holla

elie called to inform me that we are roadtripping down to north carolina next week. lse dinner on saturday, hit the road sunday morning, arrive in washington, d.c., midafternoon to pick up zimm and maybe see a few folks, before zipping down to see that bridge elie loves. i will be sure to report back on how much fun it all was.

***

in other news, i am lying under a table in a study room in the library with a migraine, hiding from the florescent lighting, and debating whether or not i should head home. this blows. i'm cranky.

important.

mcdonalds to divest chipotle.

the more important question is, when are they going to open one up on the uws?

overheard

(re: heath-o, paul's younger brother, who is a chef-in-training in san francisco)

kristine: he's got some guns on him. he can flip my frying pan anytime.

pro cra sti nat ing

thanks carl, for the fifteen minutes of distraction from my executive summary. it was worth it: gamekillers

things i hate to leave home without...

1. ipod. i have developed an addiction to shutting out street noise during my wanderings around the city. one day, i left my ipod at home, and i had the shakes all day. have i mentioned that i have an addictive personality?
2. moleskine. now that i have a blog, i have to take notes on all mundane and trivial details, along with the occasional profound thought, of my life, while i'm on the road.
3. timbuk2. forget coach. and louis vuitton. i like my messenger bag, and i don't give a damn that it doesn't match my shoes. or my outfit.
4. mets cap. i do not purport to be a fan of the mets, or baseball for that matter. i am a fan, though, of wearing broken in baseball caps given to me by true mets fans (like elie), because it means i don't have to worry if my hair is flat, and i can snarl at people wearing yankees gear. and, i appreciate anything that will transform me into a new yorker.

(sorry for the mindless posting. my brain power is used up studying for finals and writing papers)

rumours abound...

about the new ipod. apparently, it's a widescreen touchscreen. i'm pretty satisfied with my ipod... i don't foresee myself upgrading.

it's entirely too cold for flip-flops.

bo and i met up for a late lunch before he caught his plane back to san francisco. after quesadillas at nacho's kitchen, we wandered around campus for a little bit. actually, we snuck into butler library (i'm still soaking in my newly discovered resistance to institutional authority). on the third floor, there is a random spiral staircase that leads... into the guts of the building. it winds up about three flights and leads into a dimly lit, narrow hallway which wraps around the dome. about 15 feet down the hall was a stair case that led to the dome, and a door that opened up to the outside, where we could step out onto a gravelled terrace and look over the campus. the view was incredible, and it felt great to be removed from the chaos of school and new york for a little while.

plus, i like secret places.

the unbearable lightness of being

i decided that that's how i'm feeling now. but, in the interest of maintaining what few readers i have, i will take a hiatus from the heaviness of the conference and post some randomness.

***

gomibacko: for some reason, my name is just asking to be nicknamed. i've got tin-tin, tin-can, kiki, keek-dog, gomer, gomart, kmart, and now, gomibacko (courtesy of carl f.). which, i checked, means garbage can in japanese. which is actually kind of funny, considering my cousin tim calls me tin-can.

***

grey's anatomy: yes, i agree with paul and wolka... very disappointing. i hate it when abc does a recap episode, it's such a tease! i'd rather they just post their show on itunes so i can buy the entire episode if/when i miss them. are people even watching desperate housewives anymore? certainly not me.

***

blobel's in town. will be going to see his play, ball, uptown tonight. incidentally, bo's in town too, as is my aunt, marlo, and my cousin, matthew. paul's rolling in on thursday. you all are conspiring to make me fail my classes, aren't you?

oh, snap.

lately, this blog has been devoid of cheekiness. i promise that i will be in full effect in may. until then... here's a little somethin' somethin' to tide you over.

***

From: Kristine
To: Elie
Date: undisclosed

hehe... let's just say, it's been a while since my cork's been popped.

and i'm all shook up.

love,
elvis

exhale.

i think i'm returning to normalcy which is both a good and bad thing, i s'pose. yesterday was such a daze... it seems light years away. my emotions have been up and down for the last 48 hours, which, i'm told is very normal. after my nap yesterday, i woke up crying, and then today, my eyes have been welling up on a whim. i don't even know what the trigger is... i have a sense that part of it is that i'm overwhelmed by having tapped into some profound hidden emotions. what is incredible to me is how mentally and emotionally draining the event was... i feel like i've run a marathon. it's almost a little scary to see how powerful psychic forces can be... i feel as if i was able to tangibly and viscerally experience the psychodynamic forces. it's bizarre, and i'm very aware that it sounds almost cult-like and wacky. i guess you'll just have to go through one, at some point.

part of my sadness is feeling like i didn't get any closure with john l., who i became incredibly close to through the conference. he left suddenly and we didn't get to say our goodbyes. i sent him an email today, and we have plans to see each other in dc during my next trip down, so maybe those down in dc will get chance to meet him. i'm hoping that we will collaborate on some work together surrounding some of the ideas we talked about in our WE group (social change, hegemony, oppression, etc.) and i'll be sending him a bibliography from my class on critical theory. i'm curious as to what such a collaboration will entail, since the work occupies a space somewhere between philosophy, political science, and psychology... and i have no idea what that means in terms of producing anything. but, i've been told that john l. is an exceptional mentor, and i'm so honored to be one of his "babies" (as he refers to his mentees as).

while the primary task of the conference was to "experience and explore systemic processes overt and covert, conscious and unconscious encountered in the exercise of authority and leadership," i felt that by the very nature of its title, "embracing a world of difference," and the world forum event, there was a component of social impact/advocacy. i'm rolling some idea around in my head along the lines of people connecting over common experiences or philosophies, and something about how we can, through the people we know, have access to other people who, on the surface, may appear to have nothing in common with me. it occurred to me during the last ALL meeting when the conference staff and the large group were discussing why, in the world event, people felt disengaged with management. it was proposed that the disengagement with management had to do with the racial makeup of management in relation to the people in the large groups. at some point i thought: well, i don't feel particularly disengaged with management, and it has nothing to do with representation. there was an asian woman on the staff, but i realized that i usually do not connect with people simply because they are asian women. my asian experience is not mirrored by asian americans or asians... its in a middle space. my connection with staff had to do with my connection to john l. who was the mentor for many staff members. and my connection to john l. had nothing to do with race or gender, but a similar philosophy that we discovered in each other. there's something there... tickling at the edge of my brain. there is also something there about how we seek out groups that have an "other" rather than groups that encompass a range of human experience. for example, people were obsessed when the formation of WE groups began with identifying an "other" to the groups that were suggested: "should we have a straight group, if we are to have an lgbta group? should we have a white group as a counter to the asian group?" the "other" is a comfortable place for us... maybe it makes the anxiety of belonging tangible; if we cannot identify what isus, we can at least identify what we are not. i feel smug about the selection of my group topic, because oppression is experienced by everyone in some way. and because of this, our group was able to rally around the theme.

recap: (will be cryptic, stream of consciousness) the third day, i came in early. we organized our chairs in the main room in our WE group. no one else organized in a group. the council of ambassadors proposed a hypthesis. talked about how we had a connection of management and also challenged dr. green ("we are not blocking you, we are connecting you to the rest of the group"). met in the SEE group afterwards... talked about conflict/shame/asian/fear. weird because apparently authorized when sexuality emerged... men talking about desire = ability to release emotion. there is something unexplored about attraction/aggression... began to touch on it on the last day. in the MORE talked a little bit about relating fear of group to explore the here and now to the fear of violence, particularly since WTC was two blocks away. something about how 9/11 provokes a fear within the conference of releasing anger. would be interesting to relate current political climate to conference. also asian group relations to explore asian experience suggested by john l.

now group: fear realized, when frank attacked me for being an asshole (yup, someone actually called me an asshole). talked about how i felt upset because i was anticipating being yelled at and it actually happened. fear of asserting/authorizing. world makes sense. political science --> psychology --> social impact. talked about how we often dislike people because they do what we want to do.

afterwards, had a great talk with bruce, flora, and zachary. got wonderful feedback about work in the conference. was encouraged to pursue more work in group dynamics. not sure what that will look like. intrigued. a little freaked out. excited. want to make sure i really keep what works in me. felt very alive...

can we dismantle the master's house with the master's tools?

on my way home from yet another 12 hours in the trenches of group dynamics, i was incredibly happy and satisfied about my day. i'm not sure what it is about me in particular that connects so deeply with what i am experiencing; i'm curious because i want to tap into what it is i am responding to in the conference and channel that into my reality. all of us go and spend an entire day doing hard, challenging work, but there is something about the nature of what we do and what we talk about that keeps me so engaged, in a way that i don't look at it as work as much as it is existence. this is not the reality for other people. in our last NOW meeting, several people felt tired, or sick, or distant (it is amazing how our bodies physically express what we are psychologically feeling in the conference). i, on the other hand, felt buoyant. i talked animatedly about my thoughts of the day, revelations, reflections, experiences. it's been truly amazing... i'm not sure if its something i would recommend to everyone, as it seems that not everyone has come out with a positive experience.

