more fabric (I still have a LOT of it left) and make a loose-fitting top with a split back that buttons at the top, and interesting sleeves using a trick Priscilla told me about.

Hmmmm, so many possibilities. Either way, I'll finish with the skirt first and then move from there.

Skirt part: done!

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 08:52:13 GMT

I've been meaning to make a dress out of this awful skulls fabric I bought a while back for $4/yard XD It's pretty metal. And I wanted to try my hand at making in-seam pockets. So this afternoon, I drafted the pattern using pre-existing stuff I made before (the front is going to be a halter-neck because it seems the easiest but still exciting pattern I've got custom-made) (the back has to change because I was thinking of hiding my bra strap under wide elastics) and started cutting around 6pm. By around midnight, I've got a skirt! It was a bit touch and go because I hadn't counted on how very stretchy the fabric is, and forgot to stabilize it. So this means a lot of pleating to make sure the whole thing goes around my waist properly. It's OK though; the ad hoc pleats made for a really awesome effect.

I forgot to get ribbon when I was last in Jo-Ann so I've got to get some before I can finish off this thing. I've got most of the top made--I'd like to have some peace of mind before I start sewing in the elastics though. I'm surprised my needle hasn't broken at all today, given how much material I'm expecting it to sew through!

Paper: “Something That Is Probably Quite Ineffable”

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:08:02 GMT

When I embarked on this paper, I asked people if they knew the plot of Cats: The Musical. Unsurprisingly, the ones who do are musical geeks; by and large, even people who have watched the movie and enjoy the songs don't quite grasp that there is a central story beyond random songs about cats. Then there is a sense of embarrassment from some to admitting they liked it. It's fairly understandable—it's hard to take seriously a show featuring anthromorphized cats caterwauling on stage. There is a lot to take in, whether in the movie or in the live shows: the theater becomes an oversized junkyard, every actor is dressed in leotards with elaborate wigs and makeup, giant shoes drop on-stage, and if you're not busy being swept away or judging the attendant show tunes, there is often complex dance choreography with soloists who themselves are performing a wordless story. Plot becomes rather secondary in the whirl of affect generated by the whole spectacle.

Nonetheless, there is a plot, and there are protagonists. The musical is set at the Jellicle Ball, where Munkustrap, de facto leader and protector of the Jellicles, announces:

Jellicle Cats meet once a year
At the Jellicle Ball
Where we all rejoice!
And the Jellicle leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the Jellicle Choice
When Old Deuteronomy, just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the Cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle life
For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer
With wonders one Jellicle only will see
And Jellicles ask, Because Jellicles dare:
"Who will it be?"

This paper takes a close look at the 1998 musical film of Cats: the Musical, with an analysis of the lyrics in relation to the original T.S. Eliot poems that they draw from. Rather than offer a literary criticism of Eliot's work by themselves, for which there is already a significant body, the Eliot excerpts from his Four Quartets and "Rhapsody On A Windy Night" are interesting unto themselves within the context of the musical, especially alongside an analysis of the characters that they are now attached to. In short, rather than try to interpret Eliot, I asked, "what can we get out of the musical which uses these particular lyrics from Eliot?" In order to understand the Jellicle Cats, I frame their depiction as an interesting permutation of Hegel's dialectic of Human and Divine Law. Further, while most interpretations of the Cats plot involves the redemption of one of its central figures, Grizabella the Glamour Cat, I offer an interpretation of Grizabella as a figure of abjection, adapted from Julie Kristeva's definition of abjection, who reproduces the Jellicles' social identity and symbolizes a different and productive way of approaching concepts of enlightenment and reincarnation.

It is worthwhile mentioning what the source texts of the lyrics are, despite it apparently being general knowledge that most of the songs are directly lifted from T.S. Eliot's Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. In an introduction to Cats: the Book of the Musical, Valerie Eliot explains that the Old Possum book had its start in a letter to T.S. Eliot's godson Tom Faber. His initial approach was to "have different poems on appropriate subjects ... At the end they all go up in a balloon, self, Spats, and dogs and cats.

Up up up past the Russell Hotel,
Up up up to the Heaviside Layer" (T.S. Eliot, quoted by V. Eliot 8).

(These two lines will be important to us later.) Valerie Eliot's meeting with Andrew Lloyd Webber was fruitful: "Mrs. Eliot produced various other uncollected poems ... she also gave us a fascinating rough draft of an opening poem for what appears to have been conceived as a book about cats and dogs. ... it inspired us to write a lyric with the same intention of celebrating the supremacy of Jellicle Cats"(9). These lines, which are the lines quoted in the first part of this paper, are now part of the track "The Naming of Cats."

