Accompanied Patrick to a talk given by a gentleman named Laclau at a cafe called No Exit this evening. Laclau is an Argentinian now at an English university, and he has just written a book about populism. He made some cutting remarks about Slavoj Zizek and said an awful lot that I couldn't make heads or tails of. But one of the questions that an audience member asked was, "Is it possible to separate the content of Hugo Chavez' message, his populism, from his unappealing style?" Laclau replied that while it might be theoretically conceivable in some imaginary world, it is not possible now in Venezuela.
I took a course in my last year as an undergrad called "Building Community." I'm so used to seeing people organize around common grievances that I wondered, "Is it possible to create a sense of community that exists in a positive sense, that does not rely on opposition?" I never felt that the class addressed that question at all, but now I realize that the work I did during the class proved that yes, it is possible. I was part-time at the Community School of Music and Arts, and everyone there was tremendously committed to the very positive goal of the school: promoting and providing art education for locals of all ages. Everyone put in more hours than they were paid for, and there were many small crises of all kinds. But although people got tired, they were never angry in quite the same frustrated, fed-up way that the teachers at my school are.
I just checked my email and a funny thing has come up. Being such a small school, the scheduling is easier if each class is split in two sections. So there are two 7th grade sections, 7A and 7B, and the girls stay with the same group all day. Lately, one of the sections has started bullying the other section. "We're better than you." "Your section is full of lames." (The part that reminds me of Iraq is where the teachers say to the disgruntled "lames," "Stay cool. Whatever you do, don't retaliate, we are going to resolve this," but amongst ourselves, we're all wondering what the heck to do.)
So anyway, a section of 7th graders has decided to rally around the arbitrary fact that they belong to one section and not another, and the strong point is their opposition to the other section.
How can we harness people's desire to belong and channel it in a more positive way? School spirit? A more responsible stewardship of our school environment? Does it have to be so stupid and counter-productive?
I picked up a note today that made me really happy. Usually I hate finding these things, because they're just full of incriminating crap. "So-and-so is a b----. I can't stand her. Why do you talk to her?" The other day, I confiscated a fortune teller (a folded-paper toy that's easy to make; in elementary school, my friends and I would fill them with fortunes like, "Your favorite color is blue," or "You're going to marry Ryan"). This one included fortunes like, "There's sh-t in your panties." Boy was that fun. Anyway, today's happy note basically said: "I'm so worried. I'm failing math and I don't want to do bad in school. I hope I can make up this Not Yet but I'm really afraid that I can't do it." The recipient wrote, "Don't worry, I got UR back. You'll be OK." The original writer tied up the exchange: "Thanks for being my best friend." Aw.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
1172
Patrick and I started talking about a month ago about the possibility of buying a condo out here in Chicago. So I got online just to see what was available, and next thing you know, we've done it! It's in a building that is very well cared for, and though it's small, it has a good layout. Pictures of the interior are on Patrick's blog. The home inspection just happened today, and everything went very smoothly. We met the current owner, too, and she was really nice. Invited us to visit her and her husband at their new home, a farm in Wisconsin. We'll close in June, when the husband will officially retire from his professorship at the U of C and our lease at this apartment will end.
Went home for the weekend. Took grandparents out to yum cha, which felt good, though it was hard to talk. Noisy restaurant, plus the language barrier. Had a nice chat with Candice and Eric in the afternoon, then more gorging at Goong goong Herb's new year dinner. I don't know if I'm going to keep going back to meat at these things. Anyway I got sick again (probably related, I think, to the stupid Southwest flight I got that landed an hour late, at 1AM; sleeping wrong really weakens me and my immune system), but I'm doing better now ...
The guy from Mississippi who we've been helping out has been back intermittently. His grandfather died a few weeks ago, so we gave him a little bit of cash to help get him back to Mississippi for the funeral. When he returned, we went shopping with him at the Coop, where he bought white bread and canned meat (yucky!). The cashier asked, "Are you guys roommates?" (I guess it isn't common to see a mix like us together in a grocery store.) We all hesitated for a second before Matthew shyly replied, "No, just friends." The cashier said something about not rooming together being a good way to maintain a friendship, and I have to admit the profound truth of that in this particular case, at least.
So then Matthew's wallet got stolen. He didn't lose much, just his ID card (which it was a struggle for him to get) and a few days' bus money. Still, it really shook him, and all these events have given me a new (though still so obviously limited) sense of what it can be like to live on the edge of financial solvency, not to mention the limitations on you if you are illiterate in this time and place. Matthew is pursuing a GED right now, and he says it will take 8 weeks to get it. But that hardly seems likely, given that he can barely read more than his own name and can't even spell the name of the street where he lived in Biloxi.
Other events have brought to mind other kinds of literacy. Waiting for my plane at the airport (and eavesdropping on the inane conversations taking place nearby), I realized very concretely that students coming from white, middle-class homes have a cultural leg up on most of my students. It isn't just having parents who take them to the library. Perhaps even more important, it's the way of communicating that they bring to school; they talk one at a time, and they try rather hard to be agreeable to each other. Most striking, at the moment it struck me at least, is this: it isn't that other ways of communicating are necessarily worse, just that they harmonize much less well with the cultural standard. I guess this is what all those articles I read about the dominant discourse were all about. It's less that it was unclear to me then than that it's real to me now. I still am not sure what to do with that knowledge.