***
i actually woke up early this morning and got ready, and it was only en route to the conference that i ran into some obstacles. i didn't realize that there was not an 2/3 express train downtown, and jumped on a one to 42nd street, then tried to transfer to the A/E to fulton street, but the E was not running downtown from 42nd, and by the time the A showed up (running local) i knew i was going to be incredibly late. on my way down, i thought about what i would do at the conference, knowing that i would have to make a late entrance that would probably get commented on. part of me wanted to just sit out the first session and wait in the hall because of a sense of shame i felt for not being able to arrive on time. another part of me, though, thought, "why should i be ashamed? i didn't plan for this, it was an honest mistake." by the time i got to the conference, i had to decided to attend my SEE small group, and walked in and sat in an empty chair. as predicted, the consultant to the group made a comment about the lateness in reference to authority and what that meant for the group. this comment was not addressed, as a conversation about a tension surrounding race relations within the group was occuring. an older black man and a middle aged white man had, for some time, dominated the space with their discussion about authority and authorization, who gives, who receives, who earns, etc. the consultant made a comment about unspoken voices speaking volumes or something like that, and i had a sense she was talking about me. i didn't feel the need to speak, or i didn't feel i had the space to speak, given that the issue revolved around a specific racial conflict in which the asian (and foreign) voice seemed to have no standing. the time boundary passed, and we entered into our larger MORE group.

within the MORE group, an interesting dynamic occurred from the onset. first, two members of the consultant team did not have chairs, and there was a big to do about the symbolism of having a space for the consultants within the group. what did that mean given that, when the chairs were first arranged, there were enough chairs, and when the moment arrived to sit, there were no longer chairs. interestingly, the asian female consultant made this comment, and i spoke up, rather snidely: "maybe you should have arrived in time to claim a seat in our group." i mention this moment only because, in my reflection later, one could interpret that act to be me pushing against the authority of the asian female consultant and asserting my authority as the asian voice in the group. one of the members of my SEE (and incidentally the ambassador of my WE group) spoke up and said that he hoped that we would talk as a group and not as dyads, which seemed to give the group voice and purpose. it is interesting to me to note how we are suddenly taking up the authority that we resisted so strongly the other day. the group started to talk about feelings, and tension, and how we communicate with each other that dehumanizes or disengages others, which was extremely provocative. but then, the conversation seemed to disintegrate when someone pointed out that the white women were not speaking, which set a different tone for the discussion. suddenly, the conversation centered around the black/white/race issue for sometime and, empowered a little bit from my frustration during small groups i stepped up to the plate and offered that "if we want to talk about lack of voice and dehumanizing, when we focus on the differences of black and white we alienate those who are not involved in that conflict, and we do not give people with other, less obvious differences space to have a voice." let it be noted that i was extremely nervous to have spoken up, and my voice quaked on the verge of an emotional breakdown. its an extremely hard thing to speak in these settings and there is a real fear of attack. it was incredible feeling to have so many people come up to me later and thank me for voicing their own concerns and feelings, because in a group setting it is important to recognize that when we stand up for something we are often standing up on behalf of a group, and that we are carrying more than our own emotions. this is a hard thing.

probably the most incredible (okay, i know i'm using that word a lot, but it is what it is) experience has been working with my WE group. as i mentioned in our previous post, our WE group formed around the theme of addressing hegemony/oppression through social change. i'm not really sure what the magic mix is that makes our group so cohesive and engaged, but each of us comes to the group with a different understanding about what it means to live in a hegemonic society, and we have really rallied around creating a forum to have that discussed. jenny and i talked about how respectful we all are about each other, and that we are somehow on the same page about not only our understanding of what are role within the conference, and what are roles are within the group. we seem to take our own authority without oppressing other individuals' authority within the group, which was an idea i really grappled with yesterday (can more than one person hold authority in a system?). most exciting is how our group really lives our philosophy and enacts it. when our ambassador to the council was elected to as a representative of the council to the management, we looked at the situation and asked ourselves: what does this mean? does it really give us power, or does in diminish our voice? we decided that, by virtue of serving two roles, alex was now in conflict, and would begin to serve the role of the group he spent the most time with, namely the council, thereby taking away our representation. we then took it upon ourselves to confront not only the council but also alex about how our interests were marginalized because of alex's new role, and how we had formulated a hypothesis that alex was elected to represent the council as a way of ousting our voice from the group, given the contentious circumstances through which our group was formed. in some amazing coincidence, when part of our group was confronting alex and the council, a group of management had stopped by to deliver a hypothesis about what was going on our group, which was almost verbatim to our very own hypothesis!

later in the day, some groups came by to talk to our group about what our process, purpose, mission was, and we engaged in a discussion with them about what our theories were for social change and our role in that process. one topic that came up over and over again was the issue over how we had taken it upon ourselves to create a group and claim resources outside of a group process that was occurring. it felt a little uncomfortable to be named as the insurgent who started it all, but my fellow group members came up to bat for me. interestingly, i'd like to note that by the very act of writing my group name and room number on the board, i had somehow unmired a mired process as people began scrambling for resources. i mentioned to my group earlier in the day that we can think of hegemony in general terms as understanding who controls access to resources and who does not have access, which is a line of understanding i hope to develop more tomorrow (i can't help the economist frame of reference, and john l. pointed out that many different perspectives come out of the conference, i just happened to really gravitate towards a political economy interpretation of the events). in any case, my point is that, by writing "theories of social change" on the board, i had already created social change because it changed the access to resources. our group had claimed a room, which, in our conference was a limited resource (there are only seven), and in doing so, the entire group of people had scrambled for the remaining six rooms. they had managed to organize themselves, albeit hurriedly and chaotically, but had organized themselves nonetheless. i'm also fascinated by our group's humble beginnings. like i mentioned before john l. and are in the SEE group together and have some great connection, probably over the fact that he went to michigan state and i went to michigan (i'm telling you... something about me and the big ten just works). what the consultant has been hypothesizing around was that maybe i looked up to him as a father-figure, but i confided in her and my NOW group that i have a very close relationship with my grandfather that may be manifesting itself. *shrug* i'm still mixed about that family projection stuff. john l. is a really cool guy and i think our similar philosophies just happened to emerge pretty quickly in our discussions, so when he turned to me and said: "i'd love to talk to about hegemony with you some more." i took him up on his offer when the opportunity came to create a group around a theme. i hunted for him in the large group and said: "let's do it." and thus, our idea was born.

one thing i am exploring about myself within this setting is how much of a rebel i might actually be. which comes as a great shock to me since i consider myself pretty middle of the road politically, socially, etc. i'm not an extreme, but it seems that i have this part of me that really challenges a certain kind of authority and revels in insurgency.

while this events that unfolded in this conference occurred in a controlled and artificial setting, there are a few ideas so much of it i feel might be could be translated into practice in the world, particularly in relation to social change/impact... one in particular is: do not wait for someone to authorize you to claim your space: in thinking hard about the simple act of writing my group's name on the board, it occurs to me that i had stepped out of the group process and virtually decided that no one was going to tell me whether or not my group was going to be allowed to exist. while the rest of the large group discussed the merits of having an asian group or an lgbta group, i was essentially asserting that my group was not up for negotiation. i had created it, i had found my membership, and i had claimed my resources. i accept that because of the way our group was conceived we have had to live with certain repercussions, but i am glad that we did not have to compromise our existence in the interest of acquiecsing to a group consensus. while i have felt conflicted tremendously about my actions, in the end, i'm really proud and surprised at my boldness, because i can see that i have created something.

no manure, no magic...

disclaimer: i spent two hours on this post about the akri conference. i'm warning you. it's long, dense, and probably non-sensical psychobabble. chances are i will be talking about this event in my life for a couple of months. link to brochure here check it out.

***

i came home this evening after having spent 12 hours downtown at the a.k. rice institute group relations conference, "embracing a world of difference: a working group relations conference on exploring and transforming authority relations," which is arguably one of the most intense learning processes i have ever experienced. i'm not even sure i can do justice to the events of the day, but i feel compelled to get something down in print before the tingly ambivalence evaporates.

having spent the wee hours of the morning working on a paper, i had overslept, but thought that i would be able to discreetly sneak in and hide myself in the back of the first event. my plan was based on the (incorrect) assumption that a couple of hundred people would be participating and that someone would be presenting/talking when i arrived. i was wrong on both counts. there were only 70 participants and, when i arrived, the room was palpably silent, which wasn't too surprising. one of the exercises people who study group dynamics engage in is sitting around in complete silence, allowing the invisible but powerful forces of identity, power, authority, projection, etc., to play out, until someone feels pressured to speak on behalf of the group who have projected authority for a leader to take up (for example). thus you can observe how certain people take on roles based on what groups need and the person's propensity to receive and take up projections. things like that (n.b. i'm oversimplifying). i had read of some examples of these activities, and our professor had also prepared us on what we should expect to experience, so i was primed for what would have been a bizarre scenario for many.

what i was not prepared for, however, was the strange language that would be spoken during the day by our conference consultants and managers. i'm not talking psychobabble, which i have become familiar with, but cryptic, vague, and sometimes inciting comments that were meant to guide us through the "tasks" and discussions. i put tasks in quotations marks because it remained unclear during the day what our specific tasks were, which was a source of much frustration in working together as a group, large and small. to give an example of the weird things that were said, in one of our smaller groups, a tension emerged between a black member and a white member of the group over an issue of oppression. i stepped in to offer my interpretation of the dynamic, after which the moderator/consultant for our group stated: "if the black and white members of our group fight, at least there are enough asians for a war not to break out." the response was a lot of furrowed browns and confused looks exchanged. i believe, now, that what our consultant was getting at is that, as an asian, i take up a certain role within the group, as a mediator, perhaps, since i am not personally, or by virtue of my identity as an asian female, embroiled in the black/white race conflict that was playing itself out in my small group.

moving then to an observation about our large group setting, entitled "matrix of realities experience" or MORE, which involved all of us sitting in chairs arranged in no particular order around a room. coming together, we spent a lot of time talking about the arrangement of the chairs, and how we should consider moving them, and how it facilitated or dampened our group discussions. we were fixated on the chairs, and skirted around a lot about the issue of why we weren't talking about the "here and now" and the roles of "authority" that we might be feeling anxiety about. i am not exaggerating when i say that we spent a good hour talking about whether or not the chairs should be moved, until one person, presumably carrying the frustration of the group, finally said: "i'm tired of talking about the chairs." then another person, in hopes of channelling the conversation in a different direction, stated that he felt that we were "impregnated" with ideas, and that would soon "give birth to something great" to which a consultant responded, "i do not see the angel gabriel descending upon this group. without intercourse, there will be no birth" (???)

probably most provocative, for me, was when we were charged with breaking into smaller groups out of our larger group setting for the purposes of creating a "world event" (WE--the acronyms are so cute). we were to decide on themes and gather groups of 2 or more individuals to work on discussing and developing these communities of thought. one participant in the event, karl, took it upon himself to lead the group to come to a consensus about what the groups would be and who would participate in what group. now, this is a group of about 60 participants, and literature tells us that consensus is a virtual impossibility. at this point, i had already conspired with a member from my small group to start a discussion around the theme of hegemony and oppression in our society, and how we acquiese to authority in our everyday lives (i know, quite lofty, no?). i felt myself getting angry at karl for assuming that he was the voice of the people, and also quite annoyed that the conversation had moved from being about the task (which was to form groups) to being about the labels of the groups, alliances between groups, and implied membership of groups. having already spent an hour talking about chairs, i had a moment of obstinant boldness and walked up to the board and put my group's name down. my crony, then, went up and wrote a room number. meanwhile, the groups were still discussing this and that and we had already selected a meeting place and a theme.

what i didn't realize until later was that, interestingly enough, by virtue of reacting to karl's oppression and his taking up of authority that i had not felt i had authorized him to do, i had authorized myself to act in way that might have de-authorized not only karl, but a number of other people. i had, in my reaction to oppression, oppressed others. this is an interesting conundrum, and extremely ironic, given that my group theme was about hegemony. but i have certain mixed and amorphous emotions about this, particularly since, on the way home, british carl f. and i discussed the implications of my actions. when i marched up to the board to assert my authority against karl's authority, he felt relieved in that he also felt de-authorized by karl. but, at the same time he also felt a certain amount of resistance, if not disgust, with my actions. i really see this is as a textbook case of projective identification; carl f. experienced ambivalence with holding a frustration with karl's leadership along with his positive feelings about the group process, split off the negative feelings, and i took up that negativity and asserted myself on behalf of carl f. and others who might have felt similarly. hence, while carl f. can related with me because i am carrying part of him, he is also disgusted with me because i am carrying what he has rejected in himself. (whoa). but more importantly, i find it interesting that what carl f. split off and what i took up was, for all intents and purposes, his own empowerment and authority.

which leads me to my next observation. all throughout the event, it was repeated over and over that we were co-collaborators or co-creators, and we should discuss what we were creating in the here and now. no real, tangible guidance was offered in what exactly that that entity was that we were producing, only that we should talk about it and not around it. everyone was confused (which is why i think we spent so much time talking about chairs, and when we didn't talk about chairs, we talked about why we were talking so much about the chairs, and round and round we go). the clues or "data" (the consultants referred to information as data... and would only muse: "there is data here, i think.") that were given revolved around our reaction to authority and how our process might be stunted by our inability to get over the authority of the consultants in our group process. for one fleeting moment, the latent rebel in me (which i didn't really know existed with such fervor before this conference), thought, "well, we should ask the consultants to leave then!" and in my mind, i imagined what that might feel like, to have the consultants leave and the room govern itself. in a small group setting, when the consultant left, the conversation seemed safer and richer, but interestingly, the thought of letting go of the authority--as embodied by the consultants--in a large group created a lot of anxiety in me. i felt fear that, by virtue of suggesting that the consultants leave, i would be called on to be the authority in their place, or that someone i didn't trust would be an authority figure. there was a lot of ambiguity that surrounded the departure of the consultants that i was not prepared to face. in reflecting upon that, i wonder if what prevented me was the fear of actually authorizing myself.

in thinking about it myself, i'm challenged a lot about my actions today. it makes me think of this time, in high school, when i found myself on stage during a hypnotist show. i think i was trying too hard to be hypnotized so it didn't work, and i didn't want to be sent back into the crowd for having failed, so i faked it. i went through the entire show and just pretended, and acted out exactly what the hypnotist requested, and knew that there would be no repercussions because, no matter how much of a fool i made myself, i knew that i could fall back on the line: "well, i didn't know what i was doing, i was hynotized." i say this now, because i feel that, because i felt i was in an isolated moment, outside of the real world in which i usually operate, i might have been empowered to act in certain ways and take up certain roles that i don't usually take up. the act of rebellion is a prime example of that. rarely, in large groups, do i take it upon myself to make such a public gesture of insolence and to go against an established group norm, as i did. what makes me really dwell on it is that, after doing so, i am confronted with a number of challenging questions: how do i feel knowing that certain people disapprove of what i did? where does this need for approval come from and how does it play out in my life? how do i reconcile that with myself outside of the conference setting? how much of people's disapproval comes from certain conceptions of what an asian female should be authorized to do? how much of what i did had to do with how i felt i had to act because of perceptions of me as an asian female? why do i feel shame and how does my feelings of shame inform my actions on a day-to-day basis? as a filipino female, what sorts of emotions am i carrying on behalf of my family, my culture, and my country and how does that affect my valency for certain projections?

to enlarge my scope a little bit, i'm definitely thinking a lot to what these means in our social context. in particular, what does this mean for people who engage in social change? now, the class i recently took on critical theory informs my discourse a great deal, and i felt that the last 24 hours has really cemented the ideology of hegemony in my mind. if we consider ourselves to live in society wherein we embrace our oppression, where we acquiese to authority in the belief that we are bearing a greater good for society, the challenge is, "can we truly own our own authority? if so, how?" at least, that is what i have been thinking throughout the day, today. the large issue that comes out of observing the group dynamics is how resistant we are, as humans to authorizing ourselves, and how perfectly content we are to function within a system without challenging the constructed authority of that system, no matter how uncomfortable or disconcerted we feel. in fact, there is an apparent discomfort to confront the authority within ourselves. it might appear we split it off and project it, with the hope that someone will carry it for us... and when they do, we feel both relief and disgust. we long for authority, but we hate it at the same time. why is this? what exactly are we afraid of?

john l. my co-conspirator in forming the theme group said during our MORE session that talking about birth, as we had been, was the wrong end of the mythology. "in order to have new life, we have to die first." in another session he articulated that, when it comes to social change, he often felt that he wished that "it could be changed, but not me." but, can the system change if the individuals don't change? can one be an agent of change without transforming themselves into something else?