Track 14 of the musical, entitled "Moments of Happiness," is intriguingly lifted from the Four Quartets. It is from lines 42 to 52 of the 2nd verse from “the Dry Salvages,” the third part of the work. The stanza is a meditation on the meaning of happiness and its relationship to memory. Memory is a a driving theme throughout the whole musical—songs about each cat are themselves exercises in memory of what the Jellicles know about the featured cat. Therefore, the theme of memory also shapes Trevor Nunn's adaptation of the poem "Rhapsody On A Windy Night," which would become part of two tracks: the first half of Track 6, "Grizabella the Glamour Cat" (see Appendix 1) and the song that would become the hit, "Memory." "Memory" also includes lines from T.S. Eliot's "Preludes". Some kind uncredited soul has already created a table comparing the lines from "Rhapsody" to the adapted lines in "Memory":

phrases T. S. Eliot wrote in "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" :: adaptation by Trevor Nunn for Cats
Twelve o'clock :: Midnight
The moon has lost her memory :: Has the moon lost her memory?
She is alone :: She is smiling alone
Every street lamp that I pass / Beats like a fatalistic drum :: Every street lamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning
The street lamp sputtered / The street lamp muttered :: Someone mutters and a street lamp sputters
With all the old nocturnal smells :: The stale cold smell of morning
Memory! :: All alone with the memory
Sleep, prepare for life :: Look, a new day has begun

From "Preludes," Nunn took the images of "burnt-out ends of smoky days" (line 4) and "withered leaves about your feet" (line 7). These images are crucial to creating the atmosphere of decay, mortality, sadness and nostalgia which make "Memory" such a hit. They are also important in understanding Grizabella's character and role within the story.

Grizabella the Glamour Cat appears in only three parts of the entire musical, but she is arguably the major character of interest within the story. She first appears in Track 6 ("Grizabella the Glamour Cat"), during the Jellicle Ball (after which she performs the first on-stage version of "Memory"), and again right before the Jellicle Choice (when she reprises "Memory" with Jemima). It is generally accepted that Grizabella is the outcast of the Jellicle tribe, and she is often depicted wearing a short black sequined dress, mis-matched shoes, and a grey fur coat; the coat usually has clumped fur, representing how unkempt and uncared-for she is. Her entire outfit is ragged, as in the lyrics and poem: "You see the border of her dress / Is torn and stained with sand" ("Rhapsody," lines 19 and 20).

The lyrics to Grizabella's song are comprised of, as mentioned, lines from "Rhapsody On A Windy Night" and "an unpublished fragment of which only the last eight lines were written because TSE realized she was developing along the lines of Villon's 'La Belle Heaulmiere' who fell on evil days and he felt it would be too sad for children" (Valerie Eliot 8). Grizabella is a cat who "haunted many a low resort / Near the grimy road of Tottenham Court" and "flitted about the No Man's Land" around several well-known London pubs such as "The Rising Sun to the Friend at Hand" which implies that she represents the "fallen woman" trope.

Grizabella's outcast status is reflected not just in her outfit, but also in the reactions she receives from almost the entire cast when she appears. In the "Grizabella the Glamour Cat" sequence, many of the younger cats attempt to approach her, but the adult queens and toms deny them: Munkustrap pushes Mistofelees back, Skimbleshanks herds Jemima away, Jennyanydots slaps Electra on the wrist for trying to reach out to touch the graying queen, while Jellylorum hovers over Victoria and Etcetera, as if Grizabella would harm them. The older cats, more likely to know her history, treat her with contempt: Pouncival scratches her and Bombalurina circles around her, smirking before turning away in disgust. The only exception among the older cats is Demeter, who attempts to touch her, but cannot bring herself to, fleeing and looking back in fear. The whole process of physically demonstrating their rejection of her is repeated in the first "Memory" sequence, after she has disrupted the Jellicle Ball with just her presence: Tantomile and Coriopat, the first to sense her presence, hiss at her; Rum Rum Tugger tosses his mane up as he passes her; Jellylorum pulls a compassionate Victoria away, and Jemima has to be hustled off twice. I will touch on Jemima and Victoria later. When Pouncival shoves her, Demeter rushes to her side, but stops, seemingly recalling who Grizabella is, and Bombalurina pulls her away.

What then, defines an outcast that incites such a visceral reaction? To explore this, I turned to Hegel's dialectic of Human and Divine Law in his articulation of ethics. In this dialectic, Human Law is individual, rooted in the self-conscious reality that men as actors move in, coded as masculine and public. Divine Law is collective, and an intrinsic unconscious being of the social order that nonetheless imposes itself on individual freedom, presenting Human Law with something to define itself against. It is coded as feminine and domestic. Connected but not the same, the Nation is conscious, negotiated through reason, universal, and masculine, while the Family is unconscious, negotiated through blood relations, particular, and feminine. The Family produces the son, nurtures him, and inducts him into the Nation; later when the son has died, the Family re-iterates his citizenship by inducting him into death.

Beginning with this framework, I will now articulate what I call, in relation to the Jellicle tribe, Cat Law. It is closer to Divine Law than to Human Law, a space of the home. It is halfway between discursive and affective: discursive as the Cats are obviously using a form of language to introduce their various members auditioning for the Jellicle Choice, and affective as they have a non-verbal, "terpsichorean" language of sorts. Cat Law is decidedly not much like Hegel's Human Law: Jellicle cats are what Hegel might describe as "rooted and settled in isolation" (266) despite their interactions with humans. Remaining in Cat Law, Jellicle Cats never stray far from the tribe, like most of the cast, or if they do, they return to participate and continue to embody the description of what Jellicle Cats should look like, such as having "cheerful faces" and "bright black eyes," "are not too big" and "roly-poly" and "know how to dance a gavotte and a jig". This is how characters such as Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who are connected to the villain of the show, Macavity, continue to remain part of the tribe despite their "wicked deeds" ("Macavity" 85). Thus, Human Law and the human world is beyond Cat Law, and to become too embedded in the human world is to become an outcast like Grizabella or a villain like Macavity.

Grizabella, in order to become the Glamour Cat, has left the hearth and home, moved beyond the tribe into the human world, the world of Human Law. Hegel's Human Law is the space of ethics, which Cat Law obviously has no need of. More importantly, in Hegel's articulation, ethics requires the flux of self-consciousness—to ensure self-consciousness and the use of reason, Hegel asserts that War (or conflict) is necessary to prevent all the elements of a thinking society from falling into complacency. War, or conflict, being inherently destructive, is the anti-thesis of the nurturing space of Divine Law, to which Cat Law is most closely aligned. Thus, due to the ravages of the human world, Grizabella becomes abjected, and thus can no longer fit into the Jellicles' world: she no longer has a "cheerful face" and in the film, demonstrates that she no longer knows "how to dance a gavotte and a jig" ("Song of the Jellicles" 58).

The responses Grizabella elicits in the Jellicle Cats are that of what Julie Kristeva would call "that twisted braid of affects and thoughts [which] has only one quality of the object—that of being opposed to I" (1). Grizabella is what no Jellicle wants to be, and her very presence can be disturbing—at the Jellicle Ball, after they have seemingly calmed down to rest, her presence intrudes on their repose; the abject "disturbs identify, system, order" (4), and, as if to banish her presence, or to re-iterate themselves as that which she is not, the Jellicles resume dancing. Her mangy coat, formerly a province of happiness, and formerly a sign of what might have defined Jellicle life and identity for her, is now a province of decay, and as a result, the Jellicles no longer recognize her as kin.

Grizabella's abjection becomes productive, however, because it provokes affective responses from the mystical member of the tribe, Old Deuteronomy. The leader of the Jellicle Cats, Old Deuteronomy is "a cat who has lived may lives in succession," which is of great relevance given that he is the one who makes the Jellicle Choice of who will be reborn. He is so old, and has lived so many lives, that "he was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme / a long while before Queen Victoria's accession" ("Old Deuteronomy" lines 3 - 4). A large shaggy gray cat, Old Deuteronomy is portrayed with slow, measured movements, singing specific songs that dispense wisdom. As the one who makes the Jellicle Choice, he is the ultimate keeper of Cat Law; his choice is the cause for celebration, and the cause for the Jellicles to come together in an affirmation of their identity. Adored by all the Jellicle Cats, his is the presence that negotiates Grizabella's abjection. After Grizabella's second appearance, and unable to move fast enough to comfort her before she leaves, he sings "The Moments of Happiness," a philosophical song drawn from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets.

In this song, Old Deuteronomy sings that "we had the experience but missed the meaning," that the Jellicle Cats, presumably, have had experience of happiness, but missed its significance in their lives. This follows Grizabella's lines in the previous track, in which she sings "I can smile at the old days, / I was beautiful then. / I remember the time I knew what happiness was." However, Old Deuteronomy pushes the definition of happiness further: "approach to the meaning restores the experience / in a different form, beyond any meaning / we can assign to happiness." This is consistent with the context of T.S. Eliot's original poem; in the preceding lines, Eliot states several things that happiness is not, but which is usually associated with happiness: "not the sense of well-being, / Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection, / or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination" ("Dry Salvages, Part II, lines 42 - 44).

The next few lines are even more opaque, but not entirely incomprehensible if one remembers that Old Deuteronomy has lived "many lives in succession": "The past experience revived in the meaning / Is not the experience of one life only / But of many generations." This is a mystical element deeply connected to the reincarnation theme that is the point of the Jellicle Choice; grasping the meaning of happiness re-iterates not just the experience of happiness, but the experience of happiness from many previous lives. Yet this experience remains indefinable, not meaningless, but beyond "any meaning / we can assign to happiness," because it is "something that is probably quite ineffable."

Since this message is thus so ineffable, it requires apprehension through the affective members of the tribe, and in the film, these are the twins Tantomile and Coriopat, and one of the kittens, Jemima. After Old Deuteronomy finishes dispensing his wisdom, Tantomile crouches, and his hand flutters until Tantomile takes it, and she then takes Jemima's hand to help the latter up. Jemima then delivers a different version of "Memory":

"Moonlight, turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in
If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin"

This is not inconsistent with T.S. Eliot's lines following the excerpt in "Moments of Happiness": "The backward look behind the assurance / Of recorded history, the backward half-look / Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror" ("Dry Salvages" Part II, lines 53 - 55). Both indicate that the experience has already been had; one does not have to re-create the experience in order to reach the meaning, but instead, one has to allow the memory of the experience to lead one towards the "sudden illumination" that is a moment of happiness. Trevor Nunn's lyrics, however, take the meaning of the excerpt into a different direction; while the rest of this Eliot stanza gestures towards the nature of time, "Memory" as sung by Jemima is an emphasis on the meaning of the experience as the source of happiness, and thus rebirth. Nonetheless, both versions articulate a form of enlightenment that is not a permanent state of being, but a moment of happiness.

Grizabella's arc demonstrates this difference between the re-creation of an experience, with the meaning of an experience. Her first attempt is after she has disrupted the Jellicle Ball. Left alone on the floor, with no one watching but Old Deuteronomy, she attempts to dance and mimic the younger cats' energy. Back pain stops her, then she stops shimmying in frustration. She tries one more time, sashaying across the stage, but slowly stops, realizing that her performance of coyness is not working. She throws her arms up to the moon in one last appeal to mimic the earlier dance before singing the musical's first version of "Memory" which ends with a plea to "let the memory live again" (see Appendix 2). As she leaves, Old Deuteronomy reaches out to her, which she senses, holding a hand out behind her.

Grizabella reprises "Memory" again towards the end of the musical, "just before dawn" when Old Deuteronomy is about to make the Jellicle Choice. At this second petition, the kittens no longer approach her, except Victoria, who has matured into a queen during the Jellicle Ball. At her second petition, she does not even attempt to seek acceptance with the other cats before making her petition to Old Deuteronomy. In this last version of "Memory," Grizabella begins with the verse Jemima sings as an interpretation of Old Deuteronomy's "Moments of Happiness," repeating the message to seek the meaning of the experience, rather than re-creating it. This is where Trevor Nunn's lyrics depart from T.S. Eliot's original poem: the latter encourages a connection to a larger history of connection with others, but when Grizabella sings "Memory," it is with an acceptance of an experience past, with "burnt out ends of smoky days, / the stale cold smell of morning. / The street lamp dies, another night is over, / another day is dawning." The mood changes at this point in the song; in giving in to the inevitability of the dawn and her fading life and memory, she piques the interest of the other cats, and in the background, they turn to face her with an interest not tinged with revulsion for the first time. Finally grappling with the abjection of her existence and its anti-thesis to Jellicle life and Cat Law, she falls to the floor in exhaustion.

Jemima, the affective conduit of the tribe, picks up the leitmotif, which encourages Grizabella to pick herself up and deliver the climax of the song: "Touch me, it's so easy to leave me / All alone with the memory of my days in the sun / If you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is." No longer interested in becoming part of the Jellicle tribe, Grizabella instead invites the Jellicle Cats to reach out and connect with her abjection, with her as an object of abjection. Touch, in this context, is a non-discursive form of recognition. Preparing to leave, Grizabella once again extends a hand behind her, and Victoria stands, gestures to Old Deuteronomy for permission, and approaches to touch Grizabella. The sequence ends with Grizabella sighing in relief and Victoria taking her hands before the other Jellicle Cats approach her.

The role of Jemima and Victoria are interesting to consider in relation to Grizabella. As part of the group of kittens, they have been pulled away from Grizabella throughout the show. At Grizabella's second appearance, Jemima does not approach Grizabella on the latter's third appearance as she was in another part of the stage. Despite her young age, Jemima delivers profound lines about memory and mortality: before Grizabella makes her final appearance, Jemima sings, "see the dew on the sunflower, / and the rose that is fading, roses wither away. / ... / I am waiting for the day." These are interesting lines; as a young cat, Jemima has plenty of reason to look forward to a new day, yet as a Jellicle, she is also looking forward to the end of the Jellicle festivities. Her calm acceptance of the end, and of the finitude of the roses that wither away, subverts expectations of youth, and marries the hope of newness with a recognition of the old as natural parts of life.

Victoria, unlike Jemima, only sings in the chorus. Much of her role involves dance solos portraying a young cat reaching adulthood; she is young and has all-white fur, thus could be read as pure, the opposite of abject. However, according to Kristeva, "purification is something only the Logos is capable of" (27), and since Victoria's role is non-discursive, she is neither pure nor impure in this dialectic. Moreover, part of her development as a character involves sexual maturation, symbolized by her pas de deux with a young tom at the Jellicle Ball. Her role is most in tune with rhythm and song, which "arouse the impure, the other of mind, the passionate-corporeal-sexual-virile, but they harmonize it, arrange it differently than the wise man's knowledge does. ... The abject, mimed through sound and meaning, is repeated" (Kristeva 28). Victoria the dancer, deeply aware of her body and sexual impulses, and even celebrating them, does not fear the abject—Grizabella—as a result. This is in opposition to the "transcendental idealism" of the West (Kristeva 30), in which philosophers, religious or not, attempt to purify the self in the search for enlightenment.

To reiterate Cat Law, it is opposed to Human Law which causes abjection since it is naturally destructive and thus contrary to the Cats' nature of playfulness. It attempts to bypass Human Law entirely by only entering discursiveness to express identity, as demonstrated by all the songs throughout the musical which introduce various cats. Even so, this articulation of identity is only expressed at the Jellicle Ball in auditions to become the Jellicle Choice, unlike Hegel's dialectic in which Divine Law nurtures the individual so that he can move from the collective, domestic space into the individualistic, public space of Human Law. In the domestic space of the Jellicle tribe's junkyard, major moments protecting the tribe are always expressed through dance, gesture and other affective actions. In her encounter with Human Law, Grizabella has undergone a form of self-destruction: her identity within the Jellicle tribe. However, Cat Law recuperates her by recognizing her affective pleas to, and significance in, the collective.

Representing and performing Cat Law is Old Deuteronomy, himself a subversion of Hegel's dialectic that insists on the femininity of Divine Law. The interaction of this re-incarnating figure alongside the two youthful affective characters of Victoria and Jemima with Grizabella's abject state leads to an understanding of enlightenment and reincarnation quite unlike most other paradigms. While in many transcendental ideals of enlightenment the goal is to attain an unworldly state of being which then hence avoid suffering, Old Deuteronomy hints that re-birth and decay are necessary to understand the meaning of happiness, because the continuous interaction of the two processes lends to the profundity of life itself. By accepting Grizabella, Victoria and Jemima touch the abject, and the synthesis of this encounter creates an ineffable moment of happiness that ends when Old Deuteronomy makes his Jellicle Choice in Grizabella. Contact with abjection is what leads to enlightenment and re-birth in Cat Law, not purification through Logos as in Hegel's Human Law; the latter involves exclusion and diminishment, while the former seeks inclusion and affirmation. As such, the acceptance of the abject remains consistent with Jellicle identity, rather than disturbing it, allowing the Jellicle Cats to express the affection that runs through the show as a dominant element in the cats' interaction with each other.

At the end, Grizabella ascends "up up up past the Russell Hotel, / up up up to the Heaviside Layer," escorted by Old Deuteronomy who inducts her into the next life as per Cat/Divine Law. The cats repeat a refrain from the beginning of the musical in an octave higher at this climax of the Ball: "The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity / Round the cathedral rang Vivat! / Life to the everlasting cat!" The glimpse of the Heaviside Layer re-inscribes the purpose of the Ball and the being of the tribe, as Grizabella finishes the journey by herself to her new life.

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:59:59 GMT

Monday. What did I do on Monday? I can't remember. Maybe I cleaned a little bit. I know there was some back and forth with Dr. S about the final grades.

EDIT: I remember now! I filed my federal taxes. And spent time complaining about it on Tumblr as I did so. I also worried about whether I needed to do state taxes. (As it turns out, no, I don't, because I didn't make more than $15k. I wonder if I should do it anyway, just to get the hang of it.) I also called my dad at night. He didn't know it was me!!! =(

Tuesday, I spent the day with Chi. We went to Canyon Crest Towne Center, where I sent off my brother's stuff at last. We then wandered around looking for the shoe repair store, but the shoe guy told me he couldn't fix my shoes =( I think they're really gone. It still wasn't a wasted trip; Canyon Crest is a really nice place. There were a couple of places that were closed down, which made me really sad, but it gave me the idea of creating a workshop that people could come and rent tools and a place to work in. Then they wouldn't have to have more space or buy tools which they wouldn't otherwise use. It'd be like a sewing cafe. And every so often, there'd be a workshop for various things like gardening or woodworking or fixing lights, little life skills like that.

After that we had lunch at Busy Cafe, and went to my place where I taught her how to bake cake! She'd never done it before. I didn't have vanilla though. I think it makes a difference. Now that I've baked two cakes without vanilla, it seems to me that without the vanilla the cake doesn't rise. She also perused my books. She needs to read stuff on feminist theory, so I loaned her some of my stuff. We then went to campus. I returned books and cleaned out my desk a little. I've got to go back and get the rest of the stuff though.

Wednesday.... I went to San Diego! E and Ak came to get me in the morning and we drove to Dumpling Inn. After that we bought some cake and put it into a cooler, then went to the zoo! We covered almost everything... we didn't get to the reptiles or the petting zoo, but we hit pretty much every else. Except the pandas. I developed a headache from the sunstroke, but drinking a bit of water staved it off. We took the cakes out, and I had brought along my picnic mat, and we basically picnicked on the side of the road XD Then we drove to get onion rings for snacks, and since we had time, I got them to take me to a pet supplies store. I was hoping for a pet store with some actual animals but whatever. There was also a Jo-Ann nearby, so we spent some time there too. I have some red elastic which I'm going to put in the back of my planned dress.

We finished the day with Little Sheep Hot Pot which was pretty fucking amazing. Then we had to do the long drive home. By this time I was pretty sure that getting into a car right after eating a lot of food that involves drinking a lot of fluids is a bad idea but whatever. This happened.

I'm tidying up my apartment today, in preparation for the new quarter and also because I need to vacuum and minimize dust mites (aka DERMATOPHAGOIDES FARINAE). I'm also going to K-mart to buy some more dirt. I'm going to see if I can persuade anybody to take me to Home Depot or something so I can buy more dirt.

I'm also thinking about taking up pulping paper and making my own little recycled notebooks. That way I'll be less distressed about the amount of printing I have to do and the fact that there is no paper recycling center that's easy for me to get to. We'll see though.

I also really want a big floppy hat to replace the one I lost =(

Done!

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:01:27 GMT

YEAH FUCK YEAH! I'M DONE GRADING AND PAPERING! And the paper was due at 10am today too!

And here I thought I might have to take an Incomplete on the RLST course. WHEW! 11 good pages on Cats: The Musical, although it got a bit garbly towards the end. I wish I'd more time to think of it. Ah well. It was the bestest paper this quarter.

Almost...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:55:51 GMT

OK, my ETST paper is done, my exegesis are all done (2am, alas, not the 12am I set). I'm now outlining my RLST paper and almost done grading the finals.

I may even go back to campus later today to finish grading them, in fact. Then I can spend tonight outlining, and I find that once I have an outline, it's so much easier for me to finish everything else. I may even choose to not be online all of tomorrow and just spend the day in the sun, writing my paper. It's due tomorrow night (technically Monday morning but I think I'll just pull an all-nighter instead).

OK I need to nap right now but I'mma waking up swinging.