If you can help it, you should avoid flying Southwest. The last three times I've flown with them, they've done something stupid. The first time, they said one thing on the phone and another when I actually got to the airport (regarding changing a reservation to an earlier flight). The second time, they put my luggage on another plane without telling me; then, when I went to report it lost, they said it would be there in another 20 minutes, but it actually ended up taking over an hour. Most recently, my flights were delayed by about an hour each way, both coming and going, which is always inconvenient not only for you, waiting in the airport for all that extra time, but also for anyone waiting for you on the other end.
I think those are all my updates for the moment. Thank you to all the Louies for passing on lei-see for me, even though I couldn't be there to celebrate with you. Thank you to the Lems and Owyangs for remembering not just me, but also Patrick! Happy Year of the Dog to everyone. Sending all my runny-nosed love from Chicago.
Nicole
Went home for the weekend. Took grandparents out to yum cha, which felt good, though it was hard to talk. Noisy restaurant, plus the language barrier. Had a nice chat with Candice and Eric in the afternoon, then more gorging at Goong goong Herb's new year dinner. I don't know if I'm going to keep going back to meat at these things. Anyway I got sick again (probably related, I think, to the stupid Southwest flight I got that landed an hour late, at 1AM; sleeping wrong really weakens me and my immune system), but I'm doing better now ...
The guy from Mississippi who we've been helping out has been back intermittently. His grandfather died a few weeks ago, so we gave him a little bit of cash to help get him back to Mississippi for the funeral. When he returned, we went shopping with him at the Coop, where he bought white bread and canned meat (yucky!). The cashier asked, "Are you guys roommates?" (I guess it isn't common to see a mix like us together in a grocery store.) We all hesitated for a second before Matthew shyly replied, "No, just friends." The cashier said something about not rooming together being a good way to maintain a friendship, and I have to admit the profound truth of that in this particular case, at least.
So then Matthew's wallet got stolen. He didn't lose much, just his ID card (which it was a struggle for him to get) and a few days' bus money. Still, it really shook him, and all these events have given me a new (though still so obviously limited) sense of what it can be like to live on the edge of financial solvency, not to mention the limitations on you if you are illiterate in this time and place. Matthew is pursuing a GED right now, and he says it will take 8 weeks to get it. But that hardly seems likely, given that he can barely read more than his own name and can't even spell the name of the street where he lived in Biloxi.
Other events have brought to mind other kinds of literacy. Waiting for my plane at the airport (and eavesdropping on the inane conversations taking place nearby), I realized very concretely that students coming from white, middle-class homes have a cultural leg up on most of my students. It isn't just having parents who take them to the library. Perhaps even more important, it's the way of communicating that they bring to school; they talk one at a time, and they try rather hard to be agreeable to each other. Most striking, at the moment it struck me at least, is this: it isn't that other ways of communicating are necessarily worse, just that they harmonize much less well with the cultural standard. I guess this is what all those articles I read about the dominant discourse were all about. It's less that it was unclear to me then than that it's real to me now. I still am not sure what to do with that knowledge.
If you can help it, you should avoid flying Southwest. The last three times I've flown with them, they've done something stupid. The first time, they said one thing on the phone and another when I actually got to the airport (regarding changing a reservation to an earlier flight). The second time, they put my luggage on another plane without telling me; then, when I went to report it lost, they said it would be there in another 20 minutes, but it actually ended up taking over an hour. Most recently, my flights were delayed by about an hour each way, both coming and going, which is always inconvenient not only for you, waiting in the airport for all that extra time, but also for anyone waiting for you on the other end.
I think those are all my updates for the moment. Thank you to all the Louies for passing on lei-see for me, even though I couldn't be there to celebrate with you. Thank you to the Lems and Owyangs for remembering not just me, but also Patrick! Happy Year of the Dog to everyone. Sending all my runny-nosed love from Chicago.
Nicole
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Madison, WI
Patrick and I took a vacation to celebrate Lincoln's birthday. At least, I think it was Lincoln's birthday. Anyway, I got Monday off! So on Saturday, we made the three-hour drive to Madison. We saw the magnificent (yet friendly) capitol building; a couple of good used book stores; the Monona convention center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and overlooking the now-frozen Lake Monona; a delicious Afghani dinner; a cheap motel called the Aloha Inn, owned (I think) by a Korean lady; Olbrich gardens, with a tropical indoor conservatory full of beautiful plants and an outdoor Thai pavilion; and the International Festival at the new Overture Arts Center in Madison, with more good food, free performances, and some interesting art-and-craft type booths. Here are some of the highlights in pictures.
The interior of the Capitol Building; Patrick at the Monona Convention Center; Lake Monona itself, with icy edges and abandoned Christmas trees strewn in the middle (why do they do that? there are some explanations of how to recycle Christmas trees here, but none of them seem to involve dumping them in the middle of a frozen lake); the view of a garden plot through the lens of a cool kaleidoscope at Olbrich Gardens; and the Thai Pavilion through the brush at the Olbrich conservatory.
The interior of the Capitol Building; Patrick at the Monona Convention Center; Lake Monona itself, with icy edges and abandoned Christmas trees strewn in the middle (why do they do that? there are some explanations of how to recycle Christmas trees here, but none of them seem to involve dumping them in the middle of a frozen lake); the view of a garden plot through the lens of a cool kaleidoscope at Olbrich Gardens; and the Thai Pavilion through the brush at the Olbrich conservatory.
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