So, ok, last Saturday I go to Home Despot to buy another quart of teal paint so that I can finish the kitchen project, and I BRING THE CAN which has THE FORMULA on it, and the dude mixes up the new batch and shows me and it's quite a bit lighter than what's slobbed on the old can, so I say, "hmm, looks lighter, huh?" (but I'm no expert, right?) and he murmurs something about drying darker, and so I go home and paint the remaining trim and wait 2 days for it to dry properly (in case I am being hasty in fault-finding and thus finger-pointing, thank you, William Safire) and guess what. 5 days later and it has not gotten darker.
I mean, what's the deal? The "computer" "knows" how to mix the formula. Where's the problem, then?
In other news, I have been observing people as they present information to other people. I am quietly amused. Well, no, tonight I was bored.
Is it wrong to want new categories on the front page of UThink: "personal blogs" and "class blogs?" Egads. Those kids are writing up a storm.
Yesterday I finally got back to the project of repainting the kitchen. This task began in July 2004 and I have heretofore avoided the last quadrant: behind the stove. Behind the stove is ICKY. Nevertheless, I washed it yesterday with TSP substitute, and did the first coat on the walls. Today I did the second coat. Because of the oh-so-charming dark brown already there, I've had to do three coats minimum, and frankly, a fourth coat would have been better. But hey, it's a rental.
At this rate, our place will be just the way we like it when it's time to move on, which could be as early as next spring. We still haven't rented out our house in MA: we could move in there.
I am taking Polish pass-fail this term because 1) I can; 2) it reduces somewhat the temptation to grub for an A to preserve my GPA; and 3) I really want to spend some time reading and talking (if only to myself) and learning useful vocabulary, as opposed to the stilted and esoteric vocab and syntax in our textbook. Example: knowing how to say "I need.." would be useful; knowing how to say "they raise peacocks" is not.
While I was in Krakow I missed the slow, methodical pace of grammar and vocabulary here. Now that I'm back, I miss the emphasis on everyday situational vocabulary and the insistence on speaking in Polish, even if there are a lot of mistakes. I emailed my prof yesterday in Polish, and he wrote back in Polish, and it felt good, even though I noticed afterwards I'd made some really basic errors.
Several different sets of people I email with have lately raised the issue of who really perceives reality. Someone may question someone else's mental competence (ability to perceive the world "accurately") or question someone else's ways of living or how they choose to spend their time as reflective of too-small a segment of ordinary life to give that someone an accurate picture of what "reality" really is for the "ordinary" person. Others find that abstract intellectual constructs don't match the lived experience they are observing, and they have no ways to connect the two.
(Wrongly) I have usually smugly believed that I had a pretty good handle on ordinary experience through my daily encounters with regular folks in my prior job. After a single day in the country, I am not so sure now. I can't repair the simplest thing (e.g. my bike) and I am too out-of-shape to handle the constant physical labor involved in many "ordinary" jobs. Come disaster, I would be toast: no one will be calling for people who can theorize post-socialism!
It seems to me that the cognitive failure to understand other modes of lived experience is the biggest barrier to really having equality or equal opportunity or even justice. As long as people say, "This is how _I_ live, therefore this is reality: thus others should live like this," we will have people asking, "well, why didn't the poor blacks in New Orleans just get in their cars and drive out when they were told to?" Empathy (and thus action) requires understanding, not just pity or sympathy.
Happy Anniversary to my parents, who celebrated their 47th anniversary yesterday, and to my sister and bro-in-law, who celebrated their 14th anniversary today. (Mom has email now; that is both cool and amazing.)
8 of my 22 students were missing from class tonight, yet none have dropped the course. What gives? A few of the students who showed are happy about the far-south CC location; others are miffed.
For myself, I am SOO not used to commuting - haven't done it since 1988. Upside: I have new, good radio stations programmed and lots of time to think. Downside: will my poor 14-year-old car hold out?
In the first class, I use a case study that includes disaster planning for the collapse of the Citicorp Building in NYC (1978). Given the WTC and now New Orleans, it's poignant at best. How do you evaluate a disaster plan when the disaster fortunately never happened?
The fall semester starts tomorrow. I've been doing various kinds of prep for it for the last two weeks.
I have the same crappy desk in the same dark corner of the large grad workroom. Some people "moved up" to better spaces over by the windows, but I figured, for the limited time I spend there, it's fine. Not Mondays, not Wednesdays, maybe a little time on Thursdays, an office hour each on Tuesdays and Fridays. I like the idea of building a "community" through proximity and time together, but it is simply impossible most days actually to get any work done in there (except grading, paradoxically) so it's necessary to establish a beachhead elsewhere.
There is a lot that has to get done this semester. Here's hoping that really works out.
1. Books for my global cities project;
2. Books for my prelim exams;
3. Books for the class I'm TA'ing.
The T-storm is pretty heavy, so I'm also not working on my class field exercise.
It would be a good day to hunker down and read something good. What, I wonder?