***

note: i should mention that these musings have emerged from only one day of the conference. i still have two more days to go. already i feel something shifting, and i'm both excited and fearful as to what exactly it is. the feeling is as if i'm wiping away layers of paint from a wall to uncover a mural beneath. i had been forwarned before that this conference would be intense and that i should refrain from making impulsive life decisions afterwards... so i came to the table with some expectations and certainly some skepticism, but trite as it may seem, something transformative is happening and i just can't nail it down yet. i'm worried that at the end of two days i won't have wrapped my mind around it. i'm worried what will happen if i do discover something. i feel comfortable in my life right now, but there is something alluring about the discomfort i feel... and it was often discussed today that it is only in our discomfort that we really challenge ourselves to see. very interesting. more to come.

***
another conundrum is, even if you confront something within yourself, you do not necessarily rid yourself of whatever that demon is. even if i identify that i need approval, i have not expunged that from my intrapersonal discourse, and it becomes something that i have a constant awareness of everyday. will that awareness really help me or will it haunt me? is this why we fear authority?

***
good lord. does this make sense???

rewards

some treats in the fridge for post-finals:

guinness
brooklyn lager
sam adams hefeweisen

only 1.5 weeks to go.

twixtin' in the nyt.

peeped this article today while grabbing dinner: "the bank of mom and dad". institute for social research at the university of michigan is cited (i always have to give the alma mater a shout out when i can). will try and discuss more in may...

plans

in addition to lists, i love to make travel plans, especially during exams, to keep me extrinsically motivated. classes are pretty much over the first week of may, then i start my internship up again. fridays-sundays i have free so i'm hoping to fit in some visits to friends. trips in the works this summer:

• dc: prolly can't until may 12th, because of an ohdcc leadership meeting i have may 7th.
  
• watertown, ct: last weekend in may, back to where it all began with julie and sara, to see sara's sister graduate.
  
• north carolina: early june? w/ elie, a roadtrip a long time in the making. there is a bridge that he loves... he wants to blow $30 to cross it three times. its that amazing, apparently. i've been seriously itching for a roadtrip.
  
• chicago: in june maybe? too many trips... too few weeks in the year. might have to be in late august.
  
• san francisco: rebecca's in a show. this is a long shot.
  
• dc: would be my fourth fourth of july in dc in a row.
  
• philippines: july 10-july 20, i'm taking my gmats on the 8th and then flying out to manila for my grandfather's birthday and my cousin's wedding.
  
• indonesia: july 20 - august 10, i'm hoping the family can coordinate a week in bali so i can finally learn how to surf. its on my list of things to do. would be perfect place to work on my bschool apps. mark, kaye, and i also need to finish the 3,000 piece puzzle of the mona lisa we worked on over christmas break. (we're kind of not a big deal)

and y'all know i'm the hostess with the mostess on the fair island of manhattan. holla.
back to the grind.

***
update

i forgot to throw in ann arbor somewhere up there. *sigh* i really really want to go this summer because moo's moving down to texas in july, and after she leaves, there won't be anyone i really know in a2. she's about 98% the reason i want to go back, anyways... hm.

no wages + internship + studying for gmats + general desire to enjoy summer in new york means that i will have to revise my travel plans considerably. oy.

***
update:

whatever happened to our booze crooze '06 plans???

bianca-bear

*sigh* the last post made me miss bianca. hence, i'm adding an excerpt from an email i sent to a friend last november:

so, did you have a good thanksgiving? i had a great thanksgiving!!!(thank you for asking). i spent the entire time taking care of Bianca, who is now three, and she is the cutest. She is so cute, that I now want a three year old. three is the best year. i am heartbroken that she will be four next year, and won't be nearly as cute. i tell her all the time that she is growing up much too fast. and i love that she loves me so much. i always thought it was because i talk to her like an adult, but she told why when we were playing "school"--which entails running around the house doing all the things she would normally do at school: lunch time, the playground, nap time, etc.--she said to me, as we were sitting on the kitchen floor "on the way to school"--she said to me, matter-of-factly: "You're like a kid." it was the best complement of my life.

she also told me that she loves my hair, and that next time she goes to the salon she wants to "cut her hair long, too." And she informed me, optimistically, that I, too, "could be a cheerleader when i grow little." Where does she come up with this stuff? you can't make the adorable-ness up. they just spew from the mouths of three-year olds. By four, they start to have an awareness of the way the world actually works, and that you can't cut hair long or grow little... and then, the novel ideas fade as they begin to conform their minds to the rigidity of logic, reason, and reality. it's tragic. *sigh*

did i mention that she loves all things purple? and that she believes that she has an Ate Tin Tin AND an Ate Kristine. One person (Ate Tin Tin) lives at the airport, because that's where Bianca goes to get her for thanksgiving. And the other person (Ate Kristine) lives in New York City with the penguins in Central Park. One day, she will realize that my doppelganger, whichever one she is, doesn't really exist. That'll also be tragic... I like the world better with two of me around.

flashback

the previous post got me thinking about an afternoon i spent in the spring of last year, watching little kids play in the central park zoo. goldman sachs was holding a family day with cotton candy, free admission, and a performing clown with a guitar who had captivated a group of children, ages 3-10. after singing a song about jumping (which had the crowd of small humans hopping up and down), he launched into a soulful tale about a sad horse. Then, he rallied the troops and told them that they needed to help him out with his next piece, entitled: "what i want to be when i grow up." the kids nervously lined up in a row, and each time the clown crooned "when i grow up i want to be a...." each would step up and proudly/shyly/excitedly shout/state/whisper their life dream. one girl wanted to be a doctor. another aspired to be a cowboy. a superman. a cop. one especially confident girl wanted to be a singer, and her little brother, who clearly idolized her, also wanted to be a singer. when she changed her mind and said she wanted to be a dancer, he made sure to step forward and state that he too wanted to be lord of the dance.

then one precocious little kid, obviously prompted by his parents who, i observed, had nudged him into the line, announced, in a somewhat confused voice: "i want to be a chemical engineer."

the little dancer-girl asked: "what's a chemical engineer?"
the clown, after a millisecond of perplexed silence, said: "okay, that's great!"
and the little boy's parents gazed upon the moment proudly thinking, i'm sure, that their little boy had the best dream of the whole bunch.

meanwhile i stood there, just beyond the gates of the zoo, holding myself back from screaming: "no you don't. you want to be secret agent or a sheriff or a fireman. admit it! you don't even know what a chemical engineer is" (yes, i really had a desperate urge to heckle a 7 year old).

parents like that really sadden me... when i was growing up my list of aspirations varied, from wanting to be a secret agent/spy/writer from 4th to 6th grade, to an astronaut from 7th to 8th grade, to an architect all through high school. i wanted to be those things because of some allure/excitement/fascination and not because of stability/income/dental plan. isn't part of being a kid that you don't have to think about practical shizz like that? and what good is a dream if it isn't at least a little bit redonkulous?

the love of my life, my cousin, bianca, wants to be a cheerleading princess when she grows up, and i'll be damned before i discourage her from that dream.

well, that settles it.

as if i needed another reason not to go into finance: an article from thestreet.com entitled want a wall street job? start preparing now. (via www.bocowgill.com)

like bo, i find the section entitled "artists need not apply" most fascinating. good thing this guy doesn't work in recruitment: "Finance is suitable for people whose primary objective is to make a decent (although not necessarily outrageous) income and [work] 60 to 100 hours a week on sometimes numbingly dull work"?

it keeps going: "Finance is not suitable for people who are creative in the traditional sense (e.g., artists) or interested in the "caring" professions (teachers, doctors). In fact, when I used to do interviews for Morgan Stanley, we were specifically instructed to weed out those personality types."

that's pretty bleak. can you imagine reading a job description like that? "come be a cog in the wheels of industry. leave your creative, caring personality at the door."

gag

thank you, paul, for sending me this delightful piece on tom cruise eating his baby's placenta. (when i encounter something truly disturbing, i like to spread the word and start a support group). it is now official that he has gone off the deep end... not that i paid him much mind before, but he's become kind of incoherent:

Last week Cruise backtracked on previous comments that Holmes would not be allowed to scream during childbirth.

"It's basically just respecting the mother and helping to be quiet. Not the mother," the actor told chat show host Diane Sawyer.

eh? anyone else confused?

on a completely unrelated note, i noticed that they've started advertising mission impossible three on tv... my my. what a coincidence.

***

in a wonderful game of chinese whispers via the internet, i heard from paul who heard from aja who heard from us weekly that there really is no baby. i think this matter will be settled in a few months, so i'm not worried. though, having worked at us weekly, i will say that they are pretty good about not making totally outlandish claims... the plot thickens.

***

i really am in the middle of finals. honest.

***
update: well, i guess the baby thing's real. huh.

cosi

i am really digging studying at cosi right now! after my run, i packed up my stuff, grabbed a bite to eat at this shwarma place i've been wanting to try (eh... so-so, not worth mentioning), and then started looking for a starbucks on broadway. i don't really like studying at starbucks, but there is a dearth of cozy coffee shops in new york in general, and the uws in particular. *sigh* anyways, that's a rant for another day. i came upon cosi, and noticed that people were studying all up in here, so i plopped myself down and have been incredibly productive. i've got a comfy seat, the scene is chill, and the lighting is parfait. i anticipate this being a finals staple for the coming weeks. wahoo.

hollaz

after a demoralizing .7 mile run yesterday, i am back in the game with another 3 miles under my belt. i think i might have been able to run a little longer, but the anxiety of getting back to my papers kept me from starting that last loop. here are some thoughts and best practices:

• eat meat: i've been kind of vegetarian lately, but i've found that a good hearty meal of meat the night before really keeps me fueled for my run the next day.
• warm-up and then stretch on the track: usually i stretch at home, jog to the track, the start running. today, i stretched a little a home and then stretched again when i got to the track. makes a whole world of difference
• take it down a notch: i've notice that i'm able to keep my pace better if i run just a wee bit slower than i'd like to be running. i keep reminding myself that i need to build up my endurance first, and i'll start timing myself later
• music: usually i pay no mind to my repertoire and just shuffle, but my runs seem to be more successful when i'm playing hip-hop. in particular, tupac's changes and 50's in da club keep me at a good pace.
• water: i'm pretty good about this.
• sunscreen: i think i need to start wearing some. it's getting deliciously hot out there, and i'm concerned i'll get burned. also, i'm beginning to get a weird sportsbra tan. oy.
• shoes: i've had my new balance kicks for the last three years. i love them, but they are definitely past their prime. the last time i went to a new balance store, though, they had upgraded the model, and the feel wasn't as spectacular as my old pair. but, i'm definitely going to have to trade up by mid-summer... not looking forward to it.
• allergies: incredibly, i've been in central park almost every day this past week, and i have yet to be incapacitated by allergies. usually around this time of the year, i'm a snotty, unbearable mess, and drugged with prescription strength antihistimine. hm. (knock on wood). maybe i've outgrown it? here's to hoping!

back to the grind.

"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."

-garrison keillor

soundtrack: on repeat, repeatedly

bad day

"So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost"
-d.powter

bad day has the perfect cadence for my walks home from campus.

pro cra sti nat ing

lent is over, so i can procrastinate shamelessly: www.overheardinnewyork.com (via paul)

happy easter.

another lovely sunday courtesy of elie gadlin. (can i just say, i enjoy it tremendously when he is single, and i am single, and we can be single together.) a delightful brunch at french roast followed by a excursion through central park.

***

paul, you'll love this. my waiter at french roast said that there was something "so californian" about me. i will assume that he meant it as a complement.

***

called my parents this morning to wish them happy easter and to lament about the lack of relatives on the east coast with whom i might celebrate. my father suggested treating myself to some fancy godiva chocolates. i told him i would spend the afternoon hiding easter eggs in my apartment (i think my facetiousness is frequently lost on him... alas). before we said goodbye, he asked, brightly, almost hopefully: "so, is someone with you?" mind you, i had just informed him a few minutes before that i had just gotten up.

cringe.

i'm kind of flattered, but also slightly mortified that my dad thinks i'm a more of a playa than i actually am. although i do occasionally volunteer information (tastefully editted, of course), it's a little jarring to have them solicit some dish... particularly about something as scandalous as a one-night stand. i usually revert back to being 16 and whine: "DaaaaaaAAaaD!!" followed by the rhetorical question: "do you think i have time for a boyfriend right now?" i get the sense that they are looking at their biological clocks, wondering... "when are the grandkids gonna get here?" (if kaye is around, i make sure to remind them that she is dating someone, and is therefore, better positioned to be a baby-maker than i am... she just loves that!)

from my conversations with friends this week, this a widespread phenomenon. apparently, spring brings out the grandparental pangs in even the most level-headed parent. everyone's getting the third degree.

***
update: overheard on gtalk

paul will kill me, but this was too cute not to post as an addendum:

Paul: "I love being single with elie" "Hes so cute i love him. la dee da. Paul who?" grrr
me: hahahaha.
Paul: haha
me: i'm sorry! but i need a local faux boyfriend.

the merits of a faux boyfriend/girlfriend will be discussed in a later post.

study break.

i want to interrupt my 8-page paper entitled "intergroup dynamics in remember the titans" to bring you this important message. i will be reading thomas friedman's the world is flat for my psych aspects class in a couple of weeks. apparently, "friedmanese" is fast-becoming a business meme, so we must familiarize ourselves with the jargon so we're not completely lost in our next boardroom meeting.

thus, i've been inspired to post a link to matt taibbi's review of "the world is flat," because sh*t does not get any funnier. (it helps if you're familiar with friedman)

(i should also add that my psych aspects professor is a human resources director for ibm).

startingbloc

i spent the day at nyu wagner for the final installment of my startingbloc fellowship. this semester i've been marinating in social enterprise, between my internship at innovest and the numerous conferences i've been attending through the fellowship and independently. there is entirely too much to say about the field and what i've learned over the last three months, but i do want to get a few particularly compelling notes down:

***

for me, the most inspiring speaker was judith wicks, owner of the white dog cafe in philadelphia, who spoke at our first institute at wharton. the white dog cafe is a successful exercise in what it means to incorporate social responsibility into a business... from the organic/free-range, locally-grown food, to living wages, to their use of green, locally-produced energy, the restaurant is premised on the philosophy that business is not about money, but about creating and sustaining authentic relationships in your local community.

the problem with the modern economy is that it is based on an outdated understanding of adam smith's "invisible hand" theory. back when adam smith wrote about self-regulating markets, businesses were small and local enough that the interests of the community were implicitly part of decision-making. today, the consumer is so removed from the producer who is removed from the owner, that the direct economic relationships which used to factor into regulating the market no longer exist. businesses focus on the financial interests of their shareholders and on outputs, rather than the interests of the community in which they operate, or outcomes in the global community at-large. according to judith, the world is a very disconnected place and people have the sense that only money can bring security. (what would friedman say about this?) envy and material growth drive us; therefore we measure our succcess by having more, and not being more

the view judith espouses is that all life is interconnected, and our security lies in community and partnership. it would seem that she is merely prostelizing, and i admit it sounds a bit hokey, but she actually practices everything she preaches, and is very successful as a result. she is a self-proclaimed capitalist, but believes we need to move away from corporate globalization/monoculture which actually limit our choices and towards local ownership and community commitment/reinvestment which give us voice. she calls her movement the "local living economy movement," and you can read more about it here.

i am infatuated with judith and her philosophy about local communities and partnerships (though, i'm somewhat skeptical that we'll disown corporate behemoths completely). this is the stuff that compels me, and sometimes, in the throes of my program, i forget that that's why i'm there. i mean, i look back on my personal statement for grad school which reads:

I realized national and global changes must begin at a local level through the development of communities and networks; the social engagement and civic involvement fostered by interactions between diverse people is fertile soil for progressive and far-reaching policy-making.... [L]arge-scale and global changes could not occur without the proper foundation that increased social capital brings.... I frequently [revisit] the idea that the issue of non-participation [is] more profound, systematically rooted in the absence of diverse and empathetic relationships between people."

and i think: "kristine, this is the fire in your belly!" i love it... it really fascinates me how people build, sustain, and act in and because of their communities, and how that ripples through the system, from the individual actor to the world at-large. it is truly a powerful thing to belong to something bigger than yourself. i just need to figure out how to translate what i want to do into a career. what job, on a day-to-day basis, really involves creating and developing authentic relationships within a community?

***

speaking of which, david bornstein was our keynote speaker for our "graduation" today... entirely appropriate. his message is that "the art of social change is unleashing people's potential to be social actors" and that we must continually seek a view of the world that is fundamentally different from our own. he voiced a concern that i frequently grapple with, which is the fear i will be pushed into a job because of a "marketable and lucrative competancy" and not because it's what i really want to do. his advice? don't be afraid to take risks; success is built on "failing forward"--and the biggest risk is doing something that doesn't turn you on for 50 years. (amen).

***

richard perl. honestly, i can't believe that, by virtue of my fellowship, i am connected to the man who started "businesses for social responsibility" and "net impact." richard perl spoke at the first institute and hosted our graduation party at his chocolate shop, chocolat michel cluizel (absolutely sinful, by the way). notes from his speech: "inter-related global problems require inter-related comprehensive global solutions... unless we change our direction, we will end up where we're headed... and social change is a party."

***

lastly... my fellow fellows. truly an amazing bunch, and i was humbled to be included in their company. i spoke to one guy today who was graduating with master's in international education, moving to california to play on a semi-professional soccer team, meanwhile also working with a non-profit he started to educate high-school athletes about issues of sexual assault. these are the kinds of people i'm rubbing elbows with! i'm excited that many of them our moving to the city this summer, and i definitely anticipate more fun times ahead!

i like my body when it is with your...

by e.e. cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

(amy bought a book of e.e. cummings' poetry at the strand last week. i've been craving this poem since then.)

oy

i am currently debating whether or not i should haul my ass out of bed to go running. i can't decide if i just slept on my neck funny, or if i'm actually mildly hungover. or maybe both? perhaps i'll postpone my run for later on today.

happy pesach.

i celebrated second seder with elie's family last night, which is absolutely fitting for my first seder ever, since elie is largely responsible for my interest in judaism. the evening was sublime: not only are the gadlins warm, open, and light-hearted, during the seder they would often stop to discuss the text and its implications--all of the gadlins are veritable judaic scholars (elie, himself, was in yeshiva in israel for two years, before attending yeshiva university here in the city). i felt really honored to be welcome in their home.

thoughts:

i learned last night that the mitzvah, or commandment, for pesach is to teach the children the story of the exodus. that's why the youngest child does the reading, and also why the afikomen is hidden - to keep the kids engaged and participating.

the gadlins have discriminating taste in wine and merriment. i barely made it home at 2am this morning.

they also had an incredible homemade haroseth. *drool*

i think that thimble of slivovitz (plum brandy) i had really pushed me over the edge.

next year in jerusalem? or west bloomfield, michigan?

fitness goals

since i'm still in bed, i thought laying out some goals might help get me motivated. here's what i want to accomplish come august
run three miles in under thirty minutes
sweet deltoids.
climb a 5.8 route
touch my toes
real push-ups
okay. i'm up.

***
update:

so it seems that four hours of sleep, a mild hangover, a breakfast of matzo crackers, and a light drizzle makes for my best run of the year. i hit an unstoppable rhythm about a quarter-mile into my run. two laps around the reservoir = three miles. which means that, despite my hiatus from running after i got sick during spring break, i still managed to hit my goal for lent, two days shy of easter. go me.

you heard it here first!

my adv. functions group at school is working on a venture capital pitch for veoh, an innovative peer-to-peer digital online video provider. apparently, this is going to be the next new way to watch television since tivo. some of you guys might be familiar with youtube, which is a similar peersharing video network, but uses streaming technology, or some shizzle like that. with veoh, software is installed onto your computer and you download and own the video content. therefore, you don't actually have to be connected to the internet to view material you've downloaded. another cool feature is you can queue videos remotely, so if you have the software at home, you can log in at work and have videos downloaded for you when you get home. in addition, veoh does not have any size limitations, and offers full-screen, TV-quality video, unlike youtube, which limits file sizes to 100mb (approx. 10 minutes). on the business end, veoh's competitive advantage is its unique software for distributing/searching/recommending video content, which allows for targetted advertising. in addition, veoh is better able to control the distribution of copyrighted content, thereby circumventing the legal issues that youtube is currently flirting with, which makes veoh a much more credible business partner for media companies and hollywood. more info at the business 2.0 blog. if you have a couple of million dollars lying around, i'd jump on this, pronto.

***

for media companies, the advent of on-demand services such as tivo, netflix, and veoh poses a credible threat to their commercially-driven business model. this issue is not within the scope of our project, but continually comes up in our research. it will be interesting to see how the industry adapts to changes in content distribution... marketing/advertising practices will have to be completely overhauled as traditional methods of targetting audiences fall by the wayside. resisting digital distribution would be a mistake... thoughts?

review: NYCorBust.blogspot.com

wow. i was a spaz. i need to lay off the exclamation points. and the caffeine, apparently.

***

i can't believe i wrote that i didn't want to "live out my days" in new york city and that i wasn't a "big city girl." i guess that up until about a year and a half ago, i really had no desire to live here, though i thought it would be something i would have to do, eventually, somewhen. as if i just needed to cross it off my list. now, i can't imagine living anywhere else, and my heart seizes up with dread at the thought of ever having to move: where would i go? a couple of weeks ago i went to new haven, ct, for the day and actually *missed* new york for the eight hours i was away. i get really attached to the places i call home.

soundtrack: on repeat, repeatedly

feeling sappy. sighing a lot. *sigh*

home

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris or Rome
But I wanna go home
-m.buble

blogger v. xanga v. typepad

well, i think its a little too late now to move all my shizz over to typepad. back when i was thinking about where to host "the cheeky monkey" i was really just choosing between friendster, blogger, and xanga. i was particularly enamoured by the xangazon feature, which allows you to post a thumbnail of your current music/reads/movies--something i felt i couldn't really do on blogger (i think i tried and gave up). turns out, though, typepad offers a similar feature, along with easy commenting and photo albums.

however, typepad is not free, and that was definitely a deterrant. another thing which probably intimidated me a little bit was that it did not have a WYSIWYG editor, and i had little confidence in my html skillz. however, it turns out that html ain't so bad, and since my browser does not seem to support xanga's WYSIWYG editor anyways, i end up coding most things manually. nothing too complex... just simple tags.

aside from being free, what i do like about xanga is that it is so simple, for the blogger on the run. i remember when i blogged on blogspot, way back in the day (check out my NYC roadtrip blog: NYCorBust.blogspot.com), i think you had to save, and then publish, or something like that. it took a long time, and editing posts, if i remember correctly, was not that easy. i like how i can hop on xanga with my random thoughts and gee-whiz trivia, post something quickly, then peace out. probably my only real frustration is that someone actually needs to sign up for xanga in order to comment... so i frequently get emails instead of eprops (keep 'em coming btw).

anyways, here is the article i referred to when i first started blogging (this time around), for those of y'all who are inspired by the cheeky monkey and hope to have a blog to call your own one day: pc magazine's "blog tools" which i found via the calico cat. i'm also available for basic html tutorials. holla.

***
update:

holy crap! just for kicks i attempted to log onto my dashboard on blogger and actually got my user name and my password (from three years ago) correct. here's my ambitious, yet brief, attempt to blog about my political science class with professor tessler on the arab-israeli conflict: polisci353.blogspot.com. i think i was hoping to prove that blogs could really be leveraged as an academic learning tool, but the class got intense pretty damn quickly, and time was not on my side.

speaking of online learning, my org dynamics group is utilizing a wiki space to coordinate our research for our upcoming paper on accenture. alls i can say is, i really dig it.
***
update:

hm. now that i think about it... i believe friendster blogs are powered by typepad, and i hated their cms--it was annoyingly complex and clumsy. go xanga.

wtf???

why the hell is tbs advertising "lord of the rings" as if there is some illicit relationship between sam and frodo??? i'm peeved.

where's fema?

i could use a little disaster mitigation in my apartment today. my hole-puncher exploded so i have little paper dots in my study area. and, now its raining in my kitchen; the people who are renovating the apartment above mine broke a pipe. woe is me.

flashback

during my cool down this morning, i thought about that law student i dated back in college. ("dated," here is loosely defined as "we went out for coffee a couple of times.") he had asked for my number/email address during a sleepy one-hour flight to chicago, after a conversation that involved him bashing ann arbor for being boring and me vehemently defending my promised land (gallup park? fleetwood diner?? zingermans??? there is a world outside the law quad, you know!?!) given that i love ann arbor with the core of my being, it was not the best strategy. but, i was still pleasantly surprised to receive an email from him during the break and accepted his invitation to grab coffee at cafe ambrosia when we got back. (side note: my brother, who was reading the email over my shoulder, gleefully shrieked: "his name is noble? as in noble gases?" leave it to mark to reduce everything to inert air.)

anyways, i was thinking about our first date in particular. we had hunkered down on one of those couches by the window, and were proceeding with the obligatory small talk, you know: "who are you? where have you been? what have you been doing? what do you plan to do?" my story was pretty straightforward, after all, i was a senior in college, and my journey wasn't too complex at that point. his story, on the other hand, was a little more... involved: after graduating he had spent time in a ph.d. program for english lit, and after a couple of years, had decided that he wasn't cut out for academia, and had moved on to work on abolishing the death penalty, then spent a year after that as a paralegal. i should have been attentive, but in my head, i was frantically doing the math: "three years in a ph.d. program? five years lobbying against the death penalty? good god, how old are you?" i admit, i freaked out. i had just turned 23, and, as i found out later, he was 32. that's a nearly a decade, folks...

i suppose i should have some concluding paragraph here about how much i've changed since then, now that i'm 25, yadda yadda yadda. that wasn't really the intent, i kind of just wanted to convey the image of me sitting on a couch at cafe ambrosia, my eyes widening as noble describes the many years leading up to law school. when our conversation moves to tv shows we enjoy, he talks about growing up with a black-and-white set. then he mentions in passing what the carter years were like from his memories as a young boy, and i glance at the door, plotting my escape. the best part was when he went for a kiss, i was looking over my right shoulder to gauge how far of a dash it was from the entrance of the cafe to the corner of maynard and liberty street, and his lips landed on my left earmuff. i could hear him thinking, as he picked wooly lint from his mouth: "hm... well that didn't work out as i had planned... should i try again?"

ah, the foibles of dating! my new philosophy is: if the date's not going really well, i want it to be comically, if not painfully awkward. that way, i can just flip through the microfiche of my life to find something to entertain me during my runs. and to post on my blog, of course. amen.

***
footnote: okay, i guess we can talk about the main issue. am i an age-ist? i dunno... for me, nine years is a huge age gap... it would definitely give me as much pause at 25 that it did at 23. i kind of want to hear what we all think about dating significantly older/younger people.

pistons ball

one thing that keeps me buoyed during the semester is coming home, after a late class, and finding some pistons ball on the tube. today, pistons v. cavaliers. end of the first half and my boys are on fire, up 56-29. oh happy day.

go blue

how psyched am i that kevin costner is wearing a mr. stadium t-shirt in "the upside of anger"? it even says ANN ARBOR, MI on it. i'm swollen with wolverine pride since i used to clean my clothes in their triple-load washers.

***
update: of course i then had to go check why kevin costner would be wearing such a location-specific (and iconic) t-shirt, and it turns out that the movie is filmed, not just in michigan, but in ann arbor and central campus. it's now on my list of things to watch (i was just taking a mental break, channel-surfing, just now)

*sigh*

it's amazing how empty and cavernous a studio apartment can seem after a weekend of guests. at moments like these, i consider trading in my private nudist colony for a two-bedroom apartment and a roommate. there are plans for a 709 franchise in manhattan, come fall 2007... though there are conflicting opinions about whether we'll be uptown or downtown. and whether it will be clothing-optional. tbd.

***

rebecca granted me permission to talk a little bit about her work, here. i really like the foundation of her art, because i know her so well and i see how her pieces really speak about her experience and philosophy. she is very enamored with the idea of rebirth and regeneration, particularly in terms of the female experience and sexuality; a lot of her work is very organic and cellular-looking--and dare i say, sometimes a little *ahem* yonic--which i just learned is the opposite of phallic. her most recent works involve using industrial materials like steel and cross-bars to construct objects such as flowers and vases, to express how feminity can be strong, yet delicate at the same time. i'll try and find a pic of some of my favorite pieces, and post them here.

***
posting will be light through april. i will be pulling the "grad student in finals" card. you should all know that i've been praying for rain so as not to be distracted from my work. i have an ambitious week ahead, involving about 25+ pages of writing. egads. i started running again, which is keeping me sane.

***
update:

it turns out that it's quite cathartic to post on my blog whilst in the middle of finals.

chilaxin'

rebecca's in for the weekend. much merriment ensued, though, i was a little distracted by work/finals. i did manage to allot 24 hours of good times and some very mild debauchery. saturday i opted out of the whitney, but heard that it was, in the words of raz, "very abrasive--the art was an assault on the senses." hm. intrigued, i have added it to my list. over the last two days i have learned a lot about art, particularly from the rebecca's perspective as a "producer" of art, in opposition to my "consumer" point of view. most fascinating is hearing about rebecca's philosophy, or statement, that she is trying to make with her pieces. i'll ask her if its alright to post about it, and get back to y'all.

***

a lovely sunday:

slept in
elie stopped by for a jaunt around my block to debrief saturday evening
picked up breakfast groceries
made eggs, potatoes, and avocado sandwiches at ethan's
the strand (i now have a long wish list of summer reading)
"studied" with ethan at news bar
met up with rebecca, anders, and elie at the pizza place on clinton street
lotus bar slideshow--marcin has inspired me to pick up my 35mm and just take pictures of new york
chatted with eric about photography, buenos aires, and dating
chatted with david about architecture, cooking, and the military
chatted with anders about his dog, rosie
wandered around soho looking for the uptown 6 train
tea and marshmellows
bedtime

***

rebecca is in love.  in case y'all didn't get the memo :)

***

wish list of summer reading:

salt - a world history
a wild sheep chase
prep
great bridge
the confederacy of dunces
autobiography of a face
let my people go surfing
d-day
dry
collapse

***

current reading:

sex, time, and power
the wind-up bird chronicle
1776
the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid
a million little pieces (i don't think i'll finish this... we'll see)

happy birthday, wolka!

xoxo.

more on twixtin'

i will be delving a little deeper into the twixting phenomenon from my earlier post (twixt and shout!)--though just not right at this moment, as it is very late. but, i was browsing the internet:

it seems counter-intuitive that a wider selection of choices would create more dissatisfaction among consumers, particularly in a culture that values more for less. the psych study i read last semester referenced a concept that categorized people as satisficers and maximizers. when satisficers have to make a choice, they go with whatever option satisfies a predetermined list of characteristics; when maximizers make a decision, they want to choose the best item of the bunch. i googled these terms and found a blog, foldedspace.org, that gives a great summary of these concepts and an article by barry schwartz called "the tyranny of choice."

unfortunately, i have no time to read this article or the breadth of resources cited at foldedspace.org. rebecca is in town this weekend for some mild-to-moderate debauchery, and tomorrow is my last day of work before my finals hiatus (which means i am being milked for as much unpaid labor as i can provide in the next 24 hours). this topic will be revisited as soon as is humanly possible.

bump watch

was there some neighborhood lovefest i missed six months ago or something? everyone on the uws is pregnant. i'm the only one who isn't. i'm not lamenting, i'm just bemused.

gmat: the countdown

i signed up last week. t-minus three months. my desire to go to business school waxes and wans with the inconstant moon. usually my fellowship seminars keep me bolstered about pursuing social enterprise, but the last institute at yale left me feeling... undecided. i am so excited about the field, but a little concerned that the actual application, the day-to-day, on-the-ground work will not be intrinsically satisfying. i like the big ideas, not the minutiae. can't i just write books about it like david bornstein?

it doesn't help my cause that i got a flyer in the mail today for the new york school of interior design. (uh oh, i'm twixtin'). good lord.

i'll wait until i'm more enthused to leave an impassioned post about the intersection between capitalism and social impact. stay tuned

soundtrack

catalyst

So you're taking these pills
For to fill up your soul
And you're drinking them down with cheap alcohol
And I'd be inclined to be yours for the taking
And part of this terrible mess that you're making
But me, I'm the catalyst
-a.nalick

excerpt: "projective identification in the bully-victim dynamic."

below is an excerpt from my paper on projective identification, for those of you who wonder: "what exactly does kristine do in her org psych program?" psychodynamics is a fascinating field, and group dynamics has been one of my favorite classes in the program. however, it is a difficult, somewhat amorphous concept to wrap my mind around, and writing about it has been challenging, particularly because i am also in the process of developing my "psychologist voice." you might note my "political science" voice, below, especially in the second paragraph. nonetheless, the course has been successful in giving me a new lens from which to view my group experiences.

(btw, don't you love my lofty title for the post and the paper?)
(update: hmmm... this is quite long. i will figure out how to host the paper online, perhaps on blogger or something, and link to that. but for now, here it rests)
(update: okay, i thought about it on my subway ride up to campus, and decided to have an excerpt here, then link to the paper later)

In her New York Times article entitled “Bully for You: Why Push Comes to Shove,” Natalie Angier explores the social phenomenon of bullying, an issue that has risen to the fore of social policy in light of recent incidences of school violence. Across the U.S., legislators and school authorities are working to eliminate what has been portrayed as alarmingly rampant bullying behavior through anti-bullying programs and policy; however, many researchers are skeptical as to whether or not such behavior can really be stamped out (Angier, 2001). As Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, argues, “one of the problems in the standard approach to bully analysis is that researchers tend to ignore the subtle dynamics between a bully and the object of a bully’s scorn – the scapegoat” (Angier, 2001). In other words, the focus is frequently on the internal life of the subject and intrapersonal processes such as personality characteristics, character traits, and defensive mechanisms (Wells, 1995). In the article, intrapersonal issues underlie bullying and victim behavior: bullies spent “too much time in day care” and “many students blame victims of bullying for bringing their troubles on themselves;” however, another way to analyze bullying behavior is from the perspective of group-as-a-whole theory, approaching individual behavior in terms of a group mentality (Angier, 2001).

Laura Hess Olsen, an assistant professor child development at Purdue University, who was interviewed for the article, hits the nail on the head when she asserts that “everybody is a player in creating the atmosphere in which bullying occurs” (Angier, 2001). Within the group-as-a-whole framework, group members are interdependent subsystems, and behavior committed by an individual is committed on behalf of the group (Wells, 1995). According to Wells (1995), “the group has a life of its own distinct from but related to the dynamics of the co-actors who compose the group membership.” From this perspective, bullies and scapegoats (victims) are not individual actors, but, rather, are created in groups, by groups, and for groups. Angier (2001) states that “bullies are neither born nor made, but instead have their bulliness thrust upon them,” which, to some extent, accurately portrays the fundamental premise of group-as-a-whole theory; that is, that roles within groups are filled through a subtle collusion between members (Wells, 1995). A bully, according to this perspective, is a bully by a group’s subconscious election; likewise, victims of bullies are given their lot via a similarly democratic process.

soundtrack

wreck of the day

Driving away from the wreck of the day
And I'm thinking 'bout calling on Jesus
'Cuz love doesnt hurt so I know I'm not falling in love
I'm just falling to pieces
-a.nalick

***

grey's anatomy: my new source for new music. also listening to joshua radin's "the fear you won't fall" which was the last song on track during the episode. *sigh* mcvet... i dig it. it's time for meredith to get back in the saddle. i'm not sure how i feel about george and callie - its so weird to see george as a smooth operator. though, he makes my world stop too. can i get an amen, aja?

growlings

i'm really cranky.

it usually takes me twenty minutes to get from my apartment to campus. today it took an hour. i jumped on the 3 train at 86th, thinking that it was the 3 running on the 1 line. nope, it was a 3 on the 1 line only until 96th, where it reverted back to the 3 line and dropped me off at 110th and central park north. no bus, no taxi in sight and, against my better judgement, i had decided to wait until i got to tc to go to the bathroom. i walked to broadway to catch the bus up to columbia. did you know that the bus doesn't stop at your stop unless you hit "stop-requested?" well, i was not aware of that. i walked an extra two blocks, which is a lot considering my bladder was about to explode and i had already been wandering around morningside heights for 45 minutes.

now i'm at the computer lab, and proquest is being obstinate and i'm becoming belligerent.

overheard

elie: i think i'm going to give up cursing for lent.
kristine: honey, lent is almost over.
elie: fuck!

***

kristine: so, did you have fun last night?
ari: yeah... but it's always disorienting losing an hour in your day...
kristine: what!??!? omigod!?!?! when did that happen!??! was daylight savings today!??!?
ari: ... probably more disorienting for you than me.

pro cra sti nat ing

has that newsstand/kiosk always been on the northeast corner of 86th and columbus? how come i never noticed it before, and why am i so freakin' excited that i've discovered it?

trees are blooming on my street, which looks totally different now that all the scaffolding is gone. IMHO, it is now one of the cutest blocks in manhattan.

i'm sitting across from elie at a starbucks and we are proving to each other why we must both study alone, locked away in our apartments, and not out in public, together.

what is supposed to be a 5-page paper on projective identification has come to a dead halt at exactly four pages... f*ck.

i have mixed feelings about the shot of rumplemints todd made us take last night. it was like swallowing listerine, but i appreciated being minty-fresh afterwards.

hurts so good

best last day before the "big push"

***
i heart chelsea piers

• set-up: instead of taping down climbs, they color code routes with holds. ingenious, much easier to navigate up a wall.
• music: it might have just been yesterday, but the soundtrack for the afternoon put me in good spirits. sade, phil collins, marc cohn. i sang along to "walking in memphis" on my climbs
• scene: very chill... there was never more than ten people in the climbing area at a time, and they were all very friendly. the route to climber ratio was magnificent... never had to wait to get on the wall
• ethan: a good climbing buddy is hard to find (believe me, i've been around) - ethan is patient, knowledgeable, laidback, while also refusing to accept me saying: "i think i'm too short for this climb," which is the excuse i employ occasionally to justify using an off-route hold. he coaches me up my challenging climbs and knows when to push me and when to bring me down. and, most importantly, i trust him to catch me when i take risks, so i'm not afraid to jump for things out of my reach. xoxo, ethan!
• les: i've never used a grigri to belay anyone before (i'm old-skool atc) and after ethan taught me how to use one (did i mention that he's a GREAT teacher?), les came over to hone my skills. he's also an excellent teacher, and amused me greatly when he said, deadpan in his fabulous german(?) accent, "now remember, if you smell burning skin, that is your hand, so you are letting him down too fast."
• soreness: refer to title of the post. i will get a massage today.

***

i heart the dog run in union square: it is the happiest place in new york city on a beautiful afternoon. i kind of feel like a creepy dog stalker... but i miss having a dog in my life.

***

i heart crooked tree: i like crepes. no surprise here. i happened upon crooked tree during spring break, when caroline and i were ousted out of el dar, the morrocan restaurant in alphabet city. crooked tree is cute, romantic, and simply delicious. and they have great sangria. i recommend the chicken, goat cheese, and sundried tomato. tracy had the black forest ham and jarlsberg cheese. finished off with a nutella crepe (have you ever known me to pass up a nutella crepe?)

crooked tree: 110 st marks place (btw 1st and 2nd avenues)

***

i heart david sedaris: 'nuff said. if you've read his books, you already know why he is awesome. (and he's even better live). if you haven't, then you lose major points in my book. kidding. lucky for you, i have a lending library in my apartment.

i will say that i wish my diary entries sounded like his. *sigh*

oh, and david recommended a book. which i will read, of course, once finals are over. i pass the recommendation along to you:

who do you love: stories by jean thompson