Phew, what an emotional weekend!
I cried more in one weekend than I have since.... since.. the day I said goodbye to my family at the airport.
The first time I cried was because I was wallowing in self pity. Side effect of Giardia?
The second time was when I showed "Miracle on 34th Street" to my class and suddenly realized how much I'm going to miss celebrating Christmas with my parents.
The third time was when I saw (via Skype) my entire extended family at their annual Thanksgiving luncheon, and learned that my cousin is pregnant and realized I couldn't celebrate with her in person.
The fourth time was when I Skyped with my parents today and they showed me the Christmas tree they bought, and I started to think how lonely they might feel on Christmas day opening gifts by themselves.
The fifth time was tonight when my students dazzled me with their performances at the host/hostess competition, and I realized how incredibly happy and proud I am to be their teacher.
Yeah, I need to get a grip.
Omg, I teared up after reading this.
get a grip, get a grip
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Travel
我和我的朋友二月去柬埔寨度假十天。 我的朋友告诉我在那里玩得很开心。我等不及要去柬埔寨！
我觉得下次我待中国陆游。我家人告诉我一定要去北京， 因为北京有很多名胜古迹，比如说长城和天安门广场。我要去北京的陆游胜地，但是北京太远，而且我不喜欢太大的都市。我觉得重庆太大，我不喜欢，但是我知道重庆的夜生活和购物是很有名的。
我觉得下次我待中国陆游。我家人告诉我一定要去北京， 因为北京有很多名胜古迹，比如说长城和天安门广场。我要去北京的陆游胜地，但是北京太远，而且我不喜欢太大的都市。我觉得重庆太大，我不喜欢，但是我知道重庆的夜生活和购物是很有名的。
alive and kickin!
I'm back! Yeaw, had a bad case of Giardia, but it seems like that little fucker has finally had enough of my intestines.
My students are sweet. I am up to my ears in fruit, and Jocelyn, who is also my tutor, just gave me an ear full on how I ought to take better care of myself. Honestly, I didn't eat shit on purpose! I don't even know how it happened...
My students are sweet. I am up to my ears in fruit, and Jocelyn, who is also my tutor, just gave me an ear full on how I ought to take better care of myself. Honestly, I didn't eat shit on purpose! I don't even know how it happened...
Saturday, November 21, 2009
agro-imperialism
ahk, no time to finish reading this, so will hold it here before it disappears into cyber never-neverland. seems like a great article!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22land-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22land-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=magazine
Monday, November 16, 2009
obama zhuxi
The Peace Force's Commander in Chief is so close, but so far away. Hey, Obama, float on down the Yangtze, won't ya?
Interesting comments on his brief visit:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/asian-readers-tell-us-what-obama-could-do-for-your-country/?hp
Interesting comments on his brief visit:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/asian-readers-tell-us-what-obama-could-do-for-your-country/?hp
Friday, November 13, 2009
Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Unfinished
Ah I am messy and I need a decent place to store good links.
I will post this here so that later on, when I eventually watch Showboat and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, I will think of Berlant. But I betcha I'll end up searching high and low for this baby:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0878/investigations/sentimental_ed.shtml
I finially FINISHED The Female Complaint. Reading it was slow work, but for the past several weeks I enjoyed having it with my breakfast. I've always dismissed the romance genre as dumb and unworthy of serious critique, and yet, when the demands of the day are almost too much to bear, I like to unwind with movies like He's Just Not That Into You. I guess I always thought it would be anti-feminist to be publicly intimate with this intimate public. In a way, chick flicks, especially those that make allusions to or are adaptions of movies that were originally released before the "liberation" of women, make the feminist in me feel dirty, kind of like a porn-watching preacher. And yet, even porn-watching preachers can save souls.
Often, these citations [of sentimental classics] are not so deep: they are gestures toward the tradition of sentimental adaption that explain this time around why the great transformative and fulfilling love, the revolution without the trauma, must remain imaginable whether or not it is possible, discernible only in its smoldering remains.
But what remains is a resource, an unfinished event. Adaptations of sentimental realism are always about splitting and bargaining to stay in the scene of the fantasy of the better good life, as atrophied and confused as the manifest content of that fantasy can be. Possessing the object of desire matters les in these texts than does the re-experience of poteniality - the "tomorrow" in today where one works with what one has in order to survive. The delicate historicity of sentimental work provides pointers to the materials available for transformative opportunity. These scenarios are also archives of tactics for being undefeated, and indeed it is an attachment to this archive that also magnetizes the intimate public. To become not-someting is to unlearn a way of being, to see affective and emotional recalibration not only as possible but as desirable. in other words, in the view of the intimate public, there is no politics without the sentimental aperture/overture because that promise of emotional continuity can sustain people in the social amid the flux of change.
I will post this here so that later on, when I eventually watch Showboat and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, I will think of Berlant. But I betcha I'll end up searching high and low for this baby:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0878/investigations/sentimental_ed.shtml
I finially FINISHED The Female Complaint. Reading it was slow work, but for the past several weeks I enjoyed having it with my breakfast. I've always dismissed the romance genre as dumb and unworthy of serious critique, and yet, when the demands of the day are almost too much to bear, I like to unwind with movies like He's Just Not That Into You. I guess I always thought it would be anti-feminist to be publicly intimate with this intimate public. In a way, chick flicks, especially those that make allusions to or are adaptions of movies that were originally released before the "liberation" of women, make the feminist in me feel dirty, kind of like a porn-watching preacher. And yet, even porn-watching preachers can save souls.
Often, these citations [of sentimental classics] are not so deep: they are gestures toward the tradition of sentimental adaption that explain this time around why the great transformative and fulfilling love, the revolution without the trauma, must remain imaginable whether or not it is possible, discernible only in its smoldering remains.
But what remains is a resource, an unfinished event. Adaptations of sentimental realism are always about splitting and bargaining to stay in the scene of the fantasy of the better good life, as atrophied and confused as the manifest content of that fantasy can be. Possessing the object of desire matters les in these texts than does the re-experience of poteniality - the "tomorrow" in today where one works with what one has in order to survive. The delicate historicity of sentimental work provides pointers to the materials available for transformative opportunity. These scenarios are also archives of tactics for being undefeated, and indeed it is an attachment to this archive that also magnetizes the intimate public. To become not-someting is to unlearn a way of being, to see affective and emotional recalibration not only as possible but as desirable. in other words, in the view of the intimate public, there is no politics without the sentimental aperture/overture because that promise of emotional continuity can sustain people in the social amid the flux of change.
- Lauren Berlant
